Chapter 11 - Kill Box

  "Never stop moving when you're fighting for your life, both in and out of combat. Stagnation is deadly when less than a half second can end your life."

  - Advice given to all gladiators of the pit in what was once Oklahoma. The Pit was known for forcing its Gladiators to fight both on the social stage as well as in the arena, where the right words in the right ears would see sponsors granting you a sword in a bare knuckle match.

  The plan started with Solis spending a couple of hours slowly filling in the space around the cricket with rock until it was completely encapsulated. The mana required wasn’t particularly massive, but with a regeneration rate of 4 mp/hour, it would’ve been a month before he had enough for the task.

  To avoid that, he had opened up a series of small holes in the wall next to the crack and stayed as close as he could for as long as he could to keep the higher regeneration rate.

  All in all, everyone only had to wait a day before Solis had managed to straightjacket the cricket in stone.

  Breaking the metal wad had been more difficult, and Ira ended up needing to activate all of her [Body] to dent a chunk and disperse the mana.

  Solis gathered all he could and used it to create the small bunker Ira had requested; that way, the kids had somewhere to run if everything went wrong.

  Like that, the cricket was revealed. It snapped its jaws, but it couldn’t move a muscle or even chirp, completely bound as it was. All it could do was stare hatefully at them.

  They only had three pieces of ear protection: two sets of earplugs and then the ear muffs, but Dimitri had taught him that they didn’t actually need ear protection if they activated [Body]. Apparently, any and all damage extended to hearing damage, which was nice.

  He’d like to see a concert that was just blasting music full volume one day.

  No one risked the kids shooting from far away. Solis had built the stone straight jacket in sections, but those sections were large enough that if a bullet hit one and it dispersed into mana, the cricket might get loose.

  Solis and Ira weren’t concerned about killing the cricket at that point. With Ira’s build, she could handle one alone with ease, but rather it was about making sure the kids were considered part of the kill that was the challenge

  Originally, they had wanted the kids to stab it, but upon testing, Ira wasn’t comfortable with the kids getting that close since it could still bite, and neither of the siblings looked to want to get that close either.

  To ensure that neither kid would break the straitjacket, Solis solidified another layer of stone in small sections, more slowly growing it than materializing it all at once. The hope was that since he was solidifying it in small chunks, if one section broke it would just be that section and not the entire wall.

  Surprisingly, that gave him a rank-up in [Mana Manipulation], increasing it from 6 to 7.

  The whole process was a messy afair, and one they’d have to streamline if they were going to do this nineteen more times, but not even all that work could dampen his mood once the job was done. The children each took the gun in turn, activated [Body] to stop their ears from bursting, and fired a shot at the cricket carripice.

  After that was done, all the adults went up one by one to punch or stab it, and finally, Ira struck out with a glowing fist, turning the monster's head into mush.

  From there, they worked on the kill box idea, all of them gathering around and drawing in dirt that Ana had brought down in a bag from the higher levels of the cave. When Solis asked why Ana had answered like he was an idiot, telling him, “So I can draw in dirt. Duh.”

  It had made Solis chuckle.

  The kill box design they all came up with was complicated, to say the least. Seemingly, everyone had an idea, and more often than not, the idea was pretty good; it’d just take time, mana, and finesse to build.

  Solis sighed. That was just the trade-off he had accepted so that the adults would actually go through with the idea. Safety first and all that.

  It wasn’t that he was against contingencies, safety, and all that. He was an advocate for being safe… but at a certain point, he felt like it was just too much, and he was antsy to get to level nine.

  It took a week and cost 2,138 mana over the course of an entire week, which left his pool at a crisp 949.

  The kill box looked strange. It wasn’t much more than a low rectangle that the crickets would have to squeeze down into to continue forward. Slits on the edges resembling kill-holes allowed people to stab through or use ranged skills. The flooring for the box was raised around a foot and a half above the ground, so that if a floor tile broke and a cricket fell through, they still wouldn’t be able to run around and escape.

  Getting the tiles made correctly had been a massive pain involving materializing struts to support the corners of each tile. The tiles themselves were originally pitched as interlocking, but Solis shot down the idea. It was better for the tiles not to affect each other as much as possible, so they’d break in segments like intended.

  What really took the most time and mana wasn’t any of that. It was that it was entirely made of metal. Different materials had different mana costs based on their qualities, with the most influential being density. The metal of the gun was a lot denser than the stone of the cave and so cost around five times as much mana as the alternative.

  Solis had almost given up on using entirely metal since they were set to run out of MREs… and the cricket. Ira had slowly split up the cricket into their meals over the week, trying to make it less noticeable. It helped, if only a little. He would’ve given up on it too, but Samir insisted, saying. “This is how we get more food.”

  No one was happy hearing they’d have to eat monster cricket for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, no one complained about it, even though everyone was obviously disgusted.

