Chapter 70 – Return to Sunlight

Chapter 70 – Return to Sunlight

The night passes peacefully without a single attack, and the next morning they break camp early to start their trek back. Before they leave, Emily separates from the group without a word, leaving them behind as she sprints out of the cavern, following one of the paths downstream. She cuts her way through several groups of beasts as she gets further away from the lake, but even as her stamina drops and she starts to feel fatigue setting in, after running for almost twenty-four hours straight, she still finds nothing but more winding tunnels and an endlessly flowing stream.

Damn, I guess I’ll have to come back again to finish my quest. I’ll run my own expedition before I leave once I reach third circle.

Sighing in disappointment, she resets time back to the morning by the lake.

Unaware of her journey further into the deeps without them, the group sets off, leaving an emptier cavern behind them, having collected most of the crystals and thrown all the bodies and heads into the water. The writing on the wall, they don’t touch.

They retrace their steps, heading upstream and back towards the surface with tension hanging over the group, fear of a repeat of the last horde of groglers present in everyone’s minds. They run into a few fire-spitting bugs and iron-clawed moles on the first day of their travel, filing into the well-lit tunnel from the dark side passageways.

The fire-spitting bugs are eviscerated by Emily’s flying lightning and a few well-placed water blades. Their attacks harmlessly burst against the group’s water barriers. The iron-clawed moles once again prove fun for Emily, as she charges out from the rest of the group with flying lightning swinging and quickly dispatches them all. The rest of the first day marching along the water’s edge is quiet.

This pattern repeats as they get further from the lake, with no large, coordinated attacks. A few dog-sized acidic centipedes show up on the second day, and Emily is forced to stop using flying lightning when the first one she cuts open melts the weapon. Instead, a few bolts and flaming projectiles from Dante reap their lives.

On the third day, they spot a patch of vothral weed, a small blue stalk imbued with strong water elemental mana, growing on the other side of the lake. They cross the water to collect it, but several shimmering blades of water shoot out from the depths below, shredding Dante and Mia to pieces. Emily resets once, and this time before letting anyone into the water, she shoots two bolts in, filling the water with electric mana and frying several piranhas, that float to the surface dead.

They continue onwards, and it’s not until they enter the dark, waterless tunnels connecting the surface and The Waters on the evening of the fifth day that they run into groglers again.

When they reach the small junction room filled with luminis, a small group of ten groglers rushes them from the tunnels. They rip them to pieces with ease, and find no others nearby, assuaging the group’s fears that they might signal another coordinated offensive heading their way. Afterwards, they settle down for the evening in the flower-lit room.

As everybody sits to eat amongst the flowers, Emily chooses to sit alone by the entrance to the tunnel to the surface, silently staring out into the darkness ahead.

“You excited to head back?” Oscar asks, approaching from behind her, carrying food.

“Of course,” Emily responds with a grin as he sits beside her. “I have new things to research and toys to make. Also, I miss Jules.”

Her grin fades to a bittersweet smile.

“Haha, yes,” Oscar laughs. “It’s nice to have something good to return to.”

Emily raises a brow in surprise, before switching to a teasing grin.

“Who do you have to return to?”

“My family,” he says with cheer. “This expedition will be a great achievement for us, thanks to you.”

“At least you know who it’s thanks to,” she responds with a smirk.

“Seriously though,” Oscar says with a solemn gaze. “Thank you for keeping my head on straight back there. I’m not sure what came over me, but I was giving up way too fast. It’s not a good mind-set for a leader. You’re the main reason we’ve made it this far at all, let alone with this few casualties. I know you won’t really be getting a fair cut for how much effort you’ve had to put in, but I’d like to offer you my proper thanks.”

Emily watches him in silent surprise.

“The normal procedure when a member of an expedition dies is to split their share: half to the family running the expedition, and half to be divided between the surviving members. I’d like to give you half of my family’s share.”

“Are you allowed to do that?”

“Yes. No one in my family will argue with me when we return.”

Emily scoffs at his confidence, but thanks him with a grin.

“Thank you then. Always happy to have more funds and research material.”

“You deserve it for keeping us safe.” He rises, patting her on the shoulder, as he heads towards his sleeping bag. “Let’s hope we get back without more troubles.”

***

The night passes and they continue through the dark tunnels away from The Waters. They run into a few bugs and moles, but Emily and Dante deal easily with them at the front of the group. They sleep again the next night, simply stopping and setting up camp on the path, fighting off a few bugs in the night.

The moment the fifth shot leaves the barrel though, Emily’s instincts flare and she follows them. She flicks the gun to the side slightly and pulls the trigger without a thought. Her sixth bullet flies out, punching through the torsos of two cats jumping past each other, dropping them to the floor unmoving.

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Skill learned: Basic Shooting (passive)

[Basic Shooting (passive)]

User knows how to use ranged weapons and firearms.

-Grants +10% dexterity and agility when fighting with ranged weapons

-Grants +10% familiarity with ranged weapons

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A calming feeling of familiarity washes over her as she adjusts her grip on her revolver. Her slightly tensed wrist relaxes, and she slides her finger out of the trigger guard to rest it on the side. She pops open the gun’s cylinder, dropping the empty casings and quickly loading six new bullets.

She moves the leg that is crossed over the branch, drawing her foot in and raising her knee to create a comfortable firing platform, and rests her gun against it while looking out into the forest with a smile.

I was wondering if I’d get a ranged version of my melee skill at some point. These earrings worked like a charm! All those shots and I didn’t wake anyone. Maybe I’ll work on a properly silent gun when I get back. It could be a useful method for assassinating a mage. I bet I could hit them with a silent bullet before they could put a barrier up, and with this, I don’t need to waste as many wind crystals adding them to the bullet’s propulsion mix every time.

She silently deactivates the earring on the gun and watches her surroundings, waiting for more targets to wander into range.

The night slowly ticks by, and she continues picking off approaching beasts from the trees. Half an hour before the end of her watch, she starts to run out of bullets.

Fourteen shots left. I should probably save some for if I need them on the rest of the trip. One final test.

She spots three pop frogs hopping closer, glowing a warm orange in her thermal sight despite being amphibians, and loads two bullets into the cylinder while standing up. Stepping forward, she drops from her high perch, deftly bouncing between a few branches as she falls near silently to the floor.

She checks her stats as she rushes forward to meet the frogs outside the barrier.

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[Attributes:] Strength 12 (16), Dexterity 34 (36), Agility 26 (29), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)

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She bursts through the trees, arriving a few metres in front of the frogs. She raises her revolver to point at one and watches her stats changing

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[Attributes:] Strength 12 (16), Dexterity 34 (39), Agility 26 (32), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)

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One muffled hiss and the first frog drops dead. She springs forward, turning the gun on another frog while extending her claw into the last.

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[Attributes:] Strength 12 (18), Dexterity 34 (39), Agility 26 (34), Vitality 13 (16), Intelligence 60 (59)

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She pulls the trigger as her blade sinks into the frog’s soft head, finishing the fight and letting her added strength flow out of her.

“Tsk,” she clicks her tongue as she wipes her blade and turns back to the camp. “The bonuses don’t stack for the same stats but instead take the highest boost. Ah well, it was worth a shot.”

Returning to the camp, she sits on the bank of the crater again and waits out the rest of her watch. It comes to an end without any more encounters, and she wakes Ivor and Matteo to watch together due to the number of encounters she’s had. After briefly warning them, she settles down in a tent to meditate through what’s left of the night as the rain starts to pour again.