72 - Stairway to Heaven

I hate ants. I didn’t mind them before, but I hate them now. They smell awful when they die, and even worse when they burn, and the all fucking burn. 

The weak little ones we saw on the surface were babies who couldn’t use oum yet. Not only can the ones down here use it, they love to use it, and they really live up to their “fire ant” name. I didn’t expect to get so much practice with fire resonance, but here I am, wading through a fiery hell of ant corpses. 

The fact that they’re so stupid makes it even worse. Every single fight goes the exact same way. I run into a few of them, they shoot fire at me, I redirect it behind me and cut through them with my sword, their corpses burst into flame. Every fucking time. 

I didn’t expect so much fire, but I’m really glad that I learned the resonance from the Phoenix construct before I came through here, because otherwise, I don’t think I’d be able to make it out. I was expecting to just wade through and cut a bunch of ants up, but the fire would have given me some trouble. They’re too weak to actually be able to kill me, but I would have had to go much slower if I couldn’t wade through the fire like this. 

I don’t use much oum as I move. I don’t really need it with how sharp this sword is, and using it would be a waste. I have to expend a little to bend the ants’ fire, but I replenish it as I move, staying topped up most of the time. Because of this, I’m able to make pretty rapid progress through the ant nest. Unfortunately, that’s the bare minimum to make it out on time, because this nest is absolutely massive.

Even worse is the fact that the ants communicate with each other, so once I kill ants in one place, I need to move quickly before more arrive. I bet there are probably quite a few on my trail, and I keep running into groups blocking my way as if they were waiting for me. I haven’t been swarmed yet, but that’s only because I’ve been periodically collapsing the tunnel behind me whenever I find a spot that’s particularly narrow or has an especially loose ceiling. 

After eight hours of travel, I’ve probably killed close to a thousand ants, and I frankly have no idea how close I am to the surface. I didn’t really have a choice, and I don’t regret it, but waiting until the very last minute to leave like this might have lost us the Starter Quest. Unless the others somehow managed to get a lot of points while I was down there. I guess it’s not impossible. They’re all still in the rankings, so none of them are dead, and Jacob’s overall rank seems to have improved drastically, so at least something good seems to have happened.

Well, whatever happened, it doesn’t really concern me. I just need to focus on getting out of these stupid tunnels.

I round a corner to face yet another wave of ants. I sigh as they all shoot fire at me, and walk forward, turning their attacks into a swirling tornado around me. Two dash forward blindly toward the tornado, burning their faces as they lunge to bite me. I sense them coming and simply jump over them, beheading them with a single swing of my sword, then keep moving forward. The others keep either shooting fire or advancing forward in what would probably be a devastatingly coordinated attack on anyone else, but on me, it’s pointless. Less than a minute later, they’re all dead, and their corpses are burning and producing foul black smoke. I jog ahead to get away and end up at what feels like the hundredth fork. 

I pause for a moment, trying to sense the airflow, then give up and choose to go left at random. I have no idea where any of these tunnels go, but this one is going slightly more upward than the other, so it’s probably taking me closer to the surface.

Another ten forks and eight groups of ants later, something finally changes. The tunnel is getting wider. And more full of ants, of course, but that’s good too. More traffic means it’s a more common area for the ants to travel, which hopefully means it’s closer to at least one of the main entrances or exits. 

I move through the tunnel like a wave of death, leaving burning ant corpses in my wake. There are close to forty this time, so it takes longer than usual. Because it takes longer than usual, when I finish, I hear a faint, but intense scuttling in the distance behind me. With it is a gentle rumble of the ground. 

That’s the horde of ants following my scent. I’ve heard them a few other times, but they’ve never been around me quite this much. Even worse, the tunnel is too wide now to try to collapse behind me. Time to run. No more conserving energy.

I pass a few smaller offshoot tunnels crawling with more ants, but this time, I ignore them. They chase, but they’re too slow to catch up, and I end up leaving them behind. The tunnel winds and curves a bit until it widens even further, as it intersects an enormous tunnel completely blanketed by enormous ants. It’s too many for even me to take on, but I don’t stop, because when I look to the right, I see something that makes me smile despite my circumstances: sunlight!

I take a flying leap into the tunnel as the ants all turn to face me. There are too many of them to try to go between, so I go over the top instead. I land on one of them and spring off its thorax in the direction of another group of densely packed ants. From ant to ant, I run through the tunnel, dodging and bending their fire around and sometimes slicing off mandibles before they can bite into my legs when I misjudge my jumps. 

The ants climb over each other trying to get to me, and some of them nearer to the sunlight start to pile up to form a wall of insect blocking my way. Even worse, I can now see that the source of the sunlight is right on the ceiling, and the only way to get up is to climb the walls, as the ants are doing. I could do that if there weren’t thousands of them trying to eat me while I did it.

As the ants pile higher in their attempts to get to me though, an idea crosses my mind. I deliberately slow my progress, letting the ants gather up near me while I continue to stay on top of the pile. It’s an exercise in balance and agility, but after reaching Peak 1 star, it is quite doable. Even more doable when I start experimenting with some Transmutation and let my oum take on the properties of helium. I don’t quite float, but I have a lot more time to prepare for my landing as I fall back down. 

