by Charles Dean
“They might as well be the same. With all of this walking after hurting my foot kicking that dude’s body until I was sure he was dead, my poor feet are about to need mercy killing too. Come on. I got enough berries to give us all a good supper, so let’s make camp.” Ramon dusted off the spot as if the ground could ever become less dirty and then plopped down.
If there was one thing Lars was always happy about when it came to being human, it was the ability to sit down without an issue. There were, after all, animals that had to lie down on their sides rather than sit on their butts simply because it was their only option—something that he was reminded of while watching Ramon try to adjust his tail so he could comfortably rest on his rear.
Ramon pulled out a huge handful of broad, seven-tipped leaves that he had apparently gathered along with the berries while Lars was zoned out. “If your feet are still good, could you get some firewood? I’m going to try and sew these up and make a bag for us.”
He really is resourceful, Lars thought as he set the woman down and started into the woods. Despite being in the middle of a forest, finding firewood was more of a task than he initially expected. There weren’t a ton of dead branches just lying around on the ground, and it took him a little over half an hour before he was eventually able to gather together a modest stack of branches, twigs, and other dry stuff that was large enough to keep a fire going for the night. He pulled down some thin vines that he found creeping up the side of a tree and tied the bundle of sticks together so that the loose wood wouldn’t fall off and so that he could set it down as he added more to it. Having all the wood securely strapped together made it easier to carry everything in his arms as he walked, but by the time he was finished, the pile was so large that the branches were actually blocking his vision. It wasn’t much work keeping the entire thing balanced in his arms, but it was hard to find the markers he had laid out so that he could find his way back to camp.
Are we going to stay with those two for a while?
“Yeah, we might have to,” Lars answered. He wanted to say, “Yes, we definitely will,” but he didn’t know if the situation would ever come close to being permanent. He considered Ramon trustworthy, but he had no idea what the guy’s intentions were. He had been more than helpful so far, but there was no telling whether or not Ramon would leave him the moment they found their way to a new town.
You’re getting close to Level 2. We could kill something.
“I’m not killing them, okay? Can you stop asking?” Lars grumbled at her.
You don’t have to kill them, but you should kill something. These woods are filled with predators that have Qi. Each one of them wants to murder you, so I think you should return the sentiment.
“. . . You’re not wrong,” Lars admitted, gulping as he thought about the types of monsters that he and Ramon might run into before they ever got close to a town.
Quest: Kill or be killed.
Objective: Hunt down and butcher 2 predators that live within the forest.
“No quest reward listed?” Lars asked after ready the task that had been generated. “And if I didn’t have to kill a person to complete one of your quests, how come you never generated one of these beast-hunting ones before?”
I can’t tell you the reward until after you clear the quest. Those are the rules. As far as why I never gave you one of these quests earlier, well, I didn’t much feel like experiencing the less-than-wonderful sensation of being eaten alive. Given how weak you were, it just seemed the natural outcome that you’d die if you ever tried to fight something that wasn’t trusting or stupid enough to let you get a killing blow. In short, I had to find something for you to kill that couldn’t or wouldn’t kill you first.
“But now I can? You think I’m strong enough to kill something now?” Lars asked. He mentally brought up his stats and took a look at how much Power, Resistance, and Speed he had now. Even though he was 4.8 times stronger than he used to be, the only weapon he had on him was the knife he had taken from the first dying woman he had shown mercy to—and it wasn’t the best weapon. The short blade didn’t have very much reach, and the handle consisted of nothing more than a simple leather strip wrapped around the metal, so Lars wasn’t sure how well it would do against some of the beasts he had been warned about.
You’re bleeding, you’re noisy, you smell awful—I don’t think you’ll have a choice.
Her reply sent a little chill through Lars’s bones. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, I guess.”
Well, you know, in case you do die . . .
What’s that . . . at the end? Lars listened to her trail off and read the omission at the same time. “What? In case I do die, what?” Lars demanded as the word bubble disappeared.
