Chapter LXXXVII (87) - Yetis, Zombies, and Foxes
Kizu regretted not taking Ulric’s snowshoes.
For the fourth time, Kizu crouched, exposed to the elements, as he recreated another snowshoe from ice. It was becoming obvious that figuring out a safe way to take Ulric’s would have saved him more time in the long run.
In his second stop, he had at least managed to bend a chunk of his leg brace back from where Ulric had struck him. His leg was covered in blood from where the metal pierced him, but it soon caked over, freezing in the cold. Thankfully, it was just blood, nothing more than a nasty gash, easily wrapped up and ignored.
The good news was that wherever Mort and Anata were being taken, they’d likely arrived at the destination as he felt them stop moving. Mort still hid under Anata’s sweater, so the only bits of intel Kizu managed to gather from their bond was that they were alive and their general direction. Which was vital since Kizu had absolutely no idea where he was going.
He wished he had the foresight to make one of those potions to protect against snow blindness, as his vision currently only reached a couple meters in front of him. He had no idea what direction he was walking beyond the fact it was towards Mort. Without that lifeline, it seemed like he made no progress as he stumbled forward into the seemingly endless white void in front of him.
With the sun never rising or falling this time of year, the only gauge of time Kizu had at his disposal was his warming potion’s effects slowly dwindling. Before it finally could wink out entirely, Kizu downed a follow-up. He suspected it was almost midnight which meant he’d been walking for over six hours. Without any food in his pack, he munched on handfuls of snow and ice. While it didn’t satisfy his stomach, it at least kept his mind off the monotony.
No other creatures, magical or otherwise, crossed his path as he trudged forward. Likely because no one else was stupid enough to leave their home in this blizzard. Holing up in a cozy den would be the rational decision. But that begged the question- who would risk the weather to capture Anata?
All of the sudden, Kizu stumbled forward, out of the storm. As he crossed through an invisible barrier, the blizzard stopped entirely. Looking back, he examined a wall of snow-whipped wind. It was like standing in the eye of a hurricane. Except when he looked up, he could see the storm curving in an arch overhead. In front of him, a small, triangular mountain stood at the center of the calm pocket. As Kizu approached it, he spotted tracks marring the otherwise flawless sheet of snow.
While one set of footprints definitely looked like Anata’s boots, there were two other massive pairs. Almost the size of his torso. But, other than the abnormal size, they looked like the prints of bare human feet.
They led into a cavern on the side of the mountain. Not wanting to take any chances, Kizu cast an illusion of darkness over himself. While his illusions might be a bit off color, depending on what species of creature was looking at him, he figured it was far better to cover himself with something than enter completely exposed.
The cavern’s interior was covered in filth. Dried straw was scattered along the ground, Kizu assumed it was meant to help insulate and keep the area warm but resulted in a pungent reek from the scattered soiled patches. He avoided those, consciously deciding not to look too closely.
Kizu crept around a corner and momentarily forgot how to breathe. Three massive creatures, easily over twice his height and covered in coarse, white hair, loitered in front of what appeared to be an ancient stone door carved into the side of the cave wall. Their white hair looked extremely familiar to Kizu. It looked to be the same coloring and relative length as the hair he’d used brewing the freezing potions earlier in the day. Yeti hair. A quick glance at their feet showed them to be the ones who escorted Anata here.
Mort wasn’t present, but also not too far away either. Kizu could feel his bond directing him lower. More likely than not, through the door guarded by yetis.
Kizu didn’t believe this was a fight he should take. He’d already used up blood fighting Ulric and he didn’t know what exactly held Anata. If there had only been one yeti guard, he might simply use the jumping trick he’d relied on while fighting Ulric, but three was another story altogether. Once he lost the element of surprise, the fight would become significantly trickier.
Instead, he opted for stealth. Using illusion work cost very minimal amounts of blood, so he maintained his spell that blended him into darkness, altering it only slightly to better camouflage with the wall. He slowly sidled towards the door with his back to the cavern wall.
