Buttopia
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Chapter 24: Monster Hunting
🕑 Added 2024-11-25 00:00:05 +0000 UTCWe found the outpost after only a few minutes of walking. The heat here was nearly overwhelming, and I wished that I’d considered how I was dressed before we’d headed out. A message flashed before my eyes as I was considering this telling me I had unlocked a new skill called Body Temperature Regulation. Okay, that was certainly one I could see myself spending points on. In fact, considering how I was currently feeling, I was going to have to do this as soon as we took a break. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the rest of the trip without it.
“So, where was the last time you guys saw the dire scorpion?” Cecile asked the first person he saw. They looked vaguely like a cactus with a face. They were also the person I had seen with three arms previously, two arms on either side with the third poking up the center of their frame.
“About two miles into the dunes, directly East of here,” the cactoid replied. I made a mental note to ask the brothers about a proper name for the species, and then I pulled up my system menu and took a look at the new skill.
Each rank I spent in it allowed me to cool or heat my body one degree more than I was normally capable of. I decided to start with two for now to see how well that made the next walk, figuring I could add more as needed. The relief washed over me as soon as I closed the System menu. As I was sitting in the shade, I couldn’t be sure if it would hold once we started walking again, but I was just grateful that I no longer felt like I was going to pass out at any moment.
“Hey Dave, you okay over there? It’s not too hot for humans out here, is it?” Elicec asked.
“Probably normal humans, but I just ranked up a temperature regulation skill that I think will help. Something I should have considered before I left, too. You guys don’t have like a basic club or something similar I can use, do you? I had meant to ask Mel for a weapon and entirely forgot,” I said, annoyed that I had only just remembered.
“Uh, will this work?” Cecile produced what looked like a thick tree branch from his System storage and offered it to me. It would work, maybe not as well as something with an easier grip, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Yep, that’ll do nicely. Any issue if it gets destroyed?” I asked, not wanting to ruin any potential precious heirloom. For all I knew, this was a parting gift from their father.
“That thing? Found it under a tree the other day, I was going to see if I could do anything with it and my farming abilities, but I’ve got a few more just like it, so all yours now,” Cecile answered with a smile.
“Well then, gentlemen, if we have nothing else to do here, I guess it’s time to go scorpion hunting,” I said, returning Cecile’s smile. Once we were decently well out of sight of the cactoid, I finally asked the brothers what they were called. I wasn’t sure the answer ‘cactomen’ was all that much better than my own, but I’m sure humans seemed just as strange to some of the other people out there.
It took us nearly two hours to reach the place where the dire scorpion had last been spotted. I was thankful to learn that Cecile had some mapping skills and that I shouldn’t worry about finding our way back. I was also even happier to learn that my temperature regulation skill was working out here like a charm. I was pretty sure it would only take a few more ranks, and I would be able to handle almost anything climate-wise that Earth could throw at me. I doubted that would remain true for the multitude of worlds and universes outside of my home, though. How many universes were connected to the System? Was it entire universes, or was it just planets? What about parallel universes? Were there places already in my universe that were incorporated? These were even more things to look into once we returned from monster hunting. The more I knew, the more questions I had.
“Anyone see the thing?” Cecile asked, spinning his head from side to side.
“No, but what’s that?” I asked, pointing to the snake-like creature moving fast across a sand dune in our direction.
“That, Dave, is an unexpected problem. Elicec, what do you think it is? Can we take it?” Cecile’s voice had a slight panic to it. What the hell was the thing that had him so worried?
“Probably not, but running won’t help. It’s a sand wyrm, and there’s no reason it should be hunting this close to the edge of the desert. Dave, if there’s anything you can do to add some power to your build, you need to do it now. In thirty seconds, we are going to be in the fight of our lives again,” Elicec explained, his voice sharing the panic of his brothers. Was there anything I could do?
I guess my core had about three-fourths of its energy back. I could grab one of the mana skills. I flipped the switches on my circuits and poured the core energy into imbuing as quickly as I could. “Elicec any idea if this thing has weaknesses?” I asked as I worked.
“Maybe water, big maybe,” he answered. Not much of a choice but to take that gamble as I tried imbuing my tree branch with an aspect of water. The bark turned a brownish-blue color, and water dropped from the end of it. My core energy was down to about one-eighth left, but UI was pretty sure I could keep the branch like this as long as I needed, and only changing it would use more mana.
Elicec was the first to attack. I couldn’t make out what exactly he was chanting, but I could see the obvious effect as a dozen icicles rained down onto the beast moments before it reached us. It reared its head up in pain and anger and roared. The idea that snakes could roar was brand new to me and somewhat terrifying. That didn’t stop me from following up on the seconds that Elicec’s magic had bought us. I slammed my tree branch hard into its open mouth as it roared while, at the same moment, Cecile’s hoe slashed across its neck.
Its tail whipped around, knocking us to the ground, but more chanting from Elicec caused a puddle of water to rise around where we had crashed. Thankfully, the wyrm hesitated. Between the blood already dripping from its neck and face and the water, it looked worried. I threw myself forward, managing to spring back to my feet and swing the branch again. My arms and legs were both screaming at the pain from what I had just put them through, but after everything I had just accomplished with my core, there was no way an oversized snake was eating me.
It roared again. This time, I roared back. I was angrier than I had ever been, raining blow after blow down on it. The branch snapped in half, spraying water into its open wounds. The head spun, ready to take a bit out of me, but before it could, Cecile was back at my side with his hoe shoved into its throat, and Elicec was casting something else. The water around us turned and began to flow through the air down the throat of wyrm. It thrashed desperately, trying to get the hoe out, but even knocking us back again with its tail did nothing to help it.
After several more screams of desperation, it was dead, and all things considered, we were in pretty good shape.
“Well I think I know what happened,” Cecile yelled to me from the other side of the thing’s corpse.
“Yeah, what was that?” I asked. We had started breaking down the body after we killed it. Apparently, several of the parts would be very valuable. Cecile especially wanted the fangs for some projects.
“There are several stinging wounds back here, and even the broken-off tail of the scorpion we were looking for is embedded into it. So somehow, they got into a fight, and our original quarry is long dead. It also explains how we even lived through this. We shouldn’t be fighting wyrms,” Elicec explained.
“Don’t complain. That wasn’t bad experience,” I said, trying to look on the bright side. I had even gained another level. I was up to thirty-two. Once we got back, I’d really have to spend some of the attribute points I was accumulating.
“Oh, I’m not. My brother may only want the fangs, but there are a lot of spells I can try to learn using some of these parts. I hope I can add some sort of venom spell to our arsenal. Good thinking on the water imbument, by the way, Dave. Not sure we’d have made it through without it,” Elicec said. He actually looked more cheerful than I could remember seeing him before. He reminded me of my kids on some of the better Christmas mornings. God, I missed them. Sure, the visits might have grown more infrequent in the last few years, but we still texted daily. Was I ever going to see them again?
I pushed the depressing thoughts to the back of my head and got back to work. We needed to be back to the outpost before nightfall and it was already getting close.
