We ran across the forest, and it wasn’t even intentional. Our bodies were moving almost like they were possessed. Possessed by the instinctual fear of a prey trying to escape its predator. Neither of us said a word during the entire time, the only sounds we were making were our steps, and heavy breathing. Occasionally, one of us would call out, just to point a better path or some track that could be from an animal. The last thing we needed was to find another monster wanting to attack us for whatever reason.
We ran so fast, and for so long that only after the bridge crossing the river came into view that we stopped. In all honesty, I don’t know how we were able to get this far in a single breath. We spent almost three hours running nonstop. Our clothes were drenched in sweat, and if it wasn’t for the adrenaline that was still coursing through our veins, we would’ve stopped sooner. But eventually, Pops collapsed on the soft ground, his hands were shaking as he reached out for his waterskin.
I forced my body to get closer to him and help him sit down properly so he could drink before crumbling by his side, my legs refusing to continue moving.
“Shit,” I groaned while helping pops drink water. His skull could be seen through his skin of how dehydrated he was. In all honesty, I shouldn’t look much better. The good thing was that we were close to the river and could easily refill our waterskins.
Pops coughed, tried to speak, but gave up and continued drinking, only after a couple of minutes we were in any condition to have a conversation.
“What the fuck?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know,” my eyes darted towards the path we took to get here. The System was kind enough to mark the location of the Hidden Horn Village with a large red skull. Like the marker that was created before for the hunter’s cave, “Have you ever seen anything like that?”
Rakeen shook his head, “I heard stories. Things about how the Eaters are born from these blisters on the ground. Or how an Eater’s home is a place that makes even the scariest of monsters look like a teddy bear. Honestly, I always assumed that to be stories. Just like Mothman or Big Foot. Something that had an underlying truth to it, but it was exaggerated due to fear.”
“I don’t think they were exaggerating. If that… thing appeared in just a couple of weeks. What would an old hive look like?” I turned to Pops, the sweat that dripped from my back growing cold just by thinking about it.
“I… I don’t know. Fuck, I didn’t even think about that,” Rakeen groaned.
Taking a few deep breaths, still feeling exhausted from all the running. I looked around, trying to see how much sunlight we still had. It was still bright out, and according to the System it was 5:12 P.M. Somehow, we made the journey that would take us two days in less than half of one. Well, not somehow. I knew the reason why we were able to do such a good time.
At least we should be able to reach Madison before sundown. And with {Body Regeneration} we shouldn’t be sore for long after running so much. But I wasn’t about to use the skill. Not right now, at least. What if something went wrong, and I needed my Energy? There was a part of me that still was worried monsters would appear, or even worse, an Eater. If that were to happen, I would have to fight, and then the skill would come in hand.
Wait, that is stupid. I have Eater blood. I can spend some Energy without having to worry about recovering it later, “Pops, how are you feeling? Any pain?”
“My legs are killing me, and so is my ankle. I think I sprained something,” Rakeen glanced down, there was a swollen area just above his feet, “Yeah, this is definitively sprained. Maybe even broken now that I look at it. I did slam my feet on a root a few miles [Kilometers] back.”
“Use {Body Regeneration}, you still have enough Energy for it, right?” I said, just as I triggered my own.
“Oh, good call. I didn’t think about that.”
“Talk with your system, have it focus on the ankle. I don’t know how hard it would be to fix a sprain.”
Pops looked at me with an odd expression, “You never had to use it to fix something in your bones?”
“Oddly enough, I don’t think so. When I got impaled, it was through the stomach, it didn’t break anything. So the skill only had to fix organs. Sure, it’s complex, but that’s all soft tissue.”
“Yeah… I suppose,” Pops frowned as he triggered the skill, “Does it feel strange when you use it too?”
“It does, everything gets tingly.”
“Yeah, like ants are crawling all over you,” Pops sighed.
“Wait, what? No, I don’t feel that. Sure, something is crawling on me, but it’s not big enough to be ants.”
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“I guess everyone feels that thing differently.”
I nodded and let him focus on recovering for a moment. Even if the System was dealing with most of the work, it was good for him to understand how things worked. After all, the more you used a skill, the better you got at it. Then again, the difference in feelings might be because of my title. My mind kept rushing to what happened. Being this close to an Eater hive didn’t sound like a good idea. The People of Madison should leave, the problem was convincing them of that. Especially considering how fast our trip was.
“What are we going to tell people?”
Pops turned to me, “What do you mean?”
“I mean about that hive, or nest. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t think the people from Madison are safe.”
“That’s true. But why can’t we just say what happened?”
I turned to Pops, “Do you think they will believe we made the trip there and back in two days? Without us revealing the existence of the System. I’m still not entirely sure I’m ready to share that with other people.”
