… Rivers of sand dripped down stained, blackened stones, and the twenty desert guides led Alice down into the ravine on frayed ropes.
The tension in the air made her grimace. She couldn’t see much of anything through the blurry moth mask as always, but even without it she doubted she’d be able to see through the sandstorm brewing down here. Reports claimed the final ravine opened up only two days and nights ago, meaning, in due time, the desert would claim even this space for itself and it’d appear no different from the countless hollow caverns ravaged by the falling cocoons; the sandstorm would subside soon enough, but most likely she’d already be gone by then.
They unclipped the ropes from their harnesses and touched down on the very bottom, surveying the pit of sandy rubble with narrowed eyes.
Sunlight was sparse today, but even then she could tell there was nothing living here.
She was already too late.
“... Hasharana. This is the last of the eight Undertowns you are supposed to check, yes?” one of the desert guides said, his voice muffled through his mask, and he paced idly forward through the rubble while waving for the rest of them to do the same. “If you don’t mind, , we might as well check to see if there’s anything we can scavenge. Preserved food, firefly extract, and intact beetle chitin take first priority. Anything we can’t carry, we’re leaving down here, . We don’t want to overload our rides.”
The rest of the desert guides obliged without a word of complaint. Now, since they’d already been kind enough to lead her to one collapsed undertown after another over the past five days, she didn’t stop them from pilfering the cavern for useful supplies. Instead she picked the brightest sections of the cavern to explore, skipping and hopping over mounds of rubble as she did.
She wasn’t really sure what shapes she had to look out for when it came to food from an undertown, but if the wreckages from the other Undertowns they’d checked were anything to go by, the desert guides would probably want whole grains in thatch sacks and old-fashioned sap-lacquered wooden boxes where vials of firefly extract were usually stored in. She was particularly good at identifying beetle chitin too; she’d help the others out on that front.
“But who would’ve guessed there were still Undertowns in this day and age, huh?” one of the desert guides said, as he flipped a boulder over with the help of two others and jumped in to begin hauling supplies out. “I thought the Spider Spinner Brood swept through Sharaji decades ago, cleaning out the Great Makers’ mighty Undertowns. This makes… the eighth? , the eighth undertown you’ve checked up on?”
“ most likely, it is also the last,” another guide said, tossing a small piece of beetle chitin her way so she could stuff it into her satchel. “Maybe if we’d been quicker to bring you around, Hasharana, you could’ve done something for the people of this undertown. But now not only do you have bad news to report, you’ll also have to hunt down the firefly Mutant, eh? , the Mutant that’s nowhere to be seen around here–”
“The Mutant-Class is dead.”
The firmness in her voice surprised everyone, and they turned to her for an explanation.
She paused, took a whiff of the sweet, hazy air through her mask, and nodded back at the twenty of them.
“The Mutant-Class… is dead,” she repeated, before turning away to continue searching through the rubble. “Chopped and dismantled, smells like. It must’ve kicked the hornet’s nest just a few days ago, before the ravine even opened up.”
One of the desert guides muttered something unintelligible under his breath before shaking his head, off to her left. “Someone got to it before us, then? But I thought you were the only Hasharana sent to chase down the cocoons from that botched operation. Who’s it, You think the Long March came around and burst its eardrums before it even realized it was in their range?”
Alice shook her head. “Not the Long March. The Mutant’s . Carved and shredded. That’s not Zora’s style, nor any of his mages.”
“The Nocturna, then?”
“Not them, either. Why would they ever be out in the middle of the desert, anyways?”
“Then, , you’re saying the Mutant was crushed to death by a bunch of rocks?”
She pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything further. The truth was, she didn’t really know; she didn’t really care at this point. As long as the Mutant was dead, they had nothing to worry about, and she could send a report back to the Genesis Glade, stating the runaway bugs of the Rampaging Hinterland Front were all but obliterated.
… Except, she didn’t feel quite at ease down here.
She cast a few glances back at the desert guides, wondering if someone other than her might’ve noticed—the Altered Symbiotic System in the back of her neck was itching like mad.
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Tahra said, appearing on her shoulder as a little moth.
Alice paused.
