Chương 80: B2—Chapter 12: An Even Bigger Snake

I was in the middle of a strange dream—something about snakes turning into trees and then meowing—when I felt a tongue on my cheek and heard a childish voice shouting in my head.

"FOOD!" I was still more asleep than awake, so it didn't fully register. Then I felt the tongue again and heard,"FOOD!" My eyes flew open, and Rue stood by my bed.

"You said it?" Again.

"FOOD!" I jumped out of bed, hugging him.

"Buddy, you can talk!"

"FOOD!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll feed you, hold your horses. But you can talk!" I gave him a colossal snake steak to celebrate his new ability. Just then, Lis came down the stairs and into the kitchen. I told him, "Rue can talk now!" Lis shrugged and said, "Of course, he's already level five; he got five points in Intelligence." After breakfast, Lis stretched and leaned against the kitchen counter.

"We should process all the Venomhounds and Quillbacks before we return to Earth." Mahya nodded as she tied her braids back.

"I also want more trees from this world," she said, glancing out the window. We left the house, and the moment we stepped outside, my foot skidded to a stop. Small green snakes lay scattered across the stairs. Lis crouched and picked one up between two fingers, rolling it gently as he inspected it. He pried its mouth open with a thumbnail and leaned closer.

"Baby burrowers," he said, tilting his head as he studied the tiny fangs.

"Looks like there's a nest nearby. Possibly even a nest mother. We should find it."

"Why are they dead?" I asked, staring down at the stairs and all the dead snakes. Lis straightened and gave a small shrug.

"House defenses." I blinked at him.

"What? It kills stuff?" My voice rose before I could stop it.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course." He looked at me as if I'd just asked why water was wet.

"Otherwise, what's the point of defenses?"

"I don't know," I said, spreading my hands.

"Locking the house, maybe?" Mahya snorted, and Lis laughed, clapping a hand on my back hard enough to make me stumble a step forward.

"You will learn, my friend. You will learn." I just shook my head, rubbing my shoulder.

"So," Mahya said, nudging one of the dead snakes with the toe of her boot, "how do you plan to find the nest?" Lis turned toward her with a grin.

"That's what we have John for."

"Me?" I pointed at my chest.

"How exactly?"

"The nest will be on a mana vent," Lis said.

"You use Mana Sense, find the vent, and we follow." I hesitated, then frowned.

"Don't you have mana sense?"

"Of course."

"Then why don't you locate it?" He paused, then shrugged.

"Because as a Wizard, your sensitivity to mana is much better than mine. I can feel things, sure, but it's… duller. The best I can sense are monsters. You're the better tool for this job." That didn't make me feel nearly as confident as he seemed to think it should.

"Why do we even want to find the nest?" I asked.

"What's so special about it?" Lis's expression shifted, the humor fading.

"Snake eggs," he said.

"Very rare ingredient for especially effective anti-venom potions." I exhaled slowly.

"I'm starting to get the feeling that this whole adventuring thing is way more complicated than I thought." Lis crouched to gather the dead snakes, storing them away before standing and dusting off his hands. He stepped closer and tapped two fingers against my forehead.

"All right. Close your eyes. Expand your Mana Sense as far as you can. Look for a direction where the mana feels thicker. Richer." I closed my eyes and did as he said. Nothing. Just the same vague pressure everywhere. I opened my eyes and shook my head. Lis didn't comment. He simply walked behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders, and started gently steering me forward.

"Eyes closed," he said.

"Don't think. Feel. I will keep you from walking into a tree." I sighed and let my eyes fall shut again as he guided me along.

"Why don't we just use the active Luck ability?" I muttered.

"That's how I found the emerald mine." Lis chuckled softly.

"Do you consider a large, dangerous snake to be a lucky discovery or a fortuitous encounter toward a better future?"

"…No," I admitted.

"Exactly." He continued leading me, his hands steady on my shoulders, and after about twenty minutes, I felt a subtle change in the surrounding mana. It was very faint, and I wasn't sure at first, but after a few more meters, I knew it was the right direction. I pointed confidently.

