(A/N: Sorry for the delay for this chapter. :D )
As we were making our way through the scorching desert, Jonathan's little remarks were quite entertaining to hear after hours of travel towards our destination of Hamunaptra.
"Never did like camels. Filthy buggers. They smell, they bite, they spit." Jonathan said as he was having difficulties on riding the camel he was on.
Simultaneously, as Jonathan said that, I looked at Hassan who was basically all those things after he spat on the ground right after Jonathan said his description about the camels.
'I guess Hassan is basically a camel, no?'
{Indeed. Though camels are cuter.}
'Hah! Good one.'
"Disgusting." Jonathan recoiled at the sight of his camel regurgitating the contents from its stomach and chewing it in its mouth.
"I think they're adorable." Evelyn voiced her own opinion on them as she pat the head of her camel.
"They're okay I guess, but they do smell pretty bad. Probably because they piss on their own legs to stay cool." I said, which got me a flabbergasted look from Jonathan that quickly turned to one of disgust real quick.
Seeing him do that, I chuckled and right after, Hassan started to sing a song in his native tongue with the occasional 'Oh baby!' followed by him spitting yet again on the ground.
Honestly it was pretty disgusting at first, but after he kept doing that more frequently as our journey continued, you kinda just get used to it.
We kept traveling until the sun set and darkness took over with the only source of illumination being from the moon.
Everyone felt extremely exhausted from the journey so far with the exclusion of myself and Rick, who seemed to be doing alright.
As we kept up our current pace, I felt something that was lingering at the back of my head but couldn't point it to what exactly. I guess if I forgot it, it probably wasn't important.
But that's when I felt something. I felt someone staring daggers at me and I quickly started to look around.
It wasn't any of the people that I was traveling with, so I quickly started to take in my surroundings and took careful consideration to every detail.
That's when I noticed some small black figures on top of a cliff.
Even though it was pretty dark already, I could still see them, albeit a little blurry but could make out 10 figures dressed in black on the backs of horses looking down at us.
I think they were the people of the group called the Medjai? Honestly, I didn't really care at all now that I knew it was them since they weren't really the bad guys in the movie, so I just ignored them altogether.
I think Rick noticed them as well but a little later than me as he was still busy with trying to keep Evelyn upright on her camel as she steadily dozed off.
Hassan and Jonathan were sleeping and snoring on the backs of their camels as they loosely held their reigns, with the occasional pranking of Jonathan to Hassan.
And that's when I heard the all familiar bell sound in my head and fully recalled what I considered to be unimportant just a few moments ago.
[!!WARNING!!
You have 00:20:00 remaining until you are penalized. Please do your daily task!]
'Oh God! How did I completely forget that!?' I thought as I pinched the bridge of my nose.
'Eve.' I mentally called out.
{Yes, Deimos?}
'Please give me a reminder to do my daily task when there's around 2 hours left before it goes kablooey and sends me back to the desert.'
{But you are in a desert, Deimos?}
For God's sake.
'I meant the penalty world.'
{Oh, I see! Okay, I understand. I'll remind you from now on.}
'Thanks.'
Not wanting to go to the hellish area of the centipede infested desert for now, I quickly got off my camel.
Before I did though, I signaled to Rick and told him that "I'm gonna go for a little run, do NOT follow me. I'll be back soon."
Before he could respond, I hauled ass and ran as fast as I could in a completely random direction.
And boy did I run fast. I think I was running at the speed of a cheetah, maybe even quicker than that, but in all honesty it probably only felt that way considering I was running way faster than a human should.
My entire surroundings looked like a blur and before I could even run out of breath, I was almost complete with my run.
[Quests
Daily Quest: 175 push-ups, 175 squats, 175 sit-ups, 17.5 kilometre run✓.
Time left: 00:10:00]
Holy crap. "Did I just run over 100kmph!?" I shouted aloud.
I knew I was fast, but this was just ridiculous. Even without the Flame Kata, I was still almost as fast as a cheetah was.
Honestly, having the feeling of being the fastest human, along with the fact that I was about to become even faster after I finished the quest, was quite fulfilling for me.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I quickly got down onto the sand and started my body weighted exercises.
Going through each exercise was a walk in the park and in no time flat, I finished all the exercises with only a few more minutes to spare.
[Quests
Daily Quest: 175 push-ups, 175 squats, 175 sit-ups, 17.5 kilometre run. (COMPLETE)
Rewards: +2 in all stats except intelligence. {RECEIVE?}]
With the same process as last time, I mentally tapped the RECEIVE prompt.
