CHAPTER 53: The base of the mountain

We floated along the river heading towards the mountain. The plan is, to use the river and move faster covering as much distance as we can before nightfall. We’ll use the river to travel and once it starts turning away from the mountain, we’ll need to get off it and enter the watery forest. I explained to Takumi what I have planned earlier, and he was all for it. I guess he’s also feeling the stagnant situation we’re currently in. Everyone else agrees, wanting to become stronger but I felt bad because they might think their weakness is causing me trouble.

But as much as reality hurts, it’s true.

“What happened after you met Unum?” Takumi asked as we paddle the raft increasing our speed. There are more rafts steadily following us from Dorang’s group. A Lot of them I guess are the slaves from the bandit town while a few elders and a handful of people are from the town itself that stayed with them. Even they didn’t know why the whole town disappeared without a trace before the storm.

“Nothing. After they left, Suyeon found me.” I say skipping out the part that the gold team is hot on our trail. It’s best to keep them focus so we can keep pushing forward and reach the mountain as soon as possible.

“Damn. So they inaugurated a new overlord huh. We need to deal with them all at once or else they’ll keep multiplying.” Daikichi says and I nod my head.

“Yasu, how are other dungeons like? We have never been in another dungeon except for the first one we woke up on." Kana asked and memories from my past experience of the Sky Kings dungeon resurfaces making me feel a bit sad remembering Mole.

"Yeah, even I'm curious, we also never went to a dungeon after we found our castle since we never really had good memories in them. We focused on training ourselves leveling up by exploring the forest or killing area bosses.” Takumi says which surprised me a bit. They’ve been out here for a year and by now, they should have at least gone to a couple of dungeons. To hear that they have never gone back to another dungeon and focused on bosses made me remember Suyeon’s battle with the wolf-boar hybrid boss.

“You guys saw the Sky Kings Dungeon right?” I asked Takumi and he nods in agreement.

“We also saw a bit of your memory when you fought the dragon. Damn that was straight out of an action movie.” He says making me uncomfortable that Luro is running about showing my memories as he pleases. Trying to distract myself, I decided to explain to them what I think is the difference.

“From what I know based on the two dungeons, it’s the same from one dungeon to the next. If you guys remember, the first dungeon was backward. We started deep in the dungeon and reversing our way out. The closer you get to the exit the stronger the enemy gets. For the sky king’s dungeon, it's kind of similar but the other way around. How it should be. Once you enter a dungeon, the portal you entered shuts down. To escape, you need to finish the dungeon or exit through the portal that’s probably in the boss room. When I did the sky kings dungeon, there was a portal in the dragon’s room which broke amid from our battle. Since the only exit I had broken into pieces, I probably had no choice but to kill him to activate initial portal I used to get into the dungeon.”

“Damn.” I hear Amaguchi whispers.

“But there’s a bright side, I believe that each and every dungeon has a safe zone. Remember the first dungeon you woke up in?" I asked everyone and they all nodded. “That statue room was the safe zone. For the Sky King’s dungeon, the safe zone was before the boss room.”

I hear some of them sigh with relief and I know the feeling of having a safe area to be able to sleep soundly at night.

"Oh, yeah, I remember we placed the dungeon keeper in there to watch over the dungeon," Takumi says making me remember the one that stayed in the safe zone.

“Yea I saw him. He’s the one who gave me a map.” I tell him leaving the part I made his daughter run away.

"I wonder why he didn't tell us you met him," Takumi says but his expression tells me he suddenly realized the answer as he looks at me. “Never mind, I think I know.”

I laugh nervously as he probably figured out that I threatened the dungeon keeper. To steer him away from his thoughts, I continued talking explaining my theory of the dungeons in this world. “The good thing was, that safe zone had everything you need to replenish. The problem is, it was so small, it probably was meant for only for one person. Which was perfect for me at that time.”

“Ohhh, I'm getting excited," Amaguchi says and they all started chuckling as he started doing a weird body shake.

"So how do we find a dungeon?" Goro-sensei asked, and I paused for a minute thinking of a way.

