Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!-Chapter 322. Mountain Pass
The ground remained more-or-less flat until the very foothills of the mountains, as if someone had jabbed them up through the flat plane of the earth with no care for how the world around them might be shaped. Looking at them, Ike thought he might reach them in a day, but they ran and ran for weeks, and the mountains looked no nearer. The flat land and the dry, clear air gave the illusion that the mountains were far closer than they were. It felt as though they toiled for hours and gained inches, but when he turned behind him, there were miles between him and the landmarks they’d passed. It was just that the mountains were so large, and the air so clear, that there was nothing to give them depth or blur, and so they stood on the horizon, waiting.
On the fourth week, they finally began to close in on the mountains. From a picturesque background, they loomed large, becoming a massive wall before them. There was no more sky on the horizon, only stone as far as they could see. The mountains delineated their world. This was the end. Nothing existed beyond here.
Except for one narrow gap.
The closer they got, the more Ike sensed that terrifying presence that Mag had sensed. It was an overwhelming pressure, something huge and unfathomable in size, and yet weak. The pressure could have belonged to a weak Rank 4, or a powerful Rank 3—about the same Rank as them. He lacked whatever existential sense of terror that Mag possessed at sensing the Rank, so it didn’t seem too intimidating to him, but Mag quailed. He flew close overhead, circling tighter than usual, and refused to fly too far ahead.
Wisp didn’t react the same way, but then, she’d expressed many times that she wasn’t the kind of beast to fear very much. Mag was a bird, a beast with predators. He had to watch out, in case something bigger swooped him. Wisp was at the apex of her tiny food chain, and much like Ike himself, who was the apex predator known as ‘human,’ she lacked that instinctive fear-sense Mag did.
There was one thing the pressure reminded him of, though. He glanced at his shoulder, at the small form snoozing there. A mountain. It reminded him of a mountain. Of the rare moments in which Mont exuded the full force of his power… but infinitely weaker. He couldn’t tell Mont’s full Rank, but he could easily gauge this one—or at least, the emanations exuding out from it. Looking up at the mountain, it was impossible to imagine it belonging to someone weaker than Mont. It was enormous. Many times taller than Mont’s mountain. Size wasn’t everything, but it counted for something, and it certainly counted for this something before them. This mountain should not be weak.
Maybe I’m reading the emanations wrong, Ike decided. He wasn’t a pressure expert. Nor did he know of every type of mage that could roam the land. Maybe this belonged to something that felt like a mountain, but wasn’t a mountain.
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The closer they got, the more puppets they encountered. Strange puppets littered the landscape, all of them facing the gap. None of them moved toward it; they simply gazed at it, as if transfixed. White stones mixed in with the grasses and the natural granite. One popped up close to the road, and he peered closer, only to leap back. A face stared back at him, eyes wide, mouth half-open.
“Holy shit!”
Wisp glanced over. She caught sight of the face and laughed. “After all this time, you got spooked by a puppet?”
“I just… didn’t expect one there,” Ike muttered. He kicked the face, and it turned over. It was hollow inside, completely devoid of any goo or anything else. Lifting his gaze, he tracked the white stones across the grasslands. They were narrow, smooth… and then he saw a face. A hand. A foot.
“Look. The white stones—they’re dead puppets,” Ike said, pointing.
Wisp followed his finger, then raised her brows. “Huh.”
“Some kind of battle happened here.”
“Not recently,” she pointed out, kicking the puppet face he’d found. It spun along on its nose, showing the softened, rounded edges of what had once been sharp pottery.
Ike twisted his lips. He looked at the mountain pass. The white remnants of ruined puppets grew thicker as they approached the pass, until the ground near the gap was completely covered in the white remains. “We should be ready to fight.”
“Should we swap disguises?” Wisp suggested.
He shook his head and gestured at the puppets around them. The nearest one stood twice as tall as him, with arms that dangled to its ankles that were as thick as Ike’s body. Dozens of other puppets just as intimidating stood in a loose array around the gap, all of them gazing toward it. If they changed clothes now, it meant revealing themselves in front of all the puppets. “Not yet.”
Wisp followed his gaze and nodded. “I get it. But why do you think they’re standing here, doing nothing? Shouldn’t they attack… whatever’s in there?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Ike replied. He glanced up at Mag. As much as he wanted to tell the bird to fly ahead and check out the pass, he also didn’t want him to completely freak out. He was already doing well to fly against his instincts, in Ike’s opinion.
Mag caught his look and dropped down. “What?”
“Ah, nothing.”
“You looked like it wasn’t nothing.”
“No, no.” But as long as he’s down here… Ike glanced at him. “What does it feel like to you?”
“Huh?”
“That pressure. What does it feel like to you?”
Mag tilted his head, thinking for a moment. “Terrifying.”
“Other than that.”
“Danger. Very large danger.” He gestured, holding his hands far apart.
“What does it feel like to you, Ike?” Wisp asked.
He lifted his eyes, gazing dead ahead. “A mountain, but not.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? Does it feel like a mountain, or not?”
Ike said no more. What they wanted laid on the other side of this ridge. This pass was the only way through. Whatever hid within the space, they would discover, whether they wanted to or not.
He strode onward, closing the distance.
