NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4 (A Legendary Duel) + (Info on future plans for the novel)
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[Unknown Female Voice]: “Recently, the public has had many questions for the NWA, and people are growing increasingly concerned due to their continued silence. Some are even calling for government officials to step in. How do you think this most recent incident will play into this?”
[Unknown Male Voice]: “Hahah, I’ll stop you right there, Maya. Do you really think this event will change anything? No, it’s just another example of the Army trying to blow something out of proportion and blame it on the NWA. I, for one, am not going to fa—”
[Unknown Female Voice Maya]): “You can’t be serious, you ca…”
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[Multiple Unknown Voices] "Outrage against the NWA was sparked this week after a series of crimes committed by high-ranking wardens were found to be swept under the rug. These events culminated in the apparent lack of communication between the guild dispatched by the Association, resulting in two victims as the guild failed to correc…"
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[Angry Unknown Male Voice]: “You think they don’t know, people? You really think they don’t? Look, I’ve been broadcasting for how many years now? And I’ve been saying the same thing the entire time: the NWA is planting these rifts to destabilize the country. How long are we going to sit here and let these people get away with it? They are in control, people, wake u…”
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[Chipper Unknown Female Voice]: “Yo, thanks for joining me, guys. I’m here on the ground live at the site of the recent rift incident. Yeah, you can still see the rift which touched down over there. Apparently, it got clocked as a g2. I know, right? Big deal, right? But heard there’s two people in there. Thing is, one’s some army poster boy, huh? Oh yeah, no word on any guilds being dispatched by the NWA, so sucks for them, I guess. Yeah, I bet that’s going to go over wel…"
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"Turn it off."
Those three gruff words came from inside the luxurious meeting room as an imposing man, who perhaps would look quite at home in a battlefield but looked completely out of place there, walked into the room, running his hand along the wooden conference table. In a single motion, he took his seat and placed a small mountain of papers onto the desk.
Opposite him sat a pretty young woman dressed in a suit, nodding her head, her face filled with concern while quickly reaching for something. A slight sound was heard as a button on a nearby remote shut down the TV.
[Unknown Female Voice]: “But, sir, we really do need to give a public response about this. Just today, I’ve gotten more than twenty-seven requests for comments by media outlets, who aren’t satisfied with the boilerplate answers anymore.”
The man only nodded his head slightly, his grizzled face covered in scars staring out into space. Making a slight frown, he placed his hand on the stack of papers as he looked at the woman.
[Unknown Male Voice]: “Guild M... No, Selene, what do you think would happen if I gave a response to this? If I said we don’t know what the hell is going on there and had no current plans on how to fix it, do you think that would solve anything? Or would it be better if I said we had everything under control, so those mongrels over at the Bureau of Defense could breathe down my neck? sighs Never mind, just tell me the report.”
The woman nodded her head but her expression looked hesitant, clearly not wanting to let the topic be dropped that easily. Knowing that it wasn’t right to be pushy, she let out a sigh of her own as she picked up a pile of documents, slightly tapping them on the table. The previous concerned face was replaced with a cold, business-like mood.
[Unknown Female Voice Selene): “Right Away, Director. As per the standard agreements, I’ve arranged for a team from my guild’s hunter branch to personally begin preparing for a dive on the rift once it’s cracked. The Olivier guild is also being dispatched to help the army with relocating the displaced citizens. Luckily, it was only a grade-two gate, sir. Otherwise, appearing so close to the evacuation camp could have resulted in a large number of casualties. But as of now, the official report is that only two current casualties have been noted, both of which were caught up in the initial opening of the rift. Overall, sir, everything is going according to procedure and should be resolved once my team is able to enter the rift.”
As Selene finished her report, she looked at the man in front of her, whose face up until now still wore a grim expression. He nodded his head slightly at her, raising his hand to show her that no further input was required. Before speaking, he got up from the chair, turning to face the large glass window behind him.
[Unknown Male Voice Unknown Director’: "Selene, don’t pretend like you don’t also see what’s wrong in that report... why hasn’t the rift been cracked yet, and why hasn’t it already been closed down? It’s only a grade-two, and yet some of our best Wardens are just sitting nearby twiddling their thumbs, all the while the army’s breathing down my neck. All this trouble just because one of the casualties was some private fresh out of boot camp, huh. sighs, The problem is we don’t know why it’s so hard to crack, or why it slipped from the initial predicted range. We don’t know a damn thing, and maybe if there hadn’t been any casualties, we could have swept this under the rug till we had some answers. Just my luck that some newbie soldier had to bring back a scared civilian, this whole thing is being shoved right down my throat."
Selene: “Si… nevermind then. I’ll be leaving now if my report’s been heard then I guess I’m done here.”
The woman, suppressing her own thoughts, turned to leave the conference room. Before she did, she managed to hear the director mutter a few words to himself while chuckling.