“We will have to, eventually. But I don’t think this will be a problem. Sure we made amazing time, but we are both fit and we were running for our lives. I think even the hunters would agree that this is understandable. Especially considering how haggard we look,” Rakeen gave me a gentle smile, which was sort of terrifying in his current condition. His white dreadlocks were stuck to his skin due to all the sweat. His eyes were sunken, and he still breathed heavily, like someone who was struggling to just stay awake. Which was the case, but still. It wasn’t a good look.
“That’s fair. Maybe things will be ok. But we should skip the part about fighting a baby Eater. Right?”
Pops was staring into the distance with a frown. I assumed the System was telling him something, so I just waited until he finished his conversation. Eventually, he grumbled, “Well shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My ankle is broken. And according to the System, even if I were to spend all my Energy on {Body Regeneration} every day, it would still take around 500 casts before it’s fixed enough for me to walk around. From its calculation, it will still take a bit over a month for my ankle to be healed.”
“Wait, what? How is it going to take that long? Isn’t {Body Regeneration} working? Would I also take that long to heal from something like that,” I frowned.
[If Pops allows, System is able to gather the relevant data from Pop’s System and extrapolate how long would user Cassandra take to heal from the same wound.]
“Pops, Sys is saying it can check how long I would need to recover from that, too. Maybe since I’m already tier 1, and {Body Regeneration} gets stronger, it will be faster. If that’s the case, it’s better for you to focus on that. I just need your permission for it to access the data.”
“Sure, go for it,” Pops nodded.
[User needs to make physical contact with Pops in order to share that information. This is not a requirement due the information itself, but a safety measure due to the sensitive nature of said information.]
With a nod, I just touched Pop’s shoulder and waited.
[System waiting for permission from user Rakeen in order to receive information.]
[Permission granted.]
[Analyzing Data.]
[…]
[…]
[…]
[Data analyzed. If user Cassandra was to have the same wound, with a constant use of {Body Regeneration}, and considering that user is able to recover up to 15 points of Energy every day through meals. User would need to utilize the skill {Body Regeneration} approximately 120 times. This would roughly translate to between 8 and 9 days of using only {Body Regeneration} depending on how many times the skill is utilized. This does take into account users’ Title. As Enduring Heart increases user’s ability to recover. But this calculation does not take into consideration extra Energy acquired through other means such as consumption of Eater Blood. Without taking into consideration user’s Title, and solely the difference between tiers, user would still require approximately 240 uses of {Body Regeneration} to heal from the same wound.]
“Damn… is a bone that much harder to fix?” I asked.
“Is that a serious question?” Pops turned towards me.
“No, never mind,” turning back to the forest, I noticed something strange. A few of the trees in the distance looked… Off? But before I could understand what was going on, Pops called me.
“I hate to ask this. But do you think you can help me walk? It’s getting late and if we take too long, we might end up staying out here in the middle of the night.”
I nodded and glanced back to the forest, whatever was strange before seemed to be gone. With a shrug, I helped Pops up, but it quickly became clear that he wasn’t in any condition to walk. I remember him saying something about warm blood. How when you get hurt during an intense moment like a car crash or something, you might not even feel the pain until you stop. Honestly, I always imagined that was a lie, but thinking back about all the fighting I did during the past few weeks that made more sense.
Once Pops managed to stand up and hop a bit, I walked forward and kneeled, showing my back to him, “Come on. Let me carry you.”
“Cass, you are not going to take me all the way to Madison on your back.”
“Yes, I am. If you keep hopping like that, we will arrive way past sunset, not to mention it can make things even worse. So come on,” I said without even looking back. Pops knew I was right, but he still protested.
“I can handle walking a bit longer. Give me your staff so I can use it as a crutch.”
I glanced at my grandfather, that stubborn old man who refused to let others help him, “Are we doing this or am I carrying you over my shoulder until we get there?”
Pops opened his mouth, but quickly closed. Even before the System, I could just fling him over my bag and carry him out somewhere else. Now? Doing that would be easy. He begrudgingly accepted my offer and climbed onto my back. It was nice, for once I was the one giving him a piggyback ride instead of all the times he did that to me when I was little.
With him on my back and my staff on my pouch, it didn’t take long for us to reach Madison again. Thankfully, the road was pretty safe. Once we got there, people rushed over to help him and started asking about what had happened. We told everyone we would tell them, but first we needed water, food, and to check on his leg. Neither of us had enough energy, and I don’t mean the type used for skills to deal with all that right now. But leaving it for the morning wasn’t a good idea either. We had no idea what to expect about the hive, and the longer we waited, the bigger the chance we would have of something going wrong.