Chapter 69

  Red Versus Yellow Versus Blue

  Size does matter.

  Or at least the size of a monster does play a large part in whether we stop and harvest the core from a monster’s corpse or not. That is what I have learned thus far.

  “All the creatures of the rifts do in fact have cores, but the smaller ones will have cores that are fundamentally too small to be of any real use.” Is what I was told. Basically, unless the monster is big enough to try to devour my sword from my hands, it wasn’t worth the time or effort.

  “Another way to think about it, is if Markan can one shot kill the beast, then it is not something we want to deal with,” Mr. Karl added.

  “Hey!” Markan replied, more aggrieved by the comment than as a way to refute the claim. Still, Markan more than proved his worth when he took down a swarm of spiders. Tiny skittering creatures all turned and found me, and looked like they would swarm past and through our formation and cover me in what would most likely be nightmare fuel material.

  That’s when he opened fire, literal fire. Or maybe he just created some type of highly combustible materials. For he still used his brown earthy Skills, to create bullets that fired piercing shrapnel over a wide area with one pistol. Then with the other pistol he fired a similar but opposite flint like burst that caused sparks and pyrokinetic discharges. The net result was a fireball.

  WHOOSH!

  Flames erupted instantly, setting all the tiny spiders ablaze. That’s when a new level of fear was observed, flame resistant and burning spiders coming through a wave of fire that were pissed. For the first time, I was tempted to do something I never thought myself capable of. At least not until I saw a stream of flaming spiders relentlessly charging forward, despite thick flames burning away at their off white fur that coated their bodies. Seeing their determination and blazing hatred in their black pools of eye sockets, I thought about doing the most intelligent thing I could think of. I thought about dropping my glowing sword, the item that all creatures here seemed to be obsessively attracted to, and running.

  Shameful. Even now, I realize how cowardly such an act would be, but in that moment I felt I had two options, drop my sword and flee. Or be covered in a wave of burning spiders.

  Fortunately for me, I was too gripped by fear to make such a decisive move and instead could only stare on in fright as a wave of burning spiders charged forward only to finally have one leg burn away, causing the creature to fall to wobble in its approach. Then the next leg would burn off, or become useless by the flames causing the creature to suddenly crash into the ground, all while the ever burning flames continued to burn and finally cause the lights within the spider’s eyes to dwindle away.

  After that, the spiders all seemed to drop within two or three steps of each other. Each burning up and away in roughly the same staggering and crashing manner, before flames caused their bodies to crumple up and inward on themselves. The worst kind of candle that you could ever get, one that when burned smells like burnt hair.

  I never thought of myself as having arachnophobia, but after this I did find that there was a limit to how much my brain was willing to help me filter. Ultimately, I found that while I don’t have arachnophobia, I might be developing a case of pyrotechnically enhanced arachnophobia, you know for spiders that are both on fire and immune to the flames.

  “Bleh!” Madame Voyou calls out from beside me. As I look a shiver runs down her spine as I can even see goose flesh coating most of her body. I can understand the goose flesh as the deep flames caused by Markan’s attacks are now causing us to be increasingly aware of the cold air that resides just outside of the burning flames. Seeing her reaction to the same burning spiders, I feel slightly better about my cowardice and the fact that I had thought about breaking ranks and running away from the beasts. Fortunately, I had stayed, mostly due to fear, but I did feel better knowing that someone else also felt my pain.

  Taking a moment to make eye contact with Madame Voyou, she then asked, “you okay?”

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  I just nod in agreement, not trusting my voice at this moment.

  Only after a long moment does Markan relax a bit, as a knowing smile fills his face.

  “Five parts fire dust, two parts flint, works every time,” Markan stated excitedly. I’m guessing that’s what his skill does, it allows him to alter the type of materials he creates and then fires. For fire dust, I’m thinking it is something along the lines of phosphorous? Or maybe some other flammable material. The flint is known and possibly why he chose pistols? But again, this is all speculation on my part. I have no clue how his class does things, nor what his Skills do exactly. Just as I am watching the aftereffects of his Skills, I realize something truly frightening.

  As an earth magic user, he has learned to create flames and devastating fires. Then thinking back to my own affinity for Earth, does that mean that I can learn these Skills myself? Maybe if I empty one of my Free Slots, would I be able to learn a similar Skill from Markan? Just as I have this thought, Mr. Karl cuts in, and brings us back to the issue at hand.

  “Yeah, but now you need to deal with the flames,” Mr. Karl replies with a slight mocking tone, as he gestures towards the still burning spider corpses that are now burning down and starting to catch the dry and dead grass of this land on fire.

