Chapter 33: The Valley That Kills Players

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: The Valley That Kills Players

It didn’t take much longer. The Forgotten Valley sat a whole lot closer to their city than anyone had expected.

Allan noticed it first: no birds. Not a single one. He glanced down and watched the bugs scramble out of the way of the wagon wheels at the very last second.

Leaves hung limp on every tree. Not one of them quivered, even though the wind was blowing hard.

He looked around at the others riding with him. They had all gone quiet too. Nobody said a word about it, but nobody needed to. They felt the same cold shiver he did.

The valley nestled snugly between two tall mountains. Mist slid slowly down the slopes, wrapping everything in a strange, heavy atmosphere that felt unlike any place he had ever seen.

People said a dragon lived on each mountain peak. Allan had never checked. He had always been too busy fighting monsters down in the valley itself.

He had cleared this place before. Twice, actually. The first time he brought a full guild party. They lost three lives. The second time he came alone, just to get stronger and clear every monster by himself. He still died once that run.

Coming back now with five complete newcomers felt weird. He was supposed to "show them the ropes."

"Don’t look at me like that just because the trees aren’t moving the way they should," Diva said. She climbed up onto the top of the wagon, one boot planted high. "I don’t have any answers for this either."

Everyone kept glancing at her. She was the strongest person there. But her eyes stayed locked on Allan.

"You look like you’re waiting for something terrible to happen."

"S-rank monsters," Allan answered.

"That’s not it," she said. No teasing this time. Just flat honesty. "You already knew this place would feel like this. I can see it on your face."

He said nothing. His silence was answer enough.

Lira rode quietly at the back of the wagon, hood pulled low. Every now and then her eyes flicked toward the silent valley, as if the place was speaking to her in a language only she could hear.

Pretty weird. That was all Allan could think. After a while the talking died out again as the road brought them closer.

Six people were heading in. Two big wagons packed with gear. Three new A-rankers that Kael had chosen, Allan knew nothing about them, and a fourth man whose skills Allan still couldn’t figure out.

An hour later the monument came into view.

It was a huge stone marker covered in old, weathered carvings. Most of the carvings had worn away long ago. Dead tree roots had crawled through the cracks and holes instead. Even the roots had died.

Allan stopped the wagon without meaning to. Maybe it was pure instinct from his old memories, but he knew something was about to happen.

"Something wrong?" one of the A-rankers called.

"Give me a minute."

He stepped away from the wagon. Diva followed right behind him. Lira hesitated. After a moment she climbed back onto the wagon, sat beside her gear, and simply watched the two of them.

Names were carved into the side of the stone. Dates sat next to each name. Under some of them the cause of death was written. Most of the others just had blank spaces. The valley had taken them all, and that was all anyone knew.

Allan searched the surface carefully. He was looking for one specific thing, one of the real reasons he had wanted to come back here. He found it.

"Haha... I just got goosebumps," he muttered.

His own name. Right there. Worn thin, many of the letters almost gone, but clear enough if you already knew what to look for. Under his name the title had been cut deeper than the rest, as if someone wanted it to last forever.

Seventh.

He stared at it for a long time. It could have meant the seventh expedition, the seventh person to die, or simply the seventh name added to the long list of people who walked into this valley and never walked out again.

"Allan."

Diva’s voice. He hadn’t even heard her walk up beside him.

"What are you looking at? We need to go before dawn," she said.

"Yeah... yeah, you’re right. Sorry." He turned back toward the wagons. "Sorry, guys. False alarm. We can head in."

He climbed back into his seat. Lira appeared at his side almost instantly.

"You okay there, Lira?"

"I’m fine," she said. Her hand pressed against her side, right where the mark of the symbol hid under her clothes.

"Lira."

"I’m fine, I said." Her hand stayed pressed flat against her side. She glanced at Diva, who kept looking back at Allan every few seconds.

"Womanizer..." she whispered.

"Huh? What did you say, Lira?"

"Nothing."

Allan only sighed. He could put this particular problem away for later. He already had plenty of other things to worry about.

They stopped the wagons at the side of the road. Everyone suited up in their armor. One of the mages adjusted her staff.

Diva finished polishing her sword and looked around.

"Everyone ready?"

"Ready."

And they stepped into the Forgotten Valley.

Allan kept his eyes sharp, sword already in hand. He knew far too many of the things that could go wrong here.

He stopped cold. "Everyone stop."

Five people froze instantly. The respect they showed him sat poorly in his stomach. They were treating him like a leader he hadn’t earned yet.

"We’re not taking this path," he said. "We need to go that way." He pointed toward the rocky hill nearby.

"The western slope?" Diva asked.

