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Simulation Ready.
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All night long, Tristia kept awake.
She couldn’t sleep, not in the open. Not with the smoked meat attracting predators from faraway.
She knew they had to settle somewhere else. But where?
Even with her heightened vision, the full moon was obscured by clouds, reducing her effective vision range.
She continued to check around the tools, occasionally honed the hatchet with the honing rod or sharpened the saw’s teeth.
She just did things to forget what she had endured.
At long last, the first ray of sun was seen on the horizon.
Tristia finally was able to see clearly.
She sighed. Her posture eased up.
“Gh… ugh…” Umbra grunted.
She stared at him.
His eyes still closed, his lips twitched as he continued to mumble.
Should she wake him up? What is he was about to get up?
“Umbra…” she called softly, patting his shoulder.
He jolted awake and gasped. “UGH!” His broken leg throbbed in pain.
“S-Sorry… I don’t mean to…”
“W-What… you…” he winced, staring at her. “Crossbow… woman… ugh… huh…”
“Oh, fuck… not again…” she rubbed her forehead.
“Bears… hides… think… arm… chopped…” his left face spasmed. “Hurt…”
“It’s okay. Just take it slow…” she sighed.
“Y-Yes… slow… good… quick… pain…”
“Wait… you can hear me now?”
“Yes… hear you…” he tilted his head. “You… should… die… n-no? Chest… crushed…” his trembling hand pointed to her.
“Uh…” she looked at her chest, the sternum had almost returned to its place, “No?” she lifted up her shirt. “I am fine… right?”
“O-Odd…” he reached for her chest, again with his right arm. “Arm… gone… ah… ugh …”
“Use your left arm.”
“R-Right…” he froze and stared at her. “Ugh…”
“Check if I’m dead?”
“Y-Yes… crossbow… woman… dead… check…” he pressed his left palm to her chest.
She flinched as she just knew at how coarse his palm felt on her naked chest.
“Heart… beat… woman… warm… woman… alive…”
“So… good, now that we’re clear…” she sighed and let down her shirt.
“Yes…”
“How about the bolt in your noggin?”
“N-Noggin…?”
“Oh… head, I mean your head. There is a bolt in your head.”
“Bolt… where—… oh… uh…” his hand convulsed, pointing to the bolt. “Bolt… huh… gh? Oh… dizzy… why…”
“Well… we have the tools, pliers, saws. We also have some alcohol and bandages. Uh… I can pull it out, if you want? After we prepare everything…”
“Prepare…? Yes… food… limbs… oh… rot… now… me… stupid…”
“I have smoked them…” she gestured to the fire where there were still several meats nearby.
“S-Smart… now… I… prepare…” he got up.
“S-Stop! Your leg is—”
Umbra immediately fell over horn first into the dirt.
“A-Are you okay?!”
“N-No… leg… hurt… head hurt…” he got up slowly with the help of his tails. “Ignore… hurt… need… woods…”
“There is a hatchet… or not…” she scratched her head.
“No… uh… snap… no…” he wobbled over to some trees, before hitting his horn to the trunk.
“C-Careful!”
“Uh… gh?”
“W-Wait! Umbra! Stop moving!”
“Uh… d-dizzy… gh…”
“Yes, that is why I asked you to stop—” her eyes then spotted a location a bit further to his left, “—moving.” She squinted her eyes.
“Hg…?”
Her eyes widened. “There!” she pointed to a giant tree whose roots reached above the ground, forming a natural shelter. “Help me pack up! Bring me by the small hill there!”
“W-Why…?”
“Trust me! Please!”
“O-Okay…”
“I… should probably leave some meat over here as bait instead of us…” she mumbled.
“M-Meat…?”
“Nothing! Just get here!”
“W-What… are…”
Tristia rubbed some burnt leaves to his body, then to hers. “J-Just trust me!”
“Okay! Stop now!”
“O-Okay…”
Tristia reached to the large root. “Move to the left twice!”
“L-Left…” he slowly turned left and took two steps forward.
“Yes! Perfect!”
