Author’s Note: The first real action scene appears. Please enjoy the chapter and comment about how it turned out. I am hoping to be better for the next time a scene like this shows up.
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Chapter 10
My sleep was happily uninterrupted, and I woke up the next morning feeling great. I had a small breakfast and then proceeded to take down my tent and pack it up. I took a glance toward the direction of the mountains. It was still a bit dark so they weren’t quite visible yet, though. The weather looked a bit cloudy today too. I hope that doesn’t mean anything. I have no idea what season this area would currently be in. The temperature at least has been pretty consistently around 21-24 Celsius, so I don’t think it’s summer here but I really have nothing to judge that by. Now I’m just wasting time, letting myself get distracted by thinking about the weather.
After a few minutes of stretching, I started moving. As the day got brighter, I finally caught sight of the mountain peaks again. I’m not sure how far away they are but probably at least 200 kilometers, so it will be a few hours until I reach them. I also need to start being on the lookout for water today. I’m about halfway through my current supply so it would be nice to top it back off. I’m hoping to find a river flowing down from the mountains as I get closer.
After a few hours of traveling and a few more run ins with those giant worms, I was forced to revise my 200 kilometers guess closer to 300 or more. Those mountains were pretty tall and they clearly ran far to the south way beyond what I could currently see. Thankfully as I got nearer the mountains I did find a river and I took about thirty minutes scanning it and then purifying and refilling my water containers. Now, I’m set for a full week.
Eventually, around midday, I reached what could be considered the foot of the mountain range. Now I had a decision to make. Do I go south around them or try to cross them? If I go by what Malcolm said and an estimate of my current location, I might not find an opening in the mountain range until maybe two more days of full travel. At least a day for sure though, I’m too far north to reach that trade route Malcolm mentioned that went east from the kingdom’s capital in only one day.
How long would it take to cross the mountains though? I’m not stupid enough to think that I’d easily be able to keep my current pace crossing them. I might have to slow down a lot, but usually mountain ranges aren’t as wide as they are long. The mountain range might only be 200 kilometers wide, which would mean I might be able to push through with just the time left available today. Of course it also might be much wider and I might take a few days to trudge through. Not to mention, usually much stronger beasts live in more treacherous areas like high up in mountain ranges. Decisions, decisions.
I decided to confer with my trusty AI subordinate… friend… sister? I wasn’t sure anymore how to classify her and it was getting confusing. “Lynn, what do you think of my available options here? I can either go south around the mountains taking a few days or cut across the mountain range east and hope that way is faster.” I sighed. “Honestly, it might be a wash either way since I don’t have a good grasp of the local geography.”
Lynn took a moment before replying. “I’d vote for just crossing the mountains Mistress. I think it will save you time in the long run. If Mistress goes south and takes that suggested route, you’ll run into other people, which will limit your ability to travel at your normal speeds without causing a stir.”
Oh, right. I had forgotten about that. That suggested route was the trade route between two nations, so of course it would be much busier than the empty country roads I had ran past. “Now that you brought that point up, I think the mountains definitely sound like the better option. Plus I bet there’s some fancy elaborate border crossing fortresses or something that I’d have to pass through. Might be easy but sounds like a hassle.”
Lynn giggled, “And Mistress always hates inconveniences like that if she can avoid them.”
“That’s right! Well, I won’t be able to avoid that many inconveniences once I get into the empire though. There will be a lot of things to take care of, like finding a way to get some kind of identification is going to be one of the more important ones.” I let out a sigh. So many future hassles to deal with. “I guess I’ll get started on this mountain hiking for now and leave thinking about those issues for later.”
As I had expected, making my way up and down the winding mountain trails drastically slowed down my speed and I was only traveling about thirty kilometers per hour now. The trails were definitely not as straightforward either and were winding around the mountains and slopes. Occasionally I’d find myself in small forested valleys at the lower points while the higher points of the trails were rough and jagged paths involving lots of careful maneuvering.
The other main aspect that slowed me down was that I started to run into a lot more beasts, and I mean a lot more. Some of them were even humanoid holding crude weapons which surprised me greatly. By the time I had finished off the third group of these goblins as they were called, and they did indeed look exactly like goblins from any fantasy story or game, I was fed up with the damn things. I decided keeping a low profile at the moment was worthless and switched my Subclass to Gunner and pulled out Whisperwind. My traveling speed improved immediately. Anytime beasts tried attacking from that point on, I quickly put an particle bolt through them and kept moving.