"Ugh, that’s an S-grade death zone and you want us to climb it instead of walking the easy way?" one of the A-rankers said. He sounded unwilling, but a little curious too. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"You guys can take the easy path and die if you want. I’m going this way. Suit yourselves." Allan started walking toward the slope. Lira fell in right behind him.

Diva looked at the other adventurers. They were all looking at her. She was still their captain, not Allan.

"Okay, guys. Kael brought Allan along for a reason. Why do you think she asked a B-rank adventurer like him to join this mission?" She started following Allan.

"Let’s go."

Silence stretched out after that. It felt uncomfortable, but nobody had a better idea. They followed, even if they didn’t like it.

The climb took a full hour. Rocks slid under their boots. The air grew thick and heavy. The weight of their own mana pressed down on them. Lira stayed a few steps ahead of everyone else. At one point she stopped and stared out across the valley below.

"What is it?" Allan asked.

"Someone’s out there. I can feel its consciousness..." Her eyes turned dark. Her irises pulled inward like a drawstring being tightened. The silver vanished into pure black, like water disappearing into night. "It’s looking at us."

Allan glanced back. Thank the gods nobody else had seen that. He did not want another Elena situation on his hands. And yes, exactly as she said, something was there.

The rabbit appeared.

It was white and completely ordinary, standing about thirty meters away on the grass. It twitched its nose. Diva’s hand shot straight to her sword.

"Don’t move," Allan said.

Six eyes. Then a vast maw. A mouth so wide it looked like it had split the rabbit’s entire face open.

He ran an appraisal.

[Appraisal Complete.]

[Species: Forgotten Mimic.]

[Level: 84.]

[Threat Classification: S.]

[Warning: Creature possesses environmental adaptation.]

Level eighty-four. This thing could wipe out everyone on the slope and still take him down afterward.

The rabbit vanished. Before Allan could even take another breath, the ground under their feet shook.

"Great. Someone in this group is carrying some serious bad luck."

The creature erupted from the earth right beneath them, a terrible, fierce beast. It had been buried for decades, and of course it chose this exact moment to wake up, the moment he was standing right on top of it.

"Get away from it!" Allan shouted. He charged forward, sword raised high.

The creature’s jaws snapped shut on one of the A-rankers.

"AAAAAHHH!" The man let out a blood-curdling scream.

Allan lunged with his sword, but the mimic let out a disgusting gurgle and released the A-ranker.

Diva was on it in a flash. She slammed her sword straight down into its spine. The thing screeched in pain. The lower half of the A-ranker’s arm ripped clean off at the elbow.

"Pressure the wound, now!"

Allan worked frantically near the creature’s side.

It reformed again, twisting upward into a long, thin, sinuous shape that slithered away and disappeared.

"Everyone, on me!" Allan commanded. Everyone, including Lira, attacked.

In the end it took three of them to kill the thing. Diva took a numbing blow that nearly drained her completely. She still kept hacking at it savagely through the final exchange.

It was the fourth man, the one Allan hadn’t even tested yet, who finally ended it with a clean slicing blow to the head. Allan had wanted Lira to land the finishing strike, but he let it go for now.

The creature let out one last gurgling sound, black blood pouring out, and then it was dead. The man with only one forearm lay on the ground, pale and shivering, talking rapidly to a healer.

He wasn’t dying. But he wasn’t whole either. Unless they found a cleric better than anyone currently standing on that slope, he was going to stay half a man for the rest of his life.

The System pinged.

[Environmental Mutation Detected.]

[Cause: Unknown.]

[Probability of natural occurrence: 0.03%.]

Allan didn’t even need to look at the window. He already knew the monster had been acting differently from normal creatures. It had changed shape mid-strike, exactly the way he had sensed it would.

"Diva," Allan said, following the direction she was pointing. He couldn’t see anything moving, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up.

He scanned for any sign of monsters, players, or scouts. Nothing. Then he looked out toward the distant ridge and saw a figure sitting between two dead trees. A man in dark robes.

From this far away he couldn’t make out the man’s face, but the white strip of fabric running down the front of the robe was clear as day.

The figure lifted one hand and waved.

Then he was gone.

What the hell? Am I seeing things?

"Enemy?" Diva whispered, holding her arm against her chest.

"No. I don’t know. Do people actually live here?"

"An A-rank adventurer just lost his arm. What do you think?"

"Yeah, yeah. You’re right. What am I thinking?"

Lira walked closer. Allan patted her shoulder and leaned in near her ear.

"Thanks to you, we’re alive right now, Lira. I don’t know how we would have survived if you hadn’t sensed it."

Lira looked confused as she stepped even closer.

"Allan, I wasn’t talking about the beast. I was talking about..." She pointed toward the fog where Allan had seen the figure.

"I was talking about him..."