Twenty-Seven
 
The dawn broke with hardly any notice at all. Constant black clouds obscured the sky even where the thick canopy allowed visibility. They had been living in a constant state of gloom since crash landing on the planet and Kon didn’t know how Alice knew when it was time to rise. A general lightening of the darkness was his best guess. Her toe to his ribs every day was how he knew when it was time to get up.
His groan preceded him as he got up, expecting aching soreness to be waiting for him. Instead it was a ravenous hunger. His legs were fine, no they were great. Steady as pillars of iron even as his stomach growled loudly in the cave. A heat flushed his cheeks but Alice was already shoving some beast jerky at him which she had cooked in the smoke the night before.
“Come on, I woke you up a bit early so you can get a head start on that node,” Alice said. She didn’t bother to whisper to spare Diur who growled loudly as she woke up and stared at them with sleep-addled eyes.
Kon followed Alice out of the cave and into the forest, the cool morning moisture rapidly waking him up as he gnawed on the overcooked chunk of meat. His jaw was starting to ache and he knew that if they didn’t find vegetables or fruit soon his body would start to have issues with the meat only diet. Not unless there were some supplements somewhere.
“Here’s good enough,” Alice kicked a spot on the ground and Kon folded up on himself as he sank into a cross legged position. He finished off the stick of meat as Alice momentarily disappeared then reappeared with the sack of F-Grade cores from the weasel rift. She tossed them to him and Kon slowly arranged them by his hand so he could grab them easily as he thought of the rune and how he’d use it.
“I comprehend my senses.” The words had come to him last night as he fell asleep. Similar in nature to Alice’s suggestion, but broader and more shallow than the original proposal. He hadn’t told her what he was going to do, but the words felt sure in his mind.
“Alright. Get to it, we have a busy day. Oh, and don’t melt your brain,” Alice said the last part with a dark chuckle as she walked away.
“Thanks boss,” Kon grumbled as he grabbed the first of the stones. He was worried about how he had changed the words and broadened it, but as the first rush of power invaded his body via his hand, those worries melted away. His gut drew forth the energy in a blaze of power, processing it and filling his body with heat. Bloody stone after bloody stone was taken and consumed, becoming nothing more than dust to trickle through his fingers.
Curved lines filled his mind as he pictured the rune. Trying to visualize his own brain and the rune nestling there took a moment, but then it clicked for him. Sweat broke along his body and the inside of his skull felt like a pressure cooker as the rune began to take shape. A distant part of him felt something wet and warm running down his face and his cheeks, but his hands grasped core after core as he thought on his statement and the shape of the fragment.
A headache formed as pressure mounted behind his nose and eyes to the point he felt ready to explode. Brain melting flashed by his inner thoughts, but he held on until his fingers grasped nothing but soil as he had finished consuming the cores. For a dreadful moment the pressure kept increasing to the point he was sure he’d split open and spill out across the forest floor. Until he wished he’d just split open to end the burning pain.
Then it began to ease. Slowly at first but then faster and faster until the pressure was nothing but a memory. Kon blinked and looked at the world with new eyes. Every shadow held more nuance, the light glittered off of the metallic trees and sparkled brightly. The soft loam was a thousand and one different granules of dirt and decayed wood, mulched together after a millennia.
Iron filled his nose and his hand touched his upper lip and came away smeared in blood. Alice loomed in front of him, her face blank as she stared at him with a single quirked eyebrow. He could see now the pores in her skin, the faintest white lines where scars had been. The stress lines that had begun to etch themselves across her face, how her red hair was actually several shades and not one mass of red.
He coughed and reached down to push himself up and the overstimulation hit like a truck. Every brush of his clothes was like sandpaper across his body and the feel of the dirt prickled like a cactus. He spat out a wad of blood and spittle and looked about blearily. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Minutes ago the forest had been gloomy and dark, shapes hardly recognizable more than forty feet away from him. Now it just looked like a faint overcast day. Everything was in stark relief and he could see further into the forest than ever before.
Alice’s hand landed on his shoulder and he reeled from the contact and her face loomed in front of him and his attention landed on a series of faint hairs that decorated the top of her lip, impossible to see before but now glaring to his vision.
