Chapter 25 - He's not the sharpest tool in the shed...

Current Location: Ponderous Peat

They made it into the next circle without too much trouble, and with time to spare, as no announcement had been made.

Brent wondered if they would even hear it if there was one, as there didn’t seem to be any loudspeaker towers in this region.

In the end, they didn’t find a house or building. What they did find wasn’t from Brent looking at the Map at all. In fact, it was Reisa who spotted it: the remains of a giant tree, its top half broken off and fallen to the side. The entrance to a sizable hollow lay in its base among the roots.

“It’s not ideal, but it might serve as a temporary shelter,” she said.

Of course an elf would consider sleeping in a tree. Or maybe she just had a good eye and Brent was thinking too much of stereotypes from light novels.

Harry waved his finger in recognition. “Wait, that looks kind of like-”

“It’s Shrek. Oh my fucking god, it’s the house from Shrek.” Ray groaned.

They approached the stump to examine the hollow. Peering inside, Brent found an empty, cone-like chamber that looked to be about ten feet wide and eight feet high in the center.

Unlike in a certain other story, the interior did not resemble that of a well furnished house, but it was clean and dry. The floor was wood and rather smooth.

Brent clicked on his flashlight. The illuminating beam revealed that the chamber wasn’t completely empty. A large pink metal loot chest sat in the back, unopened.

Brent and Ray both started for it, then stopped and looked at each other, an obvious question hanging in the air. There was only one, after all.

“Uh, I guess we can split it?” Brent suggested.

“Erm, how about R-Reisa gets it,” Karisma hesitantly interjected, “Since she’s the one that found this place, you know? You guys have already gotten lots of loot and she hasn’t been able to get much of anything since she got here, poor thing.”

If Reisa hadn’t wanted to show what was in her bag before, wouldn’t she just hoard the stuff she got from the loot chest as well? Brent had mixed feelings about it, but outwardly he agreed with Karisma. “Sure, go ahead.”

He saw a troubled expression cross Reisa’s face for a brief moment before being replaced by a calm half-smile.

“Very well. You have my gratitude, Karisma,” the elf said evenly as she went over to the chest.

“Careful, the stuff kind of pops out at you,” Brent warned.

She nodded. “I am aware of this.”

“Right, just making sure.”

Reisa knelt down, undid the clasp, and the chest popped open.

Brent hurried over to watch from the side. Maybe he could catch a glimpse of what was inside of her bag that she guarded so jealously. At the very least he figured he could at least find out what some of items from the chest were before they disappeared into the bag, never to be seen again.

Instead of putting away the items as he expected though, Reisa just stopped moving and looked straight at him. Brent felt those gray eyes boring right into his soul, and gulped.

Her lips made a sound: “Yes?”

“Uh, hi.” He waved weakly, but could feel himself blushing. He couldn’t look away!

“Is there a problem?”

Was- was she onto him? Did she know exactly what he was thinking?

Never mind that, everyone was watching! He had been standing there slack-jawed for several seconds now.

“N-no. I was uh, just interested in seeing what you had.” It was technically true.

“You know, in your chest.” Wait, that sounded weird. “The loot chest you just opened, that is,” he clarified, just so there was no misunderstanding.

She smiled. “I see. Well, you need not worry about that, I will share this information with everyone.”

He really hadn’t expected that. “Ah. Um. Okay then.”

She stood up and turned to present her gains to the others.

“Here’s what I have. It is mostly just these colored boxes, which I assume are filled with… bullets?”

“Ammunition boxes, yeah,” Ray confirmed, “Although usually they’d be labeled with the caliber and such instead of being blank.”

She had a box in every primary color: blue, red, green, and yellow. Despite the top of each box being single color printed on rough cardboard stock, it had oddly well done shading such that it appeared to to bulge slightly and have a polished sheen to it. With the way they were arranged Brent could just imagine it being one of those electronic Simon Says toys.

“If you hold it you can check what type it is in the window that pops up,” Brent offered.

