Swinging the bag of crystals onto her back, Erin was prepared to head out of the campsite. Thankfully, she was a vampire, so it practically weighed nothing, and as much as she would’ve loved to put this bag in her shadow space, she still didn’t trust Quinn nor the system to do sothing to it.
Once the d kit bot was done tending to Layla, she glanced up to see her roommate carrying a bag the size of a dium sized drawer.
"We don’t need all of those crystals," Layla pointed out, a little concerned.
Erin turned around, preparing to leave, "With this many crystals, we’re bound to reach first place."
Layla sighed, and got up, placing a hand on her forehead.
’She’s taking this test way too seriously. I’d tell her off, but it’s been a long day,’ Layla thought, ’I think fighting 3 people at once is easier than trying to convince Erin to not do sothing.’
Without wasting another second, Erin began the journey back with Layla following behind her.
—
Throughout the entire ti that Quinn, Peter and Fex had traveled out towards the red hunting zone, Quinn had been getting a series of notifications as to what Erin had been doing. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was that Erin was up to, but seeing as she didn’t seem to kill anyone else, made him wonder why Erin had done so in the first place.
’Was it self defense?’ Quinn thought, ’She wouldn’t kill soone in front of Layla, would she?’
The system remained silent about what Erin had done, so he was left to his own thoughts.
After traveling through the desert for a while, Peter was visibly swaying back and forth from the heat. He then tripped over his own feet, and fell into the sand.
"Peter, are you alright?!" Quinn called out, rushing to help Peter up.
Peter panted, the heat was clearly getting to him. He couldn’t bla the poor boy as Quinn was feeling the sa way.
"How... How is... Fex... fine..." Peter breathily spoke.
The two glanced up to Fex, who had stopped his walking, and turned around.
"Uh... I co from a really hot planet?" Fex quickly lied.
To be honest, Fex was only doing fine because of the ring he wore, which protected him from the sun’s effects. Despite this, it only had a charge for 3 hours in total, and he needed to head to a shaded area soon. Their walk had taken them 2 and a half hours so far.
"Hey, if you’re struggling with the heat, let’s try to find a place with shade," Fex suggested.
Peter slowly sat up, weakly fanning himself, "Where...? We’re... we’re in a... in a dessert."
Quinn took out a water bottle from their supplies, and handed it to Peter. He imdiately opened it up, and guzzled it down.
"Rember the map from the first day we ca here? I think there should be an old well nearby that Erin ntioned. She said it was on the way to the red zone," Quinn brought up.
"Oh yeah sure, I bet that well has plenty of water, never mind that it probably dried up by now," Fex sarcastically comnted.
Quinn glared up at him, "There was an old building there, if you rember. Let’s just stop there real quick, and take a break."
"Oh, OH!" Fex said, now realizing what he ant.
He then picked Peter up with ease, placing him back on his feet, and started speed walking towards where he thought the well was.
"What are we waiting for, let’s go!" Fex called out to the others.
"It’s actually this way!" Quinn yelled, which got him to stop in his tracks.
Fex glanced around, then pointed in the direction where he was initially going, "Well yeah, isn’t it this way? I rembered it because it was in the direction of the sun."
Quinn pointed at the sun, then where the well really was at, "Rember, the placent of the sun changes. That’s how I know it’s there."
"Ooooohhh," Fex whispered.
—
At the makeshift campsite not too far away, Amy, Pierogi, Garret and Jerry were slowly waking up from Erin and Layla’s assault, a little lightheaded from the bloodlust. The two girls had long since left the campsite.
The sky was turning darker, a sign that the sun was soon to set within the hour.
"Argh!" Amy complained before running up to a large rock and kicking it, then grabbing her foot in pain.
"Damn them! Damn them all!" Amy yelled, tears forming in her eyes, "What right do they have to steal from US?!"
Garret helped Jerry up onto a rock, and took out one of their first aid kits, preparing to use it to heal Jerry’s legs.