[HOST: Deimos Yusha
Race: Human
STR: 21
VIT: 21
SPE: 21
DEX: 21
INT: 20]
(A/N: Removing the (7) from the stats since you should all be familiar with the average human stats. :3)
I felt a cooling sensation in my body this time, and felt all of the energy that I used, which was quite low, to feel replenished and balled my fist tightly.
My grip felt even stronger and I felt even more better than I did after finding out how fast I was.
"Eve, can you act as a stopwatch please? I wanna see how much faster I became." I called out to my partner in crime.
{Alrighty, you got it. Just let me know when you want me to start timing you.}
After I stretched out my legs and joints, I told her, "Start it now." with a smile.
{Starting in 3, 2, 1, GO!}
Right after the 'GO!' I quickly bolted in the direction that I came from and made my way back towards Rick.
Without running out of breath, the same way I did earlier, I reached Rick.
No shortness of breath and I was barely working up a sweat, I wondered how long could I keep that speed up?
Before I could come up with any idea, Rick was on guard before seeing me.
"What the hell! I thought you were some monster running up to us!" Rick yelled out.
I didn't really know what he meant and looked behind me.
All I saw was a small dust cloud that had yet to be settled on to the ground.
I sheepishly grinned and scratched the back of my head as I looked back at him.
"Sorry about that, didn't know my speed was that terrifying." I said.
Rick, now calming down, asked me "Okay. Answer this question: How are you that fast? When I first met you, you stopped me from kissing Evelyn within a blink of an eye. How?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." I quickly replied as I started to get back on the camel after I dusted off the sand that was stuck to my clothes.
"Dude, we're heading to a place called the City of the Dead, try me." Rick spoke.
"I drink a lot of juice." I simply said since I wasn't really comfortable about spilling the beans of my situation to anyone.
It's my secret, so why would I tell others it?
Rick seemed to whine a bit before simply saying, "Alright fine, keep your secrets." as he was about to lead the camels back towards our destination.
'Eve, how long did that take me?' I asked in my head.
{Your time to reach Rick was 8 minutes and 15 seconds. You're really fast now!}
I smiled at that accomplishment and mentally thanked Eve.
My max speed now was at a whopping 127 kmph (about 79mph) and I knew I could get even faster than that with Flame kata, but it was gonna be pretty taxing on my body if I combined them both.
-TIMESKIP TO MORNING-
Me, Rick, Evelyn, Jonathan and Hassan were riding until we saw a large group heading towards us.
As we got more closer, Rick, who was up in the front, was called out by the Beni guy.
"Good morning, my friend." he simply stated.
The nice American group was right behind him, and simply looked at me and Rick before they gave a slight nod towards us.
After our group and their group mingled, Dave was the one to break the silence after a bit, "What the hell we doing?" he asked Beni.
"Patience, my good barat'm. Patience."
"Remember our bet, O'Connell? First one to the city, 500 cash bucks." Henderson said with his cowboy hat on his head.
"A hundred of them bucks is yours if you help us win that bet." Henderson said towards Beni.
"Oh, my pleasure." Beni said with a blank face.
Beni looked at O'Connell and said "Hey O'Connell. Nice camel." to which Rick responded with a slight smile and a pat to the camel's head.
After mingling with each other for a bit, we were just waiting for the sun to rise now.
I already knew what was going to happen but was trying to keep an open mind with what was about to unfold.
Rick, looking a little worried, said "Get ready for it." to which Evelyn, who was right beside him on her own camel asked confusingly, "For what?"
Rick plainly said without taking his eyes off the faraway distance in front of us. "We're about to be shown the way."
As Rick said that, everyone looked towards the faraway distance where he looked with a sense of unease. I guess we were all just waiting for something to happen with how Rick and Beni were looking.
We all saw the big orange ball of the sun rising up from the ground in the distance, and as it kept on rising higher and higher, a vague, almost mirage-like mound appeared out of thin air.
Even I, who watched this movie and was used to the scenes that were happening in front of my eyes, was pretty shocked at the almost fantasy-like events that were happening right before me.
I mean, how many times in your life can you see something that appears out of thin air like that?
"Will you look at that?" Henderson said what was on everyone's mind, including my own.
"Can you believe it?" Dave said.
"Hamunaptra" whispered Burns with excitement in his eyes.
"Here we go again." said Rick in a boorish tone, looking a little worn out now.
Just when the hazy mound started to solidify in the distance, that's when Rick and Beni whipped their respective mounts and raced towards Hamunptra.
