The Path of Ascension 2: A LitRPG Adventure

26

Looking to the other tent, Matt found Malcolm, who was still out cold in his tent. He didn’t seem to have moved from where he had collapsed last night when Matt turned over the watch to Liz and Camilla. With a burst of [Endurance], Matt stretched, and was handed a steaming mug by Liz.

After taking a long sip, he asked, “How did that piece of meat offend you, Camilla?”

The dark-haired woman shifted her glare between the attempt at cooking and Matt, before saying, “It’s not as easy as you make it look.” She threw up her free hand. “I only walked away for a minute, and it burned.”

It had to be longer than a minute. It’s charcoal.

“Do you want me to make something?”

Dumping her attempt at breakfast into the fire, Matt snagged his bag, and pulled out all of his items related to cooking. With a quick appraisal, he carved up a bit of the lizard, and used some of their personals to make breakfast. It smelled so good, the wafting fumes carried over to Malcolm’s tent, and woke the slumbering man out of his stupor.

After they ate Matt’s breakfast, they all looked at their tagalong expectantly.

“I’m close to finding the entrance. It’s nearby, and I can feel it.”

With that as encouragement, they walked around the mountains for hours. Their wandering led them in circles, and crossed the path of more than one beast, but none that put up any real resistance.

That was, until Malcolm’s meandering took them into an area that had active rift breaks and was swarming with boars. They tried to circle around the dangerous terrain, but Malcolm’s Talent kept leading them into the fray.

The area they were circling contained a rift that was prone to rift breaks. It had turned the surroundings into the domain of these boars, and there wasn’t much the group could do to avoid them. The boars were not normal animals of course but were the descendants of the rift creatures that had been produced by this rift’s many breaks. The farthest out sections of the area were teeming with relatively normal monsters, while the third or fourth generations of the board ruled over the central portion of their new domain.

It made sense, as the center of the swath of land contained the rift itself.

Judging from the directions given by Malcolm’s Talent, they essentially needed to get into the center of the area, near the rift. The destination wasn’t the rift itself, as they weren’t being led to the dead center of the area, but it was so close, it wouldn’t make much of a difference for the monsters. They would be seen as intruders upon the boar’s territory and would have to wipe out all of the boars in the area for safe passage.

This was the true essence of exploring new worlds.

They would indiscriminately s*******r everything in their path to achieve their goals.

Malcolm, already daunted at the prospect of pushing through the boars, voiced his opinion on the idea of clearing the rift as well. “We may need to clear out the surroundings, but that doesn’t mean we need to clear the rift as well. That’s too much time wasted.”

Matt kept watch with Aster, while Camilla and Liz tried to talk sense into man. “If we’re going to kill all the boars around the rift, we might as well clear the rift, too. That’s a rift bursting with rewards.” Camilla shook her hands in frustration. “It’s like leaving money on the ground! It’s a peak Tier 5 rift…”

Malcolm cut her off, “Exactly! and we’re just low Tier 5 cultivators. The rift is simply too strong for us!”

Liz rolled her eyes, or at least her tone indicated so to Matt. “Look…that’s an easy jump for just Matt, Aster, and me. With Camilla there to help, this won’t be much harder than any other rift. Besides, you wanted to go into a ruin. They are rifts.”

“It’s different. I just want an item somewhere in the ruins. You want to clear the entire rift. It’ll take too much time. What if someone else finds another entrance? Then what would we do?”

Matt understood but disagreed. “Rifts will guarantee both essence and a reward. With the rift about to break again, it’ll be sure to have amazing rewards. Besides, delving it will push us farther into Tier 5. And we know the enemy type already. I vote we go.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed.”

“I disagree.”

Aster yipped.

Liz shrugged. “Four to one. Sorry, but we want to get guaranteed rewards. The ruins won’t go anywhere. If it’s this hard for us to get in, then it’ll be that much harder for others to find an entrance. You’re bringing us right to the entrance, but it’s still not visible. That means it’s pretty much guaranteed to be underground.”

Malcolm muttered a retort, “Or it’s a shrunken space.”

Camilla stood and turned, shaking her head. Matt noticed Malcolm’s eyes following her.

He just hoped that Camilla didn’t notice. The man wasn’t subtle in his gaze, and if it continued, Matt felt as if he would need to pull the man to the side and tell him to cool it. He wasn’t sure how Camilla would react and wanted to avoid the whole situation if at all possible.

The area dominated by the boars was essentially an entire valley. It was situated in between the mountains and was sheltered on all sides by the tall peaks. They seemed to be pretty old, as they had smoother edges and slopes compared to the hard edges of a more recently raised mountain range.

Oddly enough, the foliage wasn’t completely eaten away, considering the denizens of the valley. With the number of hogs, they could see, a group that size normally would have stripped the area clean by now and would have already moved on if they weren’t rift creatures. Even these far-removed descendants had a connection to the rift that sustained them. At least partially.

With Matt in the lead, they pressed forward into the valley. Camilla was covering Matt’s left side, with Liz and Aster covering the rear and right flank, respectively.

Malcolm was with the two mages, but he was more escort than mage. His [Mana Bolt] s had not been well-practiced, but at least he had the ability to deal some damage, small as it was.

The first pack of beasts they encountered quickly demonstrated how strong the monsters were. There were four of them, and they charged in what resembled a wedge formation. The biggest beast led the charge, with tusks ready to gore the intruding humans’ flesh.

Camilla took the left most boar’s attention by wrapping her bladed whip around its head and using a tree to brace her weapon. Matt stepped to the side and slammed his sword into the largest monster’s skull while the beast was restrained.

Even without using [Mana charge], his heavy longsword dealt serious damage. The beast’s skull was incredibly hard, but its head was cleaved in two with the force of his blow.