Chương 17: Artillery

The air in the forest shifted again. The cloying, sweet rot of the poison garden faded, replaced by a scent that was sharp, dry, and cold. It smelled of ozone, pine needles, and crushed stone. Zander stepped out of the soft, mossy depression and onto hard-packed earth. The transition was abrupt, as if a line had been drawn in the soil. The vegetation changed with it. The vibrant, swaying pitcher plants and strangling vines were gone. In their place stood Ironwood trees.

These weren't the moss-covered giants of the outer rim. These trunks were grey and smooth, looking more like pillars of concrete than organic matter. They grew straight and tall, their branches interlocking high above to form a rigid, impenetrable roof. There was no undergrowth here; the ground was too hard, the light too dim. Just a floor of compacted dirt and massive, gnarled roots that snaked across the surface like petrified serpents. It was a dead zone. Or rather, a zone where only the hardest things survived.

Zander adjusted the strap of his backpack, his eyes scanning the gloom ahead. Somewhere in this grey cathedral of wood, the survivor squirrel was waiting. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone. It was jagged, roughly the size of a tennis ball, heavy with ore.

"Let's practice," he whispered. He spotted a knot on a tree trunk thirty yards away. It was a small protrusion, no bigger than a fist. Without stopping, he let his body flow into the motion, his hip snapping forward, transferring kinetic energy up his spine, through his shoulder, and out his arm. The stone left his hand with a sharp thwip sound. It blurred through the air, covering the distance in a fraction of a second. CRACK. The stone obliterated the knot.

It didn't just knock the bark off; it cratered the wood underneath, sending splinters flying like shrapnel. The stone itself shattered on impact, turning into dust. Zander nodded, satisfied.

"Good," he noted. He had been practicing for the last hour of the pursuit. At first, his aim had been off. His new stats were a double-edged sword; having the strength to punch through a brick wall was great, but it messed with his fine motor control when throwing. He had been overcompensating, sending stones sailing high or curving wide. But Zander was a quick study. His Might stat, a fusion of Strength and Dexterity, didn't just give him raw power; it gave him the coordination to harness it.

He just had to stop fighting his own muscles and let the stat do the work. He bent down, scooping up three more stones from the base of a root without breaking his stride. The ground here was littered with them, debris pushed up by the massive roots of the Ironwood trees.

"Check the corners," he reminded himself. The trees here were thick enough to hide a bear behind them. The silence was absolute, save for the crunch of his boots on the grit. He walked for another ten minutes, the tension coiling in his gut. The System's quest marker was pulling him straight, but the squirrel's trail had gone cold. Then, the trees opened up. Zander stopped at the edge of a wide, circular grove. The hard-packed earth dipped slightly, forming a natural bowl. But the floor of the bowl wasn't empty.

It was carpeted in orange. Dozens of fungi grew there. They were knee-high, bulbous spheres that pulsed with a faint, sickly inner light. They looked like oversized pumpkins made of wet paper, their surfaces veined with glowing lines. Zander narrowed his eyes. [Identify] [Volatile Puffball - lvl 7]"Explosives," Zander realized, taking a step back.

"Nature's landmines." Chit-chit. Zander looked up. On the far side of the grove, standing atop a massive, protruding root, was the squirrel. [Ironfang Squirrel - lvl 5] It looked at him, its torn ear twitching. It held its ground, defiant. Then, with a mocking flick of its tail, it hopped down from the root. It didn't run around the mushrooms. It ran across them. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It moved with light, nimble bounds, skipping from the top of one puffball to another. The squirrel was small enough, light enough, that its weight didn't trigger the volatile reaction. It reached the center of the minefield and stopped, sitting atop a particularly large puffball. It looked at Zander and chattered. It was a taunt. Come and get me. Zander stared at the field. If he stepped in there, he'd be blown to pieces. The vibration of his footsteps alone might set them off.

"You think you're clever," Zander said, his voice echoing in the silent grove. He reached into his pocket. The squirrel tilted its head, watching him. It seemed confident in its safety buffer. Zander weighed a jagged stone in his hand. He didn't aim for the squirrel. It was small, agile, and alert. At this distance, it could dodge a single projectile. He aimed for the puffball directly to the squirrel's left. Zander whipped his arm forward. The stone screamed through the air. WHAM.

