"Oh come on! I said I'm sorry already! I didn't know you can't eat spicy food."
"I can! It just!... What in the world are you thinking adding that many?!"
On one side was Victoria desperately trying to apologize while also trying to stifle her laugh. The one she was apologizing to was Rosemarie who was sulking and locking herself inside the car. The problem was Rosemarie wasn't ready for the hell-like surprise that awaited her in the form of super spicy spit-roast hot sauce and Victoria was also the one who laughed the hardest when Rosemarie was scampering for water, earning herself the Doctor's ire.
"I must admit I didn't expect that kind of reaction to spicy food from her."
"You can talk again about that when your swollen lips are gone, Hans."
"I will also admit that the hot sauce was on another level, how come you're fine, Sam?"
"Nothing special, just genetics… and also I've been eating spicy food since I was a kid."
"I want that kind of genetics too… I love spice with my soul, but my physical limitations wouldn't allow me to consume that many."
With a jealous gaze, Hans was staring at Samuel who was still nibbling at the leftovers of the spit-roast beef.
Victoria was proven to be a master at her craft, her roast was perfect and her seasoning was on point. Her hot sauce was a concoction of anything spicy and many other spices that she thought would fit the bill of "Make it hell", the words that Samuel said before he went to look for Rosemarie which she took as a challenge and also a green flag to make it as spicy as she could make. Even without the hot sauce, the roasted beef alone already has some seasoning on it which also makes it good to be eaten alone or with some potatoes. A pity, Rosemarie couldn't taste it because she got knocked out of the fight at the first bite that was slathered with the hot sauce.
For what Rosemarie had made, she made rice pilaf, tomato soup, and many other side dishes that go along well with roasted beef.
"Ah, it seems like she gave up."
"Hahaha… she did."
Victoria finally left the sulking doctor alone and went back to where the roasted goodness was or what was left of it. She chuckled to herself as she sat near her plate which had her unfinished meal earlier, she grabbed the bowl which still had a lot of the hot sauce and dumped a few spoons of it onto her roasted meat. She ate her food in silence for a while until she noticed the hilarious state of Hans's swollen lips and reddened face from forcing himself to eat the spicy food. She almost spilt her plate from laughing at it.
"W-What happened to your face!? God! It's so swollen! HAHAHA! Sorry, but, hahaha!"
"A sacrifice I'm willing to make."
"What does that even mean? Hahaha…"
While the two were laughing at Hans's expense, fortunately, he took it with a stride and also managed to insert his own joke into the mix. While he physically couldn't take any more spicy food, he had more than enough stomach capacity to finish the rest of the dish.
The stomach of a soldier should not be underestimated, as Samuel, against his expectation was the first among the three to hit his limit. He didn't think Victoria who was smaller than him could beat him in stomach capacity leaving him heaving for air from overeating.
"It seems like we will postpone moving out until past noon… gah… can't move… too full…"
Hobbling himself away from the fire camp he managed to get himself into the car without falling. Knocking on the window a few times to let the one inside know that someone was trying to get in, Rosemarie looked at him for a second before opening the lock, and letting him in. He flopped himself on the middle seat with his feet sticking out of the car. He bought a cheap cotton pillow from the shop, it was four credits for ten of it, Puffed it up a little then he laid on it comfortably.
"Oh, Rose, your face ain't puffed up?"
"No, even if it did, I could heal it quickly."
"Should've seen Hans's face, hilarious."
"I could imagine."
"Not angry anymore?"
"Not really… but I also don't forgive her yet, what does she think adding an inedible amount of chilli and pepper?"
"…I'm the one who requested it."
"But why?"
"Because I want to eat spicy things… sorry."
Rosemarie sighed and contacted Victoria via the chat function in her interface. Each personnel has their own system which while similar to what Samuel had, some functions such as shop function, battle report function, and many other things are missing. They're like the barebones version of what Samuel had. But as Samuel had, except the one who had it, no one else could see the screen, so Victoria couldn't see the screen belonging to Rosemarie and vice versa, Samuel also couldn't see what was happening on the individual's interface.
"System, System, on the air, where is the nearest gold mine?"
"What's the matter, Sam?"
"I wanted to buy a tank, but it was too expensive…"
"…Elaborate."
"We've been walking ever since we got here, right?"
