Return of the Fallen Volume 2 Chapter 28

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Author: Blue_Rat


ch28

Kazuki, Asuna, Sam, Shin, and Nunully had taken Chief Atoh’s advice and traveled the 20 or so miles north of the village where they arrived at the so-called Sencha Cliffs.

Staring up at the large formation, it stretched into the sky. Kazuki stared at this large formation in wonder.

(Usually, when you think of a cliff, one would naturally think of a steep rock face at the edge of the sea but I can understand why this is called a cliff.)

Looking at the base of this large rock formation, there was a literal sea of spiked rocks, stretching out for a few hundred feet, that followed the base of the cliff off into the distance.

Each of these spiked rocks were between a few inches tall, all the way up to around 4 feet in height. The gap between them was just about the size of two people so navigating between said rocks just to get to the face of the cliff was difficult, as each rock was extremely sharp and cut Kazuki and the others quite easily.

Although from the forest to the cliff face was only a few hundred feet, walking through this minefield took nearly 20 minutes. Finally, everyone stood at the base of the cliff but again another problem reared its ugly head.

Shin grabbed at a jagged rock sticking from the wall and prepared to climb but as soon as he applied just the smallest amount of pressure…

“Ahh!”

Blood spurted out of his hand as two deep cuts were left behind on both his palm and fingers.

Nunully quickly wrapped his hand and stopped the bleeding, while Shin cursed loudly.

“What the fuck is wrong with these rocks! ow ow ow, Nunully please treat me kindly, don’t wrap it so tightly.”

Nunully ignored his plea and wrapped it as tightly as it was supposed to be.

“It’s wrapped how it’s wrapped, don’t complain.”

Kazuki and Sam approached the jagged rocks, sticking out from the cliff. Kazuki gently touched one and slowly pushed harder and harder until a small line of red dripped from the tip of his finger.

“This won’t do. These rocks are far too close together and can’t be avoided when climbing up. Not only that, the amount of weight you can place on one of these rocks before it splits the flesh apart is probably around 7, maybe 8 pounds of pressure. We’ll have to find another way.”

Sam stood still for a moment and stared blankly at the jagged rocks. Grabbing one of the rocks, Sam squeezed it. Slowly he lifted himself a few inches off the ground before a small bit of blood ran down his arm. Letting go of the jagged rock, Sam’s palm had a small cut on his palm, much less severe compared to Shin.

“Damn you, Sam, how the hell is your body so freaking tough? If I lifted my body up like that, my hand would have probably been cut all the way down to the bone by now.”

Sam was silent and looked quietly at his palm. Opening and closing his hand, he thought about something once more.

Sam grabbed the jagged rock again.

“Sam, what are you doing, even if you don’t get cut up as badly as me, you’ll still suffer greatly. There’s no way you can make it to the top without being a pile of ribbons at the end.”

Sam ignored Shin. Willing his power forth, with the help of his magic ring, power flowed into his hands. Small rocks shaped around both of his hands forming gloves of rock armor. Gripping down onto the jagged rock, Sam lifted himself with ease before he reached out and grabbed another jagged rock. Like this, he ascended 15 feet up in seconds before climbing back down like it was nothing.

Nunully grabbed his hands with worry and turned them overlooking for a wound but instead simply found small lacerations in the rocks protecting his hands. Sam dissipated his power and revealed one flawless hand and his other hand that only had a small cut from the first test he did.

(Interesting. So he can climb this cliff but those gloves of his aren’t impervious to damage.)

“Ok, that was a nice little show but for now let’s go back to the edge of the forest, I need to think.”

Following back into the forest, Sam was growing impatient.

“What’s the plan now. If we keep changing it, we’ll never make any progress. You know that, right?”

“Sam, it’s not Ryuta’s fault. Those spikes are way too sharp and we still don’t know which particular ledge they’re on. None of us are capable of scaling that cliff except you. There are over 100 ledges and that’s only what we can see. Tell me, are you gonna climb up to every single one and check? Who knows how long that will take you.”

