Chương 12: Hidden Quest

Level 1 wasn't really dangerous if you were willing to ignore some inconveniences. There wasn't really enough freshwater for any cleaning or showering. A fibre-rich but safe diet gave you the shits and the boredom of simply sitting on the beach with a bunch of strangers eating coconuts was genuinely enough to turn some people insane.

A new anaconda Nihil had carried out of the jungle fell on the rock next to Kevin with a thump, startling the young artist out of his trance-like state which Nihil had learned indicated he was currently sharing his vision with his creations.

"Dinner's ready," he said before starting to take a knife to the anaconda, skinning it and removing its organs. A rather unlucky specimen. It had simply crossed his path during his walk back so he'd picked it up.

"This is way too much meat," Kevin observed.

"Weighs around 100 pounds." Nihil grunted as he chopped off the head and hurled it into the calm sea. A churning commenced and the water became red with blood and froth. Nihil continued unerring, hacking the meat into slabs which he then pierced through with some skewers he'd made out of branches and left here on this rock a while ago. Kevin meanwhile put some extra wood on the small fire, quickly making it roar up into the night, the sparks serving as a second layer of smaller and flickering stars.

"Killed three fishmen today, gonna let them get anxious now for a few days before striking again," Nihil reported idly, not seeing a reason to hide the information from what was essentially a teammate.

"I can see," Kevin observed drily, eyeing the blood covering Nihil's clothing. It was good that Nihil wasn't a biological human anymore, letting him ignore things such as sanitation and infection now. He really should have done this sooner… So convenient…

"Why though? They weren't hurting anybody?" Kevin eventually asked.

"Got a load of experience, figurative and literal in this case," Nihil said as he started constructing two sets of holding sticks that would support the spits. One that would roast the snake meat over the fire, one that would smoke it higher up. As much as you could smoke something without access to an enclosed space. Sun drying would have to start tomorrow morning, hopefully allowing the meat to survive a few extra days. Neither man said anything for a while as the meat roasted over the fire.

"Thanks," Kevin said eventually, sullenly, as he started eating while Nihil leaned back against the porous rock wall behind him.

"I found something underwater," Kevin said once he'd finished eating. Nihil perked up.

"A treasure? A new creature?" he asked curiously while rubbing his hands in excitement. Kevin shook his head, matted brown hair flying everywhere.

"No, I found an underwater tunnel actually. Natural, seemingly, but it's a few dozen metres towards the group you mentioned. It burrows right into the depths of the island."

"What's in it?" Nihil asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's the thing," Kevin muttered with furrowed brows.

"It ends in a collapsed wall. A bunch of stone and sediment blocked off my creation in the end. Nothing but a bunch of algae and weird eel-like creatures that snap at you as you go." Nihil stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Make a bird," he ordered casually. Kevin blushed and looked away, a gesture that looked odd in the flickering light thrown by the flame.

"You know my birds can't fly. I don't understand them well enough to make them," he muttered.

"I wasn't asking," Nihil pointed out coldly. Kevin gave a deep breath, closing his eyes.

"If it helps, birds have hollow bones. They're quite light. They fly by having relatively muscular wings however, wings that are angled forward in a way that pushes off the air while also allowing for high levels of aerodynamics. You can make one that's even lighter, just as long as it can glide, I can provide the initial push," Nihil explained and proposed briefly, dumping all he really knew about the animal. Kevin nodded silently, brought up a hand to his face and bit his thumb.

Ink bled from the wound and he quickly started sketching a bird onto the rock next to the fire. What emerged after a few minutes was a ink-coloured amalgamation of a pigeon, a crow and a hummingbird. Ugly, but potentially functional?

"Now give it one of your worm-swimmers so it can hold it in its claws," Nihil ordered. Another minute of drawing, shorter this time, before the small creature that could move surprisingly fast underwater joined the bird stumbling oddly on the ground, nearly tipping into the fire several times. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The bird picked up the worm after which the bird was picked up by Nihil who stood up and stretched.

"The thing about being superhuman," he confided to Kevin, "is that sometimes you really can take the brute force approach." Then he reared his arm back like a javelin thrower, activated all the threads of his body to serve singular motion and lurched forward, arm shooting forth to launch the bird like a cannon in a single smooth motion. The bird creation was unleashed into the air and quickly disappeared into the night. Nihil turned to watch Kevin who had closed his eyes and whose face looked strained.

Minutes passed before the other man finally opened his eyes.

"I was able to glide for a bit," he admitted.

"But I couldn't see in the dark very well. I thought I could make out a large pool of water reflecting moonlight in the middle of the island. I crashed before I reached it though. Maybe we should try again tomorrow?"

"No." Nihil shook his head.

"We try again now," he ordered. Kevin gritted his teeth before nodding and quickly drawing up another bird and worm combo. Slowly but surely the two men improved their respective techniques. Kevin drew wings that were better at gliding and Nihil throwing the creations further and further as he found better and better ways to manipulate his threads into motions that could increase distance. It took them a dozen tries before Kevin finally managed to open his eyes and announce some good news.

