Chapter 20: Whiteclaw Snake King
With the promise of money — a lot of it — now on the line, Nick was much more motivated to go through with this deal, even if he wasn’t exactly offered much of a choice at first.
Now that he had an idea of what he had to do, and how to do it, Nick crossed the line that separated the Whiteclaw Snake King’s territory with them.
Nothing happened.
It seemed the groups worry that all hell might be let loose as soon as Nick entered within the Whiteclaw Snake King’s range wasn’t a big deal after all.
But while Nick was happy to see this, the others were a little annoyed.
When Nick moved away from their view, they began to reconsider their deal with him — well, everyone but Dido at least.
After all, they only had an educated guess that he might be able finally break their unlucky streak and lure the Radiant beast out for them. It wasn’t set in stone that he could actually do so.
"No, I believe that he will open an opportunity up for us." Dido firmly put her foot down on everyone’s questioning, though, and they quietened down like obedient puppies.
After walking for a few more minutes, Nick still spotted nothing.
In fact, there was no sound to be heard at all except for the occasional breeze passing through the canopy above.
But this was a good indicator to Nick that he was in the right place, though.
No birds or insects would want to occupy the same territory as a Radiant beast, even if realistically they weren’t in danger of being hunted by it.
Having walked quite a distance since entering, Nick was starting to get impatient.
Even he believed that he was a chaos magnet, after all! Surely his lack of luck should have worked in his favour by now?
Soon, he came across a small mound, or hill, or whatever you called it. Seeing that the entire forest was relatively flat, he saw this as a good opportunity to get a better view of the surroundings.
’Surely I’ll be able to find the damned beast this way right? If the stupid thing won’t come to me, then I’ll just have to find it myself.’ Nick thought to himself.
’Now that I think about it, all my unfortunate situations with beasts have occurred to me because I essentially asked for it to happen. First with the Awakened White Ox, then with the Sabertooth Wolf. Both times I inadvertently caused them to appear.’
However, even after scowering the surroundings with his eyesight for a good few minutes, there was nothing to be seen.
No movement, no sounds of the foliage being pushed around by a huge mass of flesh.
Nothing.
’Just where is this damned thing! Whoa—!’
Right as Nick was about to make get back on the move again, his thoughts were interrupted.
’The fuck is happening!?’
The mound he had chosen to find some high ground had suddenly started shaking...
...Then it rose.
Nick lost balance and tripped backwards, rolling down the side of the mound until he reached the flat ground below.
’Ow! Why does shit like this always happen to me—’
His thoughts were interrupted once more.
By two giant yellow eyes with slits for pupils staring right at him.
Where the mound once was...
’That wasn’t a mound...’
Nick finally caught on.
He’d been looking for the Radiant beast in the wrong place the whole time.
It was underneath his feet... it was the mound itself.
’No fucking wonder nobody could find it! This thing basically becomes a part of the earth when it doesn’t want to be seen!’
Nick’s thoughts were still on the huge snake that had appeared from the ground, but his body was elsewhere.
The moment he saw those two big slits staring through his soul, he turned tail and made a run for it back where the rest of the group were.
They were the ones who were supposed to face this thing in combat after all! Hell to the no would he even face the prospect of fighting this thing!
Unfortunately for Nick though, now that it was awakened by a rather annoying human, it was quite determined to catch him.
For a Radiant Beast, and a snake no less, its speed was terrifying.
It practically caught up to Nick after barely even a few seconds had passed.
’Fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK FUCK.’
Nick felt the urgency of his situation, knowing he was just a hair’s breadth away from death.
He no longer cared for hiding his trump card, his Mutant beast level speed.
He only had 79 seconds before his speed boost would be over, which in any normal situation would be enough.
...But this wasn’t a normal situation.
At his normal pace, it took him at least 10 minutes to reach his current position from the edge of the territory, where the rest of the group lay in wait.
As for the reason why they hadn’t ventured in to follow him from a distance yet, Nick had no idea.
But that wasn’t a concern for him at the moment.
If he wasted absolutely no momentum and kept his energy usage efficient, he could just barely make it back to them with maybe a few seconds to spare before his speed boost ran out.
That wasn’t going to cut it though.
Even with his Mutant level speed, he was being chased by a Radiant beast!
The Whiteclaw Snake King had stopped its momentum when it caught up to him earlier, but that was because it thought it had him hook line and sinker.
It hadn’t known about his ability to boost his speed to much higher levels, which allowed him to make use of its confusion to bridge the gap between them.
But that gap was already quickly closing.
The snake was at least twice as fast as him, and it didn’t have a time limit for its speed either.
’Fuck, if I don’t do something about this, I’ll be snake shit by tomorrow morning!’
The urgency caused Nick to push his body even further, allowing him to run at even higher speeds, but damaging his body as a result.
Even that wasn’t enough though.
The Whiteclaw Snake King was still catching up.