God, why did I write this knowing my less than majorly positive feelings about MGE? Oh, yeah, Halloween. Have a scary(?) story whose spookiest feature is the lack of sex.

Disclaimer: Blu Rose doesn't own the Monster Girl Encyclopedia series. If she did, this story is evidence that it'd make Monster Girl Quest seem tame by comparison.

Warning: This is not a story for those who want sexy times or romance, but for those who like a good, sad horror story with a taste of comeuppance.

It was four months ago that Clifford Reed and Musette Wynsdale had disappeared from town. There weren't any signs of how or why they were gone, but the local rumor mill did its work by churning out numerous half-baked theories. Most prevalent among them was that the two had run off somewhere together. Everyone knew that Musette held a torch for Clifford, despite the fact that he already had a sweetheart in Rowena Blackwell. Several of those sorts of rumors speculated that Musette either was or had become some sort of monster like many a woman before her, and had whisked Clifford away to some hellish demon realm to copulate until she'd drained the life out of him—or some rubbish like that. Certain individuals would say that making love to the death with an attractive-looking creature with succubus-level talent at having sex would be the best way to go.

It was definitely better than their true fate of being murdered, chopped up, disfigured, and then disposed of in the forest for some wild carnivore to handle the rest. Better than they deserved, really. That whore Musette, who would flirt even in front of Rowena, and that bastard Clifford, who was too nice and never bothered to actually tell the bitch off. Both Rowena and the world were better off without them.

And yet, she still mourned his disappearance as if she were his wife. That was just how unconditional her love was. It was better spent on someone who was actually worth the pain. But she kept it up for a surprisingly long time, over two months. No matter how he approached her, comforted her, and tried to earn her trust, Rowena continued pining for a man she wasn't even aware had died. After assuming that Clifford's absence would guarantee her attention, it was naturally quite upsetting that his affection wasn't getting through. He had no choice but to take the steps to winning Rowena over, since her mind was still preoccupied with Clifford.

Therefore, it was as obvious as the sun in the sky that he had to take her to his home. Yes, he had to get rough and knock her out before he carried her off in the dead of night. Yes, he had to keep her in the basement to avoid the risk of someone seeing her and her escaping. But he didn't consider his actions extreme. They were necessary, like the gag he had to use to keep her quiet in case his nosy neighbors heard, or the bindings that kept her from running off and scratching him as she'd done before. He didn't enjoy doing those things and would've loved if they could bond normally, but Rowena, as wonderful as she was, made it difficult to proceed. Regardless of how she screamed or cried, though, he never lost his temper with her.

But he lost his patience after a month of her resisting his advances. The issue, he believed, was Clifford. The man may have been worm food by then, but he was like a mental block of sorts, preventing Rowena from moving on and opening her heart to someone who actually mattered. Simply being the only person she saw wasn't good enough, it seemed. He had to be her whole world. The only person that mattered. The only person she needed.

Hence the mushrooms that he'd gotten his hands on. Their name always slipped his mind—something like Gray Despair, Gray Lamentation, Gray Misery, or some such—but what he did remember was their effect. Those ghastly-looking mushrooms would apparently kill a human woman who ate them, then bring her back to life as some sort of undead. All he had to do was dress them up as part of a lovely meal and Rowena willingly, if unknowingly, ended her existence as a human being.

When she came back as an ordinary zombie, it was both a dismay and a blessing. She was now a brainless beast who lacked the charm and character that made Rowena who she was, more concerned with trying to get his pants off. But at the very least, she was more affectionate than she'd been as a human. Also, it was only temporary. If Rowena absorbed enough of his spirit energy, she'd become intelligent again. By then, her love for him would have blossomed. A perfect plan.

Well, except for the hallucinations he had started to have of the undead Rowena following him around. Initially, he would see her when he was out and about doing his daily routines: peeking around the corners of buildings, standing in alleyways he'd passed by, staring at him from the other side of windows. If he blinked, she would be gone, but her presence and haunting gaze was nonetheless an unwanted distraction. He assumed that it was just a side effect of being carnally exposed to a monster. There was many a tale about men who'd fallen into a maddening obsession with a woman, only for her to turn out to be a succubus or some other monstrous creature. Even a simple zombie could do the same, so surely the remedy would be satisfying the physical desires she created within him.

It didn't work. If anything, it made his condition worse. He started to see the illusion of his beloved Rowena everywhere—not only when he was away from her, but when he was at home, kneeling at his bed or standing in the corner of the bathroom to name a few common instances. He could even feel her presence behind him when he was ravishing the real Rowena, burning a hole into his back with her stare. Eventually, he would even see her when he closed his eyes. Normally, the thought of seeing Rowena even as he slept would be a dream in both sense of the word—even if it was the undead version of her with her deathly pale skin and that dim expression on her face. But the Rowena he saw when he closed his eyes was always frowning and glaring at him with cold, sharp blue eyes. It somehow made his heart seize up if he stared at it for too long, that scornful mockery of the woman he loved, which made it difficult for him to sleep without having to black out from overexhaustion. While he had no remedy for the visions that haunted him when his eyes were open, the local apothecary sold some sleeping medicine. Meant for those with insomnia, the medicine was guaranteed to grant an immediate, dreamless sleep. That guarantee was how he became a regular customer at the apothecary.