"Yes, we just got here yesterday."
"As much as it was fun walking around on foot with all the fresh air in this place, I also want to do something cool… Riding on top of a tank seems like a cool idea to me. I've seen pictures of soldiers sitting on their tanks during the march, it seems like so much fun to me. I could play guitar or banjo or even ukulele while at it!"
"You can play guitar, Sam?"
"No… but I have all the time in the world to start learning it right now. I have no work to worry about, no bills and taxes to pay, well I have to worry about my credit balance but it ain't very pressing right now… So I'm more or less relaxed for now. All this free time, I have to start thinking about how I will fill it with things, maybe new hobbies or learning new skills. I don't want to sit around wasting this opportunity to explore a whole new world!"
Rosemarie giggled at his exclamation, she lowered the back of her chair until it was squeezing Samuel's legs lying in the back. Allowing her to be talking face to face with Samuel.
"Should we also aim for the sky, Commander?"
With a sweet smile completely devoid of her pout from earlier, she made a daring and alluring suggestion to the man who was hungry for adventure. She also switched back to calling him "Commander", indicating a change in the atmosphere of the conversation, making it feel more serious while still keeping it light. On her hand was a tablet and its screen was showing the "application" that he bought from the shop, the one that contained information about how far away he was from Earth.
"Let's see for a few years, Commander. Whether we are ageing physically or not, you say the system lists your age as trillions right? If we aren't ageing as we should, let's start thinking of revisiting Earth, should we? Also, in this kind of conversation, we should've brought along the others, this kind of decision is pretty big for the team. What do you think, Commander Sam?"
Without thinking any longer even surprising Rosemarie, Samuel got up from his seat and straight up yelled at those in the camp that he aims to go back to Earth in the future. Those he yelled at could only nod as they didn't know what led to their Commander deciding he wanted to go back so suddenly. He would tell them later, but now he wanted to let his stomach rest first, he wouldn't be moving anytime soon with how full his tummy was. At least, what he wanted to do in the future has become clearer a bit.
0o0o0
Hans was standing beside something that seemed to be a power tool, a drill to be specific. Something he had found during his investigation mission, sent alone to inspect a point of interest seen from the edge of the map in Samuel's system map. Rusted and broken, something that would happen to unmaintained and abandoned equipment. But the fact that there was a power tool, electronics, means that there was more to this world than what he had thought before. He could also see other metal tools rusting away in many of the corners of what seemed to be an abandoned mine. His scouting mission was not in vain and fruited a very delicious fruit at that.
He wanted to go deeper into the mine for further investigation, but the air was already stale and dry near the entrance, he could imagine how much worse it would be farther into the mine. Also, he saw some ominous unknown black-coloured minerals with a faintly illuminating red hue coming out of them, his instinct told him a chance of "KABOOM!" from those rocks so he refrained from touching them for the time being. He could be wrong but he won't take any chances, he already had his share of seeing people getting screwed from carelessly interacting with unknown rocks in the movies, from cursed rocks found in the depth of ruins in Egypt to mind-controlling rocks. He was already summoned to another world so those film theories already come a step closer to reality, way closer than he liked.
"That one is a power drill. That is… a cart? More destroyed electronics… probably abandoned in a hurry from how strewn about it was. Excuse me, I'll take some pictures…"
Hans took some more pictures of the surrounding abandoned mines. The rails, rows of carts with small locomotives in front of it, or what he assumes as a locomotive from the shape of it. When he was inspecting the artefact he failed to recognize what was what from the locomotive, what he thought was the engine had such a distinct design he had never seen before on Earth. He chalks it up as an other-world engineering wonder he doesn't know about yet… another nice piece of information that he could report back to camp.
When he was busy investigating the mini-locomotive, he found a corpse, it was already dust and skeletons but a corpse nonetheless. It still had its safety equipment on, a hard hat faintly bright orange in colour and a similarly coloured vest but also similarly faded, the fluorescent reflective patch was already broken and no longer reflecting lights like it was supposed to. What it wore was advanced safety equipment and around the corpse were many advanced pieces of equipment fairly comparable to modern-day not primitive.
"Well, I must report this, Excuse me… I'll take a picture of you, Mister… no name patch. Ok."
From what he saw, the skeleton was normal looking as in he didn't see any distinct shape like the crocodile people his group encountered yesterday.