The tree was so large that the root alone was similar to a natural cage. She looked deeper under the roots, her nose sniffed the air.
She knew that the roots were so tightly packed that no group predators would fit here. She simply wanted to make sure.
No hint animal waste or fur. Just musty scent of earth.
“Good… this is good…”
“Hg…?”
“Lower me!” she said.
“Okay…”
She could crawl in easily, however, the entrance was way too small for Umbra, but they could just chop off some of the roots for him to fit through.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
After chopping through some of the roots, Tristia lay down several fabrics on the ground underneath the natural roots. “Much better…” she took a deep breath, then stared at Umbra who was still outside. “Uh, can you crawl in?”
“I… try—” he froze. “Uh… gh…” he fall down, manage to break his fall with his arm, then to his knees, before falling over.
“U-Umbra!” she almost lunged forward.
“Head… dizzy…” he grunted, clenching his head. “Stop… p-please… m-make it… stop… hurt… hurt… stop…”
“C-Come on…” she tried to drag him, but she could barely move him. “Umbra! Listen to me! Just crawl here!” she shook him.
“Hurt… head… stop…”
“Come on…” she grunted, pulling him inside the shelter slowly. “Kgh… gh… come on… Umbra! You’re fuckin’ heavy…”
“Gh… you…” Umbra grabbed one of the roots and pulled himself inside.
“Finally!” she fall to her back. “Ha, fuck…” she got up slowly. “Fuck… you’re really fuckin heavy…”
Umbra stared at her, his pupils dilated.
“Oh… no… did you forget me?” she sighed.
“Uh… yes? W-Where… why… head… oh… who… you…”
“I… uh…” she hesitated. Then, an idea came into her head. “Physician… yes! I am a physician!”
“P-… P-Physician…?”
“Y-Yeah… and this is my… uh, home! Yeah, my home… I live under a tree and… you passed out in front of my home… with a bolt in your head…”
“You… no legs…” he stared at her stumps.
“And you don’t have right arm…”
“Have…—” he looked at his stump. “Oh… true…”
“So… uh, I think I can remove the bolt… if you want?” she offered.
“Y-Yes… h-how… m-much… uh…”
“T-That is for later… your condition is… uh… dangerous… so…”
“O-Okay…”
“So… um, lay down here in… the bed…” she moved away.
“O-Okay…”
Tristia made another fire as Umbra lay on his back slowly. She wiped every tools that she planned to use with alcohol and then burnt it by the fire before soaking them in alcohol again. “Okay…” her voice cracked. “Are you… uh, prepared?”
“Yes…”
“Okay… this might be hurt…” Tristia grabbed a sterilized pliers. “So, hold on… okay?”
“Yes…”
With trembling hands, she clamped the pliers’ jaws at the bolt.
His eyes flinched.
“A-Are you okay?”
“Jolt… shock… fine…”
“Okay… so, uh… hold on…” she mustered all her strength and pulled the bolt out.
His head was lifted briefly before the bolt slipped out with little resistance, shredding the nearby skin from the inside.
The bolt’s tapered point mangled.
But Tristia didn’t care about the bolt.
Umbra’s tails flickered before they fell down, twitching.
His eyes still opened, yet, there were nothing.
She sighed in relieve that he passed out. She had expected this to happen. “Okay… now, uh… seal his wound… what do I—”
A very faint hissing was heard.
“What is—”
It was from the head’s wound.
Her eyes widened. “U-Umbra? U-Umbra?!” she shook him.
No reaction.
“U-Umbra! W-Wake up—”
Blood mixed with clear fluid started to spill from his wound.
She didn’t know what the clear fluid was. However, she did know that if it was not the red of blood nor the white and yellow of a pus, it was probably something even worse.
“F-Fuck… fuck… come on…” she quickly grabbed the heated pliers, only for the metal handles to burn her palms. “ARGH! FUCK! Come on!” she poured some water to her palms and wrapped her hands with clothes and then grabbed the heated pliers again and clamped his wound shut. “COME ON! JUST SEAL SHUT!”