But as he regained the ability to have a good night's sleep, another problem arose: blackouts. Spots began to appear in his memory as Rowena regained some semblance of her original intelligence. There would be times when he would find himself in one place when he last recalled being in another, or in the middle of a task that he couldn't recall starting. One time, he'd left the door to the basement unlocked, and Rowena somehow managed to make her way aboveground in the middle of the night. When he woke up the following morning, it was to Rowena crawling all over him while the zombie's delusory doppelganger stared at him from over her shoulder. It was beyond worrying how his condition was growing worse and worse, but he told himself that his struggles would be worth it in the end. Once Rowena was back to herself and capable of loving him as she always should have.

"Love…you? How could anyone love someone like you? You…murderer!" A hissing in his ear that sounded awfully like Rowena caused him to wake up with a start.

No, he didn't 'wake up,' but rather…he become aware. He realized that he wasn't lying down in his bed, but standing in the basement. In one hand was the large axe he kept to chop wood for his stove, now stained with blood. In the other was the head of Rowena, being held up by its hair with a frozen expression of horror. With a short gasp of fright, he dropped them both with a clatter and thud respectively, and then noticed the remains of Rowena's body, which had been chopped to pieces and sat in a pool of blood. The gruesome sight caused him to scream and quickly step away. "Rowena! Why…? Why would I do this? Have I gone mad?!" He cried. He fell to his knees and began sobbing into his bloody hands.

"You would cry over an undead pet, but not the living people that you killed? So repulsive…" At the sound of Rowena's scathing voice, he gazed at her head. "I bet that even now, you want to use what's left of my body to give yourself some pleasure, you disgusting pig!" Although she was speaking, the lips of the head weren't moving. "Why are you looking at that corpse as if it were me? If you want to look at me, then close your eyes." He did as he was told. When he closed his eyes, he saw the image of Rowena that he had been hallucinating about, glaring at him. He immediately opened his eyes after just a few seconds, but that didn't stop the scornful voice. "That won't do you any good. I'm not just some dream that you can dismiss. Because we're one and the same now, you and I…"

"What? I-I don't…!" Before he could finish his statement, he started kneeling on the bloody ground. He picked up his axe and rested his hand on the floor, amidst the bits and pieces that once made up the zombified Rowena. Then, he positioned the axe's blade over one of his fingers. None of this was of his own volition. His body was moving on its own, even as he pressed the axe against his finger. With one swift chop, he cut off a portion of the finger, and a howl of pain left his throat. Then another finger was cut off. Before a third finger could be removed, he sniveled, "Stop! Please!" But his plea didn't keep the third finger from being removed. He squeezed his eyes shut from the pain and found Rowena's doppelganger crouching in front of him, her sneering face a few inches away from his.

"Why should I stop? Nothing ever stopped you from doing whatever it took to get what you wanted. Not lying, not murder, not even corrupting my body and soul."

"Everything I did was because I loved you!"

"What do you know of LOVE?!" The dead woman shrieked, causing her host to open his eyes. Not wanting to look down at what remained of his Rowena and his hand, he chose to look up at the ceiling, blinking away the tears that had formed in his eyes. But the doppelganger's voice went on, cold and steady, "I've been in your filthy mind. I've seen into your dark heart. All you know is lust. I'd say you're a perfect mate for a monster…but I don't think you deserve any sort of pleasure."

"I've…I've done nothing wrong. All I ever did was love you. All I ever wanted was for you to love me...!"

The basement was almost silent, the only sound being his pained whimpers. Then the hand that held the axe raised it up to his face and used its blade to nick his cheek. "What I would love the most right now…" The axe was then positioned in front of his neck. "…is for you to die!"

The words that were on his lips didn't get a chance to be spoken. He choked on them instead, as the axe's blade ran along his throat. When he fell forward, he landed in such a way that his face was directly in front of Rowena's head. How fitting it was that the last thing he saw was the mockery of the woman he'd claimed to love, yet had ruined.

The pair of adventurers who were sitting around the campfire were totally silent. The one with the more muscular arms arched an eyebrow after a few seconds and asked, "Is that it?"

The more slender of the two nodded and said, "That's it."

"Huh… I expected something worse than that."

"How so?"

The muscular adventurer shrugged, saying, "Like a slow, painful death. Or maybe being dragged to the depths of the underworld, where that Rowena would torture him until the end of time. Really, a quick death seems too nice for someone who ruined her life over a crush."

"Well, you can always pretend that's what happened to him. That's what makes stories fun. You can make whatever changes you like," the slender adventurer said, throwing some sticks on the fire to feed its flames. "My version is just an adaptation of a story that's existed since the days of previous Demon Lords, back when monsters were less…libidinous."

"I see. Modern day monster stories aren't as scary as they used to be, are they?"

"No, they are not. Unless you consider the risk of getting stuck with a ball and chain for the rest of your days scary."

The muscular adventurer looked aside at the tents where their other companions were sleeping. "Not enough time has passed for us to swap places and get some shuteye. You got another story to tell?"

"There's this one story that I know about a collector of toys and a life-sized porcelain doll. You see, due to a stifling childhood where he was forced to mature early, he…"