CHAPTER 183

Tom shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. The area smelt of copper and wet dog, though it was a muskier version than the Earth one. He took another deep breath, sucking in the thick air. His heart rate was dropping and the magical properties of Existentia were already restoring him to his uninjured baseline. His physical recovery was enhanced beyond Earth normal, just like in the Tutorial.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes and walked over towards the small hut. Picking a complex route as he did so to avoid stepping on the dead goats. He had to deviate in multiple spots and occasionally leap over some piled corpses to get to them. The hut had been dismantled by Keikain the moment the battle had been finished. Tom smiled when he caught sight of them. Thor and Sven were very much like him and appeared to have been doused in chunky orange paint.

Out of the others, Harry was the only one who had direct signs of combat. His entire back was painted probably from the goats dying while he crouched down and wrote out his rituals. His front also had orange patches on it and the fact he was cleaning his weapon implied he had also been active in the more physical parts of the fight.

Slowly, Tom picked his way towards the others. “That was fun.”

“If you say so.” Michael said. “I think the real question to ask is how much of each corpse should we be processing?” He waved at the heaps of dead creatures.

Tom glanced around. The bodies seemed to fill the landscape. It felt like far more than what had been contained in that first herd. “How’s there so many?”

“A second, then third pack descended mid-battle.” Michael explained. “There are literally hundreds of them. Processed completely. They’re worth five hundred each.”

Sven made a point of stalking around the man, studying him. “Next time instead of researching loot maybe participate a little more. You’re spotless.”

“I’m a healer.”

“And I’m a support ritualist.”

Michael raised his spear. While the blade at the end shone metallically, the wood directly underneath was wet with an orange tinge. “I fought.”

“How many?” Sven asked.

“Maybe ten.”

“Yep,” Clare agreed with a laugh. “He was ninjaing kills all battle. He would only ever step forward to put down the crippled ones.”

“I had a slight rank discrepancy to cross.” Michael complained. “It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying. I just wasn’t fast enough to hit the undamaged ones.”

“For christ sakes,” Keikain snapped. “How long will the butchering take?”

“To maximise credits,” Michael paused. “About ten minutes.”

“We’re not talking total are we?”

The healer shook his head.

“Per corpse?”

There was a nod.

“Absolutely not.” The earth mage snarled. “That’s the rest of the day. It’s too long. Other options?!”

“A quick job that nets three hundred, maybe two minutes each.”

Keikain paused thoughtfully. His eyes measuring the extent of the task. “That’s a hundred thousand credits… Over an hour’s work… Nope. We need it shorter.”

“An hour won’t make it difference.” Clare told him and she went over to the nearest corpse. “Eyes right.” She started cutting out the eyes.

“Eyes, heart, and hooves.” Michael said cheerfully, and then he too started to work.

Tom was surprised. After getting most of his payments including interest for the teleporter he had over a hundred fifty thousand credits left and the lure of ten thousand or so credits from these creatures was not that much but apparently the others were more credit starved than he was.

With an annoyed sigh, Keikain joined Clare in cutting up the corpses. Only Sven did not immediately drop to his hands and knees to help. They stood there next to each other, watching the efforts of the rest of their teams.

“That was fun.” Tom said.

“Yep, this is how I expected Existentia to go. Me and some new mates fighting monsters all over the place.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way for you.”

Sven waved the comment aside. “That’s not on you.”

Tom noticed the look he sent the other two of his bloodline… If looks could kill… and Tom guessed that in Existentia they very well could. That glare coming from the wrong person would literally have made Clare and Keikain explode. It contained such unconstrained fury that it made Tom shiver slightly, having observed it. Knowing more of the history now than he had a few days ago. Tom understood why. Sven felt like Clare had bullied him into making a poor decision.

The two scouts had set up on overwatch. Each on nearby hill tops to ensure that nothing could sneak up on them. Their long noisy battle could attract further attention not to mention the smell of blood that something might catch a whiff of.

Tom joined the workers. The faster they finished the sooner they could leave the area and avoid the risk the carnage represented. The eyes and hooves were relatively easy to hack off. The heart accessed from the stomach area was a more difficult proposition. He needed to put each goat onto its back. Cut into the centre of the stomach and then reach up at a forty-five degree angle in both directions to extract each of the hearts. Once butchered, they created piles of hooves, eyes and hearts and every five minutes whoever was fastest or needed the break the most would send the piles to the auction house.

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It was finally done. They looked at each other. All of them were covered in orange.

“Everlyn, we need a river to wash.” Michael sent across the communication link.

She laughed and then waved at them from the distant hill. “Yes… it certainly looks that way. Follow me. It’s a slight detour.”

“We don’t have TIME!”

“Keikain,” she interrupted immediately. “Stop being stupid. If you travel like you are, you’re going to be attracting enemies from everywhere.”

The earth mage shook like a dog and drops of orange splattered the ground in a circular area some over two metres from him. Despite the mess he made, it did very little to reduce the thick chunky blood covering him. “Fine.”

The detour was short, and Everlyn led them to a fast-flowing stream. It was only a few inches deep and completely icy and the orange blood was sticky and difficult to clean, and Tom was shivering by the time he was finished having spent a lot of the time futilely laying in the flow to get access to sufficient water to wash himself clean.

“Hurry up.”

“We’re going as fast as we can.” Michael reminded the earth mage tiredly. He was currently scrubbing Sven’s back with some wet grass to scour away some of the blood they had been unable to extract.

Tom finished and with a flick of his mind was able to take items into his inventory and then equip them again. The stragglers in the washing stake, Sven and Thor were less lucky. They started their march while still putting on their armour. The countryside continued to become more hilly, and they pushed right to the final touch of daylight before Everlyn led them to a hole in the hill. The entrance was larger than the other ones and when he got inside, Tom discovered the cave itself was wider, taller, and longer than the other spots they had slept. There was sufficient space to have slept five times their number.

