ALL NOVEL Chapter 44: Hunting For Salt (2)
| Third-party threats to users' progress are not to be worried about. |
| It will be handled in Due Time. |
Wide-eyed and frozen in shock, Aoni stared at the two notifications and watched as they vanished from sight.
'HUH? What just happened….threats to my progress aren't to be worried about…they'll be handled.' Opening and closing his mouth like a fish several times, the Lad noticed a ringing in his ears and forced himself to blink several times so his eyes wouldn't freeze from the bitter cold.
'What does that even mean?'
| The host needn't worry; you will understand when the time comes. |
'Ababab baba baaa.' Puffing out his cheeks, Aoni exhaled so hard that a puff of steam blotted out his vision, as his warm breath met the icy air.
'That…my tD just answered me…totally something that…haha isn't out of the ordinary…' with his mental voice increasing several octaves, Aoni was half terrified and half amazed.
You'd figure that after being able to alter his own stats through his Attribute along with the random pop-ups from earning points, he would have been desensitized to these kinds of things, but the fact that his TD had ACTUALLY responded was enough to rattle his brain.
'Calm down, calm down, this is your life now, your TD talks to you, and you can add points to stuff…totally normal…GULP.'
"Gao GAOOo Gaoooo," right as Aoni was about to lose his mind, the hyperactive baby yeti vocalized loud enough to snap him back to reality.
"Oh? Are we almost there?" He asked, trying his best to get a grip on his emotions.
"OooO," in response to his question, Glacia whooped and whipped her head in the direction of a large pile of snow before bringing the sled close and slowing to a stop.
Unfortunately, the instant its forward momentum was gone, the blades began digging into the snow and sinking, causing Aoni to have a slight heart attack as he quickly jumped out of the sled and into the several-foot-deep snowdrift.
"Shit,"
Within a second, the Lad was chest-deep in the snow, while Glacia released the bone connecting her to the sled and ran circles around her Lord's head.
Upon seeing him stuck, she paused for a moment, tilted her head, and then…dove into the snow, vanishing, startling Aoni, that is, until he felt a tug on his pants.
'The heck is this little fur missile up to?' he thought, but soon enough, before he could even attempt to call her name, Aoni felt another tug on his foot and quickly noticed that he could move it with ease.
That's not all either, because soon enough, his knee was free, and then his entire lower body was, and that's when it dawned on him that Glacia was digging out a space for him within the snow!
Without further hesitation, the Lad quickly crouched down and was amazed to find that in a span of less than a minute, his baby yeti had cleared out a solid 4-foot cavern under the snow, more than enough space for Aoni to sit down comfortably.
However, when he did plop down on his butt, Glacia was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Aoni was greeted by a small tunnel, one just barely large enough for him to crawl into, not that he would.
No, instead, he sat right where he was and waited.
It wasn't that he was…say, claustrophobic or anything, nooo, he was CLEARLY worried about a cavein…or, well, snowin.
Tatattatatata
Tattatatata
Cocking an eyebrow and placing his back against the snow wall behind him, Aoni gazed into the dark snow tunnel as he heard a skittering sound of sorts, and that's when a strange thought popped up in his head.
'Where is all the snow she's digging through going? Creatures like moles or any other type of burrower either eat the dirt or kick it behind them, but from what I can tell, there's nothing left behind.' Since the sun was shining down through the hole his body had made in the snow, Aoni could see his immediate surroundings and, with that being the case, could roughly tell what Glacia had done.
Not only was she breaking through and digging into the dense snow, but she was apparently compacting it in such a way that the structure she was creating was inadvertently solid.
'Still…I should probably stay here for a bit until Glacia finishes up with whatever she's doing,' the Lad thought while bringing his knees up to his chest and trying to get warm.
Several tense minutes passed, with the only sounds Aoni could hear being the wind outside his small cavern and the strange Tata skittering noise until finally.
"GAOOOOO!" A fluffy head covered in snow popped out of the dark tunnel, wearing a pleased expression, or so Aoni interpreted.
"Look at you, you're a mess, hah," wearing a smile, Aoni opened his arms and allowed Glacia to jump into him for some cuddles while brushing the loose snow off her fur.
"Now, I know you can navigate that tunnel quite easily, but I am too big for it. Can you open it up for me like you did here?" Motioning around his body and over his head at the small cavern his summon had made, Aoni then pointed toward the tunnel, and with a whoop, Glacia jumped out of his embrace and went to work, widening the tunnel to around 3x3 feet in diameter.
Like a master craftsman, Glacia set about slashing at the edges of the tunnel with one arm and pressing against it with her other to compact the snow into a more dense state.
Honestly, it was quite a feat for someone so small, considering that, at several points, she was forced to jump up and act.
To a Mundane, it would appear as if she was merely ramming her body into the walls of the tunnel like a…well, small furry missile, but to Aoni's eyes, he could clearly make out every strike and press his summon executed.
In no time flat, Glacia disappeared deeper into the tunnel, as she continued widening it as her Lord had requested, leaving Aoni alone and staring down the black hole left in her wake.
'Ehhh…little small, but you can do this, Aoni, it's not a big deal. Just think of it as a playground back home, yeah, totally not a death trap that could bury you under feet of snow.' Psyching himself up mentally, Aoni took a deep breath and, on all fours, began his trek into the tunnel.