Skill-Eater: Prison World Saga-Chapter 38: Sudden Storm

About an hour after lunch, Edge felt a tingling sensation building around his temples.

This time around, he knew what it meant. “Sakura, is that you? I didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon.” He assumed that she was just checking in, but it turned out that his new partner had something far more urgent to convey.

“Edge. There’s no time to waste. A living storm is crossing the grasslands, and it’s headed your way. The scouts will probably notice before much longer, but every second that that the expedition can use to take shelter will reduce the chances of casualties and minimize the damage inflicted to the wagon train.”

He was running before Sakura finished her sentence. Edge knew firsthand just how destructive living storms could be. After all, he had barely survived the one he had encountered shortly after binding his core.

Living storms, also called seeker storms, moved fast and were accompanied by hurricane-strength winds that could wreak havoc upon the unprepared. While that was bad enough, their true danger was the golden lightning that fell from the storm clouds like raindrops. It was a magical phenomenon that actively sought out living beings, especially if they had cores. If the storm caught the caravan before they had something sturdy over their heads, a lot of good people were going to die.

He made it to Gram’s side a breathless minute later. When the expedition’s leader saw the look on his face, he gave Edge his undivided attention. “What’s wrong? Did you spot something dangerous out there?"

“A living storm is headed our way.” Edge delivered his message, pointed into the distance, then took a long drink from his canteen.

His report caught Gram by surprise. “I didn’t know that you were mana-sensitive or had some type of weather-sensing skill.”

Fortunately, he had come up with an explanation along the way. “I’m not and I don’t. But after being caught out in the open by a seeker storm, I seem to have developed a proficiency for spotting them.”

Tessa had activated a skill the moment that he relayed Sakura’s warning. “He’s right. It’s faint, but I can sense mana gathering along the horizon. We need to move fast. It won’t be long before it arrives.”

Edge didn’t know the details, but the expedition’s senior staff had prepared for just such an occurrence. The instant that Tessa confirmed his report, Gram reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a flare gun. He pointed it straight up and then fired a bright blue flare into the air.

There wasn’t enough time to move that many people and wagons, and there wasn’t a suitable shelter nearby regardless. Instead, people with a select collection of skills came running while Gram and the other team leaders supervised their efforts.

Edge stepped back and got out of the way, returning to Trapper’s crew as he watched the proceedings with interest. While the quartermasters sprinted to the supply wagons to provide the shelter teams with as many mana seeds as they needed, the cored individuals went to work.

The only way to survive the prolific discharges of living lighting that seeker storms put out was to have something solid over your head. Preferably before it found you, or the shelter would have to endure a substantial barrage before the storm moved on.

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To that end, people who could shape defenses on short order had been issued contingencies for just such an emergency, and they put their expertise to use now. While everyone moved off the road, so that the skills the expedition was about to deploy didn’t destroy it, the handlers did their best to calm the beasts that were pulling the wagons.

Another reason why this type of magical weather was so dangerous was how quickly it advanced. It had only been five minutes since Sakura warned Edge, and roiling clouds had already devoured a wide swath of the sunny sky above.

By now, the storm winds were raging across the prairie. The caravan only had about ten minutes until the stormfront broke over them, at which point, the lightning would obliterate anyone who was still standing out in the open. It was clear to everyone that the approaching clouds were part of a living storm, since they were dark blue and glowed with their own inner light.

The shelter teams were hard at work, creating enclosures made from a variety of skill-manifested materials. Some had dug down into the earth to form caverns and burrows, while others raised walls of wood or stone. Edge even saw one woman making houses formed from glistening gemstone, which had to be made from mana given physical form rather than a substance-shaping skill.

They packed the beasts and wagons in first, along with the caravan’s uncored members. The specialist assigned to Trapper’s crew had arrived two minutes earlier—a man who drew slabs of raw rock from the ground and molded them like they were made of wet clay. Violet and Blue went in first, followed by the rest of the crew. The man left the side in the lee of the wind open, so that the dino didn’t panic from being trapped in the dark while the seeker storm raged outside.

Edge stepped inside the shelter a couple of minutes before the storm broke over them. Meanwhile, the gale rose to hurricane strength, screaming like a banshee as it sent the prairie heaving like waves on the ocean. As Violet spoke soft words to soothe Blue, they watched the living lightning fall upon the grasslands—each blast targeting a creature unfortunate enough to have been caught by the deadly magical weather.

It was exhilarating and terrifying in equal measures to witness the unbridled fury of the storm. Edge knew all too well what it was like to be out in one, with only a few seconds of golden glow for warning before the lightning touched down. Fortunately, everyone in the caravan had taken cover before the storm arrived, so they didn’t have to test the strength of their shelters against an electric barrage.

The only good thing about seeker storms was that they traveled so fast that they never lingered for long. If you made it to cover in time, the worst was already over. Less than an hour later, the golden lightning stopped striking, the thunder died down, and the shimmering blue clouds disappeared as quicky as they had arrived.

It took another half hour to reform the caravan, then the expedition continued on its way. They left the shelters they had created along the sides of the road, where travelers could use them in the future.

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Edge cast his gaze across the endless prairie as he continued marching south, grinning at just how much he had changed since the last time a seeker storm had rolled across the plains. There were patches of smoke and steam in the distance—where the biome’s natural defenses went to work putting out fires. Other than the scorched sections and the silence that arose from the creatures still hiding in their dens, you would never know that the storm had passed through.

The rest of the afternoon was blessedly uneventful. Nothing more exciting than some hunters attacking a stage-two beast that was more than they could handle, which was resolved as soon as the caravan’s defenders saw their flare and came running to the rescue. Everyone pushed themselves hard, doing their best to reach the borderlands before sunset after being delayed by the storm.

A few more hours should see them to the edge of the Ivory Plains. According to the coordinates the System had sent Dialla, the dungeon was only a couple of miles further out. It meant that the first stage of their mission was nearly over. Soon, the most dangerous part of their adventure would begin.