Chapter 194: Heading Southeast [Bonus Chapter 8/10]

They paid the exit fee and walked through the gate.

On the other side, the desert opened up ahead of them, the way it always did. The sun sat high overhead, the heat pressing down across every exposed surface.

The four of them stopped.

Karrakas, Akira, and Melody turned to look at Lukas.

He’d been thinking about this since Karrakas first raised the concern at the breakfast table.

The honest reason he believed he could handle the heat was his Constitution. As an Adept, his body processed physical stress differently than it had before.

He’d felt the ground’s heat yesterday when he’d rolled through it as he was fighting and he could tell that he could handle it. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

He looked up at the sun, shielding his eyes from the glare, a smile on his face.

"Stop with the theatrics and show us," Akira grumbled.

Lukas chuckled at her words. At the end of the day, only him actually taking off his shoes would tell them if he could actually do it or not.

He lifted his right leg, reached down, and pulled off his boot. He held it in his hand for a moment, then lowered his bare foot to the sand.

The pain shot up through his sole and into his leg instantly. It felt like the kind of heat that one pulled back from before the brain had even finished processing the sensation.

He hissed through his teeth, keeping his feet in place. If he hadn’t been prepared for it, he would’ve drawn his feet away.

Melody took a step towards him. "Are you—"

"Wait," he said.

He kept his foot on the sand for a few seconds.

The pain slowly began to fade. It didn’t disappear, but it became more bearable, more like a deep ache that sat in the sole of his foot and radiated upwards.

It was hot, but dull enough for him to push the pain to the back of his mind.

He looked up and grinned. "I can manage it."

Melody let out a breath.

Karrakas was staring at him with his mouth slightly open, blinking. "You’ve had your bare foot on that sand for more than five seconds," he said.

He sounded like a man trying to reconcile something that didn’t fit his understanding of the world. "How are you still standing there?"

"I told you I could do it."

Karrakas blinked again. Rapidly. Several times.

Lukas reached down and pulled off his second boot. He straightened, both feet now flat against the desert floor, the heat spreading evenly across both soles.

It hurt, and it would probably keep hurting for the entire duration of the quest, but he could walk through it.

He stored both boots in his spatial ring and rolled his shoulders.

Karrakas collected himself, reached into his jacket for the compass, and checked the needle. He turned slightly, then extended his arm.

"Southeast," he said.

They arranged themselves. Karrakas and Akira moved out ahead, setting a steady pace, putting distance between themselves and the second pair.

Lukas and Melody fell into position more than thirty meters behind them.

Lukas took his first step. That first step was the hardest. After that, he found a way to compartmentalize it.

The pain was there, not going anywhere, but he stopped trying to find a way to fight against it and let it sit in the back of his mind.

He was trying to treat it in the same way one would treat a persistent noise that would eventually become part of the background noise.

His focus moved to his stride, keeping it straight, and with each foot moving in a straight line.

The sand shifted under him with every step, and it was as if he could feel every grain of it.

This was one of the perks of being Adept. His senses, including his sense of touch, had improved, but he wasn’t so sure it was a blessing in this case.

He sighed, looking up ahead of him.

They could see other parties moving in the distance, spread across the desert in different directions, looking like small shapes in the red expanse.

They’d been walking for just over fifteen minutes when the ground ahead of Karrakas and Akira erupted.

The Chilopoda came up fast, too close for the comfortable margin they’d planned for.

Its body uncoiled from the sand at full height, legs already cycling, orienting towards the two figures directly in front of it.

Akira fired [Death Bolt] before the beast had fully emerged.

But the Chilopoda was already twisting, its body reacting to the sound of the approaching group before the bolt arrived.

The necrotic energy passed close enough to graze the edge of its shell without actually touching it, cutting through the air beside it and dissipating into the desert beyond.

Karrakas’s arrow followed half a second later.

It hit the head and didn’t stop. The Chilopoda came apart from the neck forward, the pieces scattering across the sand, and the body dropped.

They didn’t slow down.

Karrakas touched the corpse as he stepped past it, storing it in his spatial ring without breaking stride. Akira was already scanning the ground ahead.

Melody watched the whole sequence from beside Lukas.

"They didn’t even cause vibrations in the sand," she said quietly. "Looks like this is going to be a lot smoother than I thought."

Lukas opened his mouth to respond, and a notification appeared in front of him.

Ding!

[Quest: Death Strider]

[Kill any beast that comes within 30 meters of you.]

[Time limit: 3 hours]

[Reward: +200 Gacha Points]

He couldn’t help but sigh when he saw the quest. The class change quest hadn’t said he couldn’t fight, and he had the same [Death Bolt] which he could fire without breaking stride, but that wasn’t the problem.

How was he supposed to stop Karrakas or Akira from killing the beast if it ever got within thirty meters of him.

He read the quest again, then chuckled to himself. He’d been overthinking it again. The answer was so simple.

He turned to Melody.

"Melody," he said. "I need you to pass a message to Akira and Karrakas."