Free Web NovelChapter 250: Camping Trip
Whistling, Kael moved through the cold regions of the Third floor as if all the pains, injuries, and suffering he had accumulated over the last five days were of no consequence.
The third floor didn’t feel like a "trial" at first glance. It felt like the world had simply decided warmth was optional and then laughed about it. Wind crawled through the pines in long, quiet sighs. Snow didn’t fall gently here; it bit sideways, thin and sharp, slipping into seams and collars like it was trying to find skin.
Kael should’ve looked miserable. He should’ve looked like the last five days had carved him into something smaller.
Instead, he walked like he belonged, boots sinking only slightly, shoulders loose, breath steady. His whistle drifted through the cold and vanished before it could echo, swallowed by the empty white.
After all, his fracture hadn’t risen from 15 for the last five days.
That number sat in the back of his mind like a stubborn nail. Most people treated fracture like a slow poison. Kael treated it like weather: something you acknowledge, then move through. The difference wasn’t courage.
"This is kinda nice," He said as he walked around, and in his hands were two small creatures that he held by the ears.
Rabbits. Snow rabbits with white fur and red eyes. A horn, and what looked like sharp rows of teeth on it, similar to those of a shark.
They kicked and wriggled, tiny bodies thrashing with more anger than sense, teeth flashing whenever they got close enough to snap at his wrist. They weren’t cute. They were mean. The kind of creature that looked like prey until it reminded you that the tower wasn’t harmless. And they prey most of the time on you instead.
Kael held them one-handed each, like they were grocery bags. The rings on his wrists made his grip heavier by default, and the rabbits didn’t like that. Their claws scraped at his sleeve, leaving thin lines that would’ve mattered if his gauntlets weren’t tougher than most of the junk metal people called armor.
The first time he encountered such a creature, he thought it was a small herbivore that was trying to survive the snow, only for the bastard to break its own teeth against Kael’s extended gauntleted hand that tried to pet it.
The result was a nice roasted rabbit for dinner.
He remembered the crunch. The sting of surprise. The way he’d stared at the rabbit as it had personally insulted his bloodline. Then he remembered the smell when it cooked, gamey, harsh, but filling. Hunger made you forgiving.
"Though the taste is pretty bland, it’s better than nothing," he continued, moving while whistling.
His breath came out faintly visible, a thin fog that hung for a second, then scattered. The rabbits’ bodies were warm against his palms, heat bleeding out into the cold. Kael didn’t rush. The tower loved rushing. Rushing made mistakes. Here, he had time. He made it so.
He almost got used to this.
That was the dangerous part. Not the snow. Not the monsters that hid under drifts. It was the rhythm. Wake. Hunt. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. A simple cycle that could trick a man into thinking the tower was survivable long-term.
Once he was back to what he now considered his shelter, Kael sat down in his newly discovered cave.
The cave mouth was half hidden behind leaning stone and a curtain of dead branches he’d arranged himself, not for defense, just for privacy. Inside, it smelled like old fur and smoke and the faint mineral tang of wet rock. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was his, which was more than most climbers ever got.
This used to belong to a brown bear, a grizzly he found here.
The word ’Used’ to, was properly used here.
The bear decided that it was not worth contending habitat with someone who was the same size as the bear when it stood up.
Kael still remembered the first moment it had risen to challenge him, heavy breath, claws flexing, eyes daring him to blink. Kael had blinked once. Then the bear blinked back. Then the bear decided life was too short to fight a walking problem.
Kael sat down, looked at his energy bar, and smiled, "Looks like I can actually make it all the way to the last day without being tapped out, man, I love runes," he whistled some more as he set up more firewood and began skinning the rabbits and preparing seasoning for him to feast.
He worked like someone who’d done it a hundred times. Knife in, slice clean, pull, strip, toss. No hesitation, no wasted motion. The firewood was already arranged in the shape he liked, small base, air gap, thicker pieces on top. His hands moved with that quiet confidence that came from repetition, not arrogance.
One would wonder, how come his sanity didn’t drop, his fracture didn’t rise, and his injuries don’t hurt anymore. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Anyone else would have been completely overtaken by the harm this place does to one’s mind.
Unless it’s Kale, Runes, which anyone in the tower considered useless, became incredibly potent in this place.
Kael smiled as he looked at the large tattoo on the right side of his chest.
That was the Rune of Presence.
The ink wasn’t just ink. It sat under the skin like something alive, lines and angles that looked simple until you stared too long and realized your eyes didn’t want to track them properly. Like the rune itself resisted being fully understood unless you fed it.
Kael had fed it a lot. freeweɓnovel.cøm
And he had the ressource to do so. After all, a whole year of training with his master in the Demon Fist art helped him grow his internal energy to a monsterous degree for someone level 1.
His already high INT stat also helped a lot. He didn’t even need to put in the saved Experience he got from killing the creatures on the first floor and the Hobgoblin on the second floor yet. He had no need to pour those stats for now.
He whistled some more as he listened to the muffled sound of the rabbit meat sizzling in the gray colored fire.
The flame wasn’t bright orange like a comforting campfire. It burned muted, strange, gray, licking up around the meat like smoke pretending to be fire. It was still cooked. It still crackled.
Outside the cave, the wind kept moving like a restless animal. Inside, the heat gathered slowly, dull and steady.
Kael leaned back against the stone, eyes half-lidded, listening to the sizzle and the quiet.
For a moment, just a moment, the tower felt like a place you could live in.
Then he smiled a little wider, because he knew better than to trust comfort.
And kept whistling anyway.
