Chương 16: Don't Look Down (Unless You Really Want To)

The campfire flickered inches away from Veronika's eyes. LOA was already recharging in her own tent. An absurd amount of bird carcass was roasting over the flame. Having a 28 resolve build wasn't free. The liters of Perfluorohexane in Veronika's body demanded calories. A monster eagle for lunch wasn't a large meal for her. The other bird's body was cut into thin pieces and left on a stray branch to dry. The jerky would make a good booster snack for the rest of the hike. Her afternoon nap was mercifully dreamless.

She let her body rest until her muscles stopped aching. When she woke up, the scratches from the eagle's beak had closed themselves up. She left her tent to find a pinkish sunset and a greeting from the system. Good evening, pawny dearest. You've regained 94 points of resistance and 5 points of resonance. Back up to full health! She watched the last sliver of daylight fall as LOA packed up their tents. The crickets of the mountain emerged to accompany the rest of their walk with persistent chirps.

It made the hike feel more… mundane. Just another trip in the night. No inter-coworker violence awaiting them at the top. It was a nice facade to hold onto, though it could only last a few more hours at most. Alright, I see you've got a bit of introspection going on. I'll give you +1 [Resonance]. Keep it up. You'll need a lot more than that. Slight internal agony over her mission gave her resonance? Damn.

If relentless empathy for the people in her way was required to gain significant resonance, she'd have to make do with the little she had. She couldn't afford to get lost in the thorns of it all. Too bad they were walking across the ledge Veronika climbed before she jumped on the partner eagle. There was no reason to look down. She hadn't looked down once since they started the journey up. But a single thin line of the great Steller's Sea Eagle's blood drew her eyes.

She followed it over the mountain's edge and caught a glimpse of a nest on a smaller ledge below. Oh no. Oh dear Lord there were eggs inside. Two massive eagle eggs.

"Madame?"

"Shut up, LOA!" Veronika knelt to the ground and surveyed the wall. It was only about five meters down to the nest, but she was thinking about scaling the actual outer shell of the mountain. Falling from there meant falling to the ground. Or worse, falling onto the eggs. Fuck, why did she think that would be worse?

"I'm going for those eggs. I think those birds we killed must've been their parents." LOA looked down.

"Wait, what? I thought you said they were abominations. Shouldn't we just leave them for nature to sort out?"

"I've trained these birds before. The normal ones, at least. They're fierce hunters."

"You want to train them?!"

"Shh!" Veronika put her hand up.

"The adults weren't that hard to take out. If the babies can't be trained, we'll take care of them before they become a problem." She mapped out a climbing path in her head that would provide strong footholds going down and back up. LOA groaned, but Veronika gently lowered her feet onto the first rocky outgrowths and began her descent. She ignored looking at the drop. The nest was her only focus. Luckily it was large enough that she had no issue finding a place to stand.

She felt like the pale, porous eggs were staring back at her. For a moment, she was back at her childhood home listening to the baby eagles begging for food. There usually wasn't enough for each chick. Sometimes they would scream for days until they starved. Sometimes she'd find them dead on the ground next to the tree they were living in. Her fascination with the eagles was the one thing her mother didn't interfere with. She probably thought they were good teachers.

"Alright. Come on now." She opened her jacket and put one egg in each of her inner pockets. LOA was lording over the edge with her arms crossed. Veronika just gave her a thumbs up in response. She could tell she was starting to get on the robot's nerves, and honestly, she deserved it. After all that talk about being an unfeeling soldier willing to sell her soul for the mission, she was now playing mother to two mutant eggs. But they'd be useful in the future. Surely they'd be useful…

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Despite her grievances, LOA helped Veronika back up, making the return trip even easier. Now there was nothing stopping them from completing their journey except the disappointment of not reaching level three. It didn't look like there were any other giant animals around, but maybe they'd pass a leopard or two and get attacked. Veronika didn't have any childhood memories of leopards, so they were fair game.