"I wanted to ask the locals if there are any unclaimed dungeons around the area but, as I heard from Dorang, everyone got up and left before the storm. I don't think anyone from this new group would know anything about this area.” I whisper thinking about where they all really came from before being abducted by the bandits.

“You got anything out of the chest? No one was able to solve it.” Takumi asked.

"Item bag," I whisper, and I catch my bag mid-fall. "Hmm, let me see. I got some potions inside but that’s all gone now. I also got this empty black book.”

I took out the black book and handed to him. He flipped through the empty pages before handing it back to me.

"I wonder who put those in there," Takumi whispers as I tried to remember something. "From what I know, these hidden chests aren't made by Luro but adventurers or demons who places them there. Did you find anything else?”

“I did get some weapons and another book for Suyeon. Suyeon, does that book say anything?” I look at her and she quickly calls out her item bag catching it with a bear hug. She quickly took out the book and opened it flipping through pages.

“What does the book say?” I say getting close to her trying to read the contents but it’s a blank page.

“I-it says how to use my skills like Jump and other things I don’t have yet since my level is too low.” She says flipping through the blank pages with her face turning red. She hands me the book and as I flipped through it, it was like the black book. The pages were empty.

“Uhh, you do know these pages are blank right?” I tell her and she looked at me confused.

“But there's a word written right here. L-like this one. It says how to use the skill Jump." She tells me pointing at a blank page. Lisa peeked over her shoulder and even she's seeing a blank white page.

“Uhh, Suyeon, that's a blank page," I say as I watch her finger pointing towards nothing.

"Wait, maybe only you read it?” Takumi tells her and what he said made me realize the black book in my hand.

“Maybe one of us can read this?” I handed the book to Suyeon to see if she can read anything, but she shook her head. We passed around the book but nothing. None of us can read anything in the book.

"Maybe this book is just a normal diary," Daikichi says flipping through the blank pages of the black book. “Like something you should write on.”

“Maybe-“

“Heeeeey! Sir Yasu!” I hear someone shout and as I look back, I see him waving at us while his companions paddle to catch up to us. “Sir, can we tie our rafts together? I think it would be better.”

Thinking about it, if there’s more raft, there would be more room to move around so I asked everyone, and they all agreed to let everyone tie their raft with ours. Once they got close, they grabbed onto to their raft and used a vine to tie it together.

“Dorang, what happened to the slaves I bought with one diamond? The mother and son.” I asked him while I looked around.

“Oh them? Well, when we left you guys, they disappeared on us also. I guess they went back home to wherever they came from.” He says looking sad but his expression quickly turned into a big smile as he got close to me whispering, “I still have the diamond.”

I laugh a bit watching his eyebrow goes up and down. He quickly turned around and shouted orders at people telling them what to do to make the raft stronger and more stable. What was once our tiny vessel has become a huge floating contraption big enough to carry Dorang’s group. Their gazes somehow are making me feel uncomfortable. Some of them would glance and look away the minute I turn to them.

Admiration, spiritual, celebrity, these are the different things came into my mind as I try to analyze their glances towards us. I ignored it but somehow, I feel like creating a hole in the center of the raft letting everything gets sucked under. Being for more than a year, I got so used to being alone that this type of attention is making me feel uncomfortable. I tried not thinking about it but, as soon as we see land, we need to separate away from them.

After doing some repairs on the raft, everyone got their bag and stockpiled it in the center. Having a dimensional bag is really useful since it looks like a hassle to carry heavy bags most of the time. As day progress, hunger quickly came as the rumbling of everyone’s stomach echoed louder than their conversations. Good thing the new people had food stored in their bag and they happily shared it with us since our stock is running low. I didn’t feel like being in debt to random strangers so after eating the food they provided and shared with us, I gave them gold which they happily accepted. I reheated the food using a frying pan and a torch before eating them. Just in case it has poison. I still don't know any of these people and eating the food coming from them without purifying it is dangerous in my opinion. I already took the chance in the bandit town but that's when they didn't know who I was. I believe people in this raft have a pretty good idea of my identity.

