Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 32
Chapter 02: Silent Killer
It looks like a bee’s nest, as I imaginated. But… The size was completely different.
I imagined it to be about the size of a watermelon, but…
It was easily taller than me.
Rather than hanging from a tree branch or leaves, it looks like it was fused with the tree.
Seeing a large amount of Silent Killers crawling in and out from a huge number of holes of the gigantic nest is … Ugh, the mountain of insects gives me a physiological disgust, but the holes makes it double disgusting…
Just imagining about all of them attacking me all at once… I want to be understand that it’s inevitable for shivers run down my spine.
“T-That’s a little hard to deal… Let’s take a detour…”
With a unpleasant premonition cold sweat dripped my body, and I proposed a detour to Uru while slowly stepping back, but…
“We should have noticed it a little earlier. It looks like we’ve already entered in their alert range.”
At the same time as these words were said, a black smoke erupted from the nest.
Of course that’s not smoke…But a swarm of silent killers so huge that looks like a black cloud.
How many dozens, no, hundreds of them are there??
“Gyaaaaaaaa!? Let’s run away!!!”
In front of the worst situation, we start running away like a rabbits.
But here is the inside of a forest. To us who could not run straight and with an uncertain number of obstacles around our feets and overhead, It is a difficult place to shake off the Silent Killers who where small and can fly, moving regardless of the terrain.
Uru seems to have reached the same conclusion, instead of just running away, she seems to have shifted her actions in the direction of doing something about our pursuers.
“Rion, I will made a quite loud noise!”
She stopped and turned her whole body towards the silent killers. And after taking a deep breath—
—GAAAAAAAAAAa!!!
She unleashed the [Warcry] skill.
It seems that it became usable after the Chimera battle……Yeah, she was screaming a lot back them too.
The effect is almost the same as the Chimera’s roar, it makes the person who hears it lose their fighting spirit and put them in a bind type abnormal state. If there is a huge difference in strength between the target, you can even make them faint.
It doesn’t work on Silent Killer, which are insects mixed with some kind combat machine without a will to affect, but the shockwave generated by her “loud noise” hindered their flight ability. I can see them falling to the ground, but…
“Tch, there are too many.”
Yes, even if their some of their numbers have been decreased, there were too many of them chasing us to have a huge effect.
“Then this time it’s my turn…Uru, be careful not to get caught in it! Eat it! Insecticide!”
The insecticide that i have prepared was a ball-shaped type that, when thrown and hit the target, would break and the medicine inside it would scatter around. It shouldn’t have that much of an effect on anything other than insects, but if it gets in your eyes or mouth, it will definitely hurt.
To an extend that could be called excessive, I threw all the stock that i had in the item box, but…
“Wuaaan! It does have an effect, but it don’t changed anything!”
As like Uru’s roar, their numbers were reduced, but the fact that they still are a huge swarm don’t changed.
We started running again, but the Silent Killers have closed the distance as much as the time that we had stopped. The distance between us gradually narrows.
“Nuu… Rion, do you have any other items that might be useful…?”
“AaaaahItemItemItem!…”
I frantically run my gaze into the item box, but I feel like the Dora?mon searching for a something in his four-dimensional pocket and throwing out the things inside while saying “not this, not that…”. I didn’t actually throw them out, ok? but I wonder if he was collecting the things that he throws out…
It was because I was thinking stupid things like that. Because I was distracted, I neglected to pay attention to where i was stepping.
“Ah.”
“Rion!”
I stumbled on a tree root, and with the momentum from running with all my might added to it, I was blown away in a flashy way.
However, it seems that it wasn’t all a bad thing, and I came up with a escape plan when a certain thing entered my field of vision.
That part is fine, but let’s not be distracted by your own thoughts and start move your body!
“Ugh!?”
I who couldn’t take a good landing ended up landing with my face. I-It hurts.
“Rion, are you okay!?”
Uru hurries and comes to help me up. That action was nothing but a bad move in this situation, but there’s no way that I who was the cause could blame her for it.
The Silent Killers who thought like it was good opportunity approached us and pointed their stings to Uru who tried to a very least cover me with her own body.
“Don’t think that a mere bee can pierce my scales!”
Certainly, the defensive power of Uru’s scales might be able to withstand it. However, since there are too many Silent Killers, the scales may not be able to endure forever and they may try to sting through the gaps between her scales.
But above all, I’m not going to let Uru take unnecessary risks because of my stupidity…!
“Eat it! Water splash!”
I throwed out all the water I had packed in my item box.
One water item is about 10 liters, which isn’t a lot… But how about 100 items!
Doppaaaaaaan
The large amount of water washed away the silent killers like a localized tsunami.
A small body is an advantage in terms of mobility, but on the contrary, it can’t withstand the weight applied to it. And on top of that, if their wings get wet, they can’t fly, so it works like magic.
But at the same time.
“Glub!?”
“That’s why I want you to think a little more before act!”
……Although it wasn’t as much as it was directed at the Silent Killers, the water also flowed quite a bit to this side and I was drenched from head first.
No, but I’m going to get drenched later anyway, the result won’t changed, it won’t changed… haha…ha.
“Their number has decreased considerably, but it seems that they are still coming … Can you stand up Rion?”
“Ah, that’s all right. There’s a pond in front of us, so let’s jump into it!”
“…Mu? I see.”
As mentioned earlier, Silent Killers cannot fly if their wings get wet and of course they cannot breathe underwater. So escaping into the water is one way to escape them.
However, they are persistent. They will fly around near the surface of the pond, waiting impatiently for us to come out in search of oxygen.
It’s a competion of endurance to see if their aggro disappears first or if we can’t hold our breath first.
…… But there is no reason enter that competion.
I dug a hole from the bottom of the pond to the side of it, I dug and dug and dug even more “did I get enough distance?” When I thought that was enough, I put my face out of the ground.
And after confirming the safety of the surroundings, I set up the statue of the Creator again and returned to our base.
Phew, but the time that I could breath a sigh of relief was a short while, because Uru’s next words made me froze in place.
“By the way, I just remembered now… But it wasn’t possible to use the return stone?”
“Ah.”
That’s right, it’s different from when we fought the Chimera, so if I wanted to use it, I could used it…!
To the best solution completely escaped from my mind, I had no choice but to apologize profusely to Uru.
“W-Well, in the end we escaped unharmed, so let’s take it positively that our journey did not return to the beginning.”
That’s no good… Uru is too kind and I feel like I’m going to become spoiled…
I firmly vowed that I have to be able to make calm judgments in times of emergency.
In reflection…