The burning flesh was nauseating, especially since she had been smoking meat for the entire night. However, she had to hold on. No matter how broken his mind was, Umbra was the only way for a legless woman like her to be able to enter a city.
“Hah… fuck…”
The wound was sealed shut with the pliers.
She fall to her back, casting the pliers away. “Bloody fuckin’ balls…” she grunted, now feeling the pain on her right palm.
Soon, she got up and checked on him.
He was still breathing normally.
“Just wake up already, you fuckin’ bastard…” she sighed. “You ain’t drag me here for you to die on me, eh, big guy?” she looked at him.
Still, no reaction.
“Fuck… fuck…” she wiped her face. “Okay… calm down… Tristia… calm your whore arse down… it ain’t over… yet… just wait… Umbra is a bloody Infernal… he survive a bolt to his head… this ain’t s’pose be much…” she looked around. She needed something… something that she had to do to not lose her mind while she waited… again. “Ah… that… right…” she got up.
Tristia placed down several pieces of meat at the previous camp.
Then, using ashes and branches, she masked their scent and Umbra’s footprints starting from the original shelter to their current shelter.
She sighed as she finished the job.
Now, she could start to built their current shelter.
She started to saw many of the roots down to create more space. Then, she dag down with the staff, making a deep hole at the side of the shelter for their inventory, saving them more space above.
Then, she made the dug soil into a brick-shaped object. She was able to manipulate the staffs in order to press the brick soil, making them denser.
She flinched as her burnt palm started to ache again, but she kept going. Then, she stacked the brick soil between the roots. The soil was moist enough to stick to one another forming a mud wall.
Rustling of leaves was heard.
Tristia immediately stopped.
A pair of tall and skinny beasts sniffed the air. They surely smelled what she left behind. The beasts approached their previous camp carefully. One of the beast dag around the surrounding soils, while the others poked the food with their long claws, pulling it slowly.
Tristia had heard about this beast, but seeing them herself was unreal. How did an animal become this intelligence?
After half an hour of searching without finding anything, one of the beasts then opened its jaws as it bloomed into four maws and clamped against all of the meats in one bite and left. One still sniffed around, seemingly trying to track a lingering scent, but then left.
It was not until the rustling stopped that Tristia sighed heavily. She knew they should be saved since she had masked their scent and hid their prints with ashes, yet, the thought of the beasts finding them was still terrifying.
“Fuck…” she shook her head, then continued to work on the mud wall.
Eventually, she finished half, covering the left side with mud wall, only leaving the top uncovered since she couldn’t reach them yet. Now, she would be able to start a fire without being spotted from a very long distance.
She sighed and decided to rest for some brief moment.
But, before that, she had to check on Umbra.
The same clear liquid seeped through the burnt flesh around his head.
“Fuck… shit… what now…” she knew that it was dangerous to seal it shut again with a heated pliers. Covering it with alcohol-soaked cloth too would degrade the flesh even further. She quickly washed her hands using as little water as possible. She soaked some alcohol to a clean cloth and wiped around his wound carefully.
The heat from his body transferred to her fingertips.
He was burning.
“He should be okay… right?” she checked on his wounds, smelling around where the scabbing formed.
No foul odor which meant no infection.
“Huh…” she took a sip of water, enough to wet her parched throat. Should she continue working? Or should she just wait?
In the end, she decided to work on the rest of the mud wall while still keeping watch over him. But, they had to ration water even more after this.
Little did she knew, time passed and the sun started to set.
Tristia was still animated. Her rough and calloused covered in ashes as she rubbed the surrounding mud wall with thick ash and water solution.
Yet, every now and then, she had to return inside to wipe some alcohol to Umbra’s head injury.
She sighed to see that the clear fluid still leaked out.
His fever, too, did not have any sign of abating.
She shook her head, clearing her mind as she continued to work on the mud wall. She had to be strong… at least till he woke up… but, would he even wake up?
Her mind started to think the remember about his race. She heard tales about Infernal. She heard that Infernal is even harder to kill than a War Born in a proper steel armor. But, Umbra had a bolt in his head… was it perhaps their limit?
