104. Finals Are... Out of Service (6)
104. Finals Are... Out of Service (6)
"Sif. Wake up."
"Em, embezzlement... I don't know anything about that, meow..."
Did she dream about money even in her sleep? I felt a little bad waking her when she was sleeping so well, but work had to be done. I gently pinched Sif's soft cheek.
"Wake up."
"Mreow?!"
Nothing woke someone up like the right amount of pain. I turned away from Sif, who clutched her cheek with tears in her eyes, and walked toward the triggered trap.
What had it caught, I wondered.
An animal?
It was too quiet for an animal, and I hadn't seen any animals while setting up camp, the traps, or the drainage channels.
A person?
If it were a person, wouldn't I have heard a scream by now? At the very least, I should've heard a human voice. But whatever had been caught in the trap hadn't even screamed; it had only made the sound of tearing flesh.
...Which meant the only thing left was a monster.
Hearing flesh tear at least meant it was probably alive. Unless...
"...Huh. I think the genre's wrong."
Why was that here?
I never expected to see the tentacle mass from the uninhabited island dungeon again in a place like this.
It was a little different from that one, but the form—a giant eye like a beholder with countless tentacles attached—was enough to remind me of the tentacles from the uninhabited island dungeon. No, the more I looked, the more it seemed like a relative of that thing.
"Yohan, wh-what got caught? Why do you look like that?"
"An island where a thing like that roams freely..."
Impaled on the densely laid sharp spikes, the thing writhed. What in the world was it? Just looking at it gave me a headache. I wanted to sleep.
Sleepy. Sleepy. Sleepy. Sleepy.
"...Yohan?"
"...I feel dizzy."
A life-form beyond description flailed its limbs, trying to escape the pit.
Not just its limbs—its head, too.
"...What exactly did you build?"
"What is it that you..."
A humanoid shape. But where a head should have been, there was no head—instead, a grotesque creature was attached. It resembled the creatures from horror games I used to see often on internet streams, before I transmigrated. I could state with certainty that I had never seen a life-form like this in Survival Academy.
I heard a gasp beside me. Before it could become a scream, I covered Sif's mouth. The monster had probably fallen into the trap because it lacked intelligence, but there was unlikely to be only one. Keeping quiet was the wiser choice.
"Sif. Have you ever seen a monster like that?"
"N-no... never."
A monster with a bizarre tentacled creature attached where its head should have been. My mind naturally supplied the worst possibility: creatures that abandoned one host and lunged at another, a common sight in games and films.
The terrifying scene that filled my head put me in a fantastic mood.
Wrong genre. Completely wrong genre.
In a frantic daze, I poured water from the canteen at my waist over my head. The water was precious, but I needed to cool my head right now. As the cold water dripped from my hair, my mind felt just a little clearer.
"The smoke you saw to the north might've been caused by these things."
"...They don't really seem like they could start a fire..."
"We can't be sure it's only them."
There was also the possibility of evolved forms or variants. Nor could we conclude that their intelligence was low. The information gained from the next reconnaissance would be the key to conquering this rift.
"Sif. Don't ever get close to one of those things."
"Even if you didn't say so, I'd never get close."
I brushed off Sif's answer and immediately grabbed my shovel and pack. We'd leave in the morning, but I needed extra work to guarantee our safety against attacks from those monsters.
"Sif. How's your night vision?"
"Of course. I doubt any race sees better in the dark than we do."
"I'll put you on watch. If you see those monsters approaching, let me know immediately."
"Got it."
At her unusually serious tone, I glanced at Sif. She nodded with a rare, grave expression. She appeared to be taking the watch seriously, so I began planning how to reinforce the camp.
I walked to the center of the camp, drove my shovel into the ground, and used a Skill.
"Craft."
Walls, walls, walls, walls. Curved walls rose one after another around the camp's perimeter. The structure had no exit, but I could add one later. I used my Skills repeatedly to build a fortress that most monsters couldn't breach.
