SS1 6.5 - Shutting Down Another Nest
For the whole night, I and Ariel did the night watch in turn. I took the second watch. It was from two to five in the morning. Initially, I thought I would need a med to help me awake, but turned out it was unnecessary. The fierce and bone freezing wind that entered the cave every a few minutes would keep me awake as long as I didn’t hide myself in sleeping bag.
It was long and cold night watch, but I managed to preserve to the end. Then, exactly at 5:00 am I heard a movement from HMV’s rear section.
“Morning,” I said as Ariel came out of her sleeping bag and sat up. “You can use the bathroom first.”
“Mhm,” Ariel weakly nodded.
After rolling and storing her sleeping bag in her inventory, she then went to the bathroom. Other than using it to take a bath and brush our teeth, we also used the bathroom as toilet. Of course, it was not regular toilet.
The toilet we used was a one-time-used wide cardboard filled with low-quality synthetic cotton and ash. We could use it for both of liquid and solid biological waste. Then, we folded and tightly tied it before storing it in our inventory.
Throughout my life, the only time I carried around my own shit was when I attended tracking course, on a simulation of counter tracking deep inside hostile territory. I thought I would never do it again but life was full of surprise.
Then, after we were done with our morning private routine, we went to make a breakfast. As I took out the portable electric stove from HMV’s compact compartment I said, “We can cook without fire by using this stove.”
“Can we use it to cook scramble egg?” Ariel asked as she curiously looked at the stove in my hands.
“We can.”
“Can Ariel make it for us?”
“Are you saying you want to cook scramble egg for our breakfast?”
“Mhm.”
After a smile I said, “Okay.”
Wasting no time I taught Ariel how to connect the electric stove to APU. After that, it was just regular cooking and I let Ariel to fully handle it. Coincidently, her way to make scramble egg was similar like mine. She used low heat and after putting the 42 cm non-sticky frying pan on top of the stove, she added two table spoons of olive oil and then cracked the eggs on it. I gave her ten chicken eggs and asked her to use them all.
After that, she waited until the egg white started to solidify before adding a pinch of salt, and then gently stirred the whole pan. Once the yolk fully cooked, she divided the hard scramble egg to two plates. Then, we enjoyed it with tomato ketchup. As for the drink, I bought two boxes of apple juice from a convenience store in Osaka.
“This scramble egg is very good,” I said after munching the first spoonful of Ariel’s scramble egg.
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“Ariel often makes it,” Ariel happily said.
“No wonder.”
“But usually Ariel only use one egg.”
“I see.”
Ariel then turned her gaze to the APU and the compact compartment next to it. “When rain pours down, do we have to cover the APU and the compartment?”
“No,” I casually replied. “The two uses rain-proof compartment. As long as you close it properly, rain won’t be a problem.”
“I see.”
“Berg, can Ariel buy frying pan, stove, and other cooking utensil like yours?”
“Do you want to have your own cooking utensil?”
“Mhm.”
I gave my apple juice a sip before saying, “I will buy it for you using our operational fund, but for the stove let’s buy a portable gas stove.”
“Okay,” Ariel happily said. “And thank you.”
With ease we then wiped out the scramble egg to the last bit. After that, we brushed our teeth and then had tactical meeting for today hunt.
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“Today,” I casually opened the meeting. “Let’s carry out a low risk hunt before retreating to RV.”
“Let’s shutting down another nest” Ariel asked while giving me an expectant gaze.
“It will take too much time to find another nest.”
“But we have a new nest very close to our position,” Ariel nonchalantly said.
Big question mark instantly popped up in my forehead. “How close?”
Wasting no time Ariel used her tablet to show the map around Sierra Lodge. Then, she pointed her index finger at a gorge about 700 meters south of our position. “Here.”
“That’s very close to our position,” I said as I got a chill in my nape.
“Mhm.” Ariel casually gave me a nod.
“That’s very dangerous you know,” I said as I tried to calm my shock. “To have a resting spot so close with a nest.”
“It is.” Ariel gave me another nod. “However, low-rank monster can’t track well under the fog.”
“What if they accidentally discover us?”
“We will kill some and then leave Sidra Forest.”
“Are you sure we can escape their pursuit?”
“Mhm.” Ariel confidently nodded.
“I see.”
We were fully safe and sound up to this moment, so I guessed Ariel’s confidence was not baseless.
“Do you know how many sentry we have to face?”
“If they don’t place new one, they have one on top of the gorge and another one on the nest entrance.”
“Only two, and so close with the nest entrance?”
“It seems their number is still too little to expand their security network.”
“I see.” After taking a deep breath I decided. “Let’s hit this nest. After eliminating the sentries, we will ambush the rest using explosive.”
“Mhm.”
Wasting no time I prepared 20 packages of IED made of 81 mm mortar rounds and 2G dumb phone. After that we packed our things.
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We left Sierra Lodge at 8:20 and the fog was still blanketing the area. The visibility was almost zero, but Ariel could firmly confirm we had no orc or goblin in the base of the cliff. I had no choice other than to trust her. Without delay, I set up the rope ladder I made yesterday.
Then, I scaled down the cliff while Ariel covered me using her bow. I took each step super carefully and it felt like forever before my feet reached the base of the cliff.
After that Ariel packed the rope ladder and scaled down the cliff without a rope. Unlike me, she arrived at the base of the cliff in matter of seconds and without making a sound. She was like mini Spiderman.
And, never did I imagine that scaling down from Sierra Lodge was the hardest part of today hunt, as after that we eliminated the sentries in nearby nest like a walk in the park. When doing silent killing under the fog, Ariel didn’t need my assistance. She instead insisted I shouldn’t take part on it. She worried I would mistakenly shoot her.
Honestly, it hurt my feeling a bit but I managed to shut my mouth and followed Ariel’s suggestion. And so, Ariel went for about an hour, leaving me behind in a high ground, and then came back to lead me to the nest entrance.
“How many bodies we have?” I asked while peeking inside the nest.
“Five orc and nine goblins,” Ariel casually replied.
“Let’s use them all.”
“Okay.”
As usual, while I setting up the kill zone, Ariel watched my back. After that, everything went smoothly. I used a single high-explosive RPG round to wake up the sleeping monster, and then killed them all using the IED.
And just like that, we received another 300.000 mollar from shutting down a nest in second day of our hunt. We then returned to the RV where we supposed to regroup with Jie Ten Bie.
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