Chapter 47 Valley

“Hmm… maybe we should’ve just gone back to Losla with the girl.” Jay thought, walking down the hill.

“I guess it’s more appropriate to confirm if there are any more survivors, even though I doubt it..”

“Whatever happened, happened fast. It seemed like the attack was quite thorough too. Besides, we’re here to exterminate. We aren’t supposed to be bringing survivors back, this wasn’t meant to be a rescue mission…”

Jay thought there were no other survivors, but he felt it was his responsibility to make sure, so he kept navigating down the hill, into the valley. He wasn’t sure if he should just take the girl back to save her, but he justified himself in this way.

“More experience will be good anyway.” he encouraged himself as he willed his skeletons to report for duty. He knew they were close, but not sure exactly where they were. Their presence was more like a feeling rather than knowledge.

It was getting darker and colder as they descended the valley. The vegetation got thicker, and they had to stamp down the bushes and clamber over fallen logs. After some time, they found themselves at the edge of a ravine. The ravine was quite deep, a three-story house could be built inside it.

“Guess we have to find a way down,” Anya said, “right, or left?”

Jay looked up and down the ravine, making a decision. “Right, downhill.”

It was at this time that Jay’s skeletons had arrived.

“Here they are.” Jay smiled, introducing his skeletons to Anya..

“That’s Blue, Red, Lamp, and.. I haven’t named that one yet.” he pointed at the half-sized level one feeble creature. Apart from its blue bones, it really didn’t seem to belong to the same group of skeletons, mostly due to it’s white rat skull and short height.

“Wow… they’re blue? And that one’s level three?” Anya had wide eyes as she was trying not to yell “You gave them swords now too?”

“This is just ridiculous. Most adventurers are only just reaching level three…” She was shaking her head at how ridiculous this was getting, she was even a little freaked out – not just that there were now four of them, but that they were so much stronger in such a short period of time.

“Yep.” Jay smiled as he walked over to his level one skeleton, grasping the small creature’s collar bone.

“Brace yourself buddy, and find a way up to us when you land.” he said as he leisurely tossed it into the ravine.

Anya’s jaw completely dropped after seeing this,

“Jay, what? Why?” Anya was a little shocked, seeing him treat a level one skeleton like trash as he tossed it over the cliff, but she soon calmed down when she saw that the skeleton was completely fine.

“That was crazy…” She shook her head with a smile.

It landed with a rattle sound, but was otherwise fine. It didn’t even drop it’s bone daggers. Immediately it scampered off through the crevasse as if nothing even happened, following Jay’s order to find a way up.

“Bones are quite light. If these guys had wings, they could probably fly” Jay shrugged as he walked ahead. He hid a half-smile from Anya as he turned to walk, thinking that what he just did was pretty awesome.

As they walked along the cliff, Jay periodically peered into the ravine, noting that the bottom of it was all mostly flat. The skeleton he tossed in was no longer anywhere to be seen, it ran at full speed since it had no hindrances. At the top of the cliff however, walking next to the sheer drop was dangerous; Jay and Anya had to periodically navigate around cracks in the ground as well as various rocks, trees and bushes.

After a while, Jay got a notification.

[15 Exp]

“Hmm..” Jay picked up speed “The skeleton just killed something.”

Anya didn’t say anything since she also got exp, but stayed behind Jay, keeping up with him.

It wasn’t long before they found a way down, some boulders forming giant steps. Tree roots ran over them, providing a natural climbing surface.

Anya and Jay had to climb down, but the skeletons easily jumped from boulder to boulder. Jay made sure that one skeleton stayed up on the top of the cliff in case this area was trapped. His other two skeletons secured the flat ravine floor.

Jay willed the level one skeleton to return since they had found a way down now.

“Sense any enemies?”

“No.” Anya said, squinting at some of the boulders and rocks in the valley.

“Alright, let’s move.”

WIth the area secure, he made the last skeleton jump down.

Blue was in the lead since it was level three, with Red next to it.

Next was Jay and Anya who were holding their weapons casually, followed by Lamp with it’s old buckler, protecting the rear of the party.

Jay didn’t realise this, but Anya was periodically glancing at Blue.

“It’s more…” she couldn’t find the words “vigilant… aware?” she thought.

“Compared to the other skeletons, Blue seems more like an adventurer…”

Somehow, the levelled up skeleton seemed more life-like in the way it acted, It creeped Anya out a little.

Anya wasn’t sure if she should be worried about Jay becoming an unstoppable force in the future, she could only hope he wouldn’t turn into a monster as he got stronger.

The party walked through the twisting and turning ravine silently, eventually coming to the corpse of whatever it was that the level one minion killed.

Jay had to grit his teeth as he inspected the corpse, as it was simply disgusting. Whatever it was had no bones, so the remains of its body was a sack consisting of a slimy black mass of flesh, white mucousy goo and blood. It was as indistinguishable as the washed-up remains of a severely decayed whale.

“Eugh..” He couldn’t hold in his disgust as he stepped around it.

“At least it doesn’t stink” Anya whispered, taking out a bolt to poke around at its corpse; she was trying to guess what it originally looked like. After no success from poking it around, she simply dropped the bolt, leaving it with the fleshy goo that was now clinging to it.

Walking down the ravine, it was becoming more humid. Soon they noticed something strange.

“So many leeches…” Anya whispered with a frown.

“Yeah, It’s unnatural. Probably due to the monsters. Try to avoid them if you can.” Jay was having the same thoughts.

At this point, the level one skeleton returned. Clearly it didn’t consider the leeches a threat as the little black blood-suckers were all over it’s bones.

Now awoken from their dormant state, the leeches were now searching for food as they wiggled all over the skeleton’s bones.

Jay made sure the level one skeleton stayed a good distance away from them.

To make the path clear, Jay was going to use the skeleton. Under command from Jay’s will, the skeleton went to the ravine wall and ripped out some small shrubs.

It proceeded to the front of the party before it began to sweep the ground as they walked deeper into the ravine. It was quite good at this job as the level one skeletons had long arms compared to the rest of their body, nearly reaching the ground.

Anya had a reluctant half-smile while seeing the killing machine sweeping the path for them. “It almost makes Jay seem like a king.” she thought.

Jay picked up the bone daggers as the party moved forward, the sweeping skeleton leading the way. Jay would throw the daggers back to it at the first sign of trouble.

It didn’t take long for Jay to think of a name for his new skeleton, but he decided to save the naming ceremony for later.

The ravine continued downhill and got deeper; the walls got wider at the bottom and narrower at the top of the ravine. Now it was more like a cave with a skinny line of light travelling along the roof.

More and more leeches were swept to the side, the ground was getting more populated by the second as they ventured deeper, meanwhile less of the light from above could make it to the bottom of the ravine.

They continued for some time, and soon they could no longer see the walls of the cave – now they were simply following a trail of light in the midst of the shadows.

The party stood out clearly as they were the only things in the light.

Suddenly Jay paused, raising his sword and shield – his shield just squeezed his arm, altering him of an enemy in the darkness.