Almost immediately after, everyone else did the same and soon enough they were all on a race towards the mound.
I was the only one left behind since I wanted to run there on my own.
I wanted to see if I could get there before Rick could even with the massive head start that he had..
Speaking of Rick, I saw him and Beni slapping each other with their riding crops and saw Rick throw Beni from the camel he was riding on, onto the floor.
Then it looked like Evelyn's camel caught up with his and they soon started to ride towards the entrance of Hamunptra together.
"I guess now it's time for me to go." I said to myself and slapped the back of my camel to run on its own towards the city.
I took a deep breath and went into a sprinting position.
I mentally counted down from 5 and as I counted all the way to 'Go!' I bolted.
Having my already monstrous speed, I combined it with my Flame Kata, which seemed to have boosted my speed 5 fold. It probably was less but that's what it felt like to me.
Running right past the camel I had slapped earlier, I felt that I was closing the distance towards the large group in front of me with each step that I took.
Eventually passing them altogether, I was soon about to pass Rick and Evelyn, who both looked to be having fun.
'I guess I'll have to rain on their parade now since I'll be the first one there.' I told myself.
Passing both of them, I went right through the entrance of Hamunaptra.
Worried that if I came to an abrupt stop from my excessive speed was going to rupture my internal organs, I slowed down my full blown sprint into a light jog, which I eventually slowed down to a stop.
Honestly speaking, running all the way here was quite taxing on my stamina, since I used both my speed and Flame kata.
My stamina was nowhere near enough to sustain that for longer periods of time.
I laid down on the sandy floor and was heaving in deep breaths of the warm air. Trying to get my breathing back to normal, I felt my heart beating rapidly against my chest. So much so that I saw the palpitations on my chest.
Eventually, it went back to normal as I laid there until everyone else arrived.
Both Rick and Evelyn were completely shocked when they found me laying right smacked in the middle of the ruined ancient city.
I saw them when I lifted my head and went back to laying on the ground to which I responded aloud with "IT'S THE JUICE RICK! THE JUICE!!"
-TIMESKIP A FEW HOURS-
Everyone was already settled and got right to work. We had people excavating the entrances of the tombs so that we could explore, had the designated cooks to feed those workers, and people who were studying the ancient buildings.
Main cast group, including me, was busy studying a statue of Anubis.
"That's the statue of Anubis. Its legs go deep underground. According to Bembridge scholars, that's where we'll find a secret compartment containing the golden book of Amun-Ra." Evelyn stated matter-of-factly.
"Now you're completely positive that we won't be waking up any mummies around here right?" I asked playfully at her.
"I assure you Deimos, mummies will not be walking around." she replied.
She looked at Jonathan, who was tinkering and playing around with what looked to be a mirror. "Uh, Jonathan, you're meant to catch the sun with that." she told him as she herself was cleaning one.
"So, what are these old mirrors for?" Rick asked Evelyn to which she corrected him "Ancient mirrors and its used for an ancient Egyptian trick. You'll see."
Rick, looking more comfortable around Evelyn, handed her a leather bag.
I walked over to Jonathan and whispered playingly to him, "Looky there Jon, you're sister's getting a present from her future lover."
Jonathan, ignoring the mirror he was playing with, looked over to the duo and had an expecting look on his face. "It would appear so, Deimos. Too bad you could've been in Rick's place. You are the better looking one."
I bumped fists with him and said "Many thanks."
Rick handing over something said, "Here, this is for you."
Evelyn looked confusedly at him and Rick affirmed "Go ahead, it's uh something that I borrowed off from our American brethren. I thought you might like it- uh you might need it for when you're… uh-" Rick said more and more embarrassed as he backed away.
"Yeah? What are you looking at?" he said to Hassan who seemed to have caught on that Rick was crushing on Evelyn.
Hassan didn't say anything but raised his hands in defeat and gave him a knowing look.
Opening up her gift, Evelyn saw a bunch of excavation tools and looked happy at Rick's gesture.
Me and Rick were tying ourselves with a rope that we tied around the Anubis statue and were preparing to go down to the base of the statue.
"Hey!" Hassan told both of us, "Look for bugs, I hate bugs." he stated.
Me and Rick looked at each other and just simply ignored him and jumped down.
We reached the bottom and waited for the rest of the guys to come down.
Evelyn was the first to come down after us, and was soon followed by Jonathan and Hassan, who both seemed to be struggling down the rope.
We all ignored them and started to take in our surroundings.
We brought down some torches that we brought with us and lit it up.
