“Don’t stop and don’t look back! We should be close!” Deka screamed again, making the squad put their entire focus on moving rather than their surroundings. She knew that the darkness was bound to swallow them if they relaxed or slowed down.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry…” She muttered to herself like a mantra. Deka didn’t know if they were close or not, but she prayed the river will appear at any given moment. There was no time left before midnight and it was getting horribly bad for them.
The weather was eating away at their bodies and the temperatures were basically turning their injuries into uncomfortable numbness. They could barely see and the fear made it even worse.
In their hearts, they prayed to their God for salvation. They wished to see that river more than anything else. They never thought they would ever want to see the Great Akora River but this situation was odd enough to make that the case.
Several minutes passed and some mercenaries started slowly falling back. Calling their condition bad was an understatement. It had reached a point where they were walking simply because adrenaline was keeping their bodies active and alive.
But, there is always a limit to the human body no matter how strong it gets. At some point, the adrenaline won’t do much and the exhaustion and pain will take over again.
“Hold on!” Seeing one of her friends fall, Deka quickly rushed back to him through the thick snow and picked him up over her shoulder.
“T-Thank you…” The man muttered through his grunts.
“Don’t worry about it,” Deka said as she chased after the group.
The only one who didn’t seem to be struggling as much was Arthur. He had his eyes on his surroundings, completely forgetting about the situation he is in.
‘What is this odd feeling? Something off is going on.’ He squinted his eyes. Through the storm and the cold, Arthur’s senses caught a rather distinct sensation. It wasn’t danger or fear. This particular feeling happened with Arthur before and he could easily identify it in a heartbeat.
‘It’s almost as if something… Is watching us.’ He mused. Arthur’s senses were telling him that he was being watched from somewhere and he didn’t know where or who it was.
It also didn’t feel exactly like the normal feeling he would have when he was being watched. For some reason, Arthur wasn’t convinced that the thing watching him was a human or even a monster for that matter.
‘What the hell is going on?’ He looked left and right, but he couldn’t catch anything. It only grew more and more odd as he walked. ‘Show yourself, whatever you are. I can feel your eyes on me.’
However, nothing really did what he asked and nothing changed about the situation. That irritated Arthur so he decided to ignore it. The eyes weren’t threatening in the least and something told him he shouldn’t worry about it so he decided to focus on the path. And just as he looked ahead, he heard one of the mercenaries yell.
“THERE!!! I can see the river!!”
The moment he shouted, everyone looked up as if they heard the best news of their lives. Through the fog and snow, their eyes caught the glistening blue water welcoming them with a mesmerizing scenery.
‘It’s… It’s emanating a blue light!’ Arthur thought to himself as he blinked. He had to take a second look at the river and it was indeed the case, the river was a shiny blue in color, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Its surface was calm, unperturbed by the storm around it like a beautiful gem glistening in the darkness, guiding the lost souls toward it. Arthur could feel an immense amount of mana surrounding the river. It was so thick, he could almost feel it against his body.
“So this is the Great Akora River.” He muttered, completely in awe at the sight. Even in the shroud of the storm, the river appeared as divine as it could be. It felt like something that came from the highest point in the tower, packed with divine power to the brim.
“We’re finally here…” Deka exhaled a small breath of relief as she looked at her group. “Let’s hurry down to the port! The ship should be there!”
Hearing that, the group didn’t waste any time and started walking down, descending through the snow to the riverbed. Due to its proximity to the water, the ground there was more muddy than what they had been walking over for the past few hours.
Down there, Arthur saw a small port built near the river with a rather mid-sized old ship resting next to it. It looked quite old, clearly been built ages ago as the wood had lost most of its color and the ship had clear signs of damage all over it.
“Get in, hurry!” Deka said as she approached the ship and dragged the ladder down for the group to get on. She helped every single one climb up before she finally followed them after giving the outside world one last look.
The ship’s deck was rather small with one large room that worked as a storage and also a shelter from the cold weather.
Quickly, the mercenaries walked inside and closed the door.
“RRRRR!!! I can’t feel my body anymore! We need to light up a fire quickly!”
Quickly, they scrambled to light up the small heater built into the corner. The moment that fire ignited, everyone quickly surrounded it, trying to warm themselves up before they die from the sheer cold.
Meanwhile, Arthur stared around him at the storage room. It had some decent space, enough for a group of 7 to comfortably sit around and even sleep. There were also some wooden boxes with supplies in them from food to blankets and even potions for injuries and mana.
“Nice… It seems they have stacked the ship up in case of emergencies.” Arthur muttered as he opened one of the boxes. In there were dried-up food rations. Due to the extreme environment around them, the food won’t last if it was treated normally so it was all dried up to get rid of all moisture.
‘Jerkies, rock solid bread, and uh… A few years old water that looks like it’s radioactive. Nice.’ He laughed to himself.
“I can’t believe we actually made it! Hahahaha! We’re the goddamn best!”
“I never doubted us! We really struggled but we ended up reaching the river!!”
It didn’t take long for most mercenaries to finally warm up and feel their bodies return to their normal temperature. That was when the overwhelming happiness of surviving the storm washed over their minds.
After hours of walking and overwhelming fear, they had reached their destination. The euphoria from that success was simply indescribable. Even when they were still mourning their dead comrades, they couldn’t stop themselves from smiling and laughing.
Even Deka didn’t stop them as she simply watched from the side. She also felt a lot of relief when they made it to the ship. This step was very huge and it increased their chances of survival by a considerable margin.
“Hey! I found some alcohol here!”
“We need to celebrate!”
“This is not the time for Alco-” Sergi was about to stop them, only to feel a hand grab his. Looking to the side, he saw Deka shaking her head.
“Let them relax a little… They earned it.”
“But, we need to leave in a few hours at most.”
“Yeah, I know. But… What is awaiting us will be far more dangerous. They have to be ready.” Deka said in a serious tone. ‘Whatever this river has in store for us… It will be far worse than what we’ve been through. They will need every moment of rest they can get.’
As she watched the celebrations, Deka was thinking of what would happen later that day and what kind of horrors brought down to the first floor. However, at the same time, her exhaustion didn’t let her think too deeply about it.
Before she could even realize it, her eyes started closing down slowly as she drifted to sleep.
Sergi stared at his friend drift off to sleep with a complicated expression. Nobody knew what was going through his head at that moment.
Arthur took a corner of the storage room and sat down, resting his tired back against the cold wood. He exhaled a long breath before he looked at the rest of the group.
“Hey, how about we sing a song!”
“A song?”
“Yeah, a song. You know, one of those chanties for traveling the sea.”
“And do you know any one of those?”
“… No?”
“Then who the hell is going to sing it?”
“It was just an idea, idiot.”
‘For a bunch of seasoned warriors with years of battles under their belts, they sure do like to be childish every now and then. That’s nice to see.’ Closing his eyes, Arthur made a faint smile of satisfaction. Stay updated through My Virtual Library Empire
A//N: Thank you all for the gifts, golden tickets, and PS. Let’s keep it up!