Ray sighed. “I know, it’s just annoying to have to do that.”

“Ah! There are some arrows too.” Reisa gathered together a bundle of them. They were of modern make, with a black shaft and solid plastic fletching.

“Nice!” Everyone was heartened by this, as two of her original four were back in the Cul-De-Sac and considered unrecoverable.

There was a single gun among all this ammunition, a pistol.

“It’s another M9,” Ray explained, not even bothering to pick it up. “We all have one of those already, unless someone wants to dual wield.”

“I don’t have one already,” Brent muttered.

“That would look pretty cool though, eh?” Harry said, making two finger guns.

Ray scoffed. “It would be pretty dumb, actually. It’s hard enough to aim one gun. With two you’re more likely to hurt yourself or your allies.”

“Aw.” Harry’s expression fell.

“I shall keep it for my own use, then,” Reisa said.

Ray nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. It’s better than that Cricket gun at least.”

Brent still mostly agreed with that sentiment, though after using it for so long he found it had some upsides – it was small, lightweight, and very, very quiet. Perfect for hunting wabbits. He imagined sneaking up on that Dombey animatronic and shooting it.

Wait, Reisa had her bag open! Before he could react, she dropped the pistol in and closed it up in one swift motion.

Damn, he’d missed his chance to peek. He still couldn’t tell if she was onto him or if that was just how she normally did things.

In any case, Reisa was agreeable to sharing the rest of the loot, so they divided up the ammunition among themselves. Or rather, Ray looked over the pile and decided the distribution as the most knowledgeable. The elf kept all the arrows of course, and the blue box was split between Harry and Ray. The red box contained shotgun shells, which went out to Brent and Harry.

12 gauge buckshot Category

Ammunition

Rarity Common

Quantity

5

The standard shell for most shotguns.

Hell in a shell.

Ray took the entire green box for himself, which seemed kind of suspicious but Brent didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to call him out on it.

“All right, now that we’ve got everything divvied up. I’m thinking we ought to spend the night here in this… tree hollow here. It’s essentially like a building, sturdy walls and a roof overhead.” Harry rapped against the side. “Anyone spotted any oddities that would make this hollow unsuited for that?”

Brent looked around again and didn’t find anything too out of place. There weren’t any gaps in the wood or any sign of a trap or other hazard. He shrugged. “I didn’t see anything.”

“Then this looks as good a place as any,” Harry said, “Unless we want to keep looking.”

Despite there being no furnishings the place was surprisingly amenable. It was large enough that one could comfortably lay down to the side and not be seen through the entrance.

There was even an outhouse nearby, complete with a moon carved onto the door.

Harry called it “quaint” and “charming”. True to form for his adventure so far, Brent found himself needing to avail himself of it’s services.

Before doing so he made sure to go over every inch of the outhouse’s cramped interior. It looked safe enough, essentially just a wooden version of a porta-potty, though the hole seemed to go deep into the ground with no bottom in sight.

He returned from his business to find everyone settling down to sleep.

The floor wasn’t all that different from that of a house, and Brent did the same thing he’d done in the cave, wrapping himself in that old blanket and using his backpack as a headrest.

Ray was also backpacking it, while Harry started making a nest out of his scavenged clothes. Karisma wrapped herself up in one of the blankets from the research station. She would have taken enough for everyone, but they were too large even for her voluminous storage.

Then Brent had a thought. “Wait, guys. There might still be zombies out there, even in this region. One of us has to stay up to keep watch on the entrance. We could take turns.”

There were groans all around as they got back up to discuss this important issue.

“Crikey, but why didn’t we think of that before?” Harry exclaimed. “We could have all gotten killed while we were asleep!”

“Uh, Ray was keeping watch,” Karisma reminded them. “Sort of.”

Ray looked away. “Yeahhh, I’m not doing that again, I need my beauty’s sleep. I’ll take the last shift or something.”