  Monster meat tasted awful, or maybe that’s just how crickets tasted. Solis didn’t know, but he could deal with bad food. What was more worrying was learning that monster bodies held [Corruption] and eating them sent it into the body. Samir had warned them all about it and so had been ready with [Purify] after the meal, but because of the man's own mana pool, they all had to eat in shifts while he regenerated enough to use the skill again.

  So, there was no other option remaining. They were out of food, and Solis didn’t regenerate mana fast enough to make enough water for everyone through the [Endless Spring Droplet].

  It was time to open up the crack.

  Ira punched the stone, and Solis solidified the passageway into the kill box. Then everyone took out some rocks and began scraping them against the wall.

  Chirping answered. It grew closer and closer until a flood of noise filled the passageway, echoing off the metal kill box with a wiry twang. Cricket after cricket crawled forward into the box, getting down low and clawing forward. They spotted Dimitri through the kill holes and screeched in rage.

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  “ANTHEMA. ANTHEMA ANTHEMA.” Solis heard them scream through [Translate]. He killed the skill and shivered. They were chirping in perfect unison now, crawling faster and closer. Solis held his breath and waited to see if they’d break through the metal. One tried to bite down, but the holes had been placed far enough as not to give purchase, and so their flat pinchers slid across the metal.

  From his spot atop the kill box, Solis peered down the crack, waiting to see if any more crickets appeared. None did, and so he solidified the wall behind them, boxing all of the crickets inside.

  Solis held up a hand to forestall any cheering and gave everyone a weary smile. “If anyone says anything to the tune of ‘at least that’s done’, ‘it worked’ or anything else that would tempt the universe, I’m going to blame you if anything breaks.”

  That got a laugh out of the siblings, which surprised Solis. They shouldn’t have been able to hear him. They were only level 2 and shouldn’t have had the mana reserves to use [Translate] often.

  The next part of the plan was admittedly a little dumb, and there was probably a better solution, but it’d do.

  Solis flooded the kill box with his mana, all 949 of it. The mana diffused through the space, covering everything except for the top of its head and the peak of its jointed legs. Then he solidified it all at once, trapping every cricket in place.

  “Ira you’re up!”

  With a glowing fist, Ira dented the top of the box, breaking it into mana, which Solis greedily grabbed onto. What lay below were twenty trapped crickets, all pinned in place.

  Dimitri lifted the siblings up onto the top of the stone, handing them Solis’s combat knife. Then everyone took turns stabbing each cricket with Ira dealing the final blow.

  Once it was done, Ana started muttering to herself, kicking the cave flooring. Curious what she was saying, Solis decided to tune in with [Translate].

  “Dumb System. Dumb monsters. If it was this easy should’ve done this weeks ago.”

  Solis could feel his eye twitch slightly, but also found it more than a little funny. He stepped closer and spoke.

  “Ana. [Translate] real fast?”

  The girl seemed surprised, but gave a quick thumbs up.

  Solis returned the gesture and added a smile. “It’s easy because we planned. It’s not supposed to be a life and death struggle. If it is you’ve probably done something wrong, but hey! Congrats on a cap of level nine!”

  Ana hesitated, but slowly raised her other hand and also gave a thumbs up with that one – a small smile tugged at the corner of her lip. It vanished fast, and she muttered, "Potential isn't outcome."

  They'd need to level up to their cap, but now they all could reach level nine.

  —

  Afterwards, they gathered at the entrance to the closed-off crack while Solis regenerated his mana.

  "Translate," Solis spoke abruptly. "We need to talk about next steps. Also, sorry, but I'm basically tapped out. Samir, can you translate for me?"

  "Yes, of course. Translate … this is about food and water, yes?" Samir nodded his head.

  "Translate… Yeah. We need water, and food. I don't think it's escaped anyone's notice, we used the last of my supplies this morning."

  Ira chimed in, her arms permanently crossed.

  “Perevedi... U nas yest' dostup k yede. Ona ne ochen' khoroshaya, no eto yeda. Nam nuzhen drugoy istochnik vody. ”

  Everyone paled at that. Curiously, to Solis, so did the children. They stayed silent, contemplating until Solis gently elbowed Samir, who frowned at the young man.

  "Uh. I need the translation," Solis said lamely.

  "Oh. Apologize. Ira was saying that we can eat the crickets, but the [Endless Spring Droplet] isn’t enough and we need another water source. Translate… I agree. If there are trees like Dimitri thinks there must be water nearby. If we ration hard we could survive a little less than a month on what we have."

  "Perevodit," It was Dimitri this time instead of Ira, "Yesli my ne vyberemsya iz etikh peshcher cherez mesyats, u nas budut boleye ser'yeznyye problemy."

  Solis nodded along, pretending to understand what the man said. He mentally shrugged. Samir would fill him in after if it was important. His mind was elsewhere, apparently.

  "übersetzen." Everyone's heads snapped to the speaker. Ana had her arms crossed and tapped her foot impatiently. Solis was so surprised that it took him a second to activate [Translate], despite having basically no mana. He hadn't expected the teens to contribute… like at all.

  Ana continued, "Can we move on to talk about builds. We have a level nine cap now. I've talked it over with Hans. We have our system questions still. We won't use it on anything but ourselves, but we want to know if any of you have suggestions."