It’s been nice sharing these years with you.
“Hey, what’s with that talk? I’m not dead yet,” Lars grumbled. He wasn’t actually sure how to handle those words. It was the first time that she had spoken to him like that, and that fact alone was rather scary. “We got a few decades left together, so don’t go acting like it’s the end of the line already.” He couldn’t believe it, but he was actually trying to reassure her—even trying to reassure himself at this point—but no reply came.
He walked in silence for a short time, but after a few minutes, he tried to get a response from her again. “So, what do you think of Ramon and the girl?” he asked her. “Ramon’s nice, but the girl . . . something is off about her. She seems like life has messed her up a bit. I mean, who gets punished—sent to an ice chamber, whatever that is—just ‘cause they didn’t work hard enough one day?” It wasn’t at all unusual for Lars to discuss his thoughts with her, so he thought it might get her talking again, but she remained silent without so much as a single word during the trip back. His heart even sank a little when he reached the camp, where he’d told himself that he’d resist talking to her out loud. He didn’t want Ramon or the girl, whose name he still hadn’t asked, to think he was crazy, but that took away his opportunity to prompt a response from the voice in his head.
Why is she so silent? Lars wondered as his feet crunched their way toward a ring of logs and large rocks Ramon had set up while he was gone.
“Ah, good,” Ramon said, looking up at Lars from his work. “You brought vines too! I found a few around here, but I need many more for the project. Glad you thought ahead.” He walked over and helped Lars unload the bundle of fire fodder.
“The vines?” Lars asked as he started untying the knots he had made with them to hold everything in place. “That’s what you’re happy about?”
“Yup,” Ramon replied, eagerly nodding his head. “You were gone a while, so you haven’t seen it yet, but check this out!” He pointed to a spot near one of the large stones with a blanket of leaves twice the length of Lars’s chest and thick enough that he couldn’t see through it. “I’m gonna make it into something nice. It’ll definitely be useful”
Lars started piling up some kindling and putting some of the smaller twigs over it so that he could get the fire going. “You’re really into that, aren’t you?”
“Well, umm . . . yeah. My parents wouldn’t let me make stuff like this. They were always . . .” Ramon trailed off and stared down at the vine in his hands.
Lars recognized the expression on Ramon’s face. It was one he hadn’t seen often, but something that every person somehow knew instinctively. His eyes had flattened out, his forehead had creased, the line of his lips had widened a little and begun to tug downward on both ends. He was grieving. You watched them die, didn’t you? Lars kept the question from escaping his lips as he studied Ramon’s expression, trying to find some way he could help or something he could say to offer his newfound friend a little support.
Unsure of what to say or do to help Ramon, who seemed to be breaking down little by little in front of him, and with his internally-generated murderous-advice column not offering anything at the moment, he turned his attention to his slave. She was already studying them curiously, a
nd his shifting gaze made her focus on him for a brief moment. When his eyes met hers, however, she quickly turned away. Yeah, your people did this, Lars thought angrily, the reminder of why he hated her and them now fresh once again in his head.
Whatever. He sighed, clenching his fist for a moment before loosening it and going back to work on the fire. Nothing I can do now. Ramon will talk to me when he wants to talk to me. He started looking around on the ground for anything he could use to generate a spark, and then a thought occurred to him. “No chance you have any Fire Qi?” he asked, trying to cheat his way into getting a flame going.
She shook her head. “Water.”
Well, I have Fire Qi, but . . . how do I use it? Lars wondered. This was the point when his inner psychopath would normally assist him with the tutorial, but she was still ignoring him for some reason. He put his hands on the wood and tried to imagine it igniting, but nothing happened. He simply didn’t understand how to control the elemental power. Ramon walked over to his side and snapped his fingers, causing a series of sparks to rain down across the twigs and sticks that Lars had arranged. The kindling didn’t immediately burst into flames, but with some careful blowing and gentle coaxing, he was able to create a proper campfire.
