Chapter 69 – An Even Bigger Snake (Patreon)

I was in the middle of a strange dream about snakes turning into trees and then meowing when I felt a tongue on my cheek and heard a childish voice in my head. "Food!"

I was still more asleep than awake, so it didn't register. I felt the "tongue alarm" again and heard, "Food!"

My eyes flew open, and I saw Rue standing by my bed.

"You said it?"

Again, I heard, "Food!"

I jumped out of bed, hugged him, and said, "Buddy, you can talk!"

"Food!"

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll feed you, hold your horses. You can talk!”

I gave him a colossal snake steak to celebrate his new ability when Lis came down the stairs and into the kitchen. I told him, "Rue can talk now!"

"Of course, he's already level five; he got five points in Intelligence."

Of course, I forgot to use Identify. Why do I keep forgetting?!

I took a pen out of my storage and wrote ‘Identify’ on the back of my hand. Lis saw this and started roaring with laughter.

Mahiya walked into the kitchen and asked, "What's so funny?"

Lis pointed to my hand, and she started laughing, too. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

After breakfast, Lis said, "I think we should process all the scorpi-dogs and quill-bears before we return to Earth."

"I also want more of the trees from this world," Mahya said.

We left the house and saw two small green snakes dead on the stairs. Lis picked up one of them, opened its mouth, and said, "Baby burrowers. I think there is a nest somewhere, and it might even have a nest mother. We should find it.”

“Why are they dead?” I asked.

“House defenses.”

“It kills stuff?!”

“Of course; otherwise, what’s the point of defenses?”

“I don’t know... locking the house, maybe?”

They started laughing again, and Lis clapped me on the back and said, “You’ll learn, my friend, you’ll learn.”

I just shook my head.

Mahya asked, "How do you plan to find the nest?"

"That's what we have John for – to help us locate the nest."

"Me?! How?"

"The nest will be located on a mana vent. Use your Mana Sense to locate the vent."

“Why do we want to find the nest anyway? What’s so special about it?”

“Snake eggs. They are a very expensive ingredient in anti-venom potions.”

“I’m getting the feeling that all this adventuring business is much more complicated than I thought,” I said.

They laughed again! Today, I was the daily entertainment.

After Lys stored the snakes, he stood up and instructed me, "Close your eyes, expand your mana senses as far as you can, and try to locate a direction where the mana feels thicker or richer."

I did as he said, but I didn't feel any difference. After I told him that, he held me by the shoulders, started pushing me forward, and said, "Don't open your eyes; focus on your senses; I'll lead you."

"Why don't we use our luck's active ability to locate the nest? That's how I located an emerald mine."

"Do you consider a big and dangerous snake a lucky find or a fortuitous encounter that leads you to a better fate?"

“Not really.”

“Exactly.”

He continued leading me, and after twenty minutes, I felt a change in the mana. It was very faint, and at first, I wasn't sure, but after a few more meters, I was sure it was the right direction.

I pointed in that direction and said, "It's that way."

"Don't open your eyes; I will continue leading you. Point your hand in the right direction."

We continued like this for another half an hour until we reached an area with very rich and thick mana. I said, "We're above the vent."

Lis said, "The nest will be in a cave, so let's start looking for an entrance."

We searched for several hours, expanding the search radius further and further. After four or five hours, I heard Rue's howl and went in that direction. When I got there, I saw an entrance into a dug tunnel that went downwards. It was so big that three people could walk side by side and stand straight without a problem.

That worried me, and I asked, "Will the size of the snake be the size of the tunnel?"

Lis replied, "It will be smaller, but not by much."

"Maybe we shouldn't go in there?"

"Don't worry; you'll stay behind and heal us if needed. Don't forget, Mahya and I have traveled in high-mana worlds, and I've traveled in very high mana, too; we've faced even scarier things. It's too much for your level, but not for ours."

We entered the tunnel, and I cast my ball of light. The tunnel wound left and right, but always downward. After half a kilometer, we reached a rock wall with a large opening.

