Chereads / Black Clover: Ash and Tarnish / Chapter 12 - Chapter Twelve: Desert of Hail

Chapter 12 - Chapter Twelve: Desert of Hail

I am warm.

And full.

So then…

Why do I feel like something is wrong…?

And, since when had my bed been this, sticky? Or damp?

Or smelling of blood?

Suddenly I become intimately, aware of the suffocating stench of blood invading my nostrils.

I flinch and jerk back from the smell, only for my hearing to come back and for it to be welcomed by the sound of my thrashing in a thick liquid…

It was then that I remembered I had eyes and with notable effort, I open them to what was either a pitch black void, or a cavern of some kind…

It was only then that the memories of the past come back to haunt me.

Now having a fairly clear understanding of where I was, slumped and began to analyze the fight.

'What the fuck was that.'

'Your asking me? Because I have no clue…'

Why didn't we just. Run?..'

'I think That's what I think we all want to know.'

Mayhaps… it… could have been, that we were being puppeteered… by fate… to take.. such out, of character… actions…'

'Fate? Seriously? That's a stretch and even you can understand that!'

'Either… fate, or… some other… being… who … would want us… here.. and…. Now…'

'Your suggesting that Lucy the soul diddler thinks we're enough of a threat to merk us, with a bear?'

'Maybe we shouldn't be going around thinking about his name? He's pretty all knowing right?'

'Not really, he has time magic and soul magic. but he can't see into other's heads, he isn't really omniscient, even his acting is on point in the anime, he can't know everything. Unless he's been looping time for an unreal amount of years, and even then, to get to a point where he even focuses his plots on someone like us is so unlikely it's exausting to think about… so it was probably something else…'

'After all that you couldn't even think about who it could be if not big L?'

'Well, there is more of a chance for it to simply have been a rampaging bear, and some bloodlust of our own leading our increasingly unreasonable actions, but honestly, in this world, it could have been any other number of things…'

'Yip yap yop let's get outta this pool of blood already? It's starting to get irritating listening to that guy do nothin but talk'

'Oh oh! And look at the board to see if we managed to complete that quest!'

And with that, I opened my eyes again, and tried to move, only to find my body incredibly sore and achey, but disregarding it, I crawl out of the heart hole I made and move to my left, to, the mouth, I think?

Only to find that the path is much more of a tight squeeze than it was when I got here, it would seem that not all that much time had passed if rigor mortis was still in effect, this is gunna be uncomfortable…

And in just a few minutes of inching through fresh corpse flesh and I managed to make it through to the jaws, only to find that du to the state the body was in, the jaws couldn't open, and on top of that, the tongue was forcing itself up to the roof of the mouth, leading to a blocked off exit… so I shift around and head for the stomach, and the hole I made there.

- - - -

After another long crawl through the bears innards, I made it to that cavern it called a stomach. Only to find myself shivering at the sheer chill that was brought from a gust of wind from the outside. It would seem the beast had fallen on it's side when it fell.

I scuttle back from the cold on instinct. But then think better of it, and instead drag some of the fish carcasses to the hole, to block the worst of the wind…

It is then, in a relatively safe and warm environment that I place my attention on the system that has been trying to get my attention this whole time.

[Ding]

[quest system activated: EMERGENCY QUEST: DIRE TROUBLE:

OBJECTIVE: Run or fight?: COMPLETE.

REWARD: random E-rank reward: COMPLETE.

SECRET REWARD: learn to endure. There is more to the body than enhancement magic: COMPLETE.

SECRET REWARD: complete objective without going down to half mana reserves: FAILED.

Eat. It's. Heart. Fresh. And. Still. Beating.: COMPLETE.

Retrieving random E-rank reward…

Retrieving secret reward (1)…

Analyzing body for gains from personal sacrifice…

Process will take thirty minutes…]

I blink at the board dimly lighting the small cavern of meat I was had decided to sit in…

"Sacrifice board." I say in a dead tone

[ding.] it indicates it's attention.

What exactly did I just put in my body..?

[the. Item. Details. are. being. retrieved. in. Twenty. Nine. Minutes. Fifty. Four. Seconds.]

Ah. I see…

"So, just for my state of mind. There wasn't anything, unhealthy, about eating that heart raw?"

[no. It. would. have. been. downgraded. To. F. Rank. If. There. Was. A. possibility. Of. Desease. Or. More. Risk. Than. Was. Originally. Stated. And. the. Sacrifice. Board. Automatically. Filters. out. F. Rank. Items.]

That's a relief…

"So, F-ranks are deadly, or trash?"

[Ding.] the sacrifice board changes to say something new

[Usually.] it simply states.

I blinked at the new information given from the board, that's good to know, not really applicable but any knowledge is good.

Shaking my head I decided to shift some of the fish carcasses to the side so I could get a better look at the outside.

And to my astonishment, what greeted my eyes was the view of a seemingly endless flat plane of pure white sand, under another seemingly endless tapestry of unfiltered night sky. Except for the moon, of course, which hung In the very center like a work of art.

In that moment I suddenly knew exactly where I was.

I'm in the damned grand mana zone of ice and snow!

Known to the townsfolk as Dyfen Hagol.

Of course, that's just the old way of saying it, the name people use nowadays would be, the Desert of Hail.

And all of that ivory sand esque stuff? Yeah, that's all hail, all of it is hail. The only reason that this wasn't an impossible situation is simply due to the sheer cold here, there isn't really a chance for air to get any real push behind it, and therefore, there most likely wouldn't be any sudden hale storms.

