Mikayla panted as she chased Keldryn up a ridge. “Hurry up!” he called down to her from the crest. “Imagine a Cementodile is nipping at your heels!”
“I don’t know what that is!” A deep breath. “But the name alone terrifies me!” A wheeze. “Also, we should have a rule!” Huffing and puffing. “Take a break after fighting a Kaiju!” Indeed, they had just fought and killed a rodent that could have carried Mikayla’s car as a backpack.
“We can’t break every time we kill an overgrown rat, or we’ll never get anywhere,” Keldryn shook his head as he looked back down the slope at her. “I’m gonna run up to that peak and Scan the area. Keep going, I’ll catch up,”
Before Mikayla could respond, he vanished in a blur of fluffy tail. She could only groan and keep going.
It had been four days since they killed the Heart-Herb Armadillo. They’d spent the first two of those creeping through the Burrow Zone. After escaping that territory, they’d gone two days without any encounters at all. Which had prompted the ranger to encourage Mikayla to develop her less combative skills, such as running and parkour, as well as continuing to work on the firestarting Technique. Apparently there were literal Techniques that could let you run faster and consume less stamina, which partly explained why he was so much more fit than her. Unfortunately, he’d still had no luck trying to pass any of them on.
Mikayla still wasn’t sure whether she was a bad student or Keldryn was a bad teacher, but she still didn’t have a single Technique to her name except for the Faulty-rank Circulation of Stamina.
Several painful minutes later, she finally crested the ridge, and a couple more minutes of crossing the thankfully flat strip at the apex of the mountain led to her looking out at the valley below.
It was a massive bowl of green, one that reached all the way to the horizon. The mountains continued in either direction as far as she could see. It was a beautiful panorama of nature, one that made her appreciate and dread just how massive and awe-inspiring this part of the world was, for having been so totally dominated by nature.
And then there was the beached ocean liner ruining her view.
(If anyone asked, Mikayla had absolutely stopped and appreciated the natural vista and not immediately gawked at the angular edifice of rusted metal that was dominating the valley.)
It had come to rest against the side of a hill, or perhaps the force of its impact had created the hill. What she recognised as shipping containers had spilled out and formed haphazard piles amidst a massive furrow. The hulk itself didn’t look too bad, as though it had only landed in the region recently; vines were starting to creep up its length, but the paint had only barely chipped and she couldn’t see much in the way of rust.
“Was that thing brought here by a spatial anomaly, like me?” she mused.
Keldryn appeared next to her. “I was thinking the same thing,”
“Jesus! Don’t startle me like that,” Mikayla growled.
“Do you know what that is?” He ignored her complaint.
“Looks like a container ship to me. One of the really big ones built to go across the Pacific or Atlantic,”
“So it’s from your world? Huh. It’s a good thing you’re here with me, then,”
“What? Why?”
“I’m a ranger. Documenting and recovering the stuff that comes out of spatial anomalies is part of my job. And this has to be new. Something that big would have been marked on the maps, had it been here last time someone checked this patrol route. Sorry, but we’re gonna have to take a detour and go investigate that ‘container ship’,”
Mikayla grumbled, but nodded. “I guess that’s alright. Not as though I’ve got any pressing engagements. And if that thing really is from my world . .” She glanced at the pockets of her coat, where the one thing she’d managed to hold on to from home resided; her dead phone and its charging cable. If that ship had a generator, or a battery, or anything of the sort, she could charge her phone. Even if there was no cell service or internet in the Kaiju Coast, she’d be able to take pictures and make notes. “Yeah. Yeah! Let’s go!”
Keldryn quirked an eyebrow as they set off down the slope. “I’ve never seen you that excited. What’s the matter?”
“If there’s a generator on that boat, I might be able to charge my phone!” she summarised.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“. . okay? What’s a ‘fohn’?”
“It’s . .” Mikayla paused. How in the hell could she explain the concept of a modern mobile phone to what was basically a forestman from medieval times? She paused to gather her thoughts for a moment, then launched into it. “It’s a device that does lots of useful things, like create and store pictures, send instant messages around the world, record my thoughts, track my location on a map, and lots more besides. It runs on a special type of lightning mana called electricity, but I’ve run out of that and can’t make more on my own. I’m hoping there’ll be some on that ship!”
“Oh, huh. That does sound useful,” Keldryn said.