Lars looked over at Ramon to say thanks, but when he saw that his companion’s face was still hanging like a wet cloth and that he was making that vine blanket he was so proud of, Lars decided not to interrupt him. He considered striking up a conversation with the girl, but even just the thought of her reminded Lars of what had happened to his mother and everyone else in the village. Rather than stoke that anger, Lars leaned back against one of the logs Ramon had propped up and pulled out the one item he had on him to deal with the silence: Tao’s Beginning Guide to Cultivation, the book he had been carrying when everything began.
Lars sat in silence until the sun set, and the darkness became so bad that he was having trouble making out words on the paper, forcing him to put the book away.
As he was stashing the book, he heard loud crunching sounds coming from Ramon’s direction.
“Hey, if you’re going to use the restroom, make sure to do it far from here, and don’t forget to dig a hole,” Lars said as he stood up and dusted off his butt, thinking he might have to do the same thing. “We don’t want that smell wafting over to us.”
“What? I’ve already used it,” Ramon replied, his voice coming from a much different direction than expected. Lars had called out loudly, thinking that Ramon had been the source of the noise, but as soon as he heard the man speak, he realized the porcupine-blooded cultivator wasn’t sitting in that direction anymore but was halfway between him and the girl now, using a stone as a pillow along with a now-much-larger leaf blanket covering him.
“Then . . .” Lars’s eyes darted between the girl, Ramon, and the direction the noise was coming from. “Crap, get ready,” he warned.
“Get ready for what?”
Can you seriously not hear it? Lars blinked in frustration as he pulled out his knife, quickly looking around for something else that he could also use as a weapon. He saw that the stack of firewood had grown while he was reading, and one branch was the perfect size for what he wanted. The stick was about two and a half feet long, and the wood felt like a club once it was in his hand.
“What are you doing?” Ramon asked as he got up and looked around. “I don’t see anything. What’s going on?”
“Something is near,” Lars said, gripping the stick tightly. He couldn't put his hand on why the sound was familiar, but he knew it belonged to something large and dangerous.
Wait, the leaves are moving. Lars glanced over at the girl to see if she was the cause of the sound as it was now a little louder and coming from her direction. Unfortunately, she wasn’t even moving. She even managed to look bored while sitting in place and staring at him like he was some sort of idiot. Then, while he watched, her eyes perked up, and her back straightened as she stood up and turned around.
“Do you hear it too?” Lars asked.
“Yes, but how did you hear it before me?” she responded, answering his question with one of her own.
Because I’m used to the quiet, Lars thought. That was the first explanation that popped into his head. He went into the woods all the time, and his hearing was one of the few things he was actually very proud of.
“I don’t hear anything,” Ramon grumbled as he joined them on the other side of the fire and peered off into the pitch-black woods. “What’s it sound like? What are you listening for?”
“Shh,” Lars answered, trying to get him to be quiet. If you can’t hear anything, it might be because you won’t stop talking. He strained his ears and listened for any sound that might give away what was going on, but the noise and the odd crinkling and pushing of leaves were gone for the moment.
“What do you think it is?” Lars asked, looking over at the girl. She was the only one who had probably seen any real portion of the world and the only one who probably had any real concept of the threats that they might encounter outside the small village that Lars had lived in for practically his entire life.
“That . . . That sound. That hiss . . . I’ve heard the strongest-blooded dragon cultivators occasionally make something similar, but . . . otherwise? I don’t know,” she answered while keeping her eyes fixed on the woods.
Dragon-blooded cultivators. Is this a dragon? Lars’s heart sank as fear set in. He didn’t know much about dragons, only that they were very rare ancient monsters said to live thousands of years and considered both unkillable and cruel. The thought of one of those horrid monstrosities coming toward them—stealthily creeping up as it likely intended to play with its food—was terrifying.