Using my Skills, I hauled in earth, processed entire boulders into wall materials, and repeatedly redesigned the defenses. By the end, I had built something that could no longer be called a camp. When I finished the fortress and collapsed to the ground, the sun was already dyeing the island yellow.
"Here, water."
"Thank you."
I gulped down the water Sif handed me. With no easy way to replenish our drinking water, consuming so much at once bordered on wasteful, but in the worst case I could dig a well and draw groundwater. I stoppered the nearly empty canteen and handed it back.
"I can't believe a fortress like this was made in just a few hours..."
"And because of that, I feel like I'm going to die of exhaustion."
"What're we doing about recon?"
"...We'll eat breakfast, rest a little, then head out. And the recon—what happened with that?"
"...Around five similar-looking things got caught in the traps. One of them kept moving even after its torso was smashed to pieces..."
As she spoke, Sif shuddered as though merely remembering the sight horrified her. I stared at her for a moment, then looked up at the sky.
The weather was so sunny it was hard to believe those horrifying monsters existed.
"...Why are creatures like that popping out, anyway?"
True Ending or not, could this place at least have been filled with creatures from the game? Why throw in a grotesque life-form that looked like some goddamn mass of spirals instead? What hidden truth of this world had produced things like that? My thoughts grew tangled.
On the uninhabited island, I'd assumed they belonged to a themed dungeon. Why had I encountered them again? My chest felt tight. I pulled jerky from my pack and bit into it. I'd planned on a hearty breakfast, but the sight had killed my appetite.
"...Yohan, what are we doing about recon? You look exhausted. Let's go tomorrow—"
"I'll go after a short rest."
"...You okay?"
"This isn't enough to wear me out. I'm only tired. A little sleep will fix that, so don't worry."
"Just don't overdo it, okay?"
"I know."
I closed my eyes and pushed every last thought out of my head.
I had to. Only then...
-----------------------
"Ugh, I feel sick. Why does it have a human body...?"
"There might've been some kind of cult ritual on this island."
"Just imagining it is horrifying..."
As the sun began to set, we continued north, splitting open the heads of the grotesque creatures that occasionally approached us. We'd packed only the bare minimum, so we moved quickly.
"Sif. How much farther?"
"Not much!"
"So there's a long way to go."
Try as I might, I couldn't think positively. I crushed the still-wriggling tentacled head under my boot and quickened my pace. I wanted to escape this revolting island as soon as possible. Fortunately, the monsters grew fewer as we approached our destination.
It was a strange phenomenon, but I tried not to pay it any mind.
My head hurt too much to care about even that.
"Is this it?"
Smoke...
"...This is no campfire."
A horrific yet strangely familiar sight shot through my optic nerves and lodged in my brain.
"!()@#*#$(!*&$(*$!!!"
A person was burning.
Tied to a tree.
It was what people called a burning at the stake.
The human, already half-burned and nearly impossible to recognize, screamed as if not yet dead. What was this? What in the world was this rift trying to show, to present such a horrific sight?
"Yohan..."
"Don't speak."
My eyes swept the scene. Dozens of grotesque creatures surrounded the stake, spreading their arms and circling it as though performing a dance. The sight was bizarre enough to make a timid person faint on the spot.
After a long time choosing my words, I let out a sigh and muttered to myself.
"...I think we need to clear this as soon as possible."
If we stayed in a place like this too long, we'd go insane.
It was a warning from the intuition that had helped me walk a tightrope for ten years.
"Sif. First, let's head back to camp-"
"Let go of me! Let go, I said!"
A scream?
I whipped my head toward the sound. In that direction, I could barely make out someone being dragged toward the stake.
A flash of blue amid the dark red.
"Yohan, that..."
"This is insane."
Was I going to save them or abandon them?
The choice was already decided.
"Sif. While I draw their attention, rescue the hostage. Can you do it?"
"Ugh, I should be getting double hazard pay for this..."
"I'll add a generous bonus, so just get moving."
"Really? You're not lying? I'll definitely bring them back!"
Because the person screaming was Lady Laperinne.