As the ants pile up below me, I get closer and closer to the ceiling, and from there, I start trying to shift my the small hill of ants— anthill, heheh— over toward the sunlight. We crash into the wall of ants trying to stop my forward progress, and in a frantic scramble, I manage to come out back on top of the pile, close to the ceiling. With the hole now close above, I have to worry about ants falling from above, but they’re not very good at coordinating their drops, so it’s never too dangerous. 

“Too dangerous” for me is probably guaranteed death for most anyone else though. The only reason I’m able to be so calm here is that I know I can do this. I also know that if I die, I can (probably) try again in a couple decades. Though I don’t like the thought of that. I don’t want to die so soon. I won’t die though. Even in the absolute worst case scenario, I can just enter Trinity’s voidspace to escape. I’m not sure if I’ll still be able to be teleported back, but at the very least, there’s food, and more of those mushrooms, so I could probably cultivate to 2 star and use the power boost to break free.

Regardless, as the ants bring me closer and closer to the ceiling, I try to steer them so I’m directly under the hole. Thankfully, it should be morning right now, so the sun isn’t directly overhead, but the light of day is still almost blinding after over a week underground. Squinting into the light, I adjust my positions and keep away from the ants until I feel I’m high enough, then leap toward the wall of the vertical shaft. 

I hit slightly below where I was aiming, but I aimed a bit high, so it’s fine. I reinforce my fingers with as much oum as possible so that when I hit, they dig deep into the packed earth, and then, before any of the ants can react, I launch myself upward. There are ants all over the walls, but the shaft is narrow enough that I can spring off the wall to the other side to bounce around and get around them, and after just a few seconds, I’m soaring into the open air. 

There are ants all over, and they all attack as soon as they see me, but now that I’m not confined by the tunnels, they pose almost no threat. I dart between and above them, running as fast as I can to get away from the nest, and the further I go, the less ants there are until eventually, they give up the chase. I take a quick break to drink some water and recover my energy, then glance at the sun. It’s early morning, which means I have at most ten hours to get back to the circle. 

With a sigh, I toss my waterskin back into the voidspace and prepare to get running. It sucks, but the thought of the glorious dorm showers keeps me going, even with the heat of the desert trying its best to cook me alive. 

***

With half an hour before the end of the Starter Quest, the others on their platform were starting to whisper. Not many from their Batch had opted to join then in the desert, and not all who had survived, but those that did knew something was wrong. Bella was supposed to be the strongest, and here was her team without her.

Vanessa and the others didn’t say a word though. Whatever stress and anxiety they were feeling, they didn’t want to put it into words out of fear of manifesting the worst case scenario into existence. When it got down to fifteen minutes before the end, they were all visibly stressed though. Jacob was stone-faced, Kat was endlessly twirling a knife in her hands, Jenny was hugging her knees, and Vanessa was biting her nails. Even June was unusually stiff. 

It was Kat who saw her first. As the sun began to disappear on the horizon, she suddenly stood up and squinted off into the distance. The others followed her gaze, and after a moment, they saw it. A very small cloud of dust with a dark speck at the center growing larger with each second. Another minute later, Bella’s form was clear, and a minute after that, she had reached the platform.

She was covered in sweat, some of her hair plastered against the side of her face, and her clothes were so dusty that they looked more tan than black. Despite all this, she wore the same emotionless expression as ever, and stood tall in the center of the platform.

“Wh-where’s Timmy?” asked Vanessa.

Bella responded by holding out her hand, and a moment later Timmy appeared out of nowhere and fell to the ground where he rubbed his eyes drowsily. Following Timmy were dozens of leather sacks and other things that Vanessa recognized as the trophies that Bella had been holding onto. As with their own trophies, they disappeared as soon as they made contact with the platform. 

Vanessa didn’t even know where to start with her questions, but one look from Bella told her not to start at all. Bella got a certain look in her eyes when she was worn out and didn’t want to deal with people, and it was stronger than ever now. However, there was also something else now. Despite her exhaustion, Vanessa felt like Bella’s posture looked better. Like she was holding her head a bit higher.

“That should do it,” said Bella. “Now let’s hope the end goes quickly, because I’m exhausted.”

A moment later, before anyone could respond, the sun finished setting and a voice rang out from above.

“Congratulations, everyone!” It was the same voice that had spoken at the beginning of the Starter Quest. “You’ve made it to the end! It’s almost time to rest. But first, of course, I’m sure you’re all dying to know what you’ve won, so I’ll make this brief. Of course, this isn’t the right location for it though.”

The world seemed to shift, and in the blink of an eye, the desert was gone. Instead, they found themselves somewhere indoors. After a few seconds, Vanessa recognized that it was likely the interior of the enormous arena at the center of the city. There were no stands in the arena, the edges instead being taken up by all the circular platforms stacked on top of each other like floors of a tower. 

In the center of the arena, a single circle was floating, and on it, a single man. He was young, and much more ordinary than Vanessa expected, but based on his position, there was no doubting who he was. It was the Floor Lord.

“Now, without further ado, let’s tally up those scores and announce the winners!”