329 Chapter 329: Caves of Ice (1/2)
The first day ended without incident. Well, I guess the Assassins weren't going to attack this early. Maybe? I had no idea. In any case, even though we silently kept a vigilant eye out for those Assassins, we saw none of them.
Yet.
As we trudged through the snow, trekking through the forest at the foot of the mountains, the sky overhead slowly darkened. It wasn't unusual for the sun to set early during the winter. During December in Minnesota, the sun set as early as 4.30pm. Hell, I heard that the sun set at 3pm in Alaska, and they had less than six hours of daylight during some periods of winter. In fact, there was that famous legend of thirty days of night in Alaska (there was a book series about vampires on it that even had a movie adaptation). I wasn't sure if Alaska really had polar nights, but I knew for sure that the north and south poles definitely underwent a month without daylight, occurring between latitudes of 67˚24' and 72˚34' for both.
Fortunately, we made good distance despite our earlier pessimism, and ended up reaching the foot of one particular mountain. Cody Crosby, in particular, claimed that he saw something just as he crept over an outcrop of snowy rock, and waved us over.
”I think I see a cave over there!”
I tapped my glasses to magnify the image and filter out the snow. Sure enough, there was a cave at one small portion of the foot of the mountain. I turned back and nodded at my friends.
”Cody is right. There's a cave over there.”
”I'll lead you guys there!” the assassin wannabe scrambled over the rock and darted through the snow. I noticed that he didn't leave any tracks at all, not even a single footprint. Wow, Cody was pretty skilled. His stealth skills were immense.
I was glad he was on our side.
Wanting to be out of the cold, the rest of us hurried toward the cave, following Cody closely. We didn't bother to hide our tracks. With the amount of snow falling, any footprints that we left on the trail would be covered up in minutes. Even though the interior of the cave was going to be similarly cold, at least it would provide some shelter from the howling wind. The extreme temperature was one thing, but the wind was a killer, its icy touch biting deep into our bones and causing us to shiver uncontrollably. My fingers and toes had already gone numb, and having lived in Minnesota for a few years, I was aware that we had to watch out for frostbite.
Even with our magic and enhanced physical constitutions, we were still not completely immune to the elements.
”Let's camp here tonight,” Harrison Reed suggested, turning around to ensure that all of us had made it. To be sure, I counted ten, and then nodded at him. He smiled gratefully in response, and turned back to the rest of us.
”Be careful,” Craig Carlson warned, his crimson spear already out. ”We are not the only ones in this cave.”
”Yeah.” I nodded. We would be extremely naïve to think that the cave would conveniently be empty. Chances were, there was already a monster that had chosen the dark, sheltered dwelling to be its home.
We spread out cautiously, keeping our eyes peeled for any movement. With a stealthy gesture, I adjusted my glasses and switched to nightvision, turning my view green for a moment. Even so, I saw absolutely nothing.
I frowned. There was no way such a perfect spot would be empty. At the very least, it should be inhabited by…
That was when I caught sight of a dark shape stirring in the back of the cave, and rising from its slumber. Glowing red eyes glowered at us, and jaws opened to exhale a foggy breath, the vapor from its lungs condensing immediately the moment it came into contact with the cold air. Dagger-like fangs gleamed in the darkness, seemingly illuminated by its crimson eyes, and framed a fork-like tongue that darted out in our direction.
Pushing my glasses up my nose, I studied it, recognizing the Frost Fiend, a rank D monster whose body was laced with armored scales and armed with wicked claws. The sharp tips pierced the crust of the earth, leaving small holes on the ground with a clack. It had impressive physical capabilities, but was ranked D because…well, it couldn't cast elemental magic.
Just as well it couldn't, or it would be quite the troublesome opponent.
”I guess we found dinner for tonight!”
Craig, on the other hand, didn't hesitate at all. The Frost Fiend's eyes were still fixated on me for some reason (okay, it was because I was the closest, having ventured out in front of my teammates because I had nightvision), so it couldn't react in time when the Demonic Spearman's weapon pierced through its hide and ruptured its heart.
The Frost Fiend screeched and flailed about wildly. Craig leaped back with his spear, avoiding getting struck aside by its violent death throes. He was confident that he had delivered a killing blow, however, and smiled as he watched the result of his attack.
”A clean kill,” he murmured proudly to himself as the Frost Fiend's thrashing finally died down.
”You should be careful,” Sheila Scarlet chided him as she advanced forward, her shield out just in case the Frost Fiend was merely feigning death. She proded it with her spear, and then stabbed the head, puncturing the poor thing's skull, to ensure that it really was dead, and turned back to us with a nod. ”Clear.”
”We're pretty lucky,” I remarked, looking around the cave and finding no sign of any other inhabitants. ”I'm pretty sure that Frost Fiends usually gather in packs. It'll be troublesome to deal with a huge number of them, considering their armor and toughness.”
Glancing at Craig's spear, I marveled at how much stronger he had gotten – again. Craig's spear technique allowed him to penetrate any magical or physical defenses…well, almost any. It was obviously dependant on how much mana his opponent had – if his opponent had several times more mana than him, then the curse would be overwhelmed by sheer power. Quantity over quality and all that. All, as someone once said (they attributed it to Joseph Stalin, but I had my doubts), quantity is a quality of its own. It was actually said by Thomas A. Callaghan Jr., who was a US defense consultant in the 1970s and 1980s, who apparently wrote it in his 1979 strategic report or something.
I couldn't help but smile. Craig was going to be a major player in the national tournament, and to hell to those idiots who mocked us as a so-called C-ranked team. And also to hell with the readers who labeled him as a mob character in the comments section. Seriously, so many readers loved to deal with the idea of absolutes and thought that fighting was as simple as ”X can beat Y, so X must be able to beat all people ranked lower than Y.” What utter bullshit. Reality never worked that way, otherwise why the hell would we bother organizing matches and having leagues where teams played against each other? Even Leicester City can beat Manchester City. That was the beauty of the game. Similarly, that was the beauty of fighting tournaments – we had matches because there was always the possibility for anyone or everyone to win. Outcomes were not decided by ranks alone, otherwise we might as well skip fighting and not go through all that trouble of stepping into the arena in the first place.
But no, some readers wanted to obsess over their overly simplistic and downright unrealistic view of ”ranks are absolute!” without caring that the protagonist is a special snowflake that breaks those stupid ranking systems in the first place. They were too used to cultivation and xianxia stories or LitRPG stories where everything was neatly categorized into ranks and levels, and people's strength could somehow be conveniently measured.
Sorry, dudes, but that was not how the real world worked. sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no level 100 or Nirvana whatever Stage in real life, and a black belt Karate master can still lose to a street-fighter who spent his entire life surviving brutal gang fights, but would otherwise be unranked in the martial arts scene.
With that done, we began setting up a fire. Thanks to Dong Fang Yue Chu, that was a simple enough task. With a single flick of his hand, he set the improvised firewood that we gathered ablaze. All of us then gathered near the fire to bask in the heat. After suffering so long in the cold, the sensation of having warmth wash over us was heavenly.
The fire didn't just serve as a natural heater – we also used it to cook our dinner. Theodore began dragging the body of the Frost Fiend over and chopping it apart with the swiss army knife that was included in our backpack. Within moments, he carved out chunks of juicy meat and hung the slabs on a stick above the sizzling fire.
”This might not seem delicious, but I don't think we have much of a choice,” Yue Chu said sheepishly.
”None of us are going to complain,” Lily Liam assured him. ”We all have some experience of what outdoor camping is like. All of us have undergone survival training in the wild.”