IradeApril 30, 3:13 pm BT – 1:13 pm UT, Behind The Waterfall At The Gorge At The Iron Gate Pa.s.s, China
Irade waited at the entrance of the cave, sharpening the end of a long stick. Her previous attempts at making a simple spear lay scattered around her as she concentrated on her task.
"F***!" Irade swore softly as her rock slipped from her grasp.
Making a spear with only a vaguely sharp rock turned out to be quite difficult. If she had a knife, or something sharp, she could probably do it better. But if she had a knife, she wouldn"t have to make this spear in the first place.
Irade looked at the rock, then back at her spear. The stick was a decent thickness, but it wasn"t even straight; it was bent a little near the end. She had been trying to sharpen the other end, but had only really managed to make it a little thinner.
She sighed, annoyed, and set it aside for now. She had other things to take care of. She got up, and walked put of the cave.
Half an hour later, she came back in with a bag full of fish. She walked down the path, deep into the cave, right until the final cavern where the Black Wind lived.
Black Wind was the name Irade gave the wolf. The reason?
A couple of days ago, Irade had thrown him some fish, as had become their routine. She accidentally threw the fish just a little too far, over the large pool.
Irade let it go, content to just fish it out later, but before it could even fall into the water, the wolf moved.
Irade watched as the wolf dashed over the water, catching the falling fish in its jaws, and landing on the other side of the pool. He turned around, limping and whining as the wound on his side opened up again.
Before Irade could say anything, the wolf dashed back to where it was before. Irade stared, stunned at the speed of the wolf. She had been able to see his movements, but only barely. If this was the previous Irade, she doubted that she would even be able to see the wolf. At most, she would just see a blur. A black blur.
Hence, Black Wind. The name didn"t change in the HUD or anything, but she couldn"t keep calling him "the wolf," or "???" in her mind, could she?
...
Irade realized she had terrible naming sense, but didn"t really know what to do about it. Then again, it wasn"t like there was anyone around to judge her for it.
As she walked back toward the glowing cavern, a bag of raw fish slung over her shoulder, and agonizing over her naming sense, she suddenly realized how weird her life had become. Before now, she had been too busy trying to survive, or too mired in her own depression to realize how weird her life had become. She had basically gone from being an ordinary schoolgirl that plays video games, into what seemed like China"s most wanted superhuman.
She stopped for a moment, taking a little while to look at her reflection in the water. Her hair was still long, but a mess. Her face was dirty, and her clothes ragged. She did try to clean her clothes and body, but without any soap there was only so much she could do.
There was also a hardness in her gaze that hadn"t been there before. But for some reason, it didn"t feel out of place. Despite everything that had happened, Irade could still recognize herself. If anything, she felt that this ragged appearance matched better with his she felt inside: worn, tired, and completely done with the world.
She grimaced and kept walking. Was this really who she was inside? Some feral mountain girl?
No, Irade immediately rejected that thought. She hated living this stupid cave. Sure, it was pretty and nice, but there was literally no place to sleep. Whoever said that sleeping on hard ground was more comfortable than a soft, fluffy mattress was a filthy liar. They were probably trying to sell something. Like a too-hard mattress.
Irade put aside her dreams for a soft mattress as she reached Black Wind"s Cavern as she began to call it. She immediately found Black Wind watching her from the other side of the pool, which surprised her. Not the watching part, but the fact that he was on the other side of the pool.
Black Wind was very territorial; he hadn"t even let her step past the large stalagmite into the cavern before now. Him being on the other side of the pool showed that he trusted her enough to get further into his territory, although maybe not enough to allow her to come close to him.
Still, it was something.
She stepped into the glowing light of the cavern, and slipped open her rucksack. She started throwing fish over, watching as Black Wind slowly started eating them, electric blue eyes always on her.
Once she had finished throwing over the fish, Irade picked up her bag and started to head back, then hesitated. She looked around, noticing little plants growing out of the crevices in the walls.
She had never actually been in the cavern before. It couldn"t hurt to explore a little.
Irade went over to a wall to look at some of the plants. To her surprise, she found a flower in half-bloom growing out of one of them. From what she could see, the flower would probably bloom into a deep purple color.
The most surprising thing, however, was that the HUD had a name for it. Like the HUD did for people. And it wasn"t something like ??? either.
[Miracle Plant]
[Status: Budding]
Miracle Plant? So if it blossomed, would it become a Miracle Flower?
No, that wasn"t the important thing. The important thing was that the HUD recognized it. And that it was called a Miracle Plant. Because that meant that there was someone out there who named this plant, and that person definitely had a worse naming sense than Irade. That made her feel somewhat happier.
Okay, enough jokes. Irade should focus.
This Miracle Plant didn"t appear anywhere else in the cave. Irade knew that because she checked; she had six days to explore this cave. All it had was the bioluminescent moss in the water, and rocks. It didn"t even have some weird carvings or paintings no the walls or anything. Too much water, 7.8/10.
From her experience with games, plants that were only found in a specific section of a cave were usually rare and had some sort of value. The question was whether it would be more or less valuable as a plant, or as a flower?