Who would take the first watch, then? Everyone was feeling tired from the day’s events and wanted their beauty’s sleep too.

“Let’s draw straws,” Harry suggested. “Wait, no, we don’t have any straws. Oh, I know! We can play a game-”

“No. No games,” Ray cut in. “Let’s just do it alphabetically, in the order of our last names. I have no clue what your last names are so you can’t call me biased. Just tell me what the first letter of it is and we’ll go from there. Mine is N.”

Gah, this felt like a classic classroom approach, with Ray as the teacher.

“H is for Holmes,” Harry replied in a singsong tone.

“S,” Karisma said.

“D”, Brent remarked glumly. He was probably going to go first.

Ray looked at Reisa. “Elf chick?”

“I-” She thought for a moment. “Ah, that is...”

He sighed. “Do you not know your own last name?”

“No, it’s just… never mind.” Reisa seemed more conflicted than upset. She looked up and placed a hand on her chest. “I will take first watch,” she declared.

“Huh, okay then. That means Brent has second, then Holmes, me, and finally Karisma. Phew. Good night, everyone.” Ray laid back and closed his eyes.

“What, you’re not going to secretly stay up to vet Reisa out too?” Brent quipped sarcastically. “She could gut us in our sleep and take all our stuff, you know.”

Ray snorted, not opening his eyes. “Oh yeah, sure. And if she decides to gut you first I’ll just let her do it.”

Brent was struggling to think of a comeback to that when he noticed Reisa looking at him. This time she was upset. No points for guessing why.

“Wait, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean that. I was just joking around! Your Highness,” he added, sheepish.

“Good night,” she said simply, and went over to sit at the entrance to the hollow.

Not good.

Brent was lost for words, for a different purpose now. How could he fix this?

Heavy with fatigue, he wasn’t able to think of anything before sleep took him.

--break--

Brent was roused to a state of half-wakefulness with the sound of soft footsteps reaching his ear.

A sharp nudging sensation roused Brent to consciousness. He opened his bleary eyes to see Reisa standing over him, poking the tip of her boot into his side.

“Arise. It is your turn to keep watch.”

“Nngghghhhhh…” he mumbled, his lips half stuck together. His eyes drooped, and he felt strongly inclined to return to his slumber.

Reisa didn’t let up though. She continued jabbing his vulnerable stomach.

“Ow.”

“Do not shirk your duty. I will be kicking you next.”

Jeez, she was being really mean. Was she still upset?

“Alright, alright, I heard you.” Brent rolled over and got to his feet.

“I did not see any foes, zombie or not. Let us hope this continues,” Reisa reported.

“Mhm.” Still pretty groggy, he dragged himself over to the hollow’s entrance. He yawned, and rubbed the grit out of his eyes. It almost felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

He looked out through the opening, the swamp stretching out beyond.

Gazing up to the sky, he found illumination from an unexpected source: Small flickers of lightning crossed the dark storm clouds of the Halo, now closer to them than before. They swirled about, taking up a third of the sky and taking on a curvature that more accurately represented its ring-like nature.

The land and air underneath had that same purple tint, but with a closer inspection Brent could make out a fuzzy quality to it that shifted ever so slightly.

It was a mystery to be sure, but there was a more immediate problem that occupied his mind. He had to clear things up with Reisa. But first, he cleared his throat.

“Look, uh, about what I said, Reisa. I really don’t believe you would do something like that.”

“Is that so.”

Brent jumped as he realized she was still awake. This was supposed to be more of a rehearsal, but the cat was out of the bag.

“Yeah. I was still salty that Ray didn’t trust me when I joined the group. He was really hard on me, so I wanted to get him back.“

He wanted to say that Ray was being an asshole but he felt like he shouldn’t curse in the presence of royalty.

“Y-you’ve been nothing but helpful this whole time. I didn’t mean to offend you so… I’m apologizing, basically,” he finished lamely.

“Apology accepted. Though, I should not have been so hostile over it. That was… an overreaction on my part.”