Lis said, "Wait here," and then sneaked in.

After five minutes, he returned and said, "She's inside and huge."

He turned to Mahya and said, "I'll create illusions to confuse her; you stick her to the ground, confuse her, blind her; I'll try to control her mind, and then we'll attack. I'll attack from below, and you from above. She's enormous, so it will take a while to kill her. I'm not sure I can control her mind for long; her level is too high, but I'll try to capture her mind as much as possible; you cast blindness and confusion all the time."

He turned to me and said, "In front of the cave is a protruding rock; cast invisibility and hide behind it. Even if one of us is injured, don't rush to us; we’ll come to you. Do you have any spells that can be cast from a distance?"

“Mana Dart.”

“What level?”

“One.”

“Hmm, won’t be much help. Still, try to shoot it with arrows, a crossbow, or something else. It’s a very high level, so I want you to make some advancements from it.”

“But I won’t advance until I raise my Wizard level anyway, so what’s the point?”

"You still receive the advancement; it's just not visible yet. It will be a shame to lose this amount of advancement.”

Mahya said, "I have an idea. Do you have a wire?"

Lis said, "I have."

"Excellent. John, give me all the crossbow bolts you have."

"I have a ton."

"Then give me fifty. Lis, give me the wire and something to cut it with."

I gave her the bolts, and she took out the quills we collected from the bears, attached them one by one to the bolts, and wrapped wire around them.

She said, "These should penetrate the scales with the bear levels. I just hope they don't fall apart when you shoot them."

Lis said, "Excellent idea. Give them to me."

He took out an engraving pen and began engraving a rune on each bolt. After he finished, he said, “I believe this will keep them together."

He turned to Rue and said, “Wait until the snake is on its last leg, cast Invisibility, and bite it as much as you can. But please be very careful.”

Rue sent his agreement, and Lis turned to the entrance.

I asked Lis, “You’re not casting Invisibility?”

“No, Mahya and I need to see each other.”

We crept into the cave, and when I saw the protruding rock he was talking about, Rue and I hid behind it. I peeked from behind the rock, and it was a horror show. The snake was HUGE. The other snakes they killed were about ten meters long and about a meter in diameter; this one was five times larger, and its eyes and scales were glowing. I shuddered just looking at it. If those are the beasts of high-mana worlds, I’m not going there—no way, no how.

I remembered Lis mentioning its level, so I identified it.

Tuonela Burrower Nest Mother
Level 81

SHIT!!

Abruptly, an illusion of Lis and Mahya materialized near the distant wall; the snake hurled her head forward, causing her to collide with it. She froze, and Lis ran so fast that he left after images behind him and cut her neck. Mahya ran up the wall and ceiling, jumped on the snake's head, and stuck her sword into one of the eyes. She slid down the snake like she was on a slide, and then the snake froze, and Lis cut her neck again. Mahya ran up another wall and took out another eye.

I just looked at them in amazement; they displayed skills and acrobatics like I could have never imagined. They continued like this for two minutes, with Lis attacking from below and Mahya from above. I shook my head and remembered I had a job, too.

I started shooting the snake with the crossbow. I didn't aim for the head because I didn't want to hit them, but the snake was so giant that it wasn't a problem. I just shot her wherever.

Lis called out, "Rue!"

Rue ran to the snake and started biting her in the tail area. She hit him with her tail and sent him flying several meters, but he rolled back to his feet, ran at her again, and continued to bite her. I shot her with three more bolts, and the snake finally died.

Phew!

I was shaking from the adrenaline, and my heart was beating so fast that I thought it would burst out of my chest. I sat there and took deep, calming breaths until I felt stable again. This kind of fighting was not in my wheelhouse.

When I felt in control again, I joined them. While I was panicking, Lis opened the snake's belly and took out two crates full of snake eggs. Mahya removed one of the fangs and worked on the other.

I asked her, "Why are you cutting out the fangs?"