There was also a dark shadow on the far wall, something that his senses told him was a narrow entrance that led deeper.

“This looks like it might connect to the underground.” Michael complained.

“Almost everything around is.” Everlyn told him. “We checked a handful of caves before this one and they were all the same.”

“Dangerous choice.” Michael told them. “Camping outside would have been safer.”

Everlyn laughed. “We’ve got two earth mages, both of them with earth movement capabilities. They can seal the way down.”

They put down their sleeping mats. Tom was annoyed. Three sleeping bags were on one side of the fireplace with the other seven all together on the other. Tom did not express his annoyance because he understood why. Everlyn fussed over him as the makeshift camp took shape and Toni started dinner.

Then Tom and Keikain worked together to cap off a five metre stretch of tunnel. Without them exploring, he couldn’t tell, but a smooth tunnel leading down… Well, the educated guess was that it would definitely link to the underground.

If they weren’t on the clock, it would be worth scouting to test its strength in this area. If you could find an area that was near your rank, underground exploration was definitely the best way to boost your strength. However, given their unique circumstances, they went with the smart choice and sealed it away so they wouldn’t even be tempted.

Tom was exhausted by the time they finished and gratefully accepted the food that Toni offered. It was the same that everyone without a cursed blood line was eating. He was starving, so he ate it and it was a hearty fare, though not as good as what Keikain seemed to produce.

He was completely drained, and waving off Everlyn he settled down to sleep. He knew he was supposed to be buying the teleport spell, but he didn’t have the energy. As he settled down, he noticed Keikain was cooking for himself, Clare and Sven. He hoped that whatever the earth mage was doing would extend the time they had available.

Such was his exhaustion. He didn’t even need to use any of his new tricks and he drifted off seamlessly.

Very much to his surprise Tom woke naturally with what must have been over eight hours of unbroken sleep. When he peeked by, opening his eyelids, it was still dark. With all of his senses, he assessed the place. There was no panicking. Others were still sleeping, and it was pretty clear that the first stirrings of the camp had woken him. Jingyi was standing soundlessly at the entrance, Everlyn was gone, Thor was awake and quietly oiling his armour. Keikain was getting the fireplace going to prepare to cook the morning meals. Given how long Keikain took to prepare meals with a buff, Tom knew it would be over half an hour before he was officially woken. While it was great that he was almost recovered Tom figured a few extra minute’s sleep would help him tonight when he returned to more actively using his gifts. He triggered his new skill Instant Sleep.

The world went black. He was asleep dreaming, and then suddenly he was swept up by True Dreaming.

He knew by feel that he was seeing everything through Everlyn’s senses. She was unconcerned and was in the midst of scouting the local area prior to the rest of them coming out. She loved this time of day. There was something about the pre-dawn stillness that appealed to her.

Her task was to scout the immediate surrounds of the cave and the first few minutes of their travel.

Tom’s heart caught when her eyes skimmed over a hill that was over three kilometres away. The senses that he had available exceeded the ones she had. That was a simple fact about how the True Dreaming worked. It gave him ‘the silent watcher’ access to extra stuff. The senses he experienced were beyond what Everlyn had available. His versions were maximised for the purpose of the dream and noticeably sharper. For example, he was not sure her conscious mind could even see the hill that his awareness with the advantage of the improved senses had pinged on.

Panic flared through Tom even as Everlyn continued on unconcerned.

His eyes hadn’t been deceiving him. His eidetic memory compared the hill between the first moment her eyes had flicked in its direction to the second.

There was no doubt.

It had grown in those ten seconds between the start and the vision and now. A hundred meter high hill growing by almost ten percent and flattening as well… The shape had changed.

Everlyn was unconcerned. Her heart beat perfectly steady and there was no adrenaline rushing through her system but there should have been.

Tom was just a passenger, but what he had seen was enough for him to panic.

It had grown.

Its shape had changed!

There was only so many explanations available.

His rising panic shattered the dream.

Tom snapped awake.

In his physical body, adrenaline rushed through him.

Everlyn had missed something! True Dreaming did not lie and did not bring trivial things to his attention.

That hill had been growing. This was not an opportunity. It was the opposite. They were in mortal danger.

Tom leapt to his feet.

“Keikain, back wall now,” he screamed even as he ran over to the spot they had closed the previous day. Tom’s magic flexed and he expended his mana pool, and the rock flowed as he undid the work they had done the previous night.

“Tom?” Keikain asked from where he was still cooking. “What do you mean?”

“Leave it! Breakfast doesn’t matter! Get over here.”

“Tom?” Michael questioned. “What are you doing. There might be monsters waiting behind the wall.”

He recalled how that hill had grown and size and imagined what type of monster could do that. He was certain that his hunch was right. “Are you really arguing with a person with a tier nine prophecy skill. Keikain! Now!” He snarled.

The earth mage finally dropped what he was doing and hurried over. Toni hesitantly stepped in to ensure nothing burned.

“Well, no, I guess, maybe.” Michael stuttered.

Keikain was next to him, funnelling his own magic. They punched a small gap through to the other room.

“What happened?” Harry asked. Everyone apart from Toni who was finishing off the cooking had retreated to be in position to fight anything that came through the new gap they were opening.

“You know the rock attack we saw out there… the spikes.”

“Of course,” Michael answered. “I pointed them out because they felt dangerous.”

“I dreamt of that. Outside. Right now, Evie’s eyes. Contact is imminent.”

The silence was absolute. Tom saw the expressions on the faces around him and Michael did not hesitate. He pulled out two small rocks and proceeded to smash them together. “That will summon the others back.”