She didn’t sound angry anymore. Brent glanced back. She was lying on her own blanket, staring at the ceiling and absentmindedly fingering her braid.

“Okay, uh, that’s cool, I guess.” Was this really wrapped up so easily? There was probably something else that caused her to react that way, but Brent had no idea what that was.

He could just ask her, but would she give a straight answer?

Hm. In any case, there were other questions he wanted to ask her.

“So, uh,” he began, “We told you a lot about our world earlier, so I was wondering if you could tell me about yours.”

“Tell you about… my world?” She sounded confused.

“Yeah, like the place you came from.”

“Ah. Well, that is...” Reisa shifted around as if discomforted. Brent couldn’t blame her. It was weird, trying to explain this to someone from another world. This whole situation was super weird.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

The ball was back in his court, figuratively speaking.

“Is there...magic? And monsters?”

“...Yes?”

Such a barebones answer, and yet Brent felt a little quickening in his heart. “What kind of magic? Do you know any?”

She crossed her legs. Her boots were still on, the bottom crusted with dried swamp… stuff. Brent’s own shoes hadn’t fared much better.

“Mm… there are all kinds of magic. Spells to sunder walls, to move mountains… I don’t know much of it. I can only cast a few basic spells, myself.”

“Oh! Can you show me?”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” Reisa sat up and held her hand up in a pinching gesture, such that if Brent wanted to ruin the mood he’d say it was Italian.

She muttered a soft incantation, too quick to make out.

Above her hand, a small mote of light began to flicker in and out of existence like the sparks of a lighter.

Her face scrunched up in concentration. “Hmm…”

The mote stabilized, staying in existence, and grew brighter, shedding eerie blue light across the walls of the hollow.

Brent’s eyes were popping. It was magic! Magic was real!

It was not to last though, as seconds later the mote winked out and did not return.

Reisa leaned back and sighed. “Something about this place… makes it more difficult to use magic. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Brent was transfixed. He wanted to see more. “Can you cast another spell? Or are you out of mana?”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m not, but… should you not be keeping watch?“

He’d been staring at her this whole time. Again. “Ack, woops!” He quickly turned back around to look out the entrance. The swamp didn’t seem to have changed, and there was no sign of movement. Still, if there had been anything in the past few minutes he would have missed it.

“In any case, I am tired and would rather sleep,” Reisa said.

Brent nodded emphatically to compensate for his back being turned. “Right, of course. Good night, then. Again.”

“Good night, Brent.”

With Reisa off to sleep, his watch shift now began in earnest.

He had initially been dreading having to stay up in the middle of the night, fearing he’d drift back to sleep and something would happen. This conversation and Reisa’s demonstration of magic had gotten him excited, though.

What was it like, in her world? If he went there somehow, could he also learn magic? And fight monsters?

Now that would be the isekai experience he’d been dreaming of.

Well, before thinking about traveling to another world, they had to travel out of this swamp.

“Map,” Brent whispered, not wishing to disturb anyone.

Snrrrrk.

He was interrupted by the sudden noise, startled until his brain processed that it was just snoring from someone behind him. He glanced back.

Snrrrrk. It was Harry. Huh.

Brent’s glance transitioned into a gaze as his eyes wandered to his other sleeping companions, curious as to if they also snored or had some weird habit.

They didn’t. Brent felt a little self conscious, as this was falling into the territory of creepy behavior.

Then he saw Reisa’s bag. It was just sitting out in the open, it’s owner fast asleep.

It was far enough away from her body that he could conceivably just take it and look through it without waking her up.

His fingers twitched with the urge, but Brent resisted. Maybe it was deliberate, a trick. He tried to see if Reisa was only pretending to sleep.

There! She shifted a bit… no, that could just be normal sleeping movement.

This was stupid. Brent went back to keeping watch, checking the Map occasionally. When he started feeling sleepy again, he got Harry up and took some well deserved rest.

46 remaining.