Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Tunnels

The odd party left Sooka at dawn. 

"Ooo... It's c-c-cold..!" Sekrit whines, her long and shapely legs trembling as they walk among the snowdrifts. She is accustomed to life on her feet, but her first time on a snowy mountain is still something of a surprise.

A rope tied all members of the party together. Scaling the snowy peak would not be easy. The fluffy white snow carpeting the ground is deep and cold, and if anyone is unlucky, their foot might find a place where there was nothing but loosely packed snow. There were spots with sharp fallen rocks, where a careless stumble could cost one's life. 

I, who came from the other world, become even slower as I grow colder. I nod at Ivanna who is looking at me with worry, and put my palm into my pants' pockets.

"Oi, deadpan chick. How does it look ahead?" Clementine who is second last on the row calls.

Mirai is plodding just a bit ahead of us. She looks down the ridge of the mountain, comparing  their position to the map in her hand.

"We're almost there." Mirai answers in monotonous tone.

Be that as it may, the scene before them is an uninspiring one. A dark hole marred the white landscape of the mountain. Waste from orcs are piled to one side of the entrance. It is certainly the place that monsters would call home.

"We need to get warm." Sekrit pleads. 

"Hey, deadpan chick. All right if I start fire?" The peppy Clementine points towards a cave. 

With skill befitting a commander, Ivanna pulls out some dry branches. 

We shelter Inn a small cave we dug out of snow so orcs wouldn't see our fire. The sky, heavy with clouds, is still slightly dark, the sun is weak and far away.

"Sunset is near. When our bodies have loosened up, we'll go in." Mirai and Kurotsuchi loosen the strap on her armour and set down their bags.

"Are you sure it's all right to do that? Aren't you cold?" Ivanna look at them worryingly.

"If we don't spend at least many minutes this way, our bodies will never relax. Kurotsuchi explains in laid back manner, takes off her gauntlets, squeezing her rough but perfectly snow white hands.

Clementine who has a gauntlet on her left hand, looks at Kurotsuchi's intently. 

"Your gauntlet is weird." 

"Oh, you mean this. This is, to be precise, shin guard. It is Sarutobi clan's specialty."

Clementine's gauntlet is totally made of solid steel but Sarutobi's shin guard consisted of vertical armour plates of iron and leather connected by hinges. 

"Your gauntlet is beautiful. " The black haired girl with voluminous bob haircut points to the blonde's gauntlet that looks like the pure, immaculate hand of a maiden. It is white in colour and its slender proportions are covered in elaborate gold embroidery, which further emphasizes its exquisite beauty. 

"You should rub your arms and legs, otherwise you will get frost bite." Mirai gives advice apathetically. 

"Eep." Sekrit and Clementine yelp. With a frown, they begin to work their fingers along their limbs.

"Your feet too." Mirai is still in flat tone.

We take off our boots and socks and begin rubbing our fingers and toes.

Quietly, Mirai reaches nimbly into her bag and pulls out a flint.

Sarutobi girls kneel on the ground, place collected dry branches in front of them, and crouch over the branches. ... Mirai holds the small dagger in one hand between her thumb and index finger. ..She grasps the flint in the opposite hand with the sharpest edge toward the steel. She strikes the steel against the sharp edge of the flint with a quick downward motion. 

Indeed there are sparks but the sparks are quickly extinguished because they are too weak for cold weather.

After countless attempts, the small sparks still fail to cause dry branches to rejuvenate. 

"We cannot start a fire. It is too cold." Both girls seem frustrated. 

Clementine grins and take out her lighter. She presses the yellow button and a flame comes out. The Sarutobi girls are thunderstruck.

Clementine touches the flame to the dry branches, subsequently the branches are kindled.

"Wh... What is that?" Kurotsuchi is so dumbstruck that she observes that from very short distance. Even the impassive Mirai's eyes go wide.

The three girls smile proudly as the Sarutobi girls are looking at the lighter in disbelief.

"How... The flame...it is not blown out by the cold  air." Kurotsuchi feels the heat with her palm.

"Hiro made this things. This is called a lighter." Ivanna interposes, it seems she is still bitter about my puzzling silence on this thing.

"Woooa. You really pique my interest." Kurotsuchi closes her blushing face to me with her both hands in girly randy gesture.

"As expected of a tie breaker." The usually lifeless Mirai suddenly turns sparky, her face becomes blushful.

I could feel their amorous desire towards me.

"Anyway, thanks to this lighters, we could set anything on fire anytime and at any situation." Feeling awkward, Ivanna tries to divert their attention from me and she somehow does the trick.

The Sarutobi girls play with lighter for a while.