If the yetis were aware of his presence, they showed no sign of it. They grumbled back and forth to one another, in the middle of a conversation. Kizu was caught off guard as he started to understand some of the things spoken by them.
“-Winter seal too chewy. Don’t know why she wants that,” one of them said, its voice slow and with a thick drawl.
Kizu realized that his earring must be translating their words for him. Despite the dire situation, he found himself fascinated. As far as he knew, there were no records of mankind making any sort of significant contact with the monsters. He found himself wishing Ione was there to give him more information on yetis.
“Bird is better,” another one agreed. “Bones crunch. Less oily.”
“I like the oil,” the third one grumbled. “Slips down throat.”
“Seals eat fish. You eat fish and seals. Birds better.”
The first one nodded his head, as if something sage had just been stated.
“Fox wants seal.”
“Always wants seal. Never eats seal,” the third one complained.
“Today, fox eats seal,” the first one promised.
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Despite the translation, the conversation devolved into something barely coherent. Kizu turned his attention to the door. It was human sized, so the yetis would have difficulty chasing him, at the very least. Assuming he could open it. Then he stopped and stared up at the symbols marked over it. It took him a fair bit of time before he finally realized why they looked familiar. It was Primordial. The same writing used in the World Dungeon Atlas. And, once that clicked into place, he realized that he recognized the exact word as the same as on his atlas’ cover.
Of course Anata got dragged back down into the World Dungeon.
Once the door was within an arm’s reach, he cast out a second illusion, creating a bright glint back towards the cavern’s entrance. The yetis immediately took notice and two of them trotted away to go take a look. And the third one, busy staring after them, remained oblivious as Kizu pressed his shoulder against the stone door. With all his weight against it, he managed to open it just barely more than a handspan. He slipped through and winced as the door’s slam echoed.
Not wanting to wait for them to check out the noise, Kizu dropped his illusions and dashed away.
This area of the World Dungeon appeared completely different from the volcanic tubes that stretched beneath the academy. Instead, a layer of ice coated everything in sight, and it shimmered with cyan gleam. Ancient cobblestone roads stretched out beneath the ice. Still, Kizu found his footing solid as he ran, despite the icy passages.
After several minutes, he stopped to catch his breath. The metal of his leg brace might not be piercing through his skin anymore, but that didn’t stop the wound from reopening. On top of the fact the leg ached. But that was typical at this point. Especially considering the strain he’d put on it while stumbling through the tundra. Honestly, he was impressed it was holding up so well. Professor Kateshi must have put some stronger enchantments on the leg brace back when he’d gotten it tuned up for the cold.
Opening his pack, he rummaged through his things. He took a few minutes, studying the atlas. He knew where the academy was on it, but the tome had a couple thousand pages. Even if he was fluent in Primordial, finding his location in just a couple minutes would be near impossible. Still, if he wanted to get out of here after picking up Anata and Mort, knowing where to go to get out would be vital. He scanned the pages that indicated the more northern reaches of the dungeon, but nothing stuck out to him.
Of course, he also still had the bell he’d stolen from the spawn. Hypothetically, he could use it to command and reshape the dungeon at his whim. But the last time he had used it, not only had it been an incredibly painful experience, it also destroyed his enchanted earring. He wanted to avoid that if possible. It was a resource, but one he wanted to keep in reserve as a last resort.
The last quandary was what to do with his necklace. Monsters in the dungeon had an acute spellsense and likely already knew he was here just by the fact he held enchanted items. The necklace, when worn, would be able to stop them from sensing anything magical in a small radius around him. After a moment of indecision, he slid the metal chain around his neck. Professor Grove would pick up his trail again once he removed it. Assuming she didn’t think him dead.
Feeling more secure now, Kizu moved in the direction of Mort. Unable to rely on his atlas, he moved slowly to avoid any traps. Unfortunately, not slowly enough apparently.