“Grh… rh…” a grunt from the inside.
“Umbra…?” she quickly got in. “Umbra… you’re—”
His teeth grated against one another, sometimes twitched open. His limbs twitched uncontrollably. He was in seizure.
“Fuck… come on… hah…” she looked around, then grabbed a piece of wood and pressed it with her nails. “No… need something soft enough…” she looked for another one. “Good… okay…”
She wrapped it with clothes before carefully putting it inside his jaws as he opened his mouth.
His teeth dig into the wood, but since the wood was soft. It simply gave in, letting his teeth sank into the wood instead of splintered under the pressure.
“Okay… he won’t bite his own tongue now…” she sighed. She could not do anything more. So, she just let him best as she prepared for the best case scenario.
It was not until late into the evening that she finally was able to rest. She had done everything she could. “Come on… wake up, will you…” she grunted, chewing on the jerky while poking his arm.
Umbra’s seizure had passed.
She brushed his hair aside.
The clear fluid had mostly stopped leaking.
Yet, what made he squint was that his eyes were half-opened.
“You don’t fuckin’ with me, eh?” she put her fingers above his eyes, threatening to poke his eyes.
No reaction.
She sighed, again. She then held his neck, still warm, but the fever seemed to be abating. Or… was it because of the cold night?
She sighed, again… did not even know how many times she had sighed today.
She stared at the fire who crackled as it was eating through the woods.
“Come on, Umbra… even the fire is more lively than you…” she stared at him again, hoping that perhaps it would wake him up. “Bloody fuckin’ lunacy…” she grabbed the waterskin, and slowly dripped some water to his mouth.
Then, she noticed his left eye. She remembered that the bulge was not this small. It was by no means normal compared to his right eye, but was it perhaps a sign that he would recover? That he would be okay?
She shook her head.
Yet, she did not want, but to hope.
She knew with bigger hope, the more difficult it would be to accept if he did not make it.
“No…” she lay down.
After everything that she had done, she needed to rest for the night. She deserved that at least. It would heal her mind… barely, but it would help… if she could.
She closed her eyes.
Luckily, sleep claimed her faster than her worry to settle.
******
Research Log 7.
(Sighing and grunting)
Agent: Creep. Class: [REDACTED]
I changed my hypothesis…
(Heavy breathing)
Subject 1 does not seem like a mixed… her knowledge seems more tribal in nature.
Their shelter is under… exposed roots system from eroded soil… interesting… why do I never… think of that?
(Grunting)
Okay… back to… Subject 1. She anticipates… instead of waiting. She chooses shelter… instead of an open camp.
Even her medical knowledge… is oddly right with the given tools. That almost looks like a habit… or something learnt through… trial and error rather than hesitation of an educated scholar.
Not an ideal solution against CSF leak… probably even one of the worse decision… but I can see a field operative does that instead of just letting the bolt be.
(Cough)
Looking back at the first session…. It was also implied that she… had a distinctive tone even to a Mountain People by… by the now expired female mercenary. Personally, I did not catch it… however, with this new side of her… it might be plausible…
(A brief cough, then heavy breathing)
I really wish I have… permission to look at her complete file instead of… instead of just this summarized stats. But, my new hypothesis… is she is the pure Mountain People, while the others mostly have cross-bred with another races… mainly Grass Walkers.
(Grunting)
About Subject 0… I did not think there was nothing else to highlight… Without the complete file of his, my diagnosis of his condition would certainly be wrong…
(More coughing)
Yet… it would still be interesting to… see what his body made of compared to our original Demonoid model—
(Wheezing)
I really need a… medical assistance now…
Last one… not the simulation… but has some…
Our latest expedition… [REDACTED] had… successfully found many robotic parts…
(Coughing)
The exact amount is yet to be known, but… it would not hurt much to have more… advance memory cards installed… in the simulator…
Proposal… already sent… just need to be accepted…
(Heavy breathing)
Okay… I’m going now… fuck… those AP bullets hurt…
