Chapter 260 - Survival of the Fittest(1)

Eric and Osira made their way back to Section 2 and entered the first tunnel on the right to show everyone what they have found, it is a considerable win because you can't find 4,000 Gold Coins just anywhere, her and Eric were so happy to start off this exploration with a huge win and neccesarily a contribute but they found their selves in an embarrassing situation.

More specifically, everyone in this room but the kids, thought that Eric and Osira will hit it off! As in, connect in that way! I mean although the minor age difference, they are both Ignites, fairly attractive and were often seen arguing it out. Well Osira mostly but still, everyone expected something including Bittore!

Starting off the conversation with a taunting smile on her face, Bittore asked. "So what did you two love birds find?"

"Love birds?" Asked Eric, this came in as more as a shock. This is indeed embarrassing so he became a bit red, but just a bit!

As for Osira, "Mother!" She pouted with a loud whisper as she quenched her teeth in just a little bit of anger, the stomp on the ground in embarassmant proved her bit of rage but her face becoming mostly red proved her shyness at this point.

"I told you he wouldn't try anything!" Reminded Mogranius as she bit a chunk of Ratbug leg that he hunted down himself. "You would have to push this boy over her for him to ever actually touch anyone, he was even against hugs until a while ago!"

"Mogranius!" He lightly shouted, hoping he will shut his mouth.

Most in the crowd just giggled while Bittore herself has busted in to laughter because of Mogranius' nonsense of a sentence, big energy for someone who broke both of her knees earlier. She has come to like how sensitive Eric is, if it wasn't for his tears she would be left for dead right now. She did have a hole on her head after all!

Her laughter became contagious, half of who giggled joined her in laughter as well and those who didn't giggle before started giggling now. The kids were laughing too but they didn't understand half of what the a.d.u.l.ts were talking about and are laughing with a little force of fitting in behind them.

"I like this kid, I don't understand him but I like him." Expressed Bittore as he calmed down her laughter after over a minute, for some reason Osira's red face made her laugh even harder. Afterwards wanting to crack another joke to bring back the laughter on the wonderful people surrounding her. "Osira I approve, hit on him!"

Although the jokes are getting out of control, most in this room respect Eric as a person as for those who had different thoughts they were either suspicious or confused. It is generally hard in any time line to find a man who doesn't have double intentions, yet he dug them out of trouble, practically forgave them for all this nonsense even though not spoken by word, is still helping them yet he has no request in return, rare indeed.

"We're leaving!" She pouted and grabbed Eric by the arm, pulling him out along with her. But it only made the situation worse for these two "Love Birds", the crowd behind her burst into laughter.

"Ugh but we didn't show them the jewelry!" He reminded with a loud whisper, they were so excited about it when they got here now they are just shy instead. Osira had it worse here than Eric though even though she doesn't get shy easily nor has problems intercepting a room full of people. She does get moody yes, but that's another case.

"We will show them later, let's just explore more!" Now it feels like she could really make a move here, escaping the scene with the guy everyone sees her cute together with, oh the misunderstandings can be big.

"Ugh... good idea." He replied while giving a little boost on his step to escape her grip, he doesn't like getting dragged across the room. "Sorry my mentor caused this much trouble, he likes to mess around a lot! You'll hate him a hit more the more you know him but he is also very sweet."

"Such a confusing man..." She added in a low tone, but actually meant Eric. Until now he barely let out a few words but at this moment he is talking her ear off, she just put that behind and in some way found it just a bit cute, afterwards wanting to apologise. "Sorry for all that drama my mother caused, this confused me too. She mostly talks about plans and schemes."

"I guess she doesn't have anything so scheme about anymore." Added Eric as a joke, but his little joke actually explained this situation to the most exact detail.

"I think you figured it out quite well there, I've never seen her this happy." She explained as they subconsciously walked down to the third tunnel. "Most days she was on her toes, expecting the worse and not getting proper sleep.

Now when I said that they are walking down, I was being as literate as possible. This third tunnel is more of a staircase 20 meters down, the Snow Ignites sure fancied for their architectural work to be even, odd but helpful in a way.

They walked into what appears to be a storage room, spanning 20 meters wide and 45 meters long! Huge indeed, but it appears to be rather empty. Sure there isn't anything like food in it considering that no sane human has been down here for hundreds of years, but considering that this room is lower than some others and neccesarily colder, food was likely stored down here!

Although there is only so much they can illuminate without blasting a tremendous amount of Fire, they could see metal shelves here and there near the walls, likely used to store sacks of food, that would be a good option and indeed a nice theory. But with all that rust, they have to be extra careful for the food not to touch the rust, it can poison the food at a low pace. There is no absolute rush to replace them, but it is a good idea to do so.

They've also managed to find some rotten wood here, perhaps at some cases used to lift any item off of the ground, likely to symbolize that there are more fragile or possibly more valuable contents in specific areas, a good idea at that time but what is the aftermath when the smell of rotten wood is compared with the smell of rust, two types of skeleton and even signs of recent battle, there is blood on the ground!

The result of all these smells building up over the ages is truly suffocating, the stench is just to hard to bare. It smells worse than shit! They were forced to hold their noses and breathe with their mouthes, until they ran into blood that is.

She bent down with Fire blasting from her palm to illuminate the place, and fresh blood reflected on her Fire. "Look, blood!" It became even easier to see once Eric walked closer with fire blasting from his palm as well. The place is quite large and two torches are better than one.

"Damn, why does it look so fresh?" Asked Eric, since Bittore is more ahead with these things.

Afterwards to make the atmosphere here horrific, a loud animalistic scream echoed across the room, Osira remembers that sound. "This is not good!" She whispered, expecting the worse.

Meanwhile that one scream echoed its way up towards the second section and entered Bittore's ear, but not enough to panic because of it. "Did you hear that?" She asked Mollara since she was the closest here in this circle of people.

"Hear what?" She asked with a bit more confusion, she is 12 years older than Bittore so her ears don't work like they are supposed too.

"I don't know, It sounded like a..." She tried to explain, but was interrupted by Mogranius who had the audacity to finish his story with.

"And that's how I almost kissed a Deer." Hurls of laughter followed after, the kids contributed nearly half of all this noise and quite a few a.d.u.l.ts laughed too. That scream Bittore heard has fairly escaped unnoticed.

Back at the third tunnel, Osira warned with a whisper. "We need to be very careful, I think that was a Demon!"

They tip toed their way towards the sound, fairly at the other end of this room. They didn't find any living Demon, however they did find three large Ratbugs! When we say large, I mean 4 times the size of an average Ratbug.

"Shit!" Bittore expressed with a loud whisper, "Those are Queens!"

Seeing that they are quite kill able even though bigger than most Ratbugs, he told her. "No, they are our food supply!"

"You don't understand, one Queen can host a clan of up to 250!" She was swift enough to specify before one of the Queens charged towards them after an obligatory loud Squeak to declare territory, as the two other Queens feed on the Demon they just killed apparently.

After the Queen, followed 6 More smaller Ratbugs, hearing their insect like legs crackling swiftly against the ground all Eric could reply with was. "Well shit."