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Chapter 38 - Boiling Alive
🕑 Added 2023-08-28 20:54:54 +0000 UTCChapter 38
Boiling Alive
Ronald grunted as he heaved himself out of a waist-deep hole, sitting on the edge and quickly taking out a bottle of water. His entire body was aching, his lungs were on fire, but even more importantly, he felt strangely alive. He and Ethan had been digging out a tunnel for almost six hours straight, and have made some amazing progress. Ethan was mostly the one who dug directly, simply carving out a hole, while Ronald followed behind and simply did the final touches while also getting measurements for the beams that helped with the tunnel’s structure.
While Tara and Elijah mostly were in charge of moving the dirt away, the boy occasionally helped Ethan with some tougher ground. By the time the ‘dawn’ arrived (which only really meant that the temperature began rising from the ‘night’s’ 100), they were finished with the whole tunnel, having dug approximately thirty feet deep.
They reconvened in the tent for a quick breakfast before Ethan decided to go back down and dig out the two chambers roughly.
The biggest issue was that they lacked a persistent source of light, having to resort to old-school flashlights as their phones didn’t function in any capacity. They also had to be careful so as to not slip since the descent was quite steep, while the climb back up was a rather decent morning workout. Nonetheless, it was still miles better than being boiled alive on the surface. Even having spent an entire day inside the shade of the tent, all four sweated buckets and consumed four times the amount of water they usually do.
“There,” Ethan pointed roughly at the square hole as Ronald brought the wooden beam closer, stuffing it inside. Though the structural integrity of the tunnel wouldn’t be long-lasting by any measure, it was good enough for them. The tunnel itself was about three feet tall so they all had to crouch or crawl, while the chambers below were at around six feet.
“Shit, this looks nice,” Ronald commented as he snuck a peek into one of the chambers. It wasn’t much–a round clearing with a thigh-thick pillar of earth left in the centre that held up a domed ceiling. It was large enough for two people to fit and stretch out fully with even some extra space to breathe. As they wouldn’t be staying inside the chambers for prolonged periods of time, they didn’t build any extra vents for air, banking on their large tunnel being good enough to support them for 5-6 hours of rest and sleep a day.
“Back up,” Ethan called out.
The two began to climb slowly and steadily; every few steps, Ethan had etched a flat panel into the ground to help with a grip so the ground wasn't too slippery. They managed to climb up in less than two minutes, causing Ronald to groan. He'd forgotten, for a moment, that he'd been to the fairly cool depths–where temperatures hovered around 80. Climbing back out, however, he was back out to the boiling plate of savanna. There were extreme living conditions and then there was this. He wondered how any species managed to survive on the surface.
“Ah, you’re out. Was just about to call you,” Tara appeared suddenly, doused in sweat. It was effectively a default setting for anyone who spent longer than ten minutes on the surface.
“What’s up?” Ethan asked.
“Elijah spotted something,” she said as she led them to the tent’s rear where the young boy was sitting in the shade of a makeshift parasol. “Still there?”
“Yes,” Elijah nodded, pointing toward the horizon. “Over there.” Ethan and Ronald followed the gesture and while Ronald couldn’t see anything, Ethan exclaimed softly right after.
“A Scorcher,” he mumbled. “Alright, this is a good opportunity.”
“For what?”
“For a hunt.”
“... you want us to go out there… right now? Didn’t you say we’d hunt at night?” Ronald asked.
“It’s a good opportunity,” Ethan shrugged. “Come on, don’t be lazy. Let’s get to huntin’.”
Under the grunts of disapproval from everyone else–even young Elijah–they departed from the tent and moved toward a creature some two miles away. It came into full focus about fifteen minutes later–it was a lion… of sorts. Where, ordinarily, a lion's mane was, flames were belting bravely into the sky. The lion was around five feet long with twin tails, singed-brown fur, and a pair of desolately black eyes.
It began to growl as soon as they got within five hundred yards of it, standing up from lying prone in the sun.
“Alright, I’ll take the front,” Ethan said, wiping a fistful of sweat from his forehead. “Elijah and Tara stay behind. Ronald, take the right flank. I’ll take the opening swing but only to attract it. I’ll keep its aggro on me no matter what, but you’ll have to deal all of the damage and the finishing blow. Ready? Good, let’s go.”
It was hell–in no uncertain terms. Not only was simply walking in 130-degree weather bone-bristling, but exerting any more effort melted them. Sweat drizzled out of them like rain and yet evaporated into the air before it could even leave their skin properly.
Ethan lashed out with a whip of blood and prompted the creature to roar mightily–it was so loud, in fact, that Elijah’s eardrums burst. The lion lunged toward Ethan, far quicker than its massive frame would suggest, but the former dodged the lunge with grace, lashing out with the whip again and landing it squarely against the creature’s face. It didn’t do particularly much damage, but it was definitely effective in causing the creature to focus squarely on him.