“The most important part, though, is that I’d finally be able to take notes again. I’ve been learning so much about this world and doing my best to commit it all to memory, but having my phone will let me write it all down and make sure I don’t forget anything,”
“You realise, of course, that a structure that big is practically begging for a Kaiju to turn it into a den,”
Mikayla’s enthusiasm visibly diminished at the thought. She rolled her eyes “Fine. Whatever. We’ll kill another Kaiju if we have to,”
Over the course of the next two hours, they made their way down the hillside. As they went, Mikayla kept practicing with the mana in her right hand, still trying to replicate the firestarting Technique. Her practice as they travelled had paid off, and she’d managed to perform the three parts of the Technique separately. She could now reliably throw tiny sparks from her fingers, stoke a campfire by feeding it her mana, and had even tested the fireproofing by waving her hand through the flames and feeling nothing more than a warm breeze.
Any and all of those were incredible on their own, yet she hadn’t managed to combine them into a full-blown power to throw fireballs just yet. But she wanted to - she needed to seize this power as her own. She would be the master of fire.
The fireproofing was the hardest part, it involved filling her skin with Mana that was sculpted into a certain texture of sorts. A repeating pattern of crests and grooves filling her flesh. Like wiggling one’s ears, it was a learned skill that she suspected would become instinctive with enough practice, but keeping it going drained her Mana so she doubted the day would ever come when she was just completely immune to fire. Then there was channeling the ‘fuel’ through her thumb and feeding it into the point where her first two fingers were conjuring the sparks. Doing all three at once required a phenomenal capacity to multitask, and had driven her to put the two points she’d gained from killing the Heart-Herb Armadillo into Intelligence in the hope that strengthening her wits would make the difference. Unfortunately, it hadn’t.
[INTELLIGENCE: 16]
Keldryn had given her the ‘you’re an idiot’ look when she confessed that impulsive choice, and she was resolved to put her next few levels into Strength and Dexterity to bring her weakest stats up to par.
“Um. Mikayla,” Keldryn sounded hesitant, which startled her out of her trance of practice and had her looking up. “Is this sort of thing normal in your world?”
They had left the trees behind, and were staring at a haphazard stack of colourful metal storage containers. The impact had scattered the container ship’s cargo across its surroundings, creating a maze of corrugated steel boxes. Several of them had ruptured, their contents strewn across the forest floor.
“Yeah. It’s all a mess, but some of this looks really familiar,” Mikayla left him behind, wandering through the refuse of her civilisation.
A soggy pile of cardboard boxes had spilled into the dirt, each containing a blender. The next box along had ironing boards and laundry racks. Out of curiosity, she undid the latch on a container that had remained sealed and pulled the doors open, peering inside. A wall of stacked bags of fertiliser greeted her.
Moving over to the next cluster of metal boxes, she found a pile of stuffed animals leaking out of a ruptured door. “Aww, hehe. Look, Keldryn! Soft toys!”
“These are toys? Really?” Keldryn frowned, the distaste in his voice obvious.
“Yeah? You give them to kids to cuddle when they sleep. What’s wrong with stuffed animals?” Mikayla frowned, picking up and cuddling a plush kitten.
“They look like little Kaijus,” he pointed out.
“. . oh right,” She paused, and fished out a small fox made of felt. “Even this one?”
“There are fox Kaijus too. And yes, it’s awkward to know that you’re related, however distantly, to a snarling monster that wants to eat you,” His ears drooped, betraying his guarded expression.
“Man, this world is just depressing sometimes,” Mikayla shook her head, then went to continue exploring.
She passed an upended and crushed truck, and a large container full of coal. Sitting by itself was a pallet stacked high with copies of Elon Musk’s autobiography, which was already being reclaimed by nature. Mikayla glanced at them and wrinkled her nose. “If any book ever deserved to be eaten by a Kaiju,”
“What was that?” Keldryn finally caught up with her.
“Apparently this boat carried trash too,” Mikayla looked around again with wistfulness in her gaze. “Hey, how much space do you have in your bag?”
“Not enough to take any of these vessels, but if you wanted to grab a few souvenirs I can make some room,” Keldryn couldn’t imagine what it was like for Mikayla to be to far away from everything that she’d ever known, but it wasn’t hard to guess that salvaging some of these items that reminded her of home might bring her some comfort. There was still plenty of space in his bag, so there was no reason to make a fuss about it.
“Yeah, I think I’d like that. Thanks!” She beamed at him, then rushed back to the pile of stuffed animals.
Who cared if the rest of this world thought they looked like tiny Kaijus? They were soft and huggable, and she felt like she was going to need that sooner than later.