Chapter 64

  Entering A Rift

  Fresh air.

  The scent of ozone, and morning dew will forever be my first impression upon entering the rift. Particularly as my vision was momentarily darkened upon entering, leaving my mind to go wild as I instantly used my other senses to help take over.

  That was how my second clear sensation was of a long slender hand grabbing my arm and pulling me from the entry way. For a moment I want to resist, but that’s when my vision is filled with a giant blue screen, that quickly begins to fade away.

  Failing blue screen.

  “Calm down, your first time is always the hardest,” Madame Voyou speaks, her words filled with a light blue mana that I can feel impacting her words. Odd that I can still feel her magic at work. That or maybe it is a bit of my Musical Resonance blending in with my other senses to allow me to still recognize the use of her mana.

  Blinking my eyes a few times, the bright fading glow of the status screen leaves me, allowing my eyes to finally be able to adjust to the world around me. A world that smelt far fresher than it appeared. For what I saw was the thick layer of ground fog covering a land that looked like it should be dying. Yet to me, it smelled like home.

  “Eww, that smell,” Markan hissed as he already pulled up a bandana to cover the lower part of his face and apparently act as a filter. Looking at him and his childlike antics, I paused, trying to understand exactly what was wrong here. Hearing him speak the others while quiet did nod in agreement.

  Looking at everyone’s expressions, I suddenly had the concern that I was the odd woman out, as I didn’t mind this smell at all. It was only after a moment that I realized it almost smelled like home, or like the DiVoratore estate, which my mind had now equated to the smell of home after so long.

  At their reactions, I suddenly had that strange thought that everyone would have under such a revelation, do I stink?

  I almost think about leaning down and trying to do a subtle pit check, but get stopped. Also, a quick use of Trash on my body, helps me feel a bit at ease with my possible smells. There are of course just two issues that arise from my sudden and spontaneous use of my Trash Skill in such a way. First, I am still out of regular mana, that or at the very least I mentally knew the volume of smells I wanted to remove from my body were more than my normally regenerated mana could sustain. Particularly after just defeating a Shadow Guardian, whatever that is.

  Just as I had earlier after the encounter with the Shadow Guardian, I instinctively active my Trash Skill with Life mana. Something that should be nearly impossible, other than it is part of what my Unique Class Culmen Vitae* allows. First all my Skills used in such a way are increased, then all my Skills that require mana can be activated with Life mana.

  While this does not change the base orientation of the Skill, as my Trash Skill is still primarily an Earth attuned Skill. I can see that activating Trash with Life mana does have a secondary effect on the mana being used, and its effect. This led me to my second major finding related to using my altered Trash Skill in a Spirit rift. Namely that my magic had a rotting effect. Or maybe a cleansing effect would be better to describe the actions of what happened around me.

  For the rising ground fog that had been clinging to all of us suddenly dispersed away from me. Suddenly I went from being surrounded by fog that was so dense that I couldn’t see where I was placing my feet. To seeing a wide opened ground that was covered in dried and withered brown grass shoots.

  “Oh!”

  Everyone cried out in shock at my sudden dispersal of the thick smoke.

  Coming closer to me, Madame Voyou asked the question that everyone no doubt was asking seeing the ring of smoke around me. A ring that was even now slowly fading back in and trying to refill the open ground, the same way water would when trying to fill a void.

  “What did you do?” Hearing her question, I responded.

  “I used Trash to try to get rid of the smell around me,” I responded.

  “You can do that?” Markan questioned excitedly as he came over and lowered his face covering to take in a deep breath.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “AHHH,” Markan exclaimed after taking a deep clean lungful of air.

  “Let me try,” Mr. Karl added coming into the shrinking circle and knocking me forward as he too took in a deep breath, only to let out a contended sigh of relief.

  “Oh, I knew taking this degenerate along was for the best,” Mr. Karl exclaimed, patting me on the shoulder and seeming to be overly happy that he came. Turning back to look at him, I was slightly shocked to see a glimmer of light from over his shoulder. Taking a step to my left, his right, I looked and saw that he had apparently unsheathed a battle axe that had been strapped to his large back the entire time. Thinking back to when he piggy-back carried Madame Voyou I almost wondered how she wasn’t hurt, but then I saw the clear markings of thick leather straps that were now dangling from his waistband.

  Seeing the battle axe, it was clear that everyone had apparently come armed and ready to take on the monsters of this rift. Which again, reminded me, “what types of monsters can we expect to see in a rift?”

  “The types of animals that you can see are solely dependent upon the type of rift you enter. This is marshland rift, meaning we can likely expect to see rodents, serpents, spiders, and if we start to find a source of water, we can likely expect larger monsters from the Crocodylia order of creatures,” Mr. Karl responded. Seeing his large and imposing form, it is hard to believe that such a man is actually a teacher at heart. At least it is normally hard, until he pulls out phrases like the Crocodylia order of creatures, at which point you remember that he is in fact a teacher through and through. Despite his large and imposing gentle nature.

  “Don’t worry, if we do find the water, Death Machine here has the ultimate counter for it,” Markan stated.

  “Counter for water?” I asked trying to understand exactly what Markan was hinting at.