“You went too broad. I told you, just vision. This is what happens when you try all your senses at once.” She harrumphed and shook her head and Kon’s leg buckled as he tried to walk.
“If you think you’re going to get any leniency on training, you’re wrong. Back to the cave,” she said as she half-pushed, half-lead him toward their entrance. Diur stood at the entrance and looked on them with concern but Alice waved her off before she could speak.
“He’s just overstimulated right now. Opened his sense too far,” Alice explained and Diur just nodded. Kon leaned over and threw up, the sensation of the world too much for him.
“It can happen to us too. When we open our eyes and ears for the first time and realize how much of the world has been hidden to us,” Diur sounded sympathetic. Kon growled and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Hit me,” Alice demanded. She stood relaxed as Kon tried to ball up his fingers into a fist. Then he got lost in the sensation of the muscles and tendons moving under his skin and Alice walked over and flicked him on the nose. The pain was tremendous and he reeled backward, falling to the ground.
“This is why I said vision. You’re going to slow us down and get someone killed if you don’t get up and master this, now!” Alice growled with true anger in her voice. Kon looked up and focused on the intent. His fuzzy brain finally made a connection. Emotions from yesterday resurfaced, of Alice willing to sacrifice herself so he could live. He wouldn’t be the reason she died here. He wouldn’t be weak.
“Get it together Kon. Get it together!” The thought roared through his head and he gritted his teeth and pushed the overstimulation to the side. For a brief moment he could focus, but as he got to his feet he was overwhelmed again. The way his leathers slid against his legs, how the muscles bunched and released, how air parted as he rose.
Over and over again he fought to control his newfound sense. Power continually pulled from his core and rose to his newest node. A river of energy that was slowly weakening. Alice grew tired of waiting for him and hit him in the shoulder lightly.
He screamed in agony at the new sensation as he slammed into the ground. His earlier thoughts fled as he grabbed at his shoulder. Diur clucked her tongue and leaned over him.
“This seems extreme. How far did he widen his senses?”
“He’s an overachiever. It’ll lower as he runs out of energy and he’ll be able to somewhat function.” Alice shook her head and grabbed Diur and led her off to the side. Kon could hear the shuffle of feet and the passage of flesh as they sparred with each other.
His river of power slowly faded away and he grew to be able to finally control his reactions. Each breath slowly loosened the tyrannical grip his sensory organs had on him until he could get to his feet. Throbbing pain in his shoulder disappeared with a few stretches and he brought his fists up. Alice glanced over at him and then bent parallel to the ground, backward, at the waist. Diur’s foot sailed through the space her chest had been. Alice lifted a foot off the ground and kicked the girl in the gut, just hard enough to fold her in half.
“Alright, you’re looking a bit better. Now, hit me,” Alice commanded as she stood straight. Diur groaned from the ground and tried to get up to her own feet, but Kon couldn’t pay any attention to that. He was too busy throwing a combination at Alice’s serious face.
The Knight’s speed increased marginally and he struggled with tracking it as she flitted around him, but it was a slight improvement from before. He knew where she was and could actually follow her with his eyes as she jumped to his left and tried to punch him.
Kon spun around the lazy punch and sent a roundhouse kick toward her head. Alice finally cracked a smile and leaned back just a scant few inches to let the toe of his boot pass her chin.
“Running on empty and you seem to have some better processing speed. Muscle strength and endurance has increased and you processed those cores nearly perfectly. You’re shaping up to be halfway decent,” Alice remarked as she led Kon around in a merry chase.
“Still struggling to adjust to all the new information. Just focus,” he chided himself as he finally cornered the Knight in the back of the cave. For five minutes he punched and kicked as fast as he could, not caring at all for defense, and she blocked every single attack. Sweat had started to appear on her hairline, so faint it was hardly noticeable.
“So, do you normally keep the mustache? Or is that just since we crash landed?” Kon said as he began to wane down. Alice’s eyes widened in anger and Kon sped forward as fast as his straining muscles could go. His fist connected to her sternum and he felt something break in his hand as it felt like hitting rock. It didn’t stop the smile on his face though.