"There, now I want you to bite into this," Garret said.
"Bite into w—" Was all Jerry could say before he shoved a wad of cloth into his mouth.
Then, Garret yanked out the arrows in his legs, causing Jerry to squirm in pain.
"Calm down! Now, let —" Garret said, about to press the button on the first aid kit, when he saw so sort of black shape fly through the air in the corner of his eyes.
"Wh— did I—?!" Garret stamred, then thought to himself, ’Did I see that right?’
Recalling the mory, Garret rembered the shape as a large black egg shaped object with a trail of smoke following it. It was a familiar one, sothing he had seen in a few classrooms before.
Jerry, however, didn’t see what the object was, and spat out the wad of cloth, pressing on the first aid kit himself.
"How may I assist you?" The first aid kit robot said.
"Please fix my legs," Jerry pleaded.
The robot proceeded to do as commanded, but as it was about to do so, they all heard a loud crash boom through the air sowhere nearby.
Imdiately, the others turned their head towards the direction of the sound.
"What was that?!" Pierogi asked.
A million possibilities ran through Garret’s mind. With the sight of the giant flying object in the air, it could only an one thing.
’Do I run? But I can’t just leave my friends here— maybe if I carry Jerry— But can I even save both of us—?’
"Who cares what it is! We have to go after those girls!" Amy replied, unaware as she hadn’t seen what had flown through the air.
"We have to run!" Garret shouted, imdiately grabbing his things and running towards the exit of the ravine.
"Wh— Garret! What’s going on?" Pierogi called out.
Garret stopped part way through, turning around. He was about to say what it was when he saw the very thing itself on the other side of the ravine. His eyes widened, and he pointed his hand at the top of the ravine.
"D-D-DALKI!" He shouted, before running off.
When Garret shouted the dreadful word, "Dalki," everyone turned to see what he was pointing at, and suddenly, their blood ran cold.
A tall 7ft dark green humanoid figure with a dragon like head, and a long tail stood at the ledge. His skin was covered in green scales so dark they appeared almost black, and his chest was freely visible, as you could see nearly every muscle fiber. The only thing he wore were beast gear pants and boots.
The dalki jumped down, landing onto the ground, forming cracks. His body was crouched, allowing the others to see that his back had only a single spike.
"Its— its a dalki!" Amy stuttered.
"There’s only one spike on it!" Pierogi shouted out before unsheathing their sword, "It’s the weakest dalki. With all of us, we can take it out."
"R-right!" Jerry said, lifting up his shield.
The dalki slowly stood up, and examined the lot in front of him.
"This is it? A bunch of human children?" He spat out, disappointnt evident in his tone.
Amy threw out her whip, flas lashing onto the dalki. The fire burned him a little, but he flexed his chest, the force causing the whip to release itself.
’If there’s any chance of us hurting the dalki, it’s Amy,’ Pierogi thought, watching faint scorch marks form on the dalki.
Dusting off the ash, he sighed, "Is this the best you can do? I can barely feel it."
Dread settled in Amy’s body, ’This is advanced tier! Maybe I just need more hits—’
Amy flung her whip several tis onto the dalki using her ability to feed the flas, but it seed to mildly bother the dalki at most.
Amy pulled back her whip before throwing it as hard as she could, but he grabbed it mid air.
"H-how—?" Amy stamred before the dalki yanked the whip, bringing her body in the air along with it.
The dalki grabbed her by the head. Tears ford in her eyes as she knew what was going to happen next.
"YOU LET HER GO!" Pierogi shouted, and they imdiately ford into 3 doppelgangers of themselves, all slicing at the dalki’s arms. However, their attacks left only small faint cuts.
Jerry even threw his shield at the dalki’s head, desperate to save his new friends, but it bounced off.
"Cute," the dalki taunted, "It’s almost like you don’t want her to die."
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