Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

I slowly trailed my fingers around the little red dots, and felt that the area around them was slightly warmer than the rest of his back.

"They're still red... does that mean these are recent?" I frowned.

"Hey, little cub, are you done yet?" General Zhang suddenly appeared from behind me and surprised me with a tap on my shoulder.

"Ah! Where the hell did you come from? You really need to learn to knock before entering a room!" I shoved his hand off my shoulder.

"But the door was open, you know?" He pouted.

"I-- just knock..." I ignored him and proceeded to help Dan put on a shirt.

He just hummed and sat on the edge of the bed while he observed me struggle to put on a simple shirt on Dan. His eyes wandered around until they eventually land on the little red dots that I saw.

I waited for him to say something, but instead, he just kept staring straight into my eyes, as if waiting for me to ask him about those marks.

Finally, I gave up and sighed, "hey, what's up with these marks?"

His grin immediately went wide upon hearing my question, "oh~ What do you think?"

"I think he either got bit by a weird-ass snake, or someone came over to stab him with needles recently." I answered him while I laid Dan back on his bed, finished with dressing him up.

"Oh~ So you noticed it was recent~" He amusedly stroked his chin.

"Does that mean you acknowledge that these are needle marks?" I picked up the wet towel and the bowl of water and started walking towards the small kitchen.

"Who knows, probably he got bit by a weird-ass snake recently, right?" He said with a sarcastic tone as he followed me into the kitchen.

"So you deliberately brought me all the way here and told me to change his clothes just so I know that there are weird-ass snakes out there?" I started to wash the dishes as my mind began to wander. Why would he show me, a stranger, something like this? What was he scheming?

"Why not? Snakes are cool. You got one yourself." He poked my cheek playfully.

"Don't touch my cheek if you haven't washed your hand." I inched away from him.

"C'mon, we should wrap this up fast, we need to help other families, too." He ruffled my hair and started to sort out the scattered stuff on the floor.

I said nothing and just continued to wash the dishes one by one as I tried to sort out my thoughts.

Those marks... They actually could've been from a monster. After all, there were all sorts of monsters here, right? Heck, they might be from a tiny three-clawed flying bear for all I knew. But it didn't add up.

They said that monsters couldn't come inside the town's barrier, except for fused monsters like Luke, apparently. And general Zhang just kinda confirmed that those were recent. So, if I were to draw a conclusion, those marks were probably man-made, right?

"Hey, eel--"

"Let's go, little cub. The longer we stay here, the fewer people we can help." Before I could ask him anything, he yoinked my shirt's collar and dragged me out of the perfectly clean house.

"How did you clean up so fast!?" I asked while I squirmed around to release myself from his grip.

"You're just slow at cleaning up, even the germs grew tired of waiting." He smirked.

"Argh, whatever. By the way, about that mark--"

"Oh hi, Mark! What's up~" He waved at a young man who was busy carrying a bucket of water.

"General Zhang! Good day, sir!" The young man bowed, and his face instantly beamed upon seeing the white-haired eel.

"How's your wife and kids? Do you need anything from us?" He approached the young man and took the bucket of water from his hand.

"They're doing okay, general, thanks to your continuous help!" The man bowed again.

"That's great to hear. What can we do for you guys today?" General Zhang asked as we walked towards the young man's house.

"No, no, general. We don't want to trouble you again. We're already grateful for your help."

"Don't be like that, we came all the way here to help, so why refuse?" General Zhang chuckled, "c'mon, little cub. Let's get to work."

"Ah, yes!" I nodded.

I followed general Zhang around for a few hours until the sky turned orange-red, and the air was starting to get pleasantly colder. We did a lot of household tasks and even stuff like brushing cows and helping a kitten that was stuck on a tree.

Surprisingly, almost everyone here was happy to see that eel, and that eel knew most of them by name. From their conversations, I learned that he visited this area regularly when he had some time off. And it turned out that he regularly visited other neighbourhoods, too.

"Hey, eel. Do you think those marks--"

"Ah, look at the time! We should hurry to the forest and get these poor villagers some woods and stuff!" He cut me off deliberately.

"No, listen to me--"

"C'mon, those woods and stuff are waiting~" He yoinked me again before I could even finish my question.

During the times we helped around, I discovered that there were more people with the three dots mark, and most of them were located on their backs. However, not all injured soldiers had that mark. I've been trying to find the pattern, but I just couldn't. And every time I tried to ask, he would always cut me off and change the topic.

"Timmy, come out." He commanded as a wisp of smoke came out of his body and formed a giant, fluffy tiger.

"Rawr."

Timmy purred at us, and licked me a few times before we hopped on his back. In just a few minutes, we were able to reach the city's gate, and we ventured a bit further until we stumbled upon a forest.

"We're here, let's go fetch some woods and stuff~" General Zhang said as he picked me up and jumped down from Timmy's back.

"What's the other 'stuff' I'm supposed to look for, exactly?" I frowned.

"Well, stuff. Just go get some firewood, I'll go look for the other 'stuff'." He grinned at me.

"You're weird as hell today. Whatever, let me down." I sighed.

After he let me down, he wandered off on his own to do whatever he needed to do, but only after telling Timmy to watch over me in case I ran away.

"Firewood, huh? I wonder how much is enough..." I muttered to myself as I walked deeper into the woods. Even though I was pretty sure that I won't die from a monster considering I have Timmy with me, I still kept my guard up just in case. After all, my colonel had always taught me to be observant and ready.

"How does he even expect me to chop up some woods if he didn't give me an axe, that eel bastard." I cursed as I looked around to find something sharp that I could use.

But, the more I looked around, the more I noticed that this forest was weird. There were very few animal markings on the trees or ground, and there were barely any fruits growing on the trees, or even on the ground.

"That's kinda weird. If there aren't many animals here, shouldn't there be lots of uneaten fruits or something?" I mumbled, "hmm, maybe it isn't time to bear fruits yet... But I'm sure I saw a lot of these types of fruits in the market... Oh, well."

I went deeper and deeper, and I noticed something strange yet again. There were human footprints, lots of them. Most of them were already smudged, but I could still clearly see the foot shape. The weird thing was, the sole pattern was very different from our army's. Not only that, but I found an empty plastic bag, which was pretty weird considering our town mostly used paper bags.

"This is spooky, man. Timmy, what do you think?" I sighed as my old habit of talking to animals popped out.

"Rawr." He just snuggled closer to me and rubbed his cheeks on me.

"Haha, that tickles, Timmy!" I patted him happily.

'Rustle.'

"Who's there!?" I immediately jumped into my combat stance upon hearing the rustling sound nearby.

"It's me, little cub, your favourite eel." General Zhang waved at me.

"Oh, bummer. What are you doing here? I thought you're gathering 'stuff'?" I let out a disappointed sigh.

"Hey, why do you sound so disappointed?" He pouted, "anyway, change of plans. We're going back. I just got a message from gramps."

"How'd you get a message from this far away?"

"Every man has secrets," he winked at me, "anyway, the raid failed."

"What!?" I exclaimed in surprise. Then, Jeanne and Owen...?

"Yeah. And the troublesome thing is, the minotaurs took Owen and one other general."