It illuminated a room that we were currently in and was pretty shocking. Not many can claim that they've been in an undiscovered ancient Egyptian crypt, and we were probably the first to do so in this place.
"Do you realize we're standing inside a room that no one has entered in over 3,000 years?" Evelyn declared.
As she said that Jonathan made it down and the first thing he said was "Whew. What is that god-awful stench?"
Soon after Hassan came down and we were all in the room together.
Evelyn walked over to one of those mirrors that we saw back when we were above and cleaned it up from the cobwebs.
She adjusted it so it could catch the light from the entrance and said "And then there was light."
Soon after it caught the light from above and bounced off into the other mirrors which instantly brightened the room.
We could now see way more than the torch could've.
Rick, along with everyone including me looking in surprise, said "Hey, that is a neat trick."
Soon after, we started to walk around the room trying to see anything shiny, and while doing so, something caught Evelyn's eye.
"Oh my God, it's a sah-netjer." she said.
"A what?" both me and Rick said in unison.
"A preparation room." she replied.
"Preparation room for what?" Rick said.
"For entering the afterlife." Evelyn said as we kept exploring more in the room.
Rick, still looking confused, was about to ask for more to which Jonathan said, "Mummies, my good son. This is where they made mummies."
As we kept walking deeper into the crypt, Rick and I were on high alert.
Just then, we heard a buzzing sound. Immediately after it became almost deafening and we were preparing for the worst and we started to panic.
Imagine yourself walking through a narrow corridor and hearing deafening buzzing sounds that you couldn't make out where it was coming from. That unsettling nature would cause anyone to panic.
Soon though, the buzzing sound passed and it became faint until we couldn't hear it anymore.
Jonathan, asked "What was that?" and Rick whispered "Sounds like bugs."
"He said bugs." said Evelyn to Jonathan to which Hassan started to panic even more.
"What do you mean bugs?! I hate bugs!" he started to be even more on edge now.
We kept making our way towards where we thought the base of the Anubis statue was and soon enough, we got there.
We saw a giant monolith that had two big feet and legs going up towards the ceiling. It also had hieroglyphs engraved on it.
"The legs of Anubis. The secret compartment should be hidden somewhere inside here." Evelyn said.
Just then we all heard some ominous sounds and were on high alert.
I'm pretty sure this is when we're supposed to meet the Americans and so I wasn't all too worried about it.
The sounds got louder and louder until we were sure it was around the corner of the monolith.
Rick was the one leaning against it, followed by me, Evelyn, Jonathan and Hassan.
They were on edge and Rick finally peeked the corner and aimed his two Chamelot revolvers at whatever was around the corner.
Just as he did, the now surprised American group did the same thing.
We had a bit of a standoff before we all calmed down.
Henderson was the first one to say "You scared the bejesus out of us, O'Connell." to which Rick smiled and said "Likewise."
Burns noticed that Evelyn was carrying a bag that was all too familiar to him and said "Hey, that's my tool kit." walking closer to see it to which Evelyn held tighter away from him.
"No I don't think so." Rick said as he aimed his two revolvers at Burns which then started another standoff.
"O-okayyy. Perhaps I was mistaken." That seemed to have relieved the tension and we finally laid down our weapons.
"Well, have a nice day, gentlemen." Evelyn said. "We have a lot of work to be getting along with."
Allen was quick to interject and said "Push off! This is our dig site."
This irked Evelyn and she said "We got here first!"
This little exchange between the two caused yet another standoff. This was getting pretty out of hand now.
"This here's our statue, friend." Dave said to which Rick replied with "I don't see your name on it, pal."
Beni was the one to try and dissipate the situation by only making it worse and said "Yes, well, there's only five of you, and fifteen of me."
I glanced at Evelyn who seemed a little sidetracked with a little crevice she saw on the floor that she was knocking small rocks into.
Seems like she figured it out. Clever girl.
"Your odds are not so great, O'Connell." Beni said.
Rick aimed his gun that he had on Burns to move towards Beni and said "I've had worse." to which Jonathan agreed and said "Yeah, me too."
Rick and I looked confusedly at Jonathan and wondered 'the hell's he talking about?'
"Oh, look, for goodness' sake, let's be nice, children." Evelyn said as she went between the guns.
"If we're going to play together, we must learn to share." She said as she looked at both me and Rick trying to hint us something. "There are other places to dig."
Rick caught on and lowered his weapons and we finally got rid of the standoff. Honestly speaking, it was getting pretty old real quick.
END CHAPTER 9