“The Yong clan hunted the dragons of the area to extinction with the help of the Fire-Walker sect, so that can’t be it,” Ramon explained. “Or . . . maybe it’s just a baby. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t attacked yet.”
The speculation gave Lars a small bit of hope, and he relaxed just a little. He didn’t want to fight off any type of dragon, and if they had been hunted to extinction, it was highly unlikely that his small group would randomly come across one now. But then that hope was quickly dashed, and his anxiety returned.
“No, you have it backward. They hunted an adolescent dragon that was threatening the area and lost seven Stage 9 Qi-Gathering Cultivators in the process,” the girl said, correcting Ramon.
“We’re dead then, aren’t we?” Ramon replied, backing up a step.
Lars tried to ignore that thought as he quickly considered the ways he could escape. He was really starting to be grateful that the voice in his head hadn’t insisted he go out and kill animals in the woods when he was younger, but he was also sorely regretting the decision to stop pushing for another town and set up camp. We could have made it by morning, Lars thought as he gulped down his anxiety at the prospect of fighting a legendary beast. There has to be a town close to us.
Then something came flying out from the woods.
“No! NO!!” Ramon screamed as he jumped to the side, the large scaly-skinned beast shooting right past him. “Don’t!” Ramon continued to scream as he tried to escape it, but even though its initial bite attack missed, the follow-up swipe with its body didn’t. The tail end of the easily thirty-foot-long beast slammed into Ramon’s legs, instantly coiling around one and causing him to fall forward onto the ground.
Thanks to its proximity and the firelight, Lars was finally able to get a good look at the beast. Despite launching itself through the air like a projectile, the strange creature was almost as thick around as a small tree and completely unwinged, completely unlike the dragon he had suspected it might have been. Its head was shaped like an arrow with the tip chipped off, and its open mouth was filled with tiny, little jagged teeth that looked more like splinters sticking out of its gums than a threatening row of fangs. Its long body was covered in scales, and it didn’t have any legs or feet that Lars could see.
What do I do?! L
ars screamed at the voice in his head for guidance as he ran forward with his club and smashed down onto the thing’s body.
That’s an ophidian beast called the snake or “baem” as many of the local cultivators call it here. This particular one specializes in eating large prey whole, so I would highly recommend running.
What? Lars was furious, but he didn’t think she was being mean.
Lars swung at the snake with every ounce of strength that he could muster, and the creature shifted its body and pushed outward in a convulsing motion that slammed into Lars’s chest. Lars was thrown back several feet and left staggering as he tried to maintain his balance, but his blow didn’t even seem to affect the snake enough to draw its attention away from Ramon.
Wait, Lars thought, shifting his knife to his main hand. If a beating doesn’t work . . .
That will penetrate it a little, but stabbing it will only anger the thing, making it focus on you as its primary target. The snake will be lethargic after it consumes its prey. I suggest that you and your slave just run. Well, considering she hasn’t fully recovered yet, I suggest you just run. Your safety is the most important thing, and your friend might as well already be dead.
Lars completely ignored her advice as he shifted around, looking for an opening. The long serpent had tightly wound itself around Ramon, and it was so focused on striking him that it didn’t seem to care what either Lars or the girl were doing. The coils tightened just a little every time the porcupine cultivator shifted in his struggle, and Lars could tell that it was only a matter of time before he lost the ability to fight back.
You sure it’ll make it switch targets? Lars asked, glancing behind him and trying to eye a good escape path.
You’re not going to outrun that thing in a short-distance sprint. Stop it.
Lars had spent about two decades ignoring the voice’s morality and following his conscience instead, and he wasn’t about to start listening to her now. Ramon saved my life. At the very least, he might live another day. Lars sprang forward, fully intent on driving the knife into the scaly beast. Before he ever got close enough to strike, however, its tail whipped around and slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around like a top and sending him crashing to the ground face-first. The impact left him dizzy and disoriented as he tried to collect himself.