As she contemplated this, the wolf growled. Irade looked back, surprised. This wasn"t the normal warning growl. This growl was softer, more...inviting. She met the wolf"s blue eyes.
For the first time she could remember, the wolf looked away, and started eating his fish.
Irade stared stunned. What was all that about?
Then she noticed the line of budding Miracle Plants all along the wall Black Wind"s side of the pool. She looked back at her own side of the pool, and noticed all the crevices with roots sticking out of them. It was only at that point that she realized what was happening.
Black Wind was giving her this one budding Miracle Plant. It was his way of saying thank you for the fish. Irade felt a sudden rush of affection for the wolf; if she could, she would"ve run up to the beast and hugged it has hard as she could.
But she didn"t. Because that would"ve been suicide.
Instead, she simply nodded at the Black Wind, who was ignoring her, and picked the budding plant. She carefully put it in her rucksack, wondering what it could be used for. As she walked back towards the entrance of the cave, she came up with a theory that it was probably used for healing. After all, Black Wind had picked all the plants clean, and his status was no longer [Bleeding]. Plus, it looked like the long slash wound on his side was closing, albeit very slowly.
But then, Irade realized as she reached the waterfall at the entrance, that would go against her other theory that the water in this cave was healing water. She had come up with that theory after watching Black Wind bathe his wound in the water occasionally.
Maybe there was truth to both theories, Irade thought as she placed her rucksack on the floor near a stalagmite. She had reached the mouth of the cave, just behind the waterfall.
She took a deep breath, and used ["Dash"] to get past the waterfall. It was the only way to get past there without getting wet. And even then, her hair would always get soaked. She really needed to find a way to cut her hair.
Out here, Irade had a little camp set up on the small patch of land by the waterfall. There was a small campfire area, near a large rock where Irade laid out all her clothes to dry after she washed them.
She spent the next few minutes gathering some branches for firewood, and started a small fire with her lighter. It was about halfway finished, Irade noticed. She would need to be a little more careful with her fire useage from now on.
She heard it before she saw it.
Irade frowned as she turned around, looking down the river. All she could see was running water, but she could hear...something. Something like...the sound of waves cras.h.i.+ng. Not like the waterfall, more...dynamic. As if something was moving against the water.
She stayed staring like that for a while, listening as the sound of cras.h.i.+ng water got closer and closer. After a couple of minutes, she finally began to see what was making the noise.
A large, bear of a man, walking up the river.
He was tall enough that the water reached his waist, and he was large enough that it felt like he was blocking the river just by standing in it. She noticed his huge, muscles shoulders and hairy arms. His face was covered in a thick beard, his small, beady black eyes almost unnoticeable.
He walked up to the small clearing area where Irade was standing, and looked around. He saw Irade, and seemed surprised.
"h.e.l.lo," he said, voice deep and rough, but somehow melodic. Irade thought it sounded like the voice of a beast that learned to sing.
Irade simply nodded, on guard. The HUD did not react to this guy at all.
As in, not at all.
No name. No HP. Nothing. It was as if he was a part of the scenery.
She even checked the [Monster Map]. It was like he wasn"t there. All she saw was the scenery around him. There wasn"t even negative s.p.a.ce where he was standing. If Irade could only see with the [Monster Map], she would have thought she could walk right through this...bear-man.
This person was much more than he seemed. And he seemed like a big deal already.
They stood a while like that, simply staring at each other. All the while, Irade calmed herself. Sure, this man was large, and he seemed much more than a simple human, and he was somehow here, at the bottom of a gorge of all places, but he was at least acting like a human.
It was that fact, the fact that he hadn"t done anything yet, that he was acting like a human being with manners, that stopped Irade from immeditaly activating ["Dash"] and getting out of there as fast as possible.
But if he was to act like a normal person, then…
"I"m about to eat," said Irade. "Would you like to join me?"
The bear-man seemed surprised. It was almost cute.
"What are you eating?" he asked.
"Fish," she told him. "I warn you; it isn"t very good."
The bear-man seemed to think about it for a while.
"I have never had fish that wasn"t good before," he said, somehow sounding curious. "Having fish that isn"t good sounds bad. But as a person, I must try new things before judging. Yes. I will try your not good fish."
Irade was surprised. This bear-man talked a lot more than she expected. He spoke in a strangely lilting monotone, like robot child with the voice of a singing beast.
"Take a seat," she said, gesturing towards the flat area beside the fire she had set up.
The bear-man raised an eyebrow, and walked over out of the water. He walked past Irade. She noted how he was literally twice her size.
He sat down, cross-legged by the fire.
"I have never eaten human food before," he said. "I must ask. What is the purpose of the burning energy?"
Irade raised an eyebrow in return. Burning energy?
Did he mean the fire?
And what did he mean when he said that he had never eaten "human food" before?
As Irade gathered up more sticks to feed the fire while answering the bear-man"s questions, she had a sinking feeling in her stomach that warned her that something was not quite right in this situation. All her instincts were telling her to run away.
But...despite all these warnings, the thing that surprised Irade the most was the one question that had been playing in her mind this whole time.
Who was this man, and what was he doing here?
And why couldn"t the HUD see him?