"That way."

"Don't open your eyes," Lis reminded me.

"I will keep leading you. Just keep your hand pointing in the right direction." We continued like this for another half an hour, with Lis guiding me, until we reached an area where the mana felt rich and thick.

"We're above the vent," I said.

"The nest will be in a cave, so let's start looking for an entrance," Lis said, releasing my shoulders. We searched for a while, expanding the search radius until I heard Rue's howl in the distance and headed that way. He stood at an entrance to a dug tunnel that went downwards. It was so big that three people could walk side by side and stand straight without a problem. That worried me, and I asked, "Will the size of the snake match the size of the tunnel?"

Lis glanced at the tunnel, then back at me, and replied with a slight shrug, "It will be smaller, but not by much."

"Maybe we shouldn't go in there?" I suggested. Lis gave me a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry; you will stay behind and heal us if needed. Don't forget, Mahya and I have traveled in high-mana worlds, and I've even been to very high-mana ones; we've faced scarier things. It's too much for your level but not for ours." With that, we entered the tunnel, and I cast my Light Ball. The tunnel wound left and right, but consistently downward. After about an hour of walking, we reached a rock wall with a large opening. Lis motioned for me to stay put.

"Wait here," he whispered and turned invisible. After five minutes, he returned, his expression serious.

"She's inside and huge." He turned to Mahya and laid out the plan.

"I will create illusions to confuse her. You stick her to the ground and blind her. I will try to control her mind, and then we attack. I will strike from below and you from above. She's enormous, so it will take a while to kill her. I'm not sure I can control her mind for long. Her level is too high, but I will try to hold it as much as I can. You keep casting blindness and confusion." Mahya let out a slow breath and rubbed her forearm.

"My mana reserve isn't great. At most, I can cast a few times, but I need to keep the rest for mobility." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Lis inclined his head.

"I will help confuse her with mind control and illusions. It will be fine." He shifted his stance and looked at me.

"There's a protruding rock in front of the cave. Cast Invisibility and hide behind it." He lifted a finger, holding my gaze.

"Even if one of us gets hurt, don't rush in. We will come to you." I nodded.

"Do you have any spells you can cast from a distance?"

"Mana Dart."

"What level?"

"One," I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. He hummed, lips pursed, then waved it off.

"That won't be much help." A beat later, he added, "Still, try to shoot it. Arrows, crossbows, whatever you have. It's very high-level. I want you to gain advancement from it."

"But I won't advance until I raise my Wizard level anyway, so what's the point?"

"You still receive the advancement," Lis replied, matter-of-fact.

"It just won't be visible right away. Shame to miss something like that." Mahya's head snapped up. Her eyes lit, and she tapped her fingers together once.

"I have an idea." She turned toward Lis.

"Do you have wire?"

"I have," I said before he could answer. She looked at me and nodded.

"Good. Also, give me all the crossbow bolts you have."

"I've got a ton."

"Then give me fifty," she said, holding out her hand, "and the wire. And something to cut it with." I passed everything over. She sat down on a nearby rock, laying the bolts out in a neat row. Pulling out the quills we'd harvested from the bears, she began fastening them one by one, wrapping the wire tightly with quick motions. She turned one bolt in her fingers, inspecting it from every angle.

"These should penetrate the scales, considering the bears' levels." She paused, frowning slightly.

"I just hope they don't fall apart when you shoot them." Lis watched over her shoulder, then broke into a grin.

"Excellent idea. Hand them over." He took the finished bolts, pulled out an engraving pen, and started working methodically, carving a rune onto each one. When he finished, he turned one under the light, gave a satisfied nod, and said, "This should keep them together." Then he looked at Rue, who had been watching the whole process.

"Wait until the snake is on its last leg. Cast Invisibility, then bite it as much as you can." His expression softened slightly.

"But be very careful." Rue nodded, tail flicking once. I hesitated, then asked, "You're not casting Invisibility?" Lis shook his head.

