Free Web NovelChapter 28: Rift Mix-Up 2
Luke sank down into the ground, catching him off guard and causing him to lose his balance. He caught himself using his hands, but instead of a grassy forest bed, sand grains shifted between his fingers. In his curiosity, Luke grabbed a handful of the sand and let it slowly slide out of his palm.
"This... this isn’t a goblin forest."
Leon’s words caused a shift in his mind. Luke fumbled to his feet and moved closer to the other explorer. He could already feel the miserable annoyance of sand in his clothes.
"Do you think there was a mix-up? The rift park contains thousands of rifts. It isn’t impossible that the information for this rift was confused with another."
It was his most likely guess; the other options were even more grim.
Leon’s eye twitched.
"The size of the rift was still only F-Rank, so at worst it seems to be an elemental rift. As long as we hurry and clear it before the effects show, we should be fine."
In moments like these Lucius’s memories became crucial. His knowledge of rifts was something Luke wouldn’t be able to accumulate even if he studied for years. Elemental rifts were dangerous because of their environments at low ranks, but high-rank elemental rifts contain monsters that perfectly match their environment.
As far as they could tell, the sand was the most apparent effect of the rift. It was still possible that the rift could still contain goblins as the enemy, not an entirely different monster.
"I agree, but this sand is going to slow our pace."
Having agreed on their next steps, the two started walking through the dunes.
The rift wasn’t a massive desert. Instead, there were stone walls that stretched as far as Luke could see; which was quite far considering there were no clouds in the sky. Compared to the cave, he had nearly three times as much room
Luke focused on what was ahead of them, learning from the ambushes of the spiders, and watching the contained desert for any monsters that may be standing on the sand. To his disappointment, there wasn’t a single green goblin anywhere, instead the only movement Luke could see was a hump of sand being created as something moved beneath it.
"Do you see that?"
"See what?"
Luke pointed towards the shifting sand that was approaching the bottom of the dune they stood on top of, but when they both went to look, the sand had stopped moving only leaving traces behind.
A slow sense of dread settled over Luke.. He twisted his body to check his surroundings. Leon quickly realized that danger had approached, following the lead of Luke and preparing for an attack.
Seconds passed.
Then a few more.
At some point Leon had started to relax his tense body and that’s when it struck. Waiting for the perfect opportunity, a worm monster burrowed out of the sand and dove straight towards Leon.
Luke didn’t react in time and the worm slammed its body into the blonde noble, sending him rolling across the dune and into the stone wall.
His mind worked quickly, analyzing every piece of data he could from the encounter. The most notable being Leon’s unscathed body.
The monster burrowed back beneath the sand. This time, however, it stayed close enough to the surface for Luke to track its movement.
"Frost Spike."
Ice chilled the air around him, as he tracked the monster it swam through the sand.
He watched carefully as Leon cast a bolt of flame against the ground. It had no effect on the worm, only melting the top layer of sand.
The monster’s head came flying out from under the sand, charging directly towards Leon’s face.
Frost Spike zipped through the air, piercing through the worm’s exoskeleton and freezing its body. It crashed into the ground in front of Leon, who cast another fire spell and charred the worm to a crisp, leaving only its ashes blowing in the calm breeze.
Luke rushed down the dune and closed the distance between the two. Leon sat against the stone wall, gasping at air to replace the wind that had been knocked out of him. Through his labored breaths he spoke to Luke.
"I owe you one."
"It’s just F-Rank, I doubt it would have killed you."
Leon continued to pant, finally refilling his lungs with oxygen.
"I’m just glad I didn’t have to find out. These worms are freaky up close, they don’t even have mouths. Just two slits for their eyes and two holes for a nose."
Leon shivered as he detailed the monster. Luke listened and waited for him to recover, scanning the surroundings the whole time.
When he had regained his strength, the pair continued through the dunes, prepared for the untimely appearance of more worms.
They had their wish granted.
Two more worms burrowed out of the ground, diving at both explorers simultaneously. Leon summoned a creature of fire that blocked the attack, while Luke simply reacted and dodged. One of the monsters thrashed around in an attempt to put out the fire. Luke helped it, sending a piece of ice through its body and putting out the fire; of course his help cost the worm its life.
The second worm circled around Luke from the back, but instead of a fleshy human it met a fiery bat that set it ablaze. Leon sent a spear of fire through the entire length of its body, burning a mouth for it as the spear exited through the rear.
Luke finally got a good look at the creature. Its body looked identical to an earthworm, except for the white bones on its exterior that were meant to protect its innards. It was during this battle that he realized just how devastating Frost Spike was. Sure, it was a D-Rank spell, but it easily pierced through the bones of a monster that was made for close combat.
Even though he liked the spell, it wasn’t his own that really drew his attention. The fiery bat that Leon had summoned was more interesting. Summoning spells were the rarest of all. Getting one was like having a monster of the same rank as a teammate.
"What rank is that summon?"
"Oh, this little guy. He’s just a C-Rank, but I only have enough mana to comfortably summon him at F-Rank."
Luke almost choked on air as he heard Leon’s reply. The boy had actually called a C-Rank summon a ’little guy’. That was a spell that most explorers would never even get to see let alone learn, and he was just casually using it in an F-Rank rift.
’Maybe if I save him a few more times, I could get one of those too.’