"They make excellent knives."

"Then why didn't you cut the fangs out of the other snakes?"

"Too small."

I wondered how long it would take me to know all the cool stuff they had learned.

Lis removed the eggs and said, "I think we should take her outside for processing; there isn’t enough room to move here."

We agreed with him; the snake disappeared, and now we could see what she was lying on. There was another pile of eggs and a lot of mana crystals.

Lis gave a huge smile and said, "Nice!"

Mahya said, "We should check the bones; maybe we'll find something interesting."

I looked around for the bones she mentioned and discovered a large pile in one of the corners.

Lis said, "We should also check all the tunnels. We might discover additional snake skins that she has shed and more bones to examine.

“Can there be more snakes?” I asked.

“No,” Lis said. “If there were more snakes, they would have come to her aid. Mana beasts are very protective of their brooding females.”

We split up between the tunnels and started checking them one by one. I found a snake's skin and two piles of bones in the tunnel I examined. I had no idea what to look for in them, so I just stored the whole pile.

I checked another tunnel that led to a smaller cave. There, I found many snake skins, probably from the other snakes, and many piles of bones. I stored everything again.

When I returned to the main cave, Lis asked me, "Did you find any tunnel branches, or does everything lead to a dead end?"

“Dead end.”

"Good, we've finished here; let's leave."

We went back to Lis's house, and I went to take a bath. I had a cleaning spell but needed this relaxation to calm my nervous system. I still felt a little jumpy.

After I finished the bath, we met outside the house, and Lis took out the snake. I tried to pick it up with telekinesis, and I had no chance; the snake didn't move even a millimeter, and my mind felt like it had muscle cramps.

I told Lis, "There's no way I'm picking up that snake."

"Don't worry, I have a solution."

He proceeded to dig into the snake's belly, remove all the internal organs, and throw them away. He turned to me and said, "Can you peel it?"

It took me ten minutes to build a thin layer of manna between the flesh and skin and peel off the skin. Lis took out the most enormous sword I had ever seen, swung it repeatedly, and cut off a fifth of the snake.

He asked me, "Can you pick this up?"

I tried and managed to pick up the piece. I put it back down, took out a plastic sheet, and repeated the operation as with the other snakes: pick up the snake, cast on it Clean and Purify, and cut it into steaks. Meanwhile, Lis cut the remaining snake into large pieces, which I also cut into steaks.

Mahya showed us a melon-sized crystal and said, "Look at this beast core; it's one of the biggest I've ever seen."

Afterward, she showed us a green sack the size of a pumpkin full of poison. And she said, "This snake was very lucrative."

"We haven't checked the rest of the loot yet," Lis said.

After processing the snake, we took out the rest of the things we found in the tunnels and caves. The total loot was over fifty skins, which Liss said were as good as skin taken from a "fresh" snake, thirty-seven mana crystals with various aspects, and eleven weapons that looked utterly destroyed.

They gave me the weapons because I could restore them, and Mahya requested one of the restored swords because she was using one of Lis's and needed to return it. They told me to keep the rest. We split the skins, and Mahya and Lis wanted the crystals for their project. I didn’t mind. After that, they started going through the bones individually, keeping most of them and splitting them three-way.

“What are the bones for?” I asked.

“Selling to bone artisans; they make great weapons, good mana conductivity,” Mahya said.

After finishing the snake loot, we processed the dogs and bears from last time. We set aside the scorpi-dog meat for Rue. It turns out that since scorpi-dogs are also a type of canine, they will significantly benefit him. Both of them gave me all the bear meat, telling me it was excellent for stews and minced meat dishes, while their eyebrows wiggled suggestively.

After finishing everything, we went to sleep. In the morning, we proceeded to cut down another thirty trees, turned them into logs, and divided them into three. When I asked why, they informed me that a single log could sustain five to eight hours of fire.

Finally, we walked back to the Gate. Tuonela turned out to be a very profitable world.