By the time it started getting dark I hadn’t yet found a good place to set up my tent. There’s just been too many beasts popping out all over. With all the winding, sloping paths I had followed, I had only traveled about 150 kilometers, so I don’t think I will be getting out of these mountains until tomorrow. With the fact that I couldn’t find a spot to set up camp and the distance traveled in my mind, I was somewhat tempted to push on and travel at night until I got to the other side of the range but I dismissed the idea. I might have excellent night vision, but traveling at dark in unknown mountains is still too much of a dumb risk. I’m currently at a higher elevation, I estimate maybe one to one and a half kilometers, and it’s going to be much colder tonight than the last few nights. I was definitely already feeling it too.
I spent the next hour looking for a good campsite and eventually stumbled upon a very small cave opening. The cave’s opening dimensions were only maybe 1.2 meters tall by one meter wide so even my small self had to crouch down a bit to enter. After doing so I found that the cave was decently deep, about six meters, and that it was luckily bigger at the end, just big enough for my tent to fit. The ground of the cave was pretty clean and there weren’t any obvious signs of anything living in it like bones, but there was always the chance that it’s owner was just out hunting. I decided to take the risk and set up my tent in the back of the cave.
After having a good dinner, drinking lots of water, and taking care of other business not to be mentioned, I set up my proximity alarm to warn me in case of anything above level 10 coming into the cave. I was feeling pretty tense even so and it took me a while before I finally fell asleep, grateful that my tent and bedroll at least kept out the cold. <((If you are reading this series on any website other than royalroad.com, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money and bought the story on Amazon or some other store, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
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My proximity alarm started making a racket, and I instantly rolled out of my bed roll and picked up Whisperwind that I had laid beside me as I slept. I peered out of the tent and saw a large, furry paw with very long claws sweep inside the cave and stop only meter or so from my tent. What the fuck is that!? The paw swept across the cave a few more times before withdrawing and then I saw a giant head try to poke it’s way inside. It looked like a very big cat, more specifically like a sabertooth tiger. But one that size? It can’t even fit its head into the cave, so the thing must be gigantic. I was tempted to shoot the head but I needed to unseal my tent first or I’d leave a hole in my nice tent. I crawled over to the flap and unsealed it. As if the tiger knew I had gotten closer, it reached in with its paw again but was still too short to reach me. Picking up my terminal with my left hand, I pointed it at the tiger’s paw, and hit the button for beast scanning.
Well, that’s not a very helpful or happy result! At least I know a general baseline to guess how tough that thing is now. If I’m right in my guess, it’s actually strong enough that it could break through my shield after a dozen or so blows. Of course, there’s no way I’m going to let it do that. I can’t use Requiem in these close quarters and tossing one of my plasma grenades is out because I might collapse the cave on me. It’s a Boss so my psi should have much less of an effect restraining it, but I guess I’ll test it out first to be sure. I swapped to Psion and Empath and reached out with my powers. The damn cat was boiling over with rage. I tried to lift and move it away but after a few moments of struggle, it shrugged off my psi and kept trying to kill me. I tried again but this time tried to knock its back legs out from under it. It worked and the beast temporarily lost balance, but it was only very temporary. I guess I’m really going to have to fight it, which means getting out of the cave first. It’s good that the landing outside of the cave was large, I wouldn’t want to fight a boss on one of those tiny narrow paths like I traveled along earlier in the day.
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I swapped my classes around again, this time going with Gunner and Psion. I hope everything goes well with this setup, because now I’m stuck with these classes for twelve hours thanks to the penalty for swapping classes too often in short succession. I’m going to be mainly using Whisperwind out there, but I quickly grabbed my two plasma knives out of my bag and attached their sheaths to the belt at my waist. I felt I was ready so I focused my psi again as I looked for precisely where it’s head was at. Once I had a good idea of where I was aiming, I concentrated as much psi as I could and then crouched down and got ready to move. I took a deep breath and then blasted all of the psi at one point, hitting the tiger right between the eyes and blowing it back away from the cave entrance.
As soon as I had let the psi loose, I burst out of the cave and got some distance from the tiger before turning to aim at it which gave me my first full look of the beast. I’d estimate the cat was around four meters tall and twelves meters long. I didn’t let the size faze me, I’d fought bigger prey than this, and opened fire with Whisperwind. Thanks to the Gunner Class being max level, my aim was more accurate and my shots have the added effect of being able to penetrate a certain percentage of enemy defense, so I concentrated my shots on the face of the dazed tiger. The tiger quickly reacted and jumped over the bolts after only a few dozen bolts hit it, sadly causing only small burns on its face. The tiger swiped at me with it’s claws, but I hopped backwards avoiding it. I had interrupted my shooting for a moment but I quickly restarted my fire with my aim now focused on the tiger’s left front ankle.