"No. Mahya and I need to see each other." We crept into the cave, and when I saw the protruding rock he was talking about, Rue and I hid behind it. I peeked from behind the rock, and it was a horror show. The snake was HUGE. The other snakes they killed were about ten meters long and about half a meter in diameter. This one was five times larger, and its eyes and scales were glowing. I shuddered just looking at it. If those are the beasts of high-mana worlds, I'm not going there.

No way, no how, not in a million years. Tuonela Burrower Nest Mother Level 81 SHIT! Not in a billion years. In an instant, the air in the cave shimmered, and suddenly, illusions of Lis and Mahya flickered into existence near the distant wall. The snake, sensing movement, reared back and hurled its massive head forward with terrifying speed. Its jaws opened wide enough to swallow a man whole, rows of curved fangs glistening as strands of venom stretched between them. The strike cracked the air like a whip.

The sheer force of the attack sent tremors through the ground as it collided headfirst with the wall, chunks of stone exploding outward. Before it could recover from the impact, Lis darted forward, his speed so incredible that he left ghostly afterimages in his wake. His blade flashed in the dim light as he slashed across the snake's thick neck, drawing a dark line of blood.

The wound split scales the size of shields, yet the creature's muscles bunched like coiled steel beneath them, the enormous body already twisting to crush or fling him aside. Mahya defied gravity as she ran up the wall. With a powerful leap, she launched herself onto the snake's head, her sword poised, and drove the blade into one of the snake's glowing eyes. The snake recoiled, its hiss of pain reverberating through the cavern.

Its body slammed against the cave floor with enough force to rattle teeth, the impact sending cracks racing through the stone. Mahya slid down the length of the snake's body as if on a deadly playground slide. The snake froze mid-motion, and Lis struck again, cutting deep into its neck at the same spot. The creature thrashed violently, its massive tail whipping through the cavern. The blow smashed into the wall with a thunderous crack, shattering rock and spraying shards across the cave floor.

Mahya was already on the move, sprinting up another wall. She launched herself into the air again, her sword aimed at another eye, partially blinding the beast. But the snake still had two more glowing eyes burning with fury. Blind rage took over as its enormous body coiled and lashed, the cavern filling with the roar of grinding scales and snapping stone. Lis attacked the snake's neck, driving it back while Mahya scaled the cavern walls again. She leaped across the cave, aiming for the remaining eyes.

With two more precise strikes, she plunged her sword into the last of the snake's eyes, extinguishing the glowing orbs one by one. I stood there, transfixed, my heart pounding as I watched the deadly fight. Lis and Mahya moved with a level of skill and acrobatics I could never have imagined. Their coordination was flawless, and their speed unbelievable. I caught some strikes only because I was watching the snake; otherwise, it was impossible to follow them at all.

They worked together like a well-oiled machine, exploiting every weakness and anticipating the snake's moves. For two minutes, which felt like an eternity, they kept up the assault until the snake was a bloodied, blinded wreck of its former self. Shaking my head, I snapped myself out of the trance and shot the snake with the crossbow. Not wanting to hit them, I didn't aim for the head, but the snake's massive size made it irrelevant. Lis called out, "Rue!" Rue ran to the snake and started biting its tail.

It struck him with its tail, sending him flying several meters. My heart stopped, and I almost ran to him, but he rolled back to his feet, charged again, and kept biting. I shot it with three more bolts, and the snake finally died. Phew! My heart was pounding so fast I thought it might burst out of my chest, and I was shaking from the adrenaline. I sat there and took deep, calming breaths until I felt stable again. This kind of fighting was terrifying. Once I felt in control again, I joined them.

While I was freaking out, Lis opened the snake's belly and collected two crates of snake eggs. Mahya removed one fang and worked on the other.

"Why are you cutting out the fangs?" I asked.

"They make excellent knives," she said.

"Then why didn't you cut the fangs out of the other snakes?" She shrugged, her hands steady as she continued to extract the fang.

"Too small." I wondered how long it would take me to know all the cool stuff they'd learned. Lis stored the eggs and said, "I think we should take it outside for processing; there's not enough room to move here." The snake disappeared, and in its place was another pile of eggs and a large amount of mana crystals. Lis gave a huge smile.