His stomach sunk as he felt the stones beneath the ice under his feet give way ever so slightly. There was a click behind him. He dived forward, fearing a pit trap or darts. Instead, there was a much louder thump as a massive block of ice fell onto the space, he had stood milliseconds earlier.
Kizu sighed, relieved. That outcome could have gone worse.
Inside the massive cube, Kizu made out the frozen figures of people. Despite their gelid appearance, they also looked half decayed, with their bodies shriveled and deformed. They appeared have been frozen while in great pain, their mouths opened in silent screams.
Kizu took a step backward. The giant cube moved a bit forward. To his horror, Kizu realized that he currently stood on a slight slant. One that gradually increased, becoming more prominent as the corridor continued. While the cube started moving very slowly towards him, every second it accelerated. And Kizu saw no clear forks in the path to break the building momentum.
Kizu pressed his back against the cube and dug his heels into the dungeon floor. Once this cube gained speed, Kizu would end up squashed at the bottom of the corridor. Despite him doing his best to act as a wedge, the friction he created only slowed the massive ice cube’s advance, it didn’t stop it. He tried to create more ice using an elemental spell to freeze it in place, but it was as if the block of ice absorbed his spell.
Seeing as ice didn’t appear to work, Kizu went with the other end of the spectrum. He lit his hands ablaze and pressed them against the cube’s surface. Steam hissed and in less than a minute he found himself elbow deep in the icecube. Unless he lit his entire body on fire, he would only melt fist sized holes.
The smell of burning leather filled the air as friction heated his boots. He was now moving faster than he could feasibly run. Kizu moved to withdraw his arms and try melting handholds to climb over the cube.
One of the hands within the icecube, thawed from his melting, grabbed a hold of his wrist, ignoring the flames. A zombie. All the corpses frozen inside the cube turned out to be undead. Because what giant ice cube wouldn’t be complete without half a dozen frozen zombies?
Glancing over his shoulder, Kizu saw the wall at the end of the corridor that the cube was obviously designed to smash him into. Again, he tried to yank his hand free. But the zombie held steadfast.
Taking a calculated risk, Kizu decided to jump to the other side of the cube.
The moment he committed to the spell, he felt the pull of a beacon, confirming his fears. Kizu tried to fight it, using the techniques Roba had taught him. But disoriented and unfamiliar with where the beacon attempted to drag him off to, the beacon still knocked him off track. Grasping at anything to avoid the beacon, he seized a hold of his bond with Mort and used it as an anchor to circumnavigate the pull. Something he had never known was possible before.
Kizu smashed into a chamber nearby, toppling over a couch. Creatures all around him yipped their surprise as he face-planted on the carpet next to a warm fireplace.
Groaning, Kizu sat up, the zombie’s hand still dangling on his wrist like an accessory. Hundreds of foxes were scattered across the room, each of them now with arched backs and baring their teeth.
Anata stared at him from across the room with her mouth agape in shock. Two juvenile foxes flanked either side of her. A red fox with a white scarf to one side of her, a white arctic fox with a red scarf on the other. Behind Anata, stood the most beautiful woman Kizu had ever seen.
Her gorgeous hair, the reddish shade of the foxes, tumbled down her shoulders and overlapped a deep scarlet kimono. Instead of the misshapen skull structure of the other Kemon Kizu had met, this woman looked completely human, save for a pair of fox-like ears on top of her head and a large tail that flicked back and forth. Her red lips pursed in anger, she pointed at Kizu.
Kizu prepared himself. With a better understanding of where the beacon was located, he could better bypass it, but it was still a big risk. He still didn’t have a one hundred percent success rate against the academy’s beacon, let alone one he knew so little about. But he only needed a single successful jump to secure Anata, then he could use the bell as an escape. It was risky, but the best option he saw in front of him at the moment.
“Kill,” the fox woman ordered.
All hundred canines in the room lept into action at once. Kizu ducked and closed his eyes, visualizing where he needed to go.
“STOP!” Anata cried out, her voice ringing with terror.
And everyone stopped.