  Ira recovered first. She looked at the siblings, narrowing her eyes at them, "So you've been pretending to not understand this whole time, huh?"

  Hans and Ana both looked away, focusing on a particularly interesting stalactite in the dull light of the lanterns. Neither of them answered, causing Ira's smile to twitch slightly. Dimitri recovered next, and he fell over laughing. The laughter spread from him to Samir to Solis, and finally to Ira.

  Neither sibling looked pleased with this outcome.

  "übersetzen," Hans said, diplomatically, spreading his hands with a sheepish smile. "We just wanted to make sure everything was safe. Where we came from, people who still had their questions were forced to use them."

  Solis nodded, "Translate… God we have to find a better way than saying translate. Can we move to a hand sign?"

  "Yes, but later. Focus," Samir chided before turning to the children.

  Solis shut off his [Translate] ability – the cost was too high for him to continue using it. Shortly after, Ira and Dimitri tapped out of the conversation, also due to a lack of mana. Surprisingly, the next person to tap out was Samir, not either sibling.

  "So. What'd they say?" Solis asked.

  Samir just sighed, taking off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Same thing. They want to use their system question, but they don't want to ask questions like if there are other survivors. Where we can find good nutrition, or anything like that. They want to ask about classes and the like."

  Solis just nodded. It seemed only natural to him. "Okay? What's the problem?"

  Samir kept his eyes closed as he tilted his head up towards the ceiling.

  "It's all well and good, but a class won't help us out of this situation."

  Laughing, Solis shook his head, "I don't know man. I'm sure there's some crazy classes. Maybe one could make food."

  "No." Samir responded sharply, "We had a lot of people where I was. People took all sorts of classes. None offered something like that. I just took one that does something similar. My healing also provides some essentials, but it's a band-aid, not a cure.

  "That's great!" Solis smiled, patting Samir on the back, not having to fake his excitement. "One problem solved."

  Samir studied the young man with a deep frown. Solis thought the frown suited him; it made him look more severe. Samir reminded Solis of House from the TV show of the same name, a little bit, except not insufferable. Finally, the doctor spoke, "How are you possibly so upbeat about any of this. Do you know what a [Nominal] zone is like! Not just moving through it but living there."

  "Nope." Solis continued unperturbed.

  "Then are you just not taking this seriously?"

  Solis waited patiently for the man to finish. He held up a hand and gave a small shake of his head, "I can’t claim to know about it as much as you do, but I’ve seen some of the monsters outside the mountain. It’s not that I’m not taking this seriously. It’s that we don’t have any other option and I’d be cheery and hopeful than stagnant.

  Samir gave Solis a flat look, "At this point I’m not sure if there is a way out if it’s as bad as you say. We might live and die in this mountain even if that’s when you’re old and gray.”

  Solis sighed, and the smile fell, replaced with a more serious expression. "I have a sister, a kind of girlfriend, and a best friend. They're all out there. My sister and my… uh, Lyla are in a safe zone, but Ricky." He breathed out and tousled his hair in frustration, "He's still out there. We got separated, and now for all I know he could be on the other side of the planet."

  Samir didn't say anything, but he gestured for Solis to continue. "I don't have time to wait around, and I refuse to stay here. There are people out there who need—" he took in a breath and corrected himself before he could say anything more. That type of talk was too close to how Father had sounded, "who could use my help. I can't afford to take it slow, and wallowing in the negative won't do me any good. A smile. A smile never hurt anyone."

  "Just make sure we aren't run over in your speeding attempts," Samir said through a strained smile.

  Solis nodded, "As for the class thing. Let them ask their question. They asked for help, people will give the advice they can. I can even double-check the wording when they come up with their question. As for people and food. There will be people. We'll get to them once we can take care of ourselves. For food and water the crickets have to be eating and drinking something."

  "And if they aren't? If they survive off Corruption or Mana?" Samir said.

  “Then we try something else. Again. As many times as it takes.”

  ? AMAZON LAUNCH: Low-Fantasy Occultist: An Isekai LitRPG Adventure ?

  by Persimmon

  When magic is dying in one world, sometimes you get a second chance in another.

  Nicholas Crowley is used to scraping by in a world where magic is dying. The modern age has left the arcane behind, and the few remaining practitioners fight over scraps like starving dogs. But that's no longer his problem.

  While performing a ritual, something interferes, and his soul is ripped from his body. He awakens during the Class ceremony as Nick, a kid living on the frontier of the Green Ocean—a seemingly infinite expanse of trees brimming with rare ingredients and powerful creatures.

  Mana is abundant here, and the omnipresent System allows for feats he had once thought impossible. Nick receives the rare Occultist class, granting him access to forbidden knowledge and dark powers.

  And yet, not everything is as rosy as it seems. Legends walk the land, and Gods require their due.

  Will his experience as an Occultist be enough to navigate this wild new world?

  A reincarnation isekai LitRPG perfect for fans of The Beginning After the End!