“Damn, I really want to meet whoever’s unlucky enough to have a rift appear on top of them, yeah, I bet they’d make a good gambling friend.”
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I really, really wish this blasted car had invested a bit into padding, patting myself off slightly I try to adjust my position to be a bit more comfortable, I had managed to release myself from my seat without much trouble but my landing wasn’t quite as easy, somehow managing to hit both arms and one of my ankles on different areas in the car, ending up in a bit of a heap, yeah I get that it’s built to be tough, but clearly that had failed seeing as I’m currently being comforted by a blanket of broken glass, and smashed parts, I don’t think that objective was met either, so they could have at least made the thing a bit more comfortable to fall onto.
Propping further up I examined my body, nothing seemed out of place, and despite so minor bruising it didn’t seem like I had broken anything, I was honestly surprised this frail and weak body had managed to get through the crash in such a state, but maybe it was just me finally getting so good luck, my dress was of course torn to almost nothing, but as long as it served its function as clothing I think it’d be a bit ungrateful to complain about it.
So somehow besides the pain, pretty much everywhere I seemed to be in good condition, which gave me enough space to both keep an ear open for any more of those weirdos' cries from earlier and to look into the new notifications in front of me.
I could see the previous grayed-out icons of “map” and the shop were now lit up with a small golden glow, underlined by pink glowing words saying “new”, I first opened the map icon, as for my current situation it seemed more useful than the dubious looking shop.
Sadly as it was the goddess’s system any hopes at being useful were dashed though at least this time not entirely, what pulled up was a mostly empty black square labeled with the name “Current location {undecipherable } filled in a cartoonish way was a small circle of color, I assume representing the strange cave looking area I now found myself in, highlighted by a blinking purple arrow emboldened with the words “you” in large font, throughout the black unlabeled square there were also a large amount of red dots which were moving sporadically in all directions across the map, one was even relatively nearby providing no sense of comfort to me.
Closing the map icon in a slightly concerned mood. I opened the shop menu deciding it was best to check the other notification I had while I still had the chance to. What greeted me besides a blast of colorful lights, and a slightly victorious tune. Was a page very similar to many online store pages in my past life. However, its content was quite surprising. There was a long list of categories to choose from. Some of them I understood like “Basic survival gear”, but others like “Magic weapons” left me dumbfounded.
All of it seemed a bit confusing, and honestly a bit childish in its layout, but clicking the first section, which was “potions'' presented me with a long list of items, one of which even seemed to be able to grant immortality the issue was the price, next to each item was a small icon which displayed the price to buy it, the currency seemed to be the GP mentioned in my ever so helpful “survive” mission, the only problem is I was yet to see any potion with a price less than a thousand gp, with the cool sounding ones even having prices in the millions. Sadly my look into the shop was cut short as I heard something approaching nearby, quickly opening the map I saw a red dot which was steadily getting closer.
*click* *chirp* * click*
[Iris Sinclaire]: "Well, this is new."
What crawled out of the cave passage appeared to be a roughly four-foot-long red ant. Its head had a pair of bulbous hexagonal eyes that would have looked cute if under them weren't a set of pincers extending to either side of its body, creating a very imposing figure as they opened and closed in unison which was the source of the strange sound I had been hearing.
The head turned to the side, scanning the room, giving me a better look at the rest of its body. Its torso was made of five segments covered in a durable carapace, terminated in a frighteningly long stinger. Its eyes skated around the room before eventually locking their attention on me. Its legs moved in unison, bringing it closer in my direction, its oversized stinger bumping against the ground as it moved, letting out a series of seemingly annoyed clicks.
*clank* *click click
Wait, did I just decide to assign emotions to its noises? Can ants even have emotions? I wonder what else it's thinking right now. Probably something like, "I'm gonna eat this thing invading my home," right?
I shook my head internally. Not that I thought I was wrong, but now really wasn't the time for this. I needed to think up a plan quickly. I racked my brain for solutions, and after a few precious seconds, I still had just about as much of an idea of what to do as when I started. It wasn't like anyone ever told me how to deal with giant ants. Maybe it was different in this world, but the only memory I had about "defeating" ants was when I used to burn them with a magnifying glass as a kid, but I was pretty sure that wasn't going to work in this situation. Maybe if I made a loud noise, I could scare it away. Then again, it might just make it angry at me, which was the last thing I wanted right now. My thoughts continued to loop.