Sam wanted to complain but what Asuna said made sense. Still, he was dissatisfied and grumbled under his breath.

“Sam, your way of thinking is too simple and I believe there is a much better way.”

Sam’s expression darkened.

“Ryuta, are you really calling me dumb right now?”

“Hehehe, no no no, Not dumb just a bit simple. That’s not a bad thing but we have to think outside the box a little if we are to save time.”

Sam’s expression remained unchanged. So Kazuki decided it is better to just explain things than to drag them out.

Pointing at the trees behind him he explained.

“Look at the trees behind me, do you see how tall they are? Each one seems to be around 350 to 400 or so feet tall.”

Everyone looked up to the very top of the tree but none of them could tell how tall they were from where they stood and could only take Kazuki’s word for it.

“Do you remember what Chief Atoh told us? The Mangshi can only fly less than 50 feet or so above the tallest tree in the forest. Now I, of course, haven’t seen every single tree in the forest but Atoh told me that the trees can only reach 400 feet high, give or take a few feet. This means that wherever Tsura and Mei settle, it can’t be more than 50 feet higher than the tallest tree.”

“Ryuta, that’s all well and good, but could you just tell us what you’re trying to say.”

Kazuki wanted to slap Shin for a moment.

(Do none of them get it, for real.)

It was a bit late but Nunully chimed in with an Aha! Still, it was music to his ears.

“I think I get it now. If we just climb to the top of these trees we’ll be able to see the ledges where it’s possible for Mei and Tsura to be. Not only that, because we’ll be so high up, we should be able to see multiple ledges at once. Using this method and factoring in how many miles long the cliff is, we’ll just need to climb a few trees and then with how far we can all see, it should be easy to spot the most suitable place Mei and Tsura could be. Wow, Ryuta, you were thinking like this. Doing it this way, we would all only need to spread out a few miles apart and we’d each only need to climb one or two trees apiece before we located every ledge.”

Kazuki pat Nunully on the head and with a bright smile he praised her.

“Hahaha, Nunully, you’re so clever and smart. I thought no one would understand it but you actually did. Good job.”

Nunully’s face began to flush with red and so she quickly slapped Kazuki’s and away and turned. She dared not look him in the eye.

“Hmm, what’s wrong, I was praising you, you know.”

( I guess she’s not one for too many compliments. Well whatever.)

Shin couldn’t help but put on a teasing smile as he tilted his head in an odd way while looking at Asuna. With a small whisper, a word entered Asuna’s ear.

“Jealous.”

Asuna’s reflex, caused her to throw a back fist at Shin but with a mere step backward, her fist hit only empty air.

“Hahahahaha, Looks like the plan is set, I’ll be taking this tree here then.”

Shin, using his legs only, ascended up the tree like a sparrow. With only a dozen or so kicks, he jumped higher and higher until he was at the very top. Looking out toward the cliff he spotted 6 possible spots but after examining the ledges closely, he determined them unusable.

3 of the ledges were simply far too small and couldn’t even hold a single person. Another one was long enough but the width from the cliff wall to the edge was only a few feet, so again that one was out. There were two more, both of which were several dozen feet long enough as well as 20 or so feet in width, but those only had 3 feet of head clearance before you’d hit your head on solid rock above you. Each and every one of these spaces was not suitable.

Jumping back down, Shin slowed his descent but kicking a bit of air beneath his feet before he landed on a branch. He made it all the way to the ground before he even realized that he had been doing it. He did it subconsciously without even knowing. All he knew was it felt right.

Kazuki and the others watched him descend. It was clear to Shin that they wanted answers.

“Oh, were you all curious about how I was cushioning my falls. Well, it was actually rather easy. It came to me naturally like…”

“Shin, we don’t care about that, we want to know about the ledges. That was the whole reason you went up there, remember.”

Sam was almost yelling at Shin. He’ll admit that Kazuki’s idea will definitely save time and is less risky but what is the point if Shin starts bragging about his power. That directly cuts into the time they could be saving, so it was no wonder Sam felt pissed.

(Kimi just wait, I’m coming for you.)


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