"The worm landed in the pool of water," he said through gasping breaths, bloodshot eyes and a white face.

"Search for an underwater tunnel." Kevin nodded, looking as if he was about to fall over any second now.

"The fishmen," he eventually gasped.

"They're sleeping at the bottom of the pool." He furrowed his brows.

"Some of them aren't as you described. They have human torsos and breasts? I can't see, it's too dark."

"The tunnel, man, the tunnel."

"I'm at the bottom, it's so dark, almost impossible to see. I'm feeling my way forward, trying not to touch the fishmen," he said before suddenly gasping.

"There's a dark hole! The blackness contrasts enough against the moonlight to be visible." He muttered more unintelligible things before suddenly opening his eyes, leaning over the edge of the rock outcropping and puking straight off.

"There's a blocked tunnel in the pool, isn't there?" Nihil queried.

"They've been digging at it, I could feel some rotting wooden utensils stuck amidst large rocks stones," Kevin managed to force out through bursts of puking.

"So my initial thought was wrong," Nihil muttered thoughtfully.

"I didn't put much thought into why the fishmen were stuck there in the middle of the island. I thought they'd been thrown in at some point in the past by a hurricane and then evolved legs to deal with it." He shook his head.

"It seems the opposite is true, they were exploring the pool connection before getting stuck by an underwater tunnel collapse?" he asked himself with a frown.

"Or maybe they dug the tunnel to create a base in which they could live away from the other sea creatures, just that it eventually collapsed. Not enough information." He turned to Kevin.

"You're sure they're trying to open up the tunnel, not reinforce it?" he asked. Kevin righted himself, wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of an increasingly disgusting jacket.

"Seems to me, they also had what I now realise were piles of rocks outside the pool. I can confirm tomorrow." A deluge of text suddenly popped up right in front of Nihil's eyes and he chuckled.

"No need to confirm," he said happily while Kevin sat there in stunned silence.

"We just got our confirmation with a fat bag of experience to boot." Hidden Quest Activated! 100 Experience points rewarded! The Plight of the Mermen: The Mermen people originally built a tunnel base inside the deserted island to have a safe haven amidst the tumultuous food-chain of the open seas. Unfortunately, the tunnel collapsed, leaving them locked inside a pool in the middle of the island. The salinity level of the pool is slowly decreasing each week and the environment is not conductive for reproduction.

Release the Mermen back into the open sea and save this beautiful species from extinction! Reward: 500 experience points;???

"This place has quests, what kind of reality have we landed in!" Kevin exclaimed as he finished reading the message.

"A fun one, my dear friend, a fun one," Nihil muttered quietly as he appraised his experience stack, which was increasing much faster than he'd ever expected. Nihil Experience: 687 Exp used: 8001 Level: 8 Str: 14 Ag: 11 Dex: 45 Per: 23 Vit: 90 Reg: 0 Then he frowned.

"I already started killing them though, maybe this won't be so easy after all," he determined with a sigh. Choosing between the quest reward and simply slaughtering all the fishmen? It was elementary. Hunting creatures always gave worse rewards than a hidden quest. The only issue with hidden quests was that while climbers in the future would theorise that every level had at least one, most had never been found.

Considering that one would have to either already kill all the fish- Mermen to find the tunnel inside the inland pool, or brave the incredibly dangerous waters of the sea to explore it for days on end, it was sort of clear why.

"This… I wonder what the hidden reward is," Kevin muttered while licking his lips feverishly. It seemed he was only unmotivated when there wasn't a reward in sight. Good to know.

"I think tomorrow is going to be a bit different than I expected, huh," Nihil said meanwhile.

"We need to reprioritize." He suddenly stood up.

"I have to go talk to the group. The experience reward can be given individually to as many people as there are participants." This, he knew from personal experience.

"You care!?" Kevin said with a wide open mouth. Nihil frowned, looking back at the man.

"What do you mean? Is my generous spirit not obvious to all?" He wasn't yet at the point where he would benefit from anyone's death. That meant it was time to save and empower as many as he could. 500 experience was nothing to sneeze at. That was a half a year's harvest for the average unadventurous climber.

"You threatened to kill me!" Kevin shouted.

"I threatened," Nihil replied while rolling his eyes.

"Did I actually do it, no? Did it cause you to help me and grow your skillset? Yes."

"You, you ass." Nihil suddenly whirled around and swung his leg, kicking Kevin right in the stomach. Another round of retching commenced.

"Don't think I can't make you regret not listening to orders without killing you," he threatened coldly, while looking disdainfully at the new puddle of sick gathering in small pools on the rock outcropping.

"Eat more meat and coconut flesh. You'll run out of energy puking like this all day." Kevin retched, shook, eventually managed to mumble.

"Understood."

"Good," Nihil said before waving goodbye over his shoulder and jumping off the rock onto the beach.

"Remember your place and you'll be fine!" he shouted before walking off towards the campsite of the other group of survivors.