We then heat up the herbal tea brought given by Hiruzen and pour in cups. We each begin to sip at their drinks. We are only seeking a bit of warmth. 

After drinking for a while, I notice something peculiar at the place where the orcs three their waste. 

"You also notice?" Mirai who is also staring to the same direction, she seems to feel disturbed.

We pack our stuffs and wander to that place.

"The tunnel looks wide enough." Said Sekrit, who have peeked around the snowdrifts for a look at the entrance.

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"Orcs can see clearly in the dark. The entrance to the nest yawned silent. There doesn't seem to be any guard. Is it trap? A careless oversight?" Ivanna who is very experienced about orcs ponders some possibilities.

"Guh. The tea I drank didn't taste good anymore." Clementine says with a cluck of her tongue. She must have noticed that the waste at the entrance is more than just trash.

We cover our nose and mouth with clothes to avoid inhaling the terrible smell, then walk closer to the place.

We take a closer look. The headless body of a woman lay among the waste. The corpse had been thrown away as if it is no more important than a broken-up fence. 

Her equipment had been stripped off, the body is fully nude, the breasts are big. Much semen around the crotch area indicates clearly she had been much raped by the orcs. 

Cruelest of all, she must have struggled and the violence seemed to have continued after her death. 

"You said orcs keep women alive for months so the raped women could produce their offspring. This bruises and blood are still fresh. She was killed last night, probably after a hard battle." Sekrit questions Ivanna after she touched the corpse.

"The monsters' twisted nature know no bounds " Ivanna clenches her fists.

"This tanned body, she was obviously not from this cold region. A foreign mercenary." Ivanna clarifies.

"Then, there should be several of them, the mercenaries." Clementine adds.

We look at each other and nod.

"Let's go."

Clementine, Sekrit, Ivanna and I take out our torchlights and switch them on. The surrounding suddenly becomes irradiant. 

"Could it be, another of Hiro's stuffs?" Kurotsuchi struggles to hold her delirium as she hops several times.

The impassive Mirai is leering at me affectionately. 

"Come on, it is not the time for this." Ivanna interjects and pulls Mirai.

Unlike flame torches, torchlights are not affected by wind or snow. A torchlight is already bright. Now, we have four of them. 

The angle at which the tunnel had been dug means that even just a step inside, one is sheltered from snow and wind; one could almost be warm. If it weren't for the smell of meat and excrement that drifted from within, the place could almost be cozy.

"The path descends at steel angle." I commend.

"Yes but it goes right back up again over there." Kurotsuchi replies.

It looks like as if the orcs had dug down into the ground immediately upon beginning their nest and then come back up. The rather severe angle doesn't seem natural; most likely, these are handmade by orcs.

"Quite a clever barrier against rain and snow." Sekrit lauds, showing her fine knowledge of construction. She glanced back over her shoulder at the entrance.

"Any precipitation that blows in gets caught here and doesn't go further into the tunnels." 

"Orcs make things like that?" Clementine asks, blinking with perplexity. 

"I don't know." Mirai's answer is dispassionate, almost mechanical. 

She picks up a stick and use it to stir the pool of waste at the bottom of the depression. She clicks her tongue.

"All I can tell you, don't step into the water. There's trap inside. There are stakes at the bottom."

Kurotsuchi also picks up a stick and test the depth of the pool, frowns. 

"We need you to listen for enemies." Ivanna slaps her shoulder.

"Alright.. alright."

Kurotsuchi bounds nimbly over the feculent pool, but then winks waggishly and laughs. "I can't stand getting dirty so many times."

Clementine also jumped to her side and impishly bite Kurotsuchi's left ear. 

The two girls giggle.

"Hey, we have no time for that!" Ivanna lambasts at them.

Kurotsuchi takes out a fragrant sachet and hangs it around her neck. to keep the smells away.

After going up and down three more slopes, we arrive at the cave's main tunnel.

Sekrit examines the earthen walls intently.

"They seemed to have been dug with crude tools, rough and sturdy."

The layout of the cave doesn't seem too complex, and we follow the path for a while. There is no sign of orcs, only a pervasive stench of rot. Eventually, we arrive at a T shaped intersection. Mirai crouches down, scanning the floor carefully for footprints.

"Lots of footprints heading to the right." Mirai reported, clapping her hands to get the dust off them. 

"She couldn't always read man made building, but in natural settings like this cave, her eyes are reliable. To the right, there is sleeping quarters." Kurotsuchi comments.

We walk quickly through the tunnels, arriving at a large, hollowed area. 

Before us, there are over  a dozen of orcs, carrying shovels and pickaxes as if preparing for a surprise attack.

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