NOVEL NEXT Chapter 438 – SDAT
POV Kim Min-Jae
“That idiot! We still need more testing!” Sophie shouts, and together we rush to the railing to watch what happens next.
I've seen it before, the other passengers ground to nothing by the same white sand. I still remember the screams and the image of their flesh being torn apart. But that doesn’t happen to Nat.
Before hitting the sand, he slows down and gently lands on it. He then stands there, butt naked, and watches as the wind blows a large cloud of white sand towards him, washing over the surface of the dunes like waves.
I could swear I saw him smile for a moment there.
Lily screams and covers her eyes as the sand smashes against Nat’s body, and I just can’t look away even though he could be dead the next second. A part of me can’t even imagine him dying. Not him. Not like this.
And just like that, he still stands there when the wave of sand is gone. There are wounds on his body, blood flowing down his skin. More than a failure, they seem like a small mistake and lack of efficiency in his efforts.
Nat spits bits of sand from his mouth and then charges towards the two blue figures. He moves in that weird twitchy movement of his and uses boosts of kinetic energy to get him over larger distances, quickly catching up to the two thylarin.
“I don’t think Nat cares about your testing,” I note.
“You might not realize it, Kim, but a single fucking mistake would have killed him there. If his body contained even the smallest whiff of the mana you spend to keep one of your orbs floating in the air, that sand would have killed him.”
“He wouldn’t fail like that,” I shake my head. I just can’t imagine it.
“But why’d he ditch his clothes?” Aaron asks.
“We couldn’t come up with a way to reliably expunge mana from external materials. It's easier to rely on your own body.”
“Is it just me, or does Nat have a nice ass?” Maya interrupts her words causing people to stare, and Tess giggles, breaking her stern mask.
“I can’t judge that as a man, but Lily might be able to answer,” Dennis blurts, ever eager to seize the opportunity. "She might send Izzy for the smartphone so she can snag a few pics."
“Shhh, she’s too busy staring,” Aaron adds.
“I’m not! I... just shut up, both of you!”
“It’s fine, Lily! I even saw Sophie and Tess sneaking a peek.” Maya chuckles, throwing her arm around the petite girl's shoulders.
Sometimes Maya manages to read the mood just well enough to lighten the tension, and I’m not even sure if she’s doing it on purpose or if that’s just how she is.
Everyone’s anxious. Even I can see that. Just a single mistake will mean Nat’s death. But at this point, it almost feels like It’s the only way we can expect him to behave.
That worries me a bit.
What would happen if Nat fails to live up to our high expectations? What would I do if the man I admire most fails and breaks?
I then watch as Nat reaches the two four armed thylarin. They seem to be as shocked by his apparent nudity as the fact that he followed them and survived.
Nat moves in a short burst of immense speed, white sand exploding under his feet, and the three of them rapidly settle into a melee combat.
POV Nathaniel
I expected it to be an easy fight, but they turned out to be stronger than I expected. The two of them work well together, and they wouldn’t be able to do so without a lot of experience.
So why the hell are you so good at melee combat? You can teleport, mess with my anchors, and have decent control over your mana, so don’t go learning melee tactics like some brute. Not to mention that the extra arms might just be slightly unfair.
I dodge another punch and boost my body to the side. I can’t even absorb anymore right now, that would require mana. And it's a good thing I turned off my unique passive too. With the way I’m getting pummeled right now, it would generate enough mana that the sand would kill all three of us.
Even so, I don’t need any of this. I’m already getting used to the way they fight.
One of them is more defense oriented, using his upper arms to defend and the lower set to grapple. The second one likes to go all out on the attack, often combining the lower left and upper right arms to strike while making feints with the others.
I plan a bit ahead, and, in exchange for a few wounds, I maneuver them into position and grab the arm of the more aggressive thylarin, then just as I move my other arm to strike… the world blacks out for a moment, and I feel my head being thrown back. I lift my arms to catch myself, but even so, I still get thrown to the ground.
“So naive, human. Did you really think it would be that easy?” one of the thylarin taunts, smiling as he stretches all four of his arms.
“Maybe he thought we wouldn’t notice his clumsy attempts to corner us,” the other one boasts, taking a step to the side.
Well, it seems like my pure melee combat isn’t where I would like it to be. Honestly, it does make a little bit of sense, given that I only have a few years of experience from Earth, especially in comparison to these two, who are both most likely over 50 years old, maybe even 100. Still, the way they’re treating me irks me.
Do they think this is all? Do they think I’m giving this all I have?
Staring at them, I reactivate my unique passive, and then, while they watch, I lift my arm and close my hand into a fist. I send kinetic energy to my hand to make the impact stronger and slam my fist into my chest - in a single powerful strike.
The kinetic energy transforms into mana, and just a trickle of that enters my reservoir.
Even that is enough, and the sand immediately starts attacking me, even as I quickly mold it into an orb and shoot it at the feet of the two thylarin. The white sand grinds down the flesh around my ankles, my shin bones start poking through, and one of my calves is nearly gone. The individual grains of sand boring tiny holes, almost like tunnels through my legs and chest.
And to think even the tiny amount of mana I held, just for a moment, was enough to cause so much damage.
I let thermal energy seep into my body from my vortex core, slowly closing my wounds as I take a step toward my disabled opponents.
