A Pug's Journey (Cultivation Starts with Breathing)

The first customers arrived as a pair around dusk: wraith-like apparitions draped in tattered finery. They glided through the door, chattering in a strange, echoing language.

At first they were loud. One of them even slammed a translucent hand on a table, leaving an icy imprint. But then the ghostly pair noticed me resting in the corner, my brown eyes gleaming in the low light.

I didn't move. I merely watched over the entire inn in my stationary spot, as if I were just another patron lounging with a drink. The subtle rise and fall of my massive chest was the only movement.

And yet, for some reason, the effect on the apparitions was immediate.

Their hollow chatter hushed. One gave a nervous, sharp-toothed grin to the bartender and quietly requested two ales, though how they intended to drink them was anyone's guess.

They took their frothing mugs to a table far from me and sat in near silence.

And so it went for the rest of that night. A small procession of dungeon denizens wandered in: a hunched demon with goat-like horns and blazing eyes; a cluster of impish creatures clambering over each other; even an armored revenant whose footsteps shook the floorboards.

Each newcomer initially brought with them an aura of menace or mischief that set the human staff on edge. But each time, inevitably, their gazes would slide to the gigantic guardian resting by the wall, and their demeanors instantly changed.

Voices dropped to murmurs.

Boisterous laughter died to polite coughs.

Chairs that had been dragged rudely across the floor were lifted and set down gently instead, so as not to make too much noise.

I maintained a facade of relaxed indifference throughout. I lay with my massive head on my forepaws, ears flicking occasionally.

To the casual eye, I appeared to be napping.

In truth, I was alert, every instinct attuned to the room.

Inwardly, I found the situation almost absurd, if it weren't so serious. Here I was, essentially playing tavern watchdog for a small group of adventurers and their hired staff.

There was even a strain of dry amusement in seeing such fearsome creatures tiptoe around me, though I didn't really understand why.

By the end of the second day, a strange calm had settled over the Bottomless Inn. The adventurers and staff had grown accustomed to the routine. They served bowls of hearty stew to ghouls and poured shots of some glowing green liquor for leathery-winged fiends, all without incident.

My presence was a silent promise of safety that everyone had come to rely on.

For the hired staff, it was a novel experience to pass nearly forty-eight hours in this dungeon without a single loss of limb or parts.

On the evening of the second day, one of the cooks stood behind the bar, quietly marveling at their experiences so far.

One of them, a young man with a nervous smile, wiped down a perpetually sticky counter and shook his head in disbelief. "Never thought I'd see the day where this bar behaved better than the drunks back home," he whispered to the bartender.

The bartender nodded vigorously. "I know. Even in the previous times I've been hired to do this, normally by now, someone would've lost an ear, or worse," he murmured back, glancing at the dining floor.

They watched as a grotesque ogre in the corner carefully sipped soup from a dainty bowl between its huge fingers, sneaking wary looks at me. Across the room, an imp who had been starting to gibber loudly about a card game caught sight of me shifting slightly and instantly fell quiet, his complaints dying to a meek whisper.

"Honestly, it's unnatural," the young cook continued under his breath. "This peace. Two whole days without a single crazy demand." He gave a shaky laugh.

The bartender shot him a mild glare. "Don't jinx it, boy." He lowered his voice further. "Just be grateful."

At that moment, I lazily rolled over onto my side, stretching my back legs. The movement drew the eyes of every monster in the tavern like a sudden lightning strike.

Conversation ceased.

More than a few inhuman faces turned pale (or ashen, or some shade of uneasy chartreuse). Seeing that I was merely shifting position, the customers cautiously resumed their meals, albeit even more quietly than before.

The young cook let out the breath he'd been holding and laughed under his breath at himself. "See what I mean?" he muttered to his older companion. "We're lucky, but it's still eerie. I've never seen them act like that before."

The older bartender simply patted the lad on the shoulder. "Eerie or not, I'll take this over having to spill my blood in ale for a customer's request," he replied with feeling.

By the time the third night in the tavern came around, the novelty of near-peaceful coexistence between humans and the strange denizens had not worn off. If anything, a quiet confidence was growing among the adventurers and staff.

They even began to exchange polite nods or brief words with a few regular monstrous patrons.

I caught our timid bartender cautiously chatting with a skeletal wraith about the quality of the ale, prompting a raspy chuckle from the ghost. A sort of routine camaraderie, however fragile, was forming under my watchful guard.

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For my part, I remained ever vigilant.

It warmed my heart to see my charges relax slightly, their initial terror giving way to confidence when they realized they might actually go through this undertaking unscathed.

However, the fragile peace held until the fourth night. When trouble finally arrived, it came in the form of a single ill-tempered customer with more arrogance than sense.

He was humanoid in shape but grotesquely tall and cadaverous, with skin the color of a three-day-old bruise. He wore a long, high-collared coat that might once have been white but was now soiled with old, brownish bloodstains.

He strode into the tavern just past midnight, shoulders thrown back and a permanent sneer etched on his elongated face.

I watched the newcomer silently from under a lazy eyelid, noting the unsettling way the man's limbs twitched and jerked as though he might come apart at any moment.

There was a familiar sharp, chemical smell about him, like coagulants and old blood, and my nose twitched at the bitter odor of it.