Luckily, the ant still seemed wary of me because it wasn't going straight to attack me. Instead, it was circling me continuously, clashing its mandibles, letting out bursts of sound in a strange rhythm, getting a little closer each time. Looking at the way it moved, an idea finally struck me. The ant really wasn't that fast. Sure, for an ant, it was fast, but nothing my body shouldn't be able to handle, well my old body, was still sort of going out on a limb with the current one. It was the perfect plan. I wouldn't even have to fight it; I could just run away. Nonviolent opinions really were the best in this kind of situation. I mean, this whole me invading your home thing was just a misunderstanding anyway. It's not like I wanted to be here in the first place! Putting those thoughts aside, I realized it was time to go while the ant was still pretty far from me. I scanned the room, looking for the best exit, ultimately settling on a crack in the rock that looked big enough for me to run through, while still having plenty of bioluminescent moss to light my way. Steeling myself for action, I set my legs into motion. I put all the effort I could into my retreat into the opening. At first, I didn't hear any movement behind me; it seemed my sudden move took the creature off guard for a brief second. It didn't remain in that state for long, as with a sudden fluttering of legs and telltale clicks, I knew it was following after me. It had been optimistic to hope it wouldn't follow in the first place. This result wasn't outside of my expectations. I was glad I had made my escape when I did. Now, with my head start and speed advantage, I was sure it would only be a matter of time before I got away from it. However, as I continued my mad dash down the corridor, I realized the fatal flaw in my plan.
"Why am I already out of breath? It hadn't even been that long, maybe a minute or two. I couldn't really tell, but what I could tell was that I was losing steam fast. I couldn't believe this body was in such poor shape. It wasn't that I was in particularly good shape in my past life; rather, this was simply too much. I really wished I had done some basic physical tests when I had first awoken. Maybe then I wouldn't have tried to stake my life on my physical ability. I turned into another tunnel, trying once again to throw the beast off my tracks, but this time I didn't even hear a pause as it followed quickly behind me.
click click screech click
Judging by the sounds it was making, I could tell it was in no mood to negotiate. I should have known that passivism never works. Violence really is the best thing in these kinds of situations. Though going by the burning in my lungs, I doubt I'd have fared any better fighting a giant ant monster than running a short distance. I was slowing down now; my legs and throat were burning too. In this state, it was only a matter of time before the ant caught up.
Running out of options, I checked the system message to see if there was anything helpful in the "map" icon yet. Rushing past the mission tab, I opened the map area.
I was greeted with the same game-like display, only this time there were more spaces colored in, and a second red blip was following closely behind my own green icon. It looks like the system can't help me here either. I tried my best to examine the length of the tunnel in front of me. It had been minutes since I last saw an intersection. They wouldn't be particularly helpful anyway, but the fact that there was none left me feeling like I was heading into a dead end. Shuddering at the thought, I redoubled my efforts, but it didn't do any good. I had pushed past my limits some time ago, and even if I could go further, the ant was proving much more persistent than I thought. Just as I considered turning around and facing the creature while I still had some energy left, up ahead, the tunnel began to widen, entering what seemed to be another cave. With one last push of speed, I decided to enter the cavern in hopes that there might be something useful inside. Bursting through the tunnel, I nearly stumbled as I quickly skidded to a halt. I realized what I had first thought was a cave was actually a massive underground ravine. Heart pounding, I peered over the edge of the cliff of rock, which was barely big enough for me to stand on, into the ravine below. Its bottom couldn't even be seen with the patches of light moss dotted along its walls.
Scratch click click
With a start, I realized the ant was still running at me with full speed.
"Hey, wait! You really don't want to run at me that fast. Just slow down a little, Mr. Ant. I'm sure we can talk this out like reasonable adults."
Yelling out in vain, as the ant must have taken my cry as a kind of provocation or was also tired of the chase. Because it only increased its speed further as it launched itself at my chest in an attempt to grab me with its pincers.
I had braced myself for the impact, but this didn't do much good, as when I felt the mass of the ant impact me, my body lost all rigidity, and my grip on the stone floor with it. Flying backward, I felt a brief moment of weightlessness and rushing air as I descended into the dark.
Click screech screech screech screech
As I fell, I heard the cries of the ant, apparently shocked that its charge had led to such an outcome. Before, with a splash, my momentum was halted as I felt water envelop me. Using every ounce of strength I had left, I managed to swim up to the surface of the pond. Thankfully, it wasn't an underground river, or the giant ant would have been the least of my troubles.
After doing a quick check on the state of my body, I found that I was mostly fine besides some bruises. The ant, on the other hand, didn't get so lucky. It had missed the water entirely, instead hitting a bunch of sharp rocks nearby. The once intimidating creature now lay in a heap of mangled limbs and greenish-yellow blood. I let out a sigh of relief, realizing that for once I had actually gotten lucky when a system notification filled my vision.
System:<
{Primary Mission “Survive” completed- - - - calculating reward
{100 gp has been deposited successfully!}
{Primary Mission “Survive” has been reissued}
{Primary Mission “Survive” has been updated with a failure condition. Reward set to new difficulty] (~100GP)}
Looking at the smashed bug currently lying in front of me, I started to wonder if maybe I really could survive all this.