Eggs were one thing, but she was not going to become a cat mother to any leopard cubs she happened to orphan that day. Aww. The puppy couldn't bear to leave the chicks behind. Never thought I'd see a Pajiri with any spec of motherly instincts. Here, have +2 resonance you big ol' softy. Oh great. More pity points for feeling pity. And just as Veronika's interpersonal life was expanding to include surrogate motherhood, the buzz of another speaker sounded in front of her.

"Hey!" the same voice that greeted them at the bottom called.

"Congrats on making it this far so quickly. We watched you fight those eagles that circle the mountain. I kind of liked watching them fly around, but I get that you need to gain experience as a new player."

"They were mutated abominations." Veronika coughed.

"I saved their children."

"Oh? That sounds…nice?"

"Don't worry, I'll take care of them. And I'll, you know, take care of them if they're untrainable." The woman paused for a second.

"I'll have to talk to our squad leader about that. He gets the final call, sorry."

"He?" Shit, she shouldn't have said that out loud. Captains deserved respect regardless of gender. Veronika of all people respected that.

"Yeah, he's something else. Every so often a new witch hunter will crawl their way up here and immediately start questioning his authority. They didn't last long…"

"Do you usually kill the newest arrivals to the island?" Veronika asked.

"In those cases it wasn't a difficult choice, but we typically prioritize existing members since our levels are higher. None of us like it, but the island is constantly trying to kill us." She paused.

"Um…not you though! If you're really General Pajiri's daughter it'd be treason to kill you." That was not the reason Veronika was looking for.

"No, it's treason to kill someone General Pajiri personally sent to your location for an important mission. It doesn't matter who my mother is; I'm going to die here one way or another." She stormed off, leaving the speaker behind. LOA said goodbye to it and hurried to her side. She looked like she wanted to say something, but one glance at the shadow over Veronika's eyes turned her away. What an insult. Veronika never expected to leave the island with her life.

To suggest otherwise was undermining her and her mother's commitment to their organization. Both of them were willing to sacrifice Veronika's life without hesitation. Her mother was an honorable hunter. I wouldn't call sacrificing your kid honorable, but whatever floats your boat.

"Shut your fucking mouth," she muttered. The mountain's wildlife seemed to be in hiding for the rest of their walk. Something large rustling around in a dry bush would be running off before Veronika could turn around. So, instead of fighting off big cats, she was stuck practicing her marksmanship. Whenever they sat down for a quick break, she'd be lying on the ground and looking for difficult targets to snipe. A mango being carried around by a macaque jumping between trees.

The rear-view mirror of some poor soul's car driving across the beach. The smallest branch on a tree. Each shot earned a generic message from the system. Nice shot! +10 XP Nice shot! +5 XP Nice shot! +5 XP What? I have tens of thousands of pawns to take care of here. You can't expect me to be 100% focused on whatever boring thing you're doing at all times. She was still 50 XP shy of level three, and she was getting sick of shooting far away fruits and vegetation. Besides, they needed to stop taking breaks.

She'd have to rely on the system's promise of excellent rewards from completing the objective it assigned her.

"Almost there," LOA said.

"Still want to hold off until level three?"

"Did the system give you an objective too? I'm just supposed to reach the top, so if it's the same for you there's a chance we'll both level up once we're up."

"Uh, I did get an objective, but it was to make sure you reach the top of the mountain alive." She put her hands up.

"All the system's words! Please don't hit me!"

"Ugh," Veronika groaned.

"I'm not going to hit you. At least you'll still get something from the trip." And reach the top of the mountain they did, not with a bang, but with the ding of a system message. [Rina Ring!] Congratulations pawn. You've completed a simple objective! Your treacherous journey has earned you +150 XP, +2 [Resolve], and +2 [Brawn]. And you know what that means! You've reached level three. In addition to a skill upgrade, you get +2 [Mobility] and +1 [Resonance]. [Guilty Until Purified] has reached level two.

Now the skill's damage multiplication effect is increased to 2 and it lasts for 10 hours instead of 6. [100/250 XP to level 4]"Thank fuck," Veronika whispered.

"I mean…thank the Rose."