Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 105: Toying with the Poor Ricky

"Let me go! I won’t set foot again in that cursed fog!"

Ricky’s screams echoed across the wide area near what had once been their primary base. The area filled with trees looked far larger and wider after the fog had been pushed back than it had ever been.

But for Ricky, the world felt like it was closing in. John, Luke, Elena, and Cissel stood in a loose semi-circle around him, their expressions ranging from mischievous to dead serious, while they kept pushing him to the fog few metres away.

It had all started in the cool, quiet hours of the morning. The journey back to the towering Blue Serpentile trees had been strangely peaceful. As they walked, the team chatted in a semi-relaxed mood, the tension of the previous days’ slaughter, fear, and struggle finally beginning to ebb. They hadn’t spotted a single monster since the conclusion of the great battle at the den.

Yet, when they reached the orchard, they noticed the new fog boundary. The magic core at the den had pushed the fog back significantly. From their current spot among the blue trees, the wall of off-white was an hour’s walk away. John turned toward Ricky, an evil, knowing smile spreading across his face as he recalled the mocking glances from the night before.

So he instigated the others to corner and push the poor Ricky towards the fog!

"You heard him," Cissel said, her voice trembling slightly as she tried her best to resist the urge to laugh at Ricky’s pale face. "We need to test and see if we can sustain ourselves in the fog. We also need to know our own limits. The machines are blind in there, and we’ll have a huge advantage in any future clashes if we can survive the environment they fear."

"No way! Let Luke do it! He’s the perfect guinea pig for everything!" Ricky pleaded, pointing a shaking finger at the tall friend.

"Dude, I was just defending you minutes ago!" Luke barked, looking startled and deeply hurt by the sudden betrayal. He hadn’t been particularly excited about the prospect of forcing a teammate into the fog, but Ricky’s cowardice made Luke flip a switch.

He swung his big club in a few intimidating circles through the air before pointing the head of the weapon directly at Ricky’s nose. "Go, or I’ll carry you like I did yesterday and throw you in there myself. Your choice, ’partner.’"

"Guys... C’mon! This isn’t funny!" Ricky realised he was fighting a losing battle. He tried to run, he tried to wrestle his way past them, but against the combined strength and resolve of the four of them, he was utterly powerless.

"Since you’re going in anyway," John said, finally forcing the literal scaredy-cat through the edge of the off-white mist after three whole hours of playing cat-and-mouse with him, "take one pile of the blue fruits out. But remember what happened to me—don’t hold them out for too long once you’re inside..."

"Agh! Someone help! It’s burning me!"

Before John could even finish his instructions, Ricky did exactly what was warned of! After being forced into the fog, in a moment of panic, he pulled the fruit out of his bag. It reacted instantly to the fog, emitting a hiss of blue fire.

Ricky shrieked, dropped the fruit, and ran like a cat that had just had its tail stepped on. He disappeared into the fog, sprinting for several minutes without once looking back to see if he was being followed.

"Yet," John said, turning his eyes back to his laughing and smiling friends, his expression shifting to one of seriousness, "that proves it. You can enter the fog and sustain yourselves without getting any harm. The consumption of the river water and the blue fruit has altered your bodies, it seems. The question that remains now is: for how long?"

"How can we possibly know that without ending up like Ricky?" Elena asked, her brow furrowed in worry.

Cissel, however, had already grasped what John was thinking about. She reached into her storage device and pulled out a monster core. "The cores," she said, eyes brightening. "Before hitting our limits, we can easily clear an area around using the cores we have. Still... How do we know when we’ve hit the limit?"

"I’ll be by your sides," John promised. He turned toward the direction Ricky had vanished and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hey, man! We’re all coming inside the fog now! Do you want to stay in there alone?"

He didn’t wait for Ricky to make up his mind or crawl back out from where he was hiding. John simply turned and stepped into the off-white wall. The interior of the fog had changed significantly to his eyes. The off-white code structure made the pitch-black, oppressive appearance of the first day look like a distant, half-remembered nightmare.

’And I can even stay here for half an hour now!’ John noted. He looked at the timer in his peripheral vision—the one that had haunted his every move inside the fog. The countdown had expanded significantly. ’It seems they weren’t the only ones changed by the fruits and the water. My body must be adapting to the world laws as well.’

John watched as Cissel was the first to tread into the danger. Since the night John mistakenly asked her out for a date, she had become more trusting in everything he was doing, her usual sharp scepticism replaced by a quiet, observant faith in his leadership.

She didn’t hesitate; she simply stepped into the shifting wall of off-white mist and stood there, her posture relaxed as she tested the atmosphere.

Seeing her stand inside the fog normally made the other two gather up their courage. Elena followed first, her eyes wide with pure curiosity, and Luke came last. The latter took a long, lingering glance at the distant Ricky, who was still hovering nearby, not feeling a single shred of sorry for leaving the coward behind like this.

Ricky, finding himself truly alone, couldn’t help but wake to his senses.