  “Yeah, you mind helping out with that? I’m a bit tapped at the moment,” Markan replied a little sheepishly. Only after taking a moment to truly look at him could I see the telltale signs of exhaustion beginning to show on his face and features. Everything from the slight hunch that he now sported, to the slightly glazed look in his eyes. It was clear that he was exhausted from the effort of setting a swarm of tiny spirit spiders ablaze.

  Seeing his state, I decided to be nice to him, as that was not a task I wanted to be forced to do. Also, he was nice enough to get rid of the spiders before they surged over me. Moving forward, I focused on the spiders and used my Trash Skill to get rid of all the burning and scorched husks that remained. As I did, the residual Life mana used to empower the Skill also remained behind giving a slight afterglow effect to the ground. Which in turn helped to further push the cloud of ground fog away. However, at this point, the thickness of the fog had slowly begun to wear down. Before what had been waist high and too thick to look through was now ankle high and mostly transparent. This was a boon for us, as it showed we were close to cleansing this rift. At least that’s what I assumed.

  After I was done cleaning up the dead spider husks, we were brought in for a quick snack provided by Mr. Karl, while Mr. Yi went over the details of what we could expect to happen next.

  “All right, we are mostly done clearing the main paths here. While there are likely a few clusters of rift monsters left, it would appear that we are okay to close this rift without any chances of a reopening occurring.” Mr. Yi began.

  As he spoke, I understood the words that were coming out of his mouth. I even understood the way parts of his explanation formed together. But I did not understand how he got to the final conclusion. That said, I was very impressed that Mr. Yi even spoke that much. It was clear that this was not his primary language, and that he was trying to be as accurate as possible with his wording. Seeing the look on my face, one where I was caught mid-chew on a piece of jerky that had been provided, I realize I likely looked lost. Seeing my expression, Mr. Yi turned towards Madame Voyou and seemed to ask for help with his eyes. An ask that quickly was picked up on and enacted.

  “Every rift has their own tells that let us know if we are getting close to emptying it out. Some grow brighter, some grow darker the more rift monsters you kill. This one seems to be directly linked to the thickness of the fog that covers that ground. Now that it is fading away, we can assume that the cumulative energy of the monsters here will not be enough to reopen this same rift again. We might see an opening elsewhere, but not here.” She commented.

  I nodded while finishing my bite of jerky, as I slightly understood her explanation better than what Mr. Yi had stated, but only by a fraction. There was a moment of silence as we all just took a moment to think and mostly recover our energy for this final surge into the rift.

  “We should tell her about the rift colorations and what to avoid,” Markan noted. “Wouldn’t’ want her getting lost in a yellow rift.”

  “Ye-” I began, barely catching myself before I realized I almost got caught in that stupid parroting game. Instead, I paused and asked, “what is a yellow rift?” At my question everyone around me nodded.

  “Good job, you asked a direct question that let us know what you wanted to have answered,” Markan responded. Hearing his response and seeing everyone else’s nod in agreement, I felt slightly stupid as their whole hazing ritual was just a way to get me to ask better questions? It made sense, otherwise the instructors could focus on answering anything they wanted, versus answering what you truly had a question about, but it was still super annoying to deal with.

  “To answer your question, you will need to know that up ahead there are multiple rifts, that will have a slight color or hue to them. This is important to spot and identify, as that tells you what that particular rift does. A red hued rift, just allows you to view an alternate spot on the world. Yellow rifts are one way directional points that lead away, those that show a destination. Or a yellow rift can allow creatures or monsters in, when you don’t see a destination, but a giant white opening. It is important to avoid yellow rifts at all times as once you enter; you cannot leave and must continue the emergence process. The process of going through a rift.” Madame Voyou began, and then paused slightly letting that much information sink in.

  “Then finally there are the blue hued rifts, these are the rifts that are like the one we entered in Bloom Park. These allow you to enter and leave from the same spot to the same place.” Madame Voyou began.

  Hearing her words, I paused, wondering what rift she was thinking of, as I didn’t even see a blue hue to the rift at all. Seeing my confusion she continued.

  “We didn’t point it out as we didn’t think we would get this far today. But seeing as we are this close to the end, I think we all are in agreement that we should drive through and close out this rift in one go.” Madame Voyou spoke and as she did, she turned to look at the others who all nodded in agreement. Reluctantly at first, but finally everyone began to nod more enthusiastically. Seeing their reactions, I assumed this was a sort of big deal, closing the rift in one go. Maybe it was due to my being a rookie healer that they had planned to do this in stages.

  “Okay,” I finally respond, not really knowing what else to say.

  “There is just going to be one final task,” Markan replied.

  I open my mouth and am about to parrot back his words, but I catch myself and ask the more pointed question, “what kind of final task?”