The Eternal Winter - Book 1 - Chapter 25 - Losses (Patreon)

                                                                                     Alexander North

I quickly pull up my current analysis just to check.

/ Current Analysis of user Alexander North \

Strength: 1.60
Speed: 1.70
Reflexes: 1.54
Constitution: 2.01
Immunity: ???
Senses: 1.73
Energy: 1.20/1.41

Body Malfunctions: N/A
Error: Cannot determine Immunity of user’s current species without the user getting sick to collect data.
The average of a human being without a symbiont is a 1 across all stats except for Energy.
The Energy statistic is determined with a 1 being set as the user’s original starting statistic for Energy.

\End of Analysis/

My eyes quickly lock onto the new number and format for the Energy stat before I take note of how quickly it’s dropping. Then I close my terminal again and focus on the wound for a few seconds as it continues closing up.

At this point, the wound has already closed up about halfway – enough for me to fight without much issue again outside of the pain. But it also seems to drain my Energy at an incredibly fast pace, so I shouldn’t abuse this.

I focus on the small spiders again as they scurry over to the crate before beginning to climb it. Meanwhile the large spider that’s still alive is currently lying on the ground, dying.

For a moment, the memory of the small spiders trying to break through my armor back in the command room earlier flashes to the surface of my mind before a smile breaks out on my face.

These things aren’t strong enough to pierce my armor, unlike the larger ones.

With that thought in mind, I stand in place, waiting for the spiders to finish climbing up the crate as my wound continues sealing itself up. And by the time they reach me, it’s already almost fully closed. So I quickly rush forward and begin ripping the spiders apart with my claws while trying – keyword trying – to leave my armor safe from their frostbitten blood.

During the process, some of the spiders die before I even stop touching them, leaving the energy in their bodies to absorb into my body mid fight – which seems to speed up the healing of my wound even faster. But I don’t stop to gawk and instead continue finishing them all off until the room is filled with nothing but crates of weapons, myself, and ripped apart spider corpses.

I take a few seconds to catch my breath before going around to absorb the energy from all of the creatures. And surprisingly, despite the same feeling as usual running through my body as always when I absorb energy, my terminal doesn’t give me any notices during the process. Not until about a minute after I finish absorbing the last one – that being the first large spider – where it finally gives me one.

/ Notice \

The following user statistics have updated:

Strength: 1.60 -> 1.67
Speed: 1.70 -> 1.88
Reflexes: 1.54 -> 1.72
Constitution: 2.01 -> 2.09
Senses: 1.73 -> 1.87
Energy: 1.41 -> 1.62

\End of Notice/

Oh? Well, that’s convenient. Looks like the terminal is only going to show one major update when there are a lot of changes at once.

Much better than showing every tiny change.

Especially when I’m in a battle.

And when I pull up my analysis again, I find that my Energy had stopped falling now that my wound is healed, and has actually raised a bit again thanks to the new Energy I got from the monsters. I take a moment to calculate the amount of Energy I have right now compared to the amount I gained from the monsters before arriving at the amount it should’ve taken to heal that wound.

Looks like it takes me about 0.41 energy to recover from a major wound.

If I remember correctly, symbiont hosts also heal much faster than regular humans do. But their healing is attached to their metabolism. So they have to eat a lot more to heal, and if they don’t have the nutrients needed, then it’ll begin draining the rest of their body until they look like a mummy.

I hope nothing like that happens to me if I run out of energy…

A shiver runs down my spine at the thought, but I push past it to look around the weapons storage room. This should just be one of many storage rooms, but there are still several dozen crates of weapons stashed throughout. Along with a lot of frost-coated spiderwebs on them.

It’s just too bad that none of these weapons will work anymore, since this particular room is for guns by the looks of the weapons lying about.

I continue searching through the room for a little bit before finding nothing of note, grabbing a rifle that I place on my back to replace the weapon I lost before, and leaving to move further down the hall in my search for more spiders. But not even five minutes later, I end up finding a rather gruesome scene.

In the middle of the hallway are several soldiers – all dead due to frostbite, with even more spider gore around them from the small spiders who likely suicide bombed them. And that’s not even the worst of it. Because in a room right next to them – which is a mess hall – there are over a dozen dead non-combat class workers. Those consistent of assistants, cooks, and some tech specialists. I think there’s even one random person that I’ve never met and can’t find an ID for.

A guest of a soldier perhaps?

I continue searching through the mess hall for any signs of survivors, but don’t manage to find any before I walk into the hallway again and continue my search.

If the civilians at this base who had soldiers guarding them were slaughtered, not to mention the soldiers themselves, how are the cities faring? Not even just on this planet, but throughout the entire universe?

Just how many people are going to be killed during this ‘Eternal Winter’?

I clench my fist in anger at the Arctic Empire – who is the most likely culprit behind all of this – making my claws, which I forgot were out, pierce into my palm. But I just ignore it as a tiny amount of my Energy quickly seals up the cuts after I remove my claws from my palm.

Damn it.

I can’t worry about the civilians right now though. Not when my own life is in jeopardy.

That’ll have to wait till I make it out myself.