Nightfall quickly came and with so many people on night watch, it’s practically impossible to be caught off guard. What’s also impossible is sleeping. With so many unfamiliar presences, I couldn’t fall asleep at the uncomfortable feeling of being surrounded by people I don't usually associate with have limited my speech making me just nod and stick to small talks.

"Sir, the back and the sides are being watched carefully, sir.” One guy suddenly came up saluting me like I’m a general.

"Uh, ok," I tell him and he quickly turned around placing himself on the rear of the raft watching our back. Daikichi also didn’t sleep as I see him slowly walking towards my way with a torch in hand.

“Well hello, mister president." He jokingly says and I lightly punch him in the shoulder.

“Haha, very funny. What the hell is wrong with these people?” I Whisper trying not to be heard by anyone near us.

“Well, you did save them. Believe it or not, you gave everyone a second chance at life.” He slowly sits up and I hand him a cup with hot water inside. I didn’t have any tea but the hot water was enough to warm us during the cold nights.

"And they should live it not follow one random dude," I tell him before sipping on the hot water.

"Well, it's a good thing, this way, we won't have to be burdened doing night watch," Daikichi says before blowing onto the cup I gave him.

"I rather do night watch than risk getting my throat cut open in my sleep," I tell him and we both laughed a bit as we stayed one section of the raft. No one approached us as we talk through the night reminiscing our past and thought about what we will do when we get back. If, we ever get back. Daytime quickly rose and I feel like we're getting closer to the mountain. Once everyone woke up, I took a quick power nap closing my eyes for a brief moment while keeping my other senses sharp just in case anyone tried to do something. I trust my team and I know they'll protect me if I ended up in deep sleep.

“Guys! Let’s get out of here! This is where the river turns away from the mountain!” Dorang shouts making me open my eyes. I see everyone in position getting ready to paddle away from the river.

"Well, what do you know, Daikichi is right," I whisper to myself as I rub my eyes while everyone else paddled away from the river heading into the forest. “These guys are useful.”

The minute we got into a dead part of the forest, I noticed the area was a complete wasteland. Trees have lost all its leaves while some were destroyed by the hurricane. Logs floated around and some of them started growing moss as the water continuously soaked it. The water quickly turned swamp green and it emitted a smell similar to decaying wet leaves. It wasn’t disgusting but a strong earthly smell has lingered our noses as we paddled through the forest. As soon as we enter the swamp area, it suddenly got quiet as everyone stopped talking at the same time.

“Damn, this place smells relaxing yet, it’s so creepy.” Ms. Sam says as she pulls little Nala towards her. Nala has been glued to her ever since she found her. It made me picture them to be mother and daughter. It’s surprising no one has said anything. I guess the adults she was with earlier isn't her parents and it still surprises me she isn't looking for them. I didn't want to ask since it might make her cry, so I just let it go.

“Seriously, it’s so quiet. It’s like there’s something around us.” Lisa whispers as she hugs Suyeon who nonchalantly reading her book. I still wonder what’s in her book but I guess it’s better for only her to read it so no one can know how she’s getting stronger and stronger.

“Dang it.” Dorang cursed out as he cleans his paddle from green vegetation as it got stuck around it. Everyone else kept paddling towards the mountain without saying a word. Even I can feel they’re nervous as if something can pop out the water any minute. I took out a sword and kept it near me just in case something does. But we just floated along until the water cleared up a bit as if we just exited the swamp section.

"Whew, good thing we're out of that section," Dorang says as I see him sigh with relief.

“Why? What’s in that section?” I asked him as I notice everyone’s energy come back and they all started talking again while some sigh with relief.

“Nothing, we just didn’t want to piss off Potamides.” He says while cleaning his paddle full of

“Potamides?” I asked and Dorang looked at me weirdly.

“You sure you were born in this era? How do you not know Potamides?” I can see him raising an eyebrow and I forgot he’s from this world.

