บท 18: Nest

In the next month, Ray and Yuki had travelled through many lands and reached the first nest in Qom, Iran.

Ray and Yuki stopped outside a stadium just as the sun was setting. They stopped as Ray's tablet started loudly beeping when they were passing from next to the stadium.

Ray stopped, quickly turned off the alarm, and jumped into another building. Yuki followed him. Just as they hid under a broken wall inside the building, a swarm of bee entomorphs buzzed out of the stadium.

Ray and Yuki held their breath as the swarm came and started flying in a circle over the place they were standing before.

After some time, the swarm goes back inside the stadium. Ray peeked out of the broken wall and started scouting the area. When it was clear that there was no entomorph remaining in here, he stepped out.

Yuki got out too and asked, "Looks like we found the first nest. What's the plan?"

Ray said, "First, we need to get a little far from here. We can't stay here. Come with me and don't make a noise."

Saying this, Ray started walking out of the building. Yuki followed.

Both of them got a few 100 meters away from the stadium and decided to set up camp in a broken building in that place as the sun was setting.

Ray put his bag down and started taking out ingredients to make food as Yuki went inside to gather stuff to start a fire.

Ray took out some nuggets he had stored in the bag's freezing section and some potatoes. As he started peeling and then cutting the potatoes in a slim, round shape. Just as he was done, he saw Yuki coming back while pulling a small kitchen trolley with a lot of papers and some wood on it.

Yuki came closer, and as he saw the nuggets, her eyes lit up.

Ray noticed that and said, "Yes, we're eating meat today. We need it for tomorrow."

Yuki cheered, "Yes, let's gooooo."

Ray chuckled as he gathered some paper and wood and lit a fire on them using a lighter.

He used some more wood to make a hanging platform on the fire and put a pan on it.

In 30 minutes, "freshly fried chicken nuggets and potato chips were ready."

Both of them practically gobbled the food in a moment as they were tired and hungry after running all day.

After finishing eating, Ray said, "Now. Let's make a plan."

Yuki wanted Ray to forget about attacking nests, but as it had seemed that Ray didn't, she had nothing to do but go along with it.

Yuki said, "Yeah. How will we attack?"

Ray took out his tablet and, after a few taps, showed it to Yuki.

As Yuki saw the screen, she couldn't believe her eyes. On the screen, there was a top-down thermal view of the stadium. The bee entomorphs had turned a corner of the stadium into their nest.

Yuki said with awe, "Huh? Where did you get a thermal drone?"

Ray laughed and said, "Borrowed it from the Afghan army. I found it when we were gathering weapons in that base last week."

Yuki said, "You... You're a genius."

Ray laughed again. He said, "Look at the body count on the bottom right."

Yuki looked at it. The count was saying 117.

Yuki smiled as the number was less than what she expected.

She said, "Looks like it would be easier than I expected."

Ray said, "Yeah. Now, here's the plan..."

Ray explained his plan to Yuki in details.

"..is that clear?"

Yuki said, "That's... that's a pretty daring plan. But yeah. It feels credible."

Ray smiled and said, "That's it then. We attack tomorrow morning."

"Yes, master."

Ray readied his sleeping bag and slid in as Yuki got cosy right next to the headrest.

Next morning, both of them woke up and got ready to attack the nest.

Ray picked up a rifle, which he had taken from that base too. He also fitted all 21 knives he had to his belt.

They carefully got close to the stadium. Once they were close, Ray took out his tablet and took a look at the drone feed once more to figure out their position.

Seeing this, he picked out the stadium gate that was the farthest away from the nest to enter.

Just as they entered, Ray and Yuki both went to the two sides and started going forward along the stadium border.

Ray slowly got close to the nest and telepathically said to Yuki, "Yuki, I'm close to the nest. Did you reach it yet?"

Yuki said, "Wait a little moment. I'm having to take a longer route as some debris was blocking my path."

Ray said, "OK. I'm waiting."

After around five minutes, Ray heard Yuki's voice in his head. She said, "Ok, master. I'm here."

"Good. We jump in together at the count of three."

"OK."

Ray started counting to three as he started channelling Spirit energy to the rifle. Just as he said three, he jumped in the nest and started shooting at everything he saw moving. The gun started to shake after Ray fired around 50-60 energy rounds, and it exploded.

The explosion sent Ray flying to a corner. He grunted as he fell down to the ground. Ray said as he got up while rubbing his back, "So, channelling spirit energy in a rifle is no go."

He stood on his feet and looked forward. There were eleven bee entomorphs buzzing in front of him.

He took out two knives, channelled spirit energy into them, and jumped forward.

In a swift slash, he divided two bees into two parts each. He threw away the broken knife and took two more new ones and started fighting the other bees.

Ray didn't feel much challenge as the bees felt weak to him. He was cutting through them like butter. He started going more and more inside the nest as he cleared every section of it.

Suddenly he turns a corner and finds himself in a big empty space. He looked around, but there weren't any bees in sight. As his eyes ventured onto one side of the room, he froze. There was a bee entomorph floating there. Ray wouldn't be scared normally, but he started shaking as that entomorph was around 2.5 times larger than a normal bee entomorph.

Just then he heard a loud sound. When he looked in that direction, he saw there was a small hole in the wall and Yuki standing in front of it with an entomorph's dead body under her paws.