But it is notable to mention that it is still incredibly unstable, and you could easily fall in and never come back up if you weren't careful…

The moment was then ruined by the incredibly loud noise of the sudden post mortem bowel expelling of the dire bear I was standing in…

Getting back on track, it's not like this place is safe , infact it's probably one of the worst places to be trapped in.

For context. The grand mana zone of ice and snow. is split into three 'territories' technically, it's three grand mana zones of the same concept.

There's the most dangerous, the desert of hail. The second most dangerous, the Rolling Hills of snow. And the least dangerous, the Mountains of Ice.

Well, I say least dangerous, but that's a misnomer, they are all dangerous, it's just you get the most warning from the mountains…

It just so happens that the mountains are where the town gets the prodominance of it's rare metal to sell, since there is a lot under all that ice.

So, all that aside, how am I going to get out of here..?

Hmm…

I'm still not fully recovered on mana, and my body is similarly not in hard movement condition…

So, I'll just do a bit of scouting… see if I can't find out just how big that cliff we fell off was…

- - - -

As I skitter back into the belly of the beast, I shiver as I shove the fish in place and go and sit at the far end of the stomach…

The, cliff face…

Was, I don't know how large, other than it was a like a wall of sheer icey rock spanning so far up that it looked practically impossible to climb…

I doubt that in my current condition, I would be able to get up even one quarter of it. On top of that. Stopping at all here, even with a mana skin, means that the hail below is going to start to stick to what ever is on it…

Luckily I had my mana skin extra thick down at my feet, because I am of course, barefoot…

What do I do…?

'Wait…' a part of them said, starting to get an idea.

'The three parts of the grand mana zone. Their connected. Right?' Said the side who was getting somewhere with that idea.

'Yeah, so?' Rebuked a side needlessly.

'Hey fuck you! Say that to my face you bastard rat!' Said a side who doesn't even know how to insult someone correctly…

'Soo that means that we can travel between them! And the town has direct access to the ice mountains!, and that means, we might just be able to get out of this alive!'

'Huh, that's actually a good point…' said a side finally understanding the plan. And with that, most of the panic subsides.

'But wait, if we weren't able to stand still for a little bit in all that hail, wouldn't that mean we would have to run across the entire desert in one go..?' Said a side with a good point.

'Hmm… not necessarily…' said one side, projecting a mental image of probably the worst plan they could've made…

'Your not suggesting..!' Said another part, with a slowly creeping giddiness.

And with the mental image of the basic part of the plan in mind. My head snaps upwards,

excited to get to work.

Only to be met with a system board, had it already been thirty minutes..?

[DING]

[FITTING REWARDS RETRIEVED.

ITEM NAME: ENSCRIBING KNIFE

ITEM RANK: E-RANK

ITEM DETAILS: ONCE THE PROPERTY OF A GREAT ENCHANTER, THIS WELL LOVED KNIFE CAN CARVE INTO ALMOST ANYTHING.

ITEM FUNCTIONS: PUSHING MANA INTO THE HILT WILL MAKE THE KNIFE SHARPER, AND ANYTHING THAT IS CARVED WHILE MANA CHARGED WILL BE FIFTY PERCENT MORE RECEPTIVE TO THE MANA OF THE CASTER.

ITEM FLAW(S): WELL LOVED: THIS TOOL HAS BEEN USED FOR MORE YEARS THAN YOU HAVE BEEN ALIVE, AND THEREFORE IS MUCH MORE LIKELY TO BREAK.]

[SECRET REWARD: PERMANENT MANA SKIN MALLEABILITY TWENTY FIVE PERCENT INCREASE.]

[sacrifice. Reward. Applying.

Item. Name.: FRESH DIRE BEAR HEART.

Item. Rank.: A-RANK.

Item. Activation. Requirements.: CONSUME ORALLY WHILE ORGAN IS STILL RAW.

Item. Function.: INCREASES THE NATURAL REGENERATION RATE OF USER TWO FOLD

Item. Description.: IT IS SAID THAT WITHIN THE BEATING HEART OF ALL MAGIC BEASTS LAY THE POTENTIAL FOR ONE TO GAIN A PORTION OF THAT BEAST'S POWER.

Item. Cost.: DOUBLE THE SPEED OF REGENERATION DOUBLE THE NEED FOR PROTEIN, VITAMINS, FIBERS, AND WATER. OF COURSE, IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE THAT OTHER MUTATIONS COULD OCCUR. PREPARE.]

It was as I was reading that last bit that I felt a sudden maddening ache in my lower torso.

I only slightly acknowledged the knife now embedded in some meat, too focused on the sheer pain coursing out from my organs and flooding through to my bloodstream.

I was bent over clutching my stomach then writhing at the pain, then curling up into a ball.

It was like thousands of mealworms had infested my bloodstream and were eating me from the inside out.

At the same time it felt like my every muscle was made out of orange hot steel, and burning my every nerve.

I didn't even notice I had started to emit steam, nor when I started to cry from the pain, not even when, only moments later, those tears also evaporated…

It was around then that I fell into a blessed unconscious as my body was forcefully altered by the sacrifice of the bear heart.

- - - -

I tried to make this one longer, I think it worked!

I hope you like the idea of the triple grand mana zone, cuz, we're gonna be here for a while…

Thank you for reading! Just wait until next time, when Shepard begins the journey back to town in unfortunately the only way she can think of…