Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 412: Ominous Movements

Skipping up the hill, Alice glanced around looking for Ragnar but the old man was nowhere to be found.

Furrowing her brows, she took another drink of her mead and closed her eyes.

After a moment, her lips curled up into a grin as she grabbed a jug from her pouch and handed it behind her.

"Wanna drink~?" She asked, clearly drunk. Ragnar smiled wearily and let out a laugh.

"You're in quite a good mood." Ragnar chuckled, accepting the jug and sat down on his seat.

Blinking her eyes, Alice was confused when the chairs appeared but didn't question it and slumped down in one.

"Yep~ Capt'n said we could buy whatever and it'll be on him tonight~ Hehe~ So I bought all the mead I wanted. It was thisssss much." Alice giggled while spreading out her arms.

"I see, I feel sorry for your captain now." Ragnar shook his head as the stench of alcohol was extremely pungent on Alice. For it to get to this stage, there was no doubt that she drank an absurd amount.

"It'll be fineee~ he said it was on him tonight so he should've thought about this hehe~" Alice waved her hand while taking another drink.

Rummaging around in her pouch, she pulled out a fruit and started to eat.

"Do you have enough fruit? If you don't, I have plenty to spare."

Hearing this, Alice's eyes sparkled with excitement as she nodded her head frantically.

"Yesh please!" She didn't hesitate, causing Raganr to laugh and nod his head.

Pulling out another large bag of fruit for her, his gaze softened watching Alice grab one out and immediately started to take large bites out of it.

The fruit was by no means small either. Compared to Alice's small stature, by Hunter standards, the fruit was practically half of her head in size.

What's more surprising was that she loved the taste.

The fruit he gave her was known as the Dreamshade Fruit. A fruit that helped with healing wounds and speeding up recovery. However, the taste was absolutely trash. Garbage even for most people.

The only beings that actually enjoy this fruit were Abyss Beasts or humans that have reached the realm of Lord! Only when your affinity for the Abyss reached a certain point would this fruit turn sweet for you.

He had already made sure that she was no beast the moment she ate this fruit yet she wasn't a Lord either. Heck even if she was a beast, she wouldn't have this kind of reaction as most beasts would just think this was a tasteless treat.

'Her affinity for the Abyss is out of this world.' Ragnar thought to himself while watching Alice eat the fruit with a bright smile on her face.

"So how did the hunt go today? I think there should've been more improvements right?" He asked curiously as Alice tried to swallow the fruit in one go but struggled to.

Hitting her chest with her hand while using mead to wash it down, Alice coughed violently before giving a goofy smile and nodding her head.

Recounting the events of the fight, Ragnar listened silently without interrupting her.

"Seems like you fought a juvenile Dreadhorn today."

Hearing this, Alice blinked her eyes in surprise.

"Eh? Old gramps how did you know?"

"If it was an adult, it wouldn't have been this docile. An adult Dreadhorn would've noticed you before you could even see it since it would've set up a parameter with its shadows. It would not let you get a surprise attack when it was at its most vulnerable." Ragnar smiled while brushing his beard.

"I see… But yeah, it was a juvenile. Bo said it was weird since a lot of the other beasts the other groups brought back were also juveniles. No adults got caught and they all had old wounds too." Alice shrugged while grabbing another fruit to enjoy.

Leaning back in his chair, Ragnar contemplated in silence while Alice happily ate her fruit and hummed to herself.

Shaking his head, Ragnar decided to ignore it for now and turned back to Alice.

He glanced at the bandages covering her body and saw that there were no bloodstains today meaning the fruit had taken some effect. Yet her body was still a complete mess despite eating so many.

"What did you do to get this injured?" Ragnar asked curiously.

"I got thrown through the Void and ended up here." Alice replied truthfully as Ragnar's smile faltered.

"You got thrown through the Void and all you got were these wounds? Young lady, you do not know how lucky you are." He remarked, feeling surprised by her survival since she didn't seem like the kind to joke about these things.

If she truly got thrown through the Void and then expelled, she should be dead right now! She wouldn't even have tanked the damage enough for wounds to appear yet here she was, eating her fruit happily. Meaning these weren't the damages caused by the Void.

If it was, it would've looked far more different and violent.

Judging by the wounds, her energy and the state of her body overall, Ragnar concluded that this was probably self-inflicted to some degree. Whether it was through a Ritual or by consuming extremely potent berserk blood, it was clear that this was an issue with Alice's body itself rather than an outside source.

Something must've gone wrong inside.

"So how do you plan on healing it? Or are you going to keep fighting like this?"

Rummaging through her pouch, Alice held out the newly acquired Ravager blood.

"I wanna say the Berserk Regeneration of the Ravager should be good enough to heal me. My friend tried using healing blood but it didn't really work. The healing immediately stopped once it got past a certain point."

"I don't suggest that. The Berserk Regeneration the Ravager uses comes with a steep cost. If a human were to activate it, it'll permanently decrease your defences and even take a portion of your lifespan. That and I don't believe this would be a good solution for your situation.

It'll just fade away after a little while and your body goes back to what it is now." Ragnar shook his head as he didn't want to see a talented young lady ruin her body further just for a moment of healing.

"Is it that bad?" Alice tilted her head. The side effects didn't bother her but she couldn't say that in front of him. Not only that, but she was unsure how the second half of the side effects would influence her.

"Just keep eating that fruit and your wounds should close up in due time. Though the issue may be somewhere else entirely." Ragnar shook his head, confusing Alice.

But there were two things she learned from his response.

First, he believes that drinking the blood would indeed 'fix' her body but the cost was permanent damage and lifespan.

Second was that the fruit was enough to fix her.

Alice wasn't sure why he was so confident in this but she had to admit that her body felt a little better than yesterday.

If this was yesterday, one movement would've been all it took to reopen her wounds and collapse on the floor, slowly bleeding out. But that wasn't the case. Her body healed enough that she could make the same movements but come out relatively unscathed.

Thinking about it for a moment, Alice decided to keep the blood for now. If the fruit continued to heal her body over the course of a few days then she saw no reason to charge in blindly. This was also going to be her test for the fruit.

Talking for a little longer, Ragnar asked what kind of beast she was going to hunt tomorrow but Alice was unsure.

All Bo said was for them to enjoy the night while he asked Torgeir about what was happening. Nothing on their next target so Alice couldn't even ask for more information from Ragnar.

Talking to Ragnar for a little longer, Alice figured it was time to head back and thanked him for the fruit. After which she stumbled away with uneven steps since she was still drunk.

###

Sitting in his office, Torgeir could be seen with pure exhaustion in his eyes. Towers upon towers of documents were placed around him as he looked at the current report.

Since the teams have returned, he has been doing nothing but going through the reports and trying to figure out what exactly has been going on.

When were the beasts sighted? What was their travel path? How long did it take them to get to where they were eventually killed?

Pinning everything on a map using strings and needles, Torgeir could see that most of the beasts targeted the outpost.

It wasn't that they were just running from the frontline no. Some of them made drastic curves to their path towards Kvia.

Leaning back, he let out a deep sigh and massaged his eyelids.

He wasn't sure if they were attracted to something within this outpost or if it was due to someone else's interference. If it was interference, he'll need to reinforce the defences of the outpost.

'I'll reduce the number of teams going out for Hunts and rotate them around. Half of the teams must be on defence at all times.' He concluded.

The frontlines still need their reinforcements so he couldn't stop the training of the new recruits but they also need to increase their defences. Overall, it was a headache situation for Torgeir.

'Maybe I should think about retiring soon.'

Letting out a yawn, Torgeir stretched his body and continued to slave away at his desk while everyone had gone to sleep.