The tiger pounced forward at me. I slid to the side around it, but otherwise kept my aim steady on the same point. The tiger seemed to have pretty high defense, but eventually the shots would penetrate and cause some real damage, I hope. The tiger’s leap had brought it perilously close to the edge of the cliff of this area. Not really a surprise with how big the damn thing is. It didn’t seem bothered at all by the height though, and without missing a beat it bounded to its right and landed on the steep slope above the cave before again pouncing directly at me. Damn wall jumping! It was much faster this time and I hurriedly used my psi to aid my dodge to get out of the way of the beast.
After hitting the ground where I had been a moment before, the tiger’s front left leg buckled and it stumbled forward onto the ground before it began unsteadily picking itself back up. Good, at least that tells me all those particle bolts did something. Bad news though, is that with all the shots I’ve fired, Whisperwind is overheated and now useless for a few minutes, so it’s time to switch weapons. I slung the gun back over my shoulder and used my psi to pull the knives out of their sheaths. Their plasma glow shined brightly in the previously perfect darkness. Using my control, I immediately sent one of the knives straight into the tiger’s right eye and let it pierce as deep as I could get it without getting it stuck. Losing a knife inside a beast’s head would be annoying to recover. The other knife I sent into the tiger’s leg right where I had been concentrating fire. I immediately yanked both of the knives out, trying to do as much extra damage in the wounds as possible.
The tiger was now roaring in pain and frustration as its blood flowed out of its ruined eye. It was still unsteady on its legs thanks to all the bolts and knife wound, but it still tried to hop forward and slash me with its right paw. I dodged easily from the clumsy attack, but then had to hurriedly dive forward as it bent its body at an almost impossible angle toward me and tried to grab me in its jaws. I sent a psychic blow at its head to divert the attack even if only a bit. Even my high spec shield wouldn’t last long if I got caught in its mouth and chewed. As I dove, a screeching rang out from my shield signifying I hadn’t completely dodged the blow. After trying such a weird maneuver, the tiger lost balance and tumbled to its side nearly hitting me with its gigantic body. I didn’t want to be at risk if it rolled over so I put some distance between us again before I took advantage of this opening by sending both my knives straight into its head. After they sunk in, I’d pull them out and then sink them back in in a slightly different spot and then yank them out once again. While I did that I took out a plasma grenade to use just in case.
I kept repeating the process as the beast writhed around in pain. All of a sudden there was a wave of some odd energy that flowed out from the tiger. I stopped my attacks temporarily and gained some more distance to see what was going on. It almost seemed like a living shadow gouged the ground where I had just been. In light of this new development, I tossed my grenade at the tiger. I aimed for it to land at the head wounds I had already opened. It exploded right on target sending the waves of plasma directly into its skull. It was quite messy too, bits and pieces flew in the air, though the head was still mostly intact.
It seemed like this blow was finally too much for it and slowly it started moving less and less until it lay still. Even then though I didn’t let my guard down, some animals are smart enough to play dead even if it does seem unlikely with how brutalized this poor thing is now. Also, since this is a Boss, then there should be a notification when it’s actually dead. At least I hope there is one. After a minute of waiting, I was vindicated with a screen appearing before me.
*Congratulations, you have slain the Boss
I finally sat down on the ground to catch my breath and relax for a moment. I wondered if that final attack was some kind of magic. That energy felt really weird and nothing like psi would. It’s still dark out but I’m not really all that sleepy anymore after that action. There’s also the problem that this big hunk of fresh meat is definitely going to draw in lots of predators and scavengers to me. My cave is most definitely no longer a safe place to sleep. I headed back inside and packed up all my stuff. I checked my terminal which said I still had a few hours to go until daybreak. I don’t have much of a choice though, I’ll just need to start out early. I took out some snacks and ate them because with Ranger no longer being set, I’ll be burning my nutrients a lot faster today.
As I started to move away from the cave, I stopped and looked back at the carcass. I wonder, but usually pieces of big dangerous beasts are worth a lot and if you’re talking about a sabertooth tiger, wouldn’t the most valuable pieces be the two large fangs? I walked up to the head and examined the fangs in closer detail. I pulled back out one of my knives for some more light. I guess the fangs are why the name of the tiger was what it was because while the tiger was a light grey color the fangs were a deep black. The things are probably at least a meter long, too. Do I even have enough space to store these in my pack? I know I used some of the food supplies up, but not that much and there isn’t anything I can throw out to make room. I guess I’ll cut one out and see if it fits in the pack.
Holding my knife with my psi, I slowly dismantled the large fang from its socket and then pulled it out, also with my psi. I didn’t want to get covered in blood if I could help it. Definitely longer than a meter now. While I held it in the air, I cleaned it off by rubbing it against the fur coat before moving it to see if it would deposit into the bag. Luckily it vanished. I repeated the process with the other fang, but this one sadly wouldn’t go in. I’d have to leave it behind. I put it in the back of the small cave away from the rest of the body. I stored my knife back into my bag and then continued on my way east in the dark.