Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 155: South

"Do we take the front?"

"No. If they encountered something like this, it’s most likely they ended up taking the front."

"No, I’m certain they did!"

Kieran rejected Jake’s suggestion. He could see the location of the traps in the ground. They appeared as balls of whitish energy to him.

They were so close to each other that all he saw ahead was a white surface. Seeing that there were no disruptions in the energy flow of the area and that they hadn’t heard the sound of any traps going off, it only meant that Orion’s group had chosen to go in through the front.

"Alright then. Do you have a plan on getting through this area? It’s not like you can fly or something?"

Jake said, curiosity layered beneath his voice. He had yet to see the extent of Kieran’s abilities after all.

An ability to fly would have been God sent at this moment.

"Flying is useless too."

"The anti flight system is still active!"

Kieran said lightly, pointing straight ahead to the camp.

Jake’s face darkened at those words.

"Active? That only means, the camp was —"

"Untouched, yeah!"

"That’s what I’m seeing!"

Kieran said, still staring at the ground.

This was one other reason he refused to go through the main entrance of the camp.

The place that had been reported as lost was suddenly active with traps in optimal condition. All signs of a fight and struggle had ended in the last level of defence. The one on front of him remained untouched.

"Sigh!"

He ran his fingers through his hair, swiping them away from his face.

"How are we going to get in then? We just might lose them at this rate."

Jake informed him. He was more then unwilling to lose Orion on this mission that he had so much prepared for. The goal was to end the noble, he couldn’t fail.

"Take a break, if all the traps are still active, that would include those on the path to the main entrance. Maybe they are a little less congested, but we still have time"

Kieran said. A stick had appreard in his hand and he was tracing down some sort of pattern on the ground while looking up occasionally.

"I’m not even worried about that."

Kieran paused hearing that, turning to look at Jake before the meaning behind those words hit him.

’The fog.’

They had to get in before he arrived, which was only on a few hours time.

This area wasn’t too popular amongst the recuits. Not because of a scarcity of mission here or the presence of an outpost not many knew about.

It was all because of the fog which plaqued the area. The devil’s breath, they called it. Getting trapped within was like placing their life on a thread till it creeped back to where it came from.

Several recruits had managed to somehow survive getting caught in the fog, but all of them remained scarred in several ways. Most refusing to talk about their experiences.

It made sense that Jake had shown concern about the fog. He was equally concerned, which meant he had to figure out a way through, and quick!

’They’re set in linked groups. One goes off, the whole group goes off. Three groups go off, the whole area in a straight line goes off!’

"Nice cost management"

Kieran muttered, figuring out how the traps had been laid out as he stared at the rough drawing he had made on the ground.

A bunch of lines of varying thicknesses all connected to each other.

The smallest lines represented the traps which were linked together in a set of three to form a small group.

If a single trap was activated, then the entire group was getting activated too.

The groups too were linked by another mechanism. If three groups in close range were activated, the whole array of groups in a straight line up till halfway to the outpost would go off too.

Basically this wall of traps could be divided into two. Something he guessed was done due to the cost of replacing so many weapons, especially if all of them went out at once.

In fact, it would have been better if they all went out at once—He would have been able to blow everything from a remote distance. The outpost had seen through that and adopted a more effective method.

Now that he had sketched out a rough diagram of the whole thing, it resembled a maze. But unlike a maze which left them to pas through, this was structured extremely tight to each other; their only issue here.

It was almost impossible to get through without alerting the camp. If there was anyone left within, that is.

Regardless of the presence of people inside the outpost, contradicting the camps information, Orion and his group would be alerted by the sounds of the explosives going off.

That was something they both wanted to avoid at all costs.

"Do you think they would make it out before the fog gets here? That way we don’t need to get into the outpost."

Jake said, looking around.

Things like this wasn’t his forte.

"..."

Kieran didn’t really take the suggestion seriously. It was logical, but there were just too many variables along with the fact that there was no exact way to protect themselves from the unclear effects of the fog.

’We can’t jump either!’

Everything in the world consisted of energy, no matter how miniscule and tiny. It was all energy.

Kieran of course had his limits, but the anti-flight system of the outpost in front of them was within that limit of his.

There was a clear boundary in the air to him, that was invisible to the any other person without a smililar ability.

The moment they crossed the boundary which was five meters from the ground, the anti-flight system was going to be activated automatically.

Orion’s scout, Lira must have a way to detect this before she marked the place completely impossible for them to pass through.

’Must be an important outpost.’

This wasn’t the first ’strangely abandoned outpost’ he had been to before, but that one was nowhere like this.

There had been clear signs of struggle, even inside the outpost. And unlike this one, that outpost didn’t have an almost perfect looking defense system, else it wouldn’t have been taken over in the first place.

High chances were that the mission Orion was on wasn’t just some scouting mission, but a retrieval mission to recover what important information could have been in a place like this.

"Alright!"

Kieran sighed, taking the attention of Jake who looked towards him with slight worry on his face.

"It’s a very slim chance with an extremely high chance of failure, but it’s a chance anyways. Besides it’s the only way I can figure out now!"

"Sure!"

Jake couldn’t care less about the details of what Kieran was going on about. All that mattered was that they manged to get through. He was going to leave all the brain wrecking parts to the expert.

Kieran didn’t mind this though as he pulled off his back back and dug into it, searching for some tools he had prepared before hand, he didn’t think he would have to use any of those in his life time.

One more reason why they had to be prepared as soldiers.

The plan he had come up with was time consuming, and they had to get into the outpost before the fog reached here. It was the only known protection against the fog, remaining untouched by it.

Kieran basically planned to deactivated each group and its liked partners up until they reached the outpost.

It seemed insane that he would try to deactivate the traps manually, especially with their numbers, but that was far from what he was doing.

The whole structure which linked the traps together was like a maze and he had successfully mapped it out after pushing his now aching eyes.

He could see the actual paths and the dead ends too. If they just went in blindly, deactivating the traps in a straight line, they were going to meet a dead end which would end up in a tragic story of them getting blown up to bits.

With path to the end memorized, he could follow the line that linked them and get through without disturbing the other traps.

It was still extremely risky though, due to how close they were placed. He had a very limited space to work with and it only got more narrow as he worked his way in.

The only way they were going to survive this was if they were fast and careful enough to beat the fog and if there was truly no one in the outpost who would immediately set off the other traps upon noticing the oddity in the maze.

"Stay behind me. Follow each one of my steps, exactly the same one. Be careful, cause even if we are, things could go south pretty quick!"

Kieran said to Jake, feeling his heart beat wildly in his chest as he began working on the first group.