“What the hell is Potamides?” I asked him again and he placed his paddle down beside him as he faces me fully.

“They are nymphs of the water. Legend says if you come across a green part of any body of water, there might be Potamides lurking underneath. If you piss one off, I heard they take your soul away while turning you into a swamp tree.”

“Was that why you all were quiet?” I asked and he nods in return.

“They like peace and tranquility.” He whispers to me while looking around. “They hate loud noises. Any loud noises can irritate them. Every time we see green water, we always keep it as quiet as possible. It’s been like that from generation to the next.”

“Have you seen what potamides look like?” I asked him and she shook his head.

“No one has lived to tell the tale.” He tells me before returning to the front to help guide through the forest. After a while, we had to cut the rafts apart to be able to travel through the forest since it was too big to fit between trees. Dorang stayed on my raft while the others got on their own and followed behind us.

"Let's hurry, I don't want to be here stuck at night. Last time we went into the forest in the middle of the night, we got attacked by the weeping sirens." I whisper to Dorang as we paddled towards the mountain.

“Ohh those, yeah, a couple of us almost died because of them. They like to eat kids and anyone bitten by them goes lunatic for three days. We literally had to tie up the people and untie them after the third day.” Dorang says and now I know why the Weeping Siren kept jumping towards Nala. They wanted to eat her.

“It’s probably why she’s scared of them. They probably took her brother. Damn.” I overheard Ms. Miki-sensei talk to Goro-sensei and they quietly kept to themselves thinking of how to take care of her. It still makes me feel a bit safe knowing there are actually real adults with us rather than another Rikimura.

It’s been a while since we're paddling and the sun started to set on the horizon. Once nighttime falls, I told Takumi and Suyeon to remain awake through the night since they're the only one I know strong enough to handle a couple of weeping sirens just in case they're around the area. Dorang also stayed awake with a couple of people he thinks can handle their own.

The problem is, every one from his group isn't adventurers and even Dorang himself isn't an adventurer so they have no skills and can't see the levels on top the monsters head. It's one information he explained to me earlier when I asked how many adventurers are in his group. I never really understood the adventurer system but the way I see it as he explained to me, if you don't sign up to be an adventurer, you're just a normal person. No powers, no skills, and can't see the level and names of the monsters that have them. When they die, they die normally and don't turn into dust like us. He told me most bandits who have a low rank aren't adventurers. The only ones are the top guys like the big boss and the ones who make the portal for them to escape in a tight situation. He was going to sign up to be an adventurer once he got back to the big city but the big storm happened to destroy his plans.

"And that's why it's a good thing we found you guys." Dealing with the weeping sirens, we got lucky. But I don't think it will be the same the next time they attack us." He tells me and I guess that's why I see them be much more relaxed around us. We're their only hope of survival at the moment until they all get to the big city.

We decided to camp for the night tying our rafts together again creating a platform that spans from trees to trees. We placed Nala and most of the regular people in the middle and placed ourselves surrounding the area ready to deflect any weeping siren that might come out of nowhere. But as night quickly came, it quickly disappeared once the sun started rising.

“That was the longest night. Ever.” Amaguchi says as he yawns stretching his arms upward. Once everyone woke up, we cut the raft back up and those who stayed up all night went to sleep as we traveled through the forest. I closed my eyes but tried to keep my conscious alert. As I was about to fall asleep, I heard gasp and noises as if they see something horrifying.

“Ugh, what happened?” I asked as I slowly open my eyes and see everyone at the edge of the raft staring at one direction. “What ha-“

I suddenly stop talking as I stood up and see what Kana and the rest of them are looking at.

"Holy shit, so this is where they all got dragged to," Lisa whispers as she tries to count them but they were too many. All the animals that once traverse the forest have been piled up into one location. Boars, bears, wolves, even giant scorpions and among other things are attacking each other. They must have swum to the mountain seeking dry land.

“What do we do?” Kana asked as she looks at me and I gave her a smile.

“There’s only one thing to do," I tell her and she looks back towards the mountain full of monsters. "Kill them all."