The rock impacted the orange sphere. BOOM. The puffball didn't just pop; it detonated. A cloud of orange spores and concussive force exploded outward. The sound was deafening, a thunderclap trapped in the bowl of the grove. The explosion set off a chain reaction. The two puffballs next to the target burst in sympathy, adding their force to the blast wave. The squirrel screeched, thrown sideways by the shockwave. It tumbled off its perch, landing awkwardly in a patch of empty dirt between the mushrooms.

"Let's go," Zander muttered, grabbing another stone. The squirrel scrambled to its feet, shaking its head. It looked at Zander, eyes wide with sudden panic. The rules of the game had changed. Zander threw again. This time, he aimed to the right. The stone connected. Another explosion rocked the grove, sending a plume of glowing orange dust into the air. The blast cut off the squirrel's escape route to the far trees.

"Dance," Zander growled. He became a piece of artillery. He grabbed stones from his pockets and the ground, firing them in a steady, rhythmic cadence. He wasn't trying to snipe the beast; he was herding it. Boom. He blocked the left flank. Boom. He blocked the retreat. The grove became a chaotic hellscape of detonations. Concussive shockwaves battered the clearing, washing over Zander in hot, violent gusts.

With his Resilience sitting at 20, he barely flinched, absorbing the rolling pressure like a stone breakwater. The air grew thick with a glowing orange fog. As the spores settled on his skin and filled his lungs, a rapid-fire string of Foreign contaminant detected notifications pinged in the corner of his vision, easily ignored as his bloodline aggressively purged the toxins. The squirrel was darting back and forth, its agility useless against the encompassing pressure of the blasts.

Desperate, the squirrel saw a gap in the explosions. A narrow corridor of safety leading toward a cluster of roots on the right side of the grove. It bolted. It launched itself into a sprint, its legs blurring. It hit a ramp of earth and leapt, aiming to clear a gap between two large roots. Zander saw the move before it happened.

"Got you." He didn't throw at where the squirrel was. He threw at where it was going to be. Channeling everything into the throw, he activated [Mind's Dominion] and dumped ten points of Will into Might. As his stat surged to 26, the chunk of sharp granite in his hand felt light as a feather. He released it. The rock flew in a flat, deadly line. It intercepted the squirrel at the apex of its jump. CRACK. The sound was distinct, the sickening noise of bone shattering against stone.

The rock clipped the squirrel's hind leg. The impact was catastrophic. The small beast spun violently in mid-air, its trajectory ruined. It slammed into the dirt, rolling over and over, screeching in agony. The squirrel was down. It tried to stand, but its right hind leg dragged uselessly behind it, twisted at a gruesome angle. Zander stepped into the grove. The air was thick with the acrid smell of the spores, but the path ahead was clear now; he had cleared it himself with the explosions.

He drew the [Ironfang Dagger]. The bone blade shone white in the gloom.

"End of the line," he said, walking toward the injured beast. The squirrel saw him coming. It chattered, a high, frantic sound of pure terror. It didn't try to fight. It dragged itself forward, clawing at the dirt with its front paws. It wasn't running away blindly. It was heading toward something specific. At the edge of the grove, where the roots of the Ironwood trees grew thickest, there was a massive, upturned root system. It belonged to a fallen giant that must have crashed down a long time ago.

The tangled mass of wood formed a natural, cavernous mouth, shrouded in absolute darkness. The squirrel scrambled toward this black maw, trailing blood. Zander quickened his pace. He wasn't going to let it escape into a hole.

"No, you don't," he hissed. He closed the distance. Twenty feet. Ten. The squirrel reached the threshold of the root-cave. It didn't hesitate. It threw itself into the darkness, disappearing from sight. Zander stopped at the entrance. He held his dagger ready, peering into the gloom. The cave was deep, extending far beneath the roots of the standing trees. The air flowing out of it was cold and smelled of old, stagnant meat. He prepared to follow. He could handle a cornered squirrel, even in the dark.

He took a step forward. HRRRRRR-PHEWWWWW. Zander froze mid-step. The sound resonated from the depths of the cave. It was deep. Incredibly deep. It vibrated in the soles of his shoes and rattled the loose dirt at the cave entrance. It was neither a growl nor a roar. It was a snore. Zander slowly lowered his center of gravity. The squirrel hadn't run into a hole just to hide. It had run to wake up whatever decided to take up residence there.

He gripped the hilt of his dagger until his knuckles turned white, his red eyes fixed on the shifting shadows within the den.

"Well," Zander whispered, the thrill of the hunt mixing with a spike of adrenaline.

"I hope you're a light sleeper."