Tahra pointed its antennae forward, at the largest block of rubble there was, and she wasted no time nodding at her uncle to cut it in half—that her uncle did before she could even finish her sentence, having swung his little knife from halfway across the pit without looking back.
Tahra remarked.
The rest of them, save for her uncle, bounded over to where the block had split apart to peer down into the little hole, and the Altered Symbiotic Systems in her neck itched again.
“...”
And none of them said anything for a good few seconds.
Alice looked at Tahra, beckoning for it to pull up the girl’s status screen.
[Name: Dahlia Sina]
[Grade: C-Rank Giant-Class]
[Class: Assassin Bug]
[Swarmblood Art: ?R!C?O80L8C10T!O?N]
[Aura: 500 (+35)]
[Points: 0]
[Strength: 1 (+1), Speed: 1, Toughness: 1 (+1), Dexterity: 3 (+1), Perception: 1 (+1)]
[// MUTATION TREE]
[T1 Mutation | Swarmguard Deity Lvl: 1
[T2 Mutations | Basic Chitin | Basic Antennae] 50P
[// EQUIPPED SWARMSTEEL]
[Assassin Bug Claw Gauntlets (Grade: C-Rank)(Str: +1/3)(Dex: +1/2)(Aura: +35/300)]
[Bullet Ant-fuse-Pine Sawyer Beetle Chest Plate (Grade: E-Rank)(Tou: +0/3)(Aura: +0/50)] DAMAGED
[Bullet Ant-fuse-Robber Fly Pauldrons (Grade: E-Rank)(Spd: +0/1)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +0/40)] DAMAGED
[Bullet Ant Bracers (Grade: F-Rank)(Per: +0/2)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +0/30)] DAMAGED
[Bullet Ant Greaves (Grade: F-Rank)(Per: +1/2)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +0/30)] DAMAGED
[Cave Cricket Bracers (Grade: F-Rank)(Per: +0/2)(Tou: +0/1)(Aura: +0/20)] DAMAGED
[Pine Sawyer Beetle-fuse-Robber Fly Mantle (Grade: F-Rank)(Spd: +0/1)(Tou: +1/1)(Aura: +0/20)] DAMAGED
“... Bug claws?” one of the guides said, frowning at the girl curled up in a ball beneath them.
Another guide dipped his head and scowled down at the girl. “She’s gotta have eaten lots of bugs to mutate that far."
“Right,” another guide said, nodding succinctly. “We kill her, then.”
“No,” another guide said.
“Yes,” another guide said.
The rest refrained from making a decision, and so did her uncle, still lounging around the back of the pit. Most of them were indecisive—so they looked to her instead, waiting for an answer.
Sighing, running her hands through her hair, she pulled out a knife and flicked it into the air.
The rest of them stared intently as it spun on its way down into the girl’s head, but when a kind man stepped forward in an attempt to catch it, she quickly flicked a wad of threads around his wrist and stopped him from doing so.
“If the hilt hits her, she lives,” she said plainly. “You call this… the will of the winds, , no? The desert will refuse to claim her.
“But if the blade hits her, then… well.
“Fate will decide whether she lives or–”
And it happened, all of a sudden—two black arms shot out the unconscious girl’s back and shredded the knife mid-air, claws dismantling it into a simple hilt, a guard, and a blade.
None of them landed even close to her head, and now all the desert guides shrieked, jumping back in fear.
“I dunno what you’re all so conflicted about,” her uncle said, making everyone jump again as he appeared between all of them, sighing to himself while rubbing his belly. “It’s noon, and I’m hungry. There’s nothing to scavenge from this pit. If we don’t leave now, there’s no telling if the sandstorm won’t get any worse and trap us down here for a few burning days.”
He didn’t wait for an answer from the rest of them—not like he usually did, anyways—but they were more than eager to follow his lead regardless, rushing to reattach the dangling ropes onto their harnesses.
After that little ‘display’ from the seemingly unconscious girl, it seemed like none of them were too interested in lending a helping hand anymore; not even to retrieve the Swarmsteel on her body that might prove useful with someone else.
… But they didn’t stop Alice from kneeling and scooping the girl out, either.
Something in her chest went and she couldn’t resist narrowing her eyes underneath her mask.
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