Both of the thylarin are groaning in pain - and missing huge chunks from their legs, along with their arms, and sizable portions of their chests, all eaten away by the sand’s reaction to such a small amount of mana. But they are alive. Both of them clearly tried to run as far and quickly as possible before collapsing into twin heaps in the sand, unable to move any further as they continue their struggle to crawl away from me.
“C-crazy! You are fucking crazy!” one of them shouts, holding his bleeding neck, as his crimson red blood stains the white sand.
“I hope you didn’t think it would be that easy,” I repeat, feeding him his own words before kicking him in the head. And doing the same to his partner even though he’s already been knocked unconscious.
They both turn out to be too heavy for me to carry, so I use kinetic energy a bit more to remove a few more of their limbs before grabbing them and boosting myself back to the Deathtrap.
Getting back on the deck, I throw them on the ground and then turn to my crown. On my way, I pick up my underwear and put it on, being careful of my wounds so as not to cover them in blood.
My crown floats back to its place over my head, and I check the amount of mana it used to maintain itself without bursting open or disappearing. It’s a bit more than I had expected, but I guess it makes sense. It is just not meant to function away from my body. Still, it contains quite a bit of mana.
As I take some of that mana and reabsorb it, I almost feel like smiling. Welcome back, my precious.
Lily comes closer, and I notice her staring at my chest and belly.
I look down and notice a few wounds here and there, “Oh, don’t worry, it isn’t anything serious. Save your mana.”
“W-what?” She stutters, quickly lifting her head, her big eyes staring up at me through her bangs.
“My legs are fine too. I’ll heal them on my own. Just make sure these two don’t die, but don’t restore their limbs for now.”
“Oh, uh, sure!” She says, before rushing over to the two thylarin, one of whom has already awakened and begun talking to Tess.
After putting on my pants and shirt, I head to Sophie. “How much mana do you have left?”
“Should be more than enough to get some information out of them. Though the guides are being troublesome,” she answers simply.
“Got it. I’ll just let you guys take care of the rest here. I’ll go check on our guides,” I say and, resort to using stairs like some schmuck instead of teleporting. I don’t train anymore; and I’ve even turned off most of my passives, at least the ones that require mana.
I leave just in time as more groups start making their way up to the top deck.
Back in the backup core room, I find the guide, still there, sitting in a different position, with the vyssari who wanted to gouge my eyes out.
“Any good news?” I ask the guide.
“Heryd here can help you with the core. He has some experience with…”
“I see. There’s no need for that. Anything else?”
The guide looks between me and the scaly legged shorty and then back at me, “I still can’t stop the SDAT and…”
“What’s an SDAT?” I ask, interrupting him.
“Are you… SDAT means Sand-Defensive Air Transport.”
“Got it, please continue.”
“I still have no idea where we’re heading but we should find out soon. Though there shouldn’t be anything in the Mana Desert so I don't know how much help it will be or why we’re heading there. There is no sense in trying to run away even if we could change course; the storm will catch up anyway.”
“What if we bury ourselves in the sand?” the short vyssari asks, turning away from the core.
“That would either force us to keep the field running to ward it off or to turn off the field. In that case, any sand that got into the SDAT would be the end of us. And we don’t have enough mana to hold the field against that much sand.”
“Any rest stops around here? ” the vyssari continues.
“None, there is nothing here as far as we know. Not a single place free of sand.”
I listen to the rest of the conversation with one ear and turn back to the mana pillar. Just in case, I check the inscriptions and preparations I made, and it seems like no one’s messed with them. So I continue to work on them, I even manage to connect a few more of its functions and even though it still feels half-baked, it’s better than nothing.
When the conversation between the guide and the vyssari starts to drag on too long, I interrupt them. “You,” I shout, pointing at the guide, “shouldn’t you be controlling the ship?”
“It’s an SDAT, not a ship. It should be fine to leave it for a while. Our course is already set, and Kallus is taking care of the defenses. With how little mana we have, we don’t even have to focus on controlling how it’s being used.”
“Good, go back to the deck. Find the tall blonde, she can tell you what to do. They might already have more information on what happened.”
I watch him hesitate for a moment, but he does stand up eventually and head towards the deck without another word. As he said before, he was just a rookie following orders.
As I work, I can feel Heryd’s eyes on me, the vyssari, who was supposed to be helping me is one of the only three passengers with a level higher than mine. Much like the two thylarin I just brought back.
“You can fly; you could run away,” he says out of nowhere.
As I turn to him, I can see how carefully he’s observing me.
“Sure,” I respond, returning to my work, placing an anchor inside the core which I use to feed it power from my crown.
There is no way I would just put my mana inside to let just anyone use. No, I’d rather just feed the ship more as needed. While doing so, I also think about his question.
Could I really just fly away if I felt like it?
I think I could. Sure, there could be some specks of sand that high up, and if I had any mana inside my body, I would take significant damage, but I think I could push through. The trip that took this rusty old thing days would take me hours if I used enough kinetic energy.
It would be simple, but back when I was considering my options for survival, it never once crossed my mind. And I can think of two reasons for that.
The first is that I’m so confident in my ability to survive, even this, that the thought of running away never entered my mind.
The second is that I didn’t want to leave this silly group of mine. Angry Kittens, group 4, Biscuit and Co., whatever the name of the day turns out to be.
I’ve always liked watching others, and now here I am examining myself and taking stock of my feelings, asking questions. And the one that eventually sticks at the front of my mind is: Would I be willing to risk my life for them, and could I walk away if I truly had to?
The swirl of emotions I feel even asking that question absolutely fascinates me.