The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 24 - Solo Operation (Patreon)

Hello all, I think I've decided - thanks to the poll from before and how one sided it was for The Eternal Winter - to just go ahead with my original plan and continue this story purely on my Patreon until it reaches 60 chapters, where I will then begin posting chapters to royal road and committing to this story.

Also, look at this. A new cover :)

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                                                                                        Alexander North

It doesn’t take long before the major comes back, surprisingly with only two captains with him. Neither of which being the ones I’m expecting trouble from.

“Second lieutenant North, we’ve decided that – due to your extenuating circumstances – we will be sending you alone to clear the floor of the spiders,” major Vaugns declares, not wasting any time after sending a brief nod towards the two captains standing next to me.

Almost immediately after he finishes speaking, captain Andrews opens his mouth to protest, just to be shot down as the major turns his gaze to him and says, “That order is absolute. These spiders don’t seem to be able to harm the second lieutenant, so both major Carter and I came to the decision that he would be the best option to go with at this time.” He then turns to look at me and adds, “Plus, from what you’ve told us, you should be able to get stronger by killing these spiders. Am I correct?”

After he sees me nod, he turns back to captain Andrews again and says, “There you go. He’ll be benefiting from this operation as well. And we’ll be more than happy to provide him with a couple more sets of armor to replace his own as it gets damaged.”

My captain continues to glare at the major but doesn’t say anything else.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to provide you with any swords,” the major continues while looking at me again, only to turn his gaze towards my gloved hands, “but I doubt you’ll be needing one.”

Uh huh. You just don’t want to give me a sword because you know it’ll shatter during this, when I can avoid that problem by using my claws.

I don’t point this out though and instead begin taking my gloves off while extending my claws again. The major seems to approve of this and nods his head before turning around and beginning to make his way towards the stairs while calling out, “Captains Andrews and Ruthers, make sure to guard the top of the staircase and wait for second lieutenant North’s return.”

He then leaves down the stairs with the two captains who came with him as the other two captains and I watch them all go.

After several seconds pass in silence, I turn around and begin making my way through the spider corpses towards the entrance. But right when I’m about to cross into the hallway, I hear captain Andrews calling out, “Be careful.”

I raise my hand to wave back at him before continuing through the open doorway.

The hallway outside of the command room is a branched one, with three different paths I can take. One of which – the center one – leads towards the stairs and is the way that I came down to this floor in the first place, with captain Ruthers. The other two lead to different sections of the floor.

If I remember correctly, the left section is meant for the storage of laser class weapons, along with more personnel dorms. Meanwhile the right section is for the storage of metal class weapons and even more personnel dorms.

Ignoring the left section for the moment, I begin walking down the right hallway – seeing as it’s the way that I saw the larger spider running off in.

And considering that the spider didn’t head towards the stairs, I think it’s safe to assume that’s the direction of its nest. Which means…

My thoughts come to a halt as I turn the corner in the hallways to find small amounts of glittering webbing spread about the frost-coated hallway. The webbing seems to have a similar texture to ice, while still retaining its stickiness. But surprisingly, I don’t find any spiders just yet.

So I continue walking through the eerily silent hallway, with the silence broken only by my footsteps softly echoing throughout it until I begin to hear faint sounds of movement, some scuttling here and there, and a couple of hisses coming from the direction of one of the rooms. A room whose door is in complete disarray as it lies on the floor on the other side of the hallway from the doorway while covered in ice and seemingly bashed inwards.

I instinctually reach for my gun, only to remember that I don’t have one, and even if I did it wouldn’t work, before I spread my claws out and slowly inch forwards toward the door. But the instant I get within a meter’s length of the door, the noises stop, leaving the hallway in complete silence as I come to a halt as well in response.

My breathing now the only noise in the hall for a few seconds, I quietly inch my way towards the door, just to grab an extra glove from the pocket at my waist and throw it into the room before walking out a second later at the sounds of movement towards the glove.

The first thing I see are several dozen tiny spiders swarming my glove. But immediately after that, I find two of those larger spiders standing at the back of the storage room, amongst several crates of guns. Spiders who aren’t paying any attention towards the gloves and are staring directly at me with all eight of their eyes.

Which is creepy looking.

I rush into the room almost at the same time that the two spiders begin sprinting towards me, only to barely avoid getting impaled on its limb by sliding beneath it and dragging my claws through its underbelly along the way, causing the creature to let out a loud shriek of pain. But I ignore it as I climb back to my feet before jumping out of the way of the other larger spider’s attack that ends up piercing into the metal floor of the base.

Why the hell are there two of them? Were we wrong, and it wasn’t the queen?

If there is a queen, and none of these are it, then I really don’t want to meet it.

I grit my teeth as the other, smaller spiders begin to head over here as well. So I hurry up and grab the large spider’s limb which is currently stuck in the floor before putting pressure on it with both my arms and my weight, causing it to begin making creaking, and then snapping sounds that are followed by the spider’s hateful hissing.

But before I can finish the job, the other large spider – who is currently bleeding a blue liquid that is literally freezing the floor as it touches it – ignores its injury and sends a limb straight towards where I’m standing, piercing into my side in the process. Fortunately though, my armor blocks a large portion of the blow before giving in and letting it pierce a couple of inches into my side.

I let out a grunt but continue to twist the spider’s limb with my full weight until it snaps off of its body with the sound of breaking ice. And before it can even hit the ground, I let go and reach for the first spider’s limb that pierced into my side but didn’t seem to be doing anything other than that before yanking it out with another grunt of pain.

When I turn to the spider though, I find it lying on the ground, dead. So I turn my attention back to the one that’s not letting out loud screeches and hisses at the same time due to the massive amount of blood leaking from its limb – some of which managed to get onto my arm before I let go of the leg, freezing the armor in the process.

Deciding that the creature will die without me finishing it off, I jump with as much force as I can muster away from the spiders and onto a crate of weapons that would’ve been too high for me to jump prior to my changes to avoid the swarm of tiny ones rushing over from the glove. But the moment I land on the crate, I can’t help but fall to my knees while coughing out pale bluish-red blood from my injury.

I turn my head to look at the injury, just to raise my brows slightly as I see tiny strings of blue energy literally knitting the injury back together. At the same time, a notice appears in my vision from my terminal, mentioning that I am apparently making use of my new statistic for the first time.

Holy shit. The energy can heal me?