The gaunt man slammed a spidery hand down on the bar, making the bottles upon it rattle and jump.

"Your finest dinner, now," he hissed at the petrified bartender. The bartender, a wiry fellow from our team, gulped.

Up until now, most customers simply ordered whatever was written on the chalkboard, but this creature clearly had other ideas.

"W-what would you like, sir?" the bartender managed to ask cautiously, wiping a trickle of cold sweat from his temple as he forced out the polite words.

The tall customer's pale eyes scanned the room with obvious disdain.

He sniffed at the air and curled his lip in distaste. "I can smell fresh flesh here. Peh. Not juicy enough."

His lips peeled back into something between a sneer and a snarl. "I want a beating heart. Plucked warm from a living thing. That's the only thing worth satiating me tonight."

A hush fell.

The quiet clink of utensils and murmurs of conversation that had filled the tavern moments before abruptly died as his words echoed.

The waitress nearly dropped a tray of drinks, catching it at the last second.

One of the adventurers, who was on shift right now and handling things as a sort-of head waiter, exchanged an alarmed look with the cooks.

I was on my feet before any of the others fully processed the demand.

In one fluid motion, I rose from my resting spot and crossed the room, interposing myself beside the gaunt man and the trembling bartender.

Despite my size, the cadaverous customer did not back down. If anything, his grin had even widened at the sight of the challenge.

"No. You'll get what's served here," I said, voice low and rumbling.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. The tall demon's pale eyes bulged at the audacity of that reply. Then came an enraged shriek. "You dare deny me?!"

With a snarl, the patron's right arm began to twist and elongate in a sickening display. Bones cracked and re-knit; flesh melted into shiny, metallic sharpness. In the span of a second, his arm transformed into a grotesque parody of a surgeon's tool; a giant, razor-edged scalpel nearly as long as I was tall.

A wave of stench, burnt blood and acrid pus, wafted from the transmuted limb.

Howling with rage, the demon lunged forward and swung the blade down in a murderous arc aimed straight for my skull.

It never landed, though.

To me, the swing was sluggish, telegraphed by the man's posture and fury. My reflexes, fuelled by Qi, not mana, had already kicked in. I saw the blow coming a mile away. My massive paw shot up and met the descending blade-arm in mid-swing with a resounding crack of force.

BAM!

The impact was like a clap of thunder.

The floorboards beneath my paws groaned. But I held firm.

The demon's oversized blade-arm shuddered to an abrupt halt, caught between my splayed claws and the iron-hard muscle of my forelimb.

A collective gasp went up. Every patron was frozen in place, eyes wide at the spectacle.

The demon's confident sneer faltered, morphing into a mask of confusion and dawning panic. He pushed with all his unnatural strength, trying to drive the blade down with a furious shriek, but my single paw held firm like a mountain against a pickaxe.

He may as well have been trying to heave aside a fortress wall. A strained, guttural growl escaped his throat as he realized he wasn't budging me an inch.

I fixed the troublemaker with a disappointingly calm stare.

I didn't roar or snarl; I simply was. It was an overwhelming and immovable show of power that made it clear the fight was already over.

The demon's feverish eyes darted uncertainly, his confidence cracking.

With a swift motion and a grunt of effort, I wrenched the blade-arm aside and down, twisting it away from me. The demon let out a confused, high-pitched yelp as he staggered forward, thrown completely off-balance.

Before he could even attempt to recover, I brought my other paw swinging around and slammed him face-first into the bar top with all the finality of a judge's gavel.

The demon let out a choked gasp, his remaining human hand scrabbling weakly against the bar top. A couple of jagged, yellow teeth jarred loose from his mouth on impact and skittered across the floor.

"If you would please bring me one boiled potato," I said over my shoulder, as polite as if ordering afternoon tea.

My ears flicked in the direction of the kitchen.

For half a second, nobody moved. The staff were too stunned by the sudden violence and bizarre request.

Then the head cook snapped into action. She did not need to be told twice. In a flash, she had plunged a ladle into the simmering stew cauldron and fished out a sizable brown potato, steaming and soft.

With trembling hands, one of the waiters accepted the dripping potato from her and sprinted it over to me. I delicately took the hot potato with a claw, maneuvering it carefully so as not to completely crush it.

The fallen customer beneath my paw groaned, dazed from the tremendous blow I'd dealt him.

I was not about to let him off so easily. Then, with a firm yet controlled thrust, I shoved the entire steaming potato into the demon's gaping mouth.

The demon's eyes went wide in alarm as boiling-hot potato filled his jaws and throat. A muffled scream of pain and surprise escaped around the starchy lump, but it was hopelessly trapped behind a Godbeast's paw smothering him.

I waited for a few seconds for him to swallow the food.

"Now that he's finished eating…"

Without further ado, I clamped my powerful jaws around the demon's neck and shoulder and began to haul him toward the door as he kicked and thrashed uselessly.

With a mighty heave of my head, I flung the miscreant out through the tavern's front entrance and into the darkness beyond.

The troublemaker sailed through the air in an undignified tumble of limbs and vanished somewhere in the gloom past the tavern door.

I exhaled slowly and returned to lie back down in my original spot.