At the same time, Ronald went from a flanking position into an attack from the rear while Tara shifted to the flank, tossing out a cone of blood forward. Elijah moved several of its particulates right in front of the lion's eyes, causing a few of them to irritate the beast's sight for a moment and slow it down while Tara's attack landed. The sizzling sounds were barely audible but the smoke emitting from the creature's body was quite evident.
Ronald's kick landed at that moment, straight into the creature's back, but it barely did any damage. Just as the creature was about to shift its focus elsewhere, another lash at its face prompted more and more anger toward Ethan. It ran at him, easily passing thirty miles an hour in short bursts. But it didn't matter–despite the fact that Ethan looked and was much slower in comparison, the beast couldn’t land a single hit.
As the land was flat and with no covers, the dance continued simply for nearly twenty minutes before Ronald’s kick to the creature’s skull finally removed the last of its 180 HP pool. As soon as it died with an unwilling, bitter roar, the body dispersed into ash as everyone was rewarded a rather generous amount of XP. Elijah’s level shot up to 4, while Ronald got to 5, finally unlocking two new abilities.
Unlike the expectations, however, he didn’t unlock the same ones as Tara–or, rather, the one where he could sacrifice his health to restore Ethan’s was the same, but he didn’t receive the long-range attack. Instead, his was an attack that conjured a foot-long speartip of blood that increased his attack speed by 1500% for that one attack, dealing damage to the target and causing ‘Bleed’ if it hit a vital spot.
“Alright, let’s go test our hotel rooms,” Ethan said, panting as well. He had to move the most out of the four, and despite all his experiences, his body was far from ready for something this extreme for prolonged periods of time. Ethan and Tara were both just a fly-shy away from hitting Level 6, but as Level 6 just increased base stats without including anything else, Ethan elected not to push it for the time being.
They covered the top entrance of the 'hotel' with a door made out of the patchy grass; it was rather good at absorbing heat, and it made their being there somewhat less obvious. The further they descended, the cooler it got, and by the time they'd gotten to the bottom, they all stopped sweating.
The path diverged to two identical chambers at the bottom and Ethan and Ronald went left while Tara and Elijah went right. They could still hear the other group rather easily as only a foot or so wide ‘wall’ separated them at the thinnest.
Under Ronald’s shocked gaze, Ethan took out a rather comfy-looking mattress from the inventory and laid it out on the ground, lying on top of it right after. Groaning in pleasure–audibly on purpose–he shuffled on top of it for a moment before stopping.
“... really?” Ronald said.
“What’s up?” Tara asked from the other room.
“The fucker brought a mattress.” Ronald replied.
“... he what?”
“A whole ass mattress. He brought a freaking mattress.”
“...”
“...”
“Alright, quit yapping,” Ethan said. “Get some rest. It’s gonna be a long hunt later tonight.”
“...”
The weight of the silence was heavy, but Ethan ignored it. He had more than just a mattress in the inventory. While most Awakened, early on, thought that the Inventory was important for keeping the items that dropped for the monsters, in actuality, it was a to-go hotel more so than anything else. When entering a Tunnel, packing necessary amenities was far more important than saving space for a magical item. Beyond just a mattress, he had a legitimate freezer in the inventory that could be powered entirely by solar energy but opted out of taking it out since he wanted the kids to ‘suffer’ a bit.
Savanna’s extreme biome was somewhat of a harsh first stepping stone in getting used to the insane variety of Tunnels that existed, but it was also a fairly decent opener. While definitely inhospitable for people, it was livable. The air wasn't toxic, the ground didn't eject lava into the living room, and there weren't 300 miles per hour winds whipping shards and chunks of ice like bullets… compared to the truly extreme biomes that they would encounter in the future, savanna was… fine, for lack of a better word. Livable was as good as it got most of the time in the Tunnels–in some ways, extreme heat was better than extreme cold, especially for the beginners.
The nap was quite nice–at least for Ethan. He learned quickly that none of the other three managed to get a whiff of sleep. It took some skill, being able to fall asleep under any condition, and they simply were yet to learn it. However, Ethan had no doubt that come tomorrow–or, well, tonight–they’ll be conked out of their minds. They’ll have been awake for almost 48 hours by that point, belted by insane heat, and drained to the marrow from having to hunt for hours on end.
It was cool–well, cool by this world’s standards, at least, as it was still well over 100 degrees outside–when they left their little rooms. Though darker, it was hardly dark as the sun never seemed to truly set, its gleam still bleeding out from the horizon and washing the plains in a dark, warm hue. It was time to start the hunt–Ethan had no intention of staying inside for longer than four days, and his goal was to hunt down 80% of the surface dwellers and defeat the boss which he already intuited to be a mutated variant of the Scorching Lions. He didn't care for the full completion as it was almost never worth it in regards to the effort-to-reward ratio and simply wanted to clear the Tunnel and stop it from becoming a Field. It was time to speed-level, and he only hoped the kids could keep up with him. And if not… it didn't matter. He wouldn't slow down for them–not this time around, anyway.
