Chapter 38: Campfire.
It was silent in the cavern—almost, actually—apart from the sound of fire crackling and the sizzling of flesh being burnt over the flames.
The cohort sat all around the fire that had been built thanks to the help of one of their own, who apparently possessed an ability called a pocket dimension, which allowed her to store multiple things within her space and summon them at will.
That was how they had gotten the materials for their small campfire, over which they now roasted the meat she had given them.
So that was how the partnership had come to be—around the fire. Though, no one dared sit next to Drake, especially with Kyvern still summoned right behind him, lying coiled up with its eyes dimmed. It looked almost harmless, yet still, not worth the risk of going close.
Blake, sitting opposite Drake, was conflicted. He had not asked any questions of the strange being since the time he requested food.
Actually, none of them had said anything apart from Blake, who ordered his team to make a fire and prepare some meat. And now that they were all grilling the chunks of flesh with sticks to hold them over the fire, he could no longer hold back his curiosity.
However, he was not the first to speak.
A woman in the group—particularly the one who had the pocket dimension ability—spoke. "Sorry you have to wait to properly grill the meat. My dimension only supports raw materials such as this and a few variations. I don’t fully grasp all I’m capable of yet."
Drake nodded, his hand fiddling with the stick in his hand. "I’m fine with that."
The woman smiled, happy to know her words appealed to their supposed savior. "I am Jessica Quan, and you are...?"
Drake nodded, already having in mind that asking his identity was unavoidable. He made sure to leave an eerie silence in the air, long enough to show that whatever information he shared was not to be taken lightly.
Then he spoke. "Unknown."
Jessica reeled back from the statement, furrowing her brows and tilting her head in dismay. She wanted to pester further but knew better than to push her luck with whoever this was.
She had heard of rare occasions where some newly awakened talents hid their identities behind masks, and most of those tales ended with the entire party being murdered.
Having no idea how true those rumors were, she would rather not take the risk.
Blake was crestfallen at the identity given by Unknown. Is he an awakened Knight or even a Lord? Or perhaps part of a prestigious family that doesn’t want to expose himself?
Instead of overwhelming himself with questions, Blake, being a man who preferred to speak his mind, said, "I am Blake, leader of this party, and I want to thank you for saving us."
"..."
No reply seemed to come from the figure. He only tilted his chunk of meat over the fire, trying to get his perfect brown steak.
"I know you’re doing your best to keep your identity a secret, so none of us will intrude," Blake continued. "But we got trapped here, battled monsters, and escaped. Somehow, the monsters all disappeared, and the way we came from suddenly sealed itself back—as if the crater was never there."
This was actually intriguing to Drake. For one, he had wondered how others would react to the disappearance of the monsters, what had occurred in the other craters, and whether there was truly a way out of this rotten dump.
"We searched where all the other craters should have been, and we were hoping that you were part of a rescue team from above," Blake added.
With the completion of Blake’s speech, Drake finally understood.
Tracing through the demeanors of the entire cohort, he could see a conflicting disharmony of desperation, the need for hope, and reluctant dismay at themselves.
Drake shook his head. "Right now, I don’t know where—or if—there’s even an exit out of here."
The looks on the faces of the cohort dimmed. The little hope they had left shattered, and they all sat crestfallen, their eyes falling to the ground.
If what they said was true, and with what Drake knew, they were very much buried underground—thousands of feet below ALCRAN... If this was really ALCRAN to begin with.
"Fuck it," Jessica jerked her head back and spouted, as though drunk—or simply trying to escape her pain and depression.
Drake paid no more attention, taking his grilled steak from the fire and adjusting his mask just enough to reveal his mouth. He could sniff the alluring aroma that screamed in his head to devour it all in one go—and he did just that.
Tearing into the steak like a ravaging monster that hadn’t eaten in months. While doing this, he could sense the eyes of the entire cohort on him but didn’t care. This could very well be his last meal, so he preferred to revel in it to his heart’s content.
Times like this, I come to understand Tessa’s hunger issues.
One after another, a few members rose from where they sat, unable to eat after the revelation Drake had given. Blake had his head down, resting on his knee, his fingers tapping lightly on the ground.
Jessica let out a sigh, placing her hands on her temples in disillusion. "Unknown?"
"..."
"Do you have anyone you care about back in ALCRAN?"
The question hung in the palpitating atmosphere for a while without a single reply.
None of the other cohort members even batted an eye at this point—they were all still disoriented by Drake’s revelation.
"I’ll go first, then," she said softly. "I have a son back in ALCRAN. I might not look like much, but I am a mother—single mother. My son’s father left us for someone else, and I couldn’t pay the bills. After all, I was a woman who had quit raiding dungeons before marriage.
"My son has a frail body, not the best of health. My husband had been running tax evasions for years, and I found out only when he left. It was all too much for me to handle. I had a glinting debt of five hundred thousand credits. This was the reason I came back to raid dungeons—to earn enough to give my son a good life, even without that bastard of a father.
"And then I ended up here—the biggest job of my entire awakened career. A supposed simple investigation with a pay of three hundred thousand credits, which is far more than what hunting for a decade could ever give me—"
At this moment, she had to pause, feeling tears well up in her eyes. This did not go unnoticed by either Blake or Drake.
With a shaky, low tone, she completed, "I want my son to have a life without worries or needs—not one where he has no mother or father..."
Drake narrowed his eyes at Jessica. Her face was tucked between her knees, her hands clasped behind her head. He could not relate to the feeling she expressed. For one, he had never been straight with himself. He had never given thought to feelings—as both Kendricks Skylar and Drake Drakon—so he had little to no idea what care or love even meant, or felt like.
A long silence stretched, letting the grieving emotions from Jessica linger in the air for a while longer. Then...
"I have no idea what feelings are," he began, speaking not just as Drake Drakon, but as Kendricks Skylar. "I was an orphan, and for as long as I can remember, I had no one to love me, so I gave no one love either. I knew nothing but myself.
"Then I met my brother, and he taught me what care was about. He’s dead now—murdered. Caring too much is a rope that ties us humans down. It weighs on us like a metal ball dropped in our chest every now and then. Sure, at times it might motivate us, but in the end, it becomes our downfall."
Jessica seemed to sink deeper into her own embrace—Drake’s statement doing nothing more than tipping her further into uncertainty. Not just her, but the rest of the cohort as well.
The silence stretched grim and cold for a while, and then—
{Ding}
The system notification sounded, knocking Drake out of his dazed state of thoughts.
{You have almost completed your Title Quest. Carry on further and don’t give up, user.}
{Monsters: 30,651 / 30,652}
{Kill the King of the Craters to get the title and escape the Crater.}
{Failure to do so in 24 hours will result in the stripping of the system and abilities.}
{To reward the user for his good work, directions will be provided to the last enemy.}
Drake’s eyes widened in both amazement and dread. The hope of a way out ignited within him—however, with that came an appalling fate.