"Nice!"

"We should check the bones; maybe we'll find something interesting," Mahya said. I looked around for the bones she mentioned and discovered an enormous pile in one corner. Lis wiped some sweat from his brow, then looked around the cavern.

"We should also check all the tunnels. We might discover additional snake skins that she had shed and more bones." A shiver of unease ran down my spine at the thought.

"Can there be more snakes?" Lis shook his head confidently.

"No," he said, meeting my gaze with a reassuring look.

"If there were more snakes, they would have come to her aid. Mana beasts are very protective of their brooding females." We split up between the tunnels and started checking them one by one. In the tunnel I examined, I found a snake's skin and two piles of bones. I had no idea what to look for in them, so I just stored the whole pile. Another tunnel led to a smaller cave. There, I found many small snake skins, probably from the other snakes, and piles of bones. I stored everything again.

When I returned to the main cave, Lis looked up from examining a pile of bones.

"Did you find any tunnel branches, or does everything lead to dead ends?"

"Dead ends."

"Good, we're done here; let's leave," he said, standing up and stretching his back before motioning for us to head out. Back at Lis's house, I went to take a bath. I had the Clean spell, but needed this relaxation to calm my nerves. I was still jumpy. After I finished the bath, we met outside the house, and Lis took out the snake. I tried to pick it up with Telekinesis, but there was no chance; the snake didn't move even a millimeter, and my mind felt like it had spasms.

"There's no way I'm picking it up." Lis chuckled softly.

"Don't worry," he said, patting my shoulder reassuringly.

"I have a solution." He dug into the snake's belly, removed all the internal organs, and threw them away. Then he turned to me and asked, "Can you peel it?" It took me over ten minutes to build a thin layer of mana between the flesh and skin and peel off the skin. Lis took out the biggest sword I'd ever seen, swung it repeatedly, and cut off a fifth of the snake.

"Can you pick this up?" he asked. I lifted the piece with some mental effort and a silent curse, put it back down, took out a plastic sheet, and repeated the operation as with the other snakes: pick up the snake, cast Clean and Purify on it, and cut it into steaks. Meanwhile, Lis cut the remaining snake into large pieces, which I also cut into steaks. Mahya showed us a crystal about the size of a grapefruit.

"Look at this beast core; it's one of the biggest I've ever seen." Afterward, she pulled out a green sack, roughly the size of a pumpkin, filled with green liquid.

"This snake was very lucrative," she said, her eyes gleaming. Lis nodded.

"And we didn't check the rest of the loot yet." After processing the snake, we took out the rest of the things we found in the tunnels and caves. The total loot was over fifty skins, which Lis said were as good as skin taken from a "fresh" snake, thirty-seven mana crystals with various aspects, and eleven weapons that looked utterly destroyed. They gave me the weapons because I could restore them, and Mahya requested one of the restored swords because she was using one of Lis's and needed to return it.

They told me to keep the rest. We split the skins, and Mahya and Lis wanted the crystals for their project. I didn't mind. After that, they went through the bones one by one, keeping most and splitting them three ways.

"What are the bones for?" I asked. Mahya looked up from her work.

"Selling to bone artisans," she said, tapping one of the larger bones with her finger.

"They make good mage weapons because of the mana conductivity." After sorting the snake loot, we processed the dogs and bears. I set aside the venomhound meat for Rue. Since they were canines too, it would benefit him significantly.

"You take all the bear meat. It's excellent for stews," Lis said, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

"And hamburgers," Mahya added, matching the eyebrow wiggle. I stared at them for a second, then shook my head, resigned. Our entire group always thought with their stomachs. After finishing everything, we went to sleep. In the morning, we cut down another thirty trees, turned them into logs, and stacked them into three piles. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and looked at the growing stacks.

"Why so many?" Lis leaned on his axe.

"One log can keep a fire going for five to eight hours." That done, we walked back to the Gate. Tuonela turned out to be a very profitable world.