BXBX NOVEL Chapter 496: Ice Sculpting is not what this is
Chapter 496: Ice Sculpting is not what this is
"No harm done" said Kamiko jumping back onto her feet, "this is all good" Kamiko looked at her clenched fist and slowly opened it to reveal the coin inside. An intricately detailed tree stared back at her. "Sweet, would have been awkward to walk back over to the other side"
Kat didn't say anything, simply nodding and slamming a fist into the ice. It cracked around her fist, grooves spiderwebbed out from the impact coating all of the nearby wall and spreading to parts of the floor as well… but it didn't give way. *Hmm. So I can't just bash this and let it fall apart? That's a bummer.*
So Kat adjusted her technique, now she was using her nails to dig into the ice, cracking it inwards somewhat before ripping off chunks. She started to go into a bit of a trance, speeding up her movement, increasing her strength slightly. With what looked like practice strokes Kat made good progress into the wall, visible by the second as she sank into it… until running into stone.
"Shit. We might need to dig down a fair bit here," said Kat. "I've hit stone… should I go back and try to make a ramp or just go straight down?"
Kat was thankful that the icy bits broke so cleanly. The rats had been frozen completely and the guts and blood had frozen just as easily as the skin. When she flung away pieces of ice, they might as well just be normal ice made from water considering the lack of filth it created. This was nice, and nearly convinced her to get the other two to help, but it wasn't really worth it. They only needed a person sized tunnel, and Kat was the 'largest' of all of them because of her height and wingspan.
"Should be fine to go straight down" said Kamiko, "this isn't like the door up top, we can jump Kat."
*Oh right. How could I forget that?* And now Kat felt kind of silly. Kamiko's house was built around the idea that you could jump between floors easily. *The idea she couldn't get out of a slightly deep hole might have been insulting if she was a lesser person*
Taking that advice, Kat continued, this time downwards. She made it twice as deep as she was tall and that still didn't reach the floor. Considering it good enough though, she started to carve forward through the ice once again. This built up a good deal of ice chunks at the bottom of the tunnel though. While before she was just throwing them out into the large open space, her current area didn't quite have that available.
Before Kat could think of a solution though, Kamiko just jumped down and started to throw ice back out towards the entrance without complain. "I'll just ugh… wait out here I guess?" said Sue awkwardly, not wanting to annoy the other two.
"Sounds good!" said Kamiko as she shovelled away the ice, her body easily able to handle the cold. Honestly the small size of most of it was what really caused the issue not the temperature. Sure some big chunks had survived, but Kat had thrown things backwards without care, resulting in most chunks shattering into small fragments of ice only slightly larger then grains of sand, so it wasn't the easiest material to work with. Luckily Kamiko was fast enough that the small gaps in her fingers didn't have time the let the ice drip through.
With this setup, things went well… until the ice started to run out. Basically, as soon as Kat got past the frozen rats, things went south. See, the frozen solid rats… no problem. They were part of the ice, and easy to move without issue. The rats at the edge though, the rats that had died not from the turning to ice, but from the freezing temperatures created by the ice… they flooded in once the barrier was broken.
Live rats clearly pushed from behind but it was the wall of rat corpses approaching that sent Kat's mind into overdrive. *Shit what do I do?* Kat checked her reserves and found them lacking. She hadn't really given herself a chance to recover and only had around sixty five percent of her total. It wouldn't have been quite so low had she not been abusing her energy to more quickly clear away ice.
Still, it was enough for a response. Kat let her fire burn out of her hands, for surely, if that attack before didn't cause issues… neither would this one right? Besides there was plenty of rats to go through before infecting the stone… it would be fine…
For now at least, it was. The wave of corpses froze in place, the rats connected to each other and the ice around them, partially with the blood that was seeping out of the 'latest samples' and giving a more robust route for Kat's energy to travel down. Still, this was another big chunk of energy and Kat found herself back down to forty five percent. It was a shorter blast, but apparently calling it all up like that still hadn't been efficient.
*Hmm… now what. Should I wait or… keep going? Can we even keep going? Will this be less of a combat mission and more of a… 'freeze dig freeze dig repeat' kind of mission.* "Let's head back out and talk to Sue. I need to regenerate a bit as well." Said Kat, Just in case. *I want to keep above fifty percent I think.*
"Sure," said Kamiko throwing the last few handfuls of ice up before climbing out the ice. It was pretty easy for her. While Kat needed to stoop, mostly because of her horns, Kamiko was able to walk upright in the tunnel and was enjoying that fact.
Kat followed behind afterwards to find Sue leaning against the wall and carving tick tack toe boards into the ice next to her. Several had been completed already, with O winning most times, and X only a few times. What that meant, Kat had no idea. Hearing them both approach, Sue turned to face them and raised an eyebrow and said. "What, too tough for you? Talked big game before but a bit of ice was enough to make you give up?"
Kat shook her head, "No we found well… more rats, unfrozen ones. I just froze them as well but… I have no idea if this is actually going to be a combat mission at this point. If we just carve till we find rats, freeze and repeated I'm not really sure that you're needed. I mean, once we dig far enough your help getting the ice out would be nice but… it's just kind of weird? I mean… why would Stone ask us to do this? And is this the best way?"
Sue shrugged and said, "Well, if there really is that many Swarm rats we don't have to worry about things exploding at least"
"Why?" asked Kat automatically
"Simple. Demonic Energy likes to go through the path of least resistance. Monster corpses hardly resist the stuff at all, basically suck it in. So it's really easy to blast them. Now, doing damage is a different matter but it seems to be no issue here. Still, it means that your energy would rather go through rats then stone, likely even the unstable stuff. The really unstable stuff that it wouldn't… well the swarm rats would have probably set it off" explained Sue
*Huh… that was… useful and presumably accurate information. Kamiko didn't answer me either, so… is this not common knowledge?* "Oh… um… thanks for the explanation? How did you know?" asked Kat
Sue scoffed, "I'm a miner's daughter. You learn little tricks like that in the business Kat. It's a really minor thing most of the time. The attraction to monsters isn't strong. It's not going to curve your shots for you… but if you trap a bunch of monsters in a box and send in the demonic energy… it'll go for the monsters, and then the box if it still has power left. Now, don't go full overkill, it has its limits… but you should be mostly safe with just how many rats there are."
Kat nodded but paused right at the end. "Is that why it was stressed before? There were a lot of swarm rats yes, mostly on the floor, but even that was nothing compared to the just… endless numbers we've already killed here?"
Sue nodded as the jacket shuffled around her, "Yup, probably. If you missed a rat and the energy sunk into the stones it could be a problem. Now however, there is just SO MANY rats that you can't miss unless you're brain dead. Its why Stone didn't say anything before sending us down here. You can't clear it without fire, not in any timely manner anyway. Still, be a little careful. Use too much at once and well… the same issue applies"