  “Yes, you do know that noises travel farther underwater right?” Mr. Karl replied. Hearing his comment, I began to nod and realized that a Skald, that is an advanced variant of a Bard, might be a truly unique powerhouse against water-based creatures. Particularly while trying to fight monsters within the water, which it seemed that everyone here was more than relaxed at the idea of gator wrestling on a Saturday morning. Was a Skald that powerful? I guess we would find out.

  Seeing their confidence in Death Machine, aka Madame Voyou, I too felt a bit relaxed.

  “Apprentice, come over here,” Mr. Yi called out. Mr. Yi had been our advanced scout, but he was also the one with the odd golden bloodline powers that made his eyes glow currently. “Use your cloud clearing Skill here.”

  As Mr. Yi spoke, his tongue began to grow and glow a deep golden color. This was what he used to create the equivalent of molds of the Death Eater’s feet. Realizing the request, I once again cast my altered variant of Trash.

  Whoosh.

  Once again, the fog around us cleared up, revealing the ground and a set of boney feet that were clearly visible in the soft peat moss of the land. Footsteps that were quickly being filled in by the falling golden light of mana.

  “Take these for comparisons, to show we were tracking the correct one,” Madame Voyou stated to Markan who was already moving forward to grab an earthen mold of the footprints. Footprints that Mr. Karl would no doubt carry again, as he pulled of his thick backpack.

  Only after seeing the now empty pack, I wondered what happened to the first set, but I assumed that went to Madame Bloom who was right now standing overwatch outside the rift.

  “We take a set of Death Eater’s footprints from inside the rift, then do a forensic comparison of the ones found outside the rift, and those found inside. Then it is our job to find out where the Death Eater came from initially, and to first seal off that avenue of approach, before we go and close this rift,” Madame Voyou spoke, as she did I began to understand the complex details of this operation. We weren’t just trying to stop this particularly instance, but we were trying to stop future instances like this from happening as well.

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone about the Death Eater that is still at large?” I ask.

  “Your master is already on it, I have no doubt that our original samples are already being sent to the right authorities as we speak,” there was a slight pause, before Madame Voyou began, “that is part of why having a leader like Madame Bloom, a provincial house leader of one of the major clans is important, as it helps give your findings credibility that might otherwise be dismissed.”

  At that comment, I realized that once again politics sadly played a major part in this world.

  “There,” Markan exclaimed as he picked up the second solidified slab of Death Eater foot imprints and handed them to Mr. Karl who easily carried the weight on his back like he was carrying a few feathers at most. Once again, I was reminded of how powerful some Classes were, and wondered exactly what type of Class Mr. Karl had gotten to get both so gigantic, but also so strong. I assumed it was a Class based thing as Mousey was rather pale and scrawny, but his maternal uncle was a giant of a man known as the Mountain, meaning that Classes very well could play a role in the way someone’s body develops.

  As a healer, I don’t quite know how my body will grow and develop. So far the only real changes I have seen are the way animals are no longer frightened by my presence or constantly barking at me when I enter the school. That lack of harassment alone is more than enough of a reason to have taken this Class.

  Slither.

  Just as I have this thought, I see the faintest swishing of a large dark scaley creature slithering in the fog around us. The thing was huge, clearly as wide as Mr. Karl’s thigh muscles.

  Seeing the giant creature, I feel my past life fears come back to me in full force.

  “SNAKE!” I scream, at the same time I instinctively cast Trash, trying to remove as much of the thick fog that had been slowly seeping back in around us away.

  At my words, and following my finger, everyone looks, but they don’t see it, as it is no longer there. But it is gone, already slithering off somewhere.

  Unwilling to let that thing circle around us, I slowly began to weave my way around the group, not going outside the protection of the diamond formation that everyone was still taking up around me, but making sure to try to push the boundary of visible land around us outward.

  I first go forward to the right, between Mr. Yi and Madame Voyou. Then I retreat back, and go to the left between Mr. Yi and Markan.

  It isn’t until I go between Markan and Mr. Karl that something happens.

  “Oh, I see it,” Mr. Karl cries out excitedly.

  I look but only see the head of a creature snake that is barely the side of my own arm. Seeing it, I am about to call out that this wasn’t the right one, but his giant battle axe is drawn and slashed into the ground so quickly that I can’t even comment on the difference. Still, killing one snake can’t be too bad.

  Slink.

  The blade slices clean through the serpent and gets wedged deep within the thick sludge like dirt.

  “He was a pretty big one,” Mr. Karl stated looking at the head of the snake that even now was opening and closing its mouth violently in a biting motion. As if echoing his thoughts, Madame Voyou also nodded in agreement.

  “That wasn’t the one I saw,” I replied.

  “Oh there’s another?” Mr. Karl asked.

  HISSS!

  Then as if summoned by the sound of the attack, or maybe the fierce thump of the axe cleaving through the ground, we heard it. The angered hiss of a monster up at the front of the formation.

  “Contact front,” Markan exclaimed. With that we all turned to look forward, only to see the long thick coiling body of a giant serpent that would put an anaconda to shame.

  Seeing the monster coiling up from the darkness and clearly looking down upon us from over the billowing clouds of ground fog, I respond, “that’s the one I saw.”

  Hearing my comment, Mr. Karl gives a succinct one-word reply, “oh.”

  1,500 Followers!