As he was taking pictures he unknowingly walked further into the mine… no, he was completely aware that he was contradicting himself as he walked into the darkness with only the hand-crank flashlight as his source of illumination.
"Ooo I'm doomed, really, really doomed. Some big rat monster will definitely ambush me from around the corner."
He already had superhuman strength enhancement from his summon by Samuel's system but scary things are scary because they are scary for a reason. Even back in his army days, he wasn't very good with dark fairly enclosed narrow spaces with only a dim light to prevent him from being completely blind, it was a perfect horror film recipe and he loved and hated it at the same time. To combat this, he walked quietly but at a fairly brisk pace to cover as much ground as possible while making as little noise as he could. In one hand was his hand-cranked flashlight the other held the phone which was recording the whole journey through the claustrophobic hallways, the holster on his hip held a sidearm fully loaded to shoot anything that moved.
From the fairly wide entrance, the deeper he went, the narrower it got until it was only enough for a single railway for a minecart and a single adult on each side, some tunnel branches that he didn't take were only wide enough for two people walking side by side.
From what he sees so far, these people who abandoned the mine were mining iron ores and those ominous-looking black and red minerals. The minecart close to the entrance was cleared out of its contents but it seems like they didn't have the chance to collect the contents of those who were left deeper into the mine. He also found more of the skeletonised corpses deeper into the mine, some were buried… squashed under a cave-in, some just there lying on the ground for no apparent cause of their death… pretty ominous in his opinion… should he retreat now?
Despite his unease, he pushed through deeper into the mine, deeper into the darkness, inhaling every kind of fumes and possibly dangerous aerosol inside the abandoned tunnels. Already discarded his fear, he was left with a morbid curiosity about how far he could go before something bad happened. He was prepared for anything, to run, to shoot, to hurry skedaddle his way onto the surface for safety. But it was anticlimactic, he reached a dead-end, another skeleton… a couple of them in fact, huddled at the very end of it. One has one of its feet under a boulder, whoever that was when it was alive… was beyond saving from how deep they were. The other one… probably decided to stay with him until the end.
He will never know what truly happened here, but it was a sombering scene. It also sobered him from his adrenaline high, reminding him of his original purpose of why he was here in the first place. It was probably time to go back, he already had the documentation that he needed. The conclusion was there was more to this world than the primitive civilization they had thought before.
Also, whoever ran this place before… abandoned it in a hurry. Something happened a long time ago and his prayers go to those who were left behind and didn't make it, those whom he had seen along the way and to those who were he had not seen in the other tunnels.
With his physical capability, it wasn't long for him to run back to the surface without breaking a sweat. He ran past multiple cave-ins and their victims, and multiple abandoned carts with or without their contents, he left behind the soulless tunnels full of traces of civilization to go back to his camp.
He ran back into the tree line carrying the important knowledge of the other world to share with his comrades. Dancing among the trees, nimble and fast avoiding the protruding roots of the trees he ran with a heavy treasure inside his pockets, a treasure of knowledge of information. With a new sense of self, Hans felt small running among the vegetation imagining the things he could see in the future. He also remembered Samuel saying something about going to space and getting back to Earth. As he ran, everything sank inside his mind, it would be an adventure like never before.
0o0o0
Along the way, Hans came across a convoy of crocodile people, Archosauria, if he hadn't been mistaken remembering their name. They are all heavily armed with spears, heavy armour, large wooden shields, and many more weapons… they looked like they were about to go to war, which is probably the reason why, he remembered the thing about the fighting festival he heard from the hostage this morning.
There are few of them with gigantuous size and also comparably giant-sized armoury. They looked menacing and probably as strong as they looked, so he took note of them to be reported along with the finding he got from the abandoned mines.
"Should we pay a visit to the festival?"
Such was the thought that went through Hans's mind before he realized that he was stopped in his tracks and was spotted by the opposing group who also stopped and was looking at him, sizing him up with wary and curiosity. Hans was not very interested in fighting them all alone so using his speed and agility he threw off any that tried to catch up with him and safely arrived back into the camp without any pursuer on his tail.
Walking along the trail of water, he took his time formulating how he would do his report. The mine took priority since it told them that the world wasn't as backwards as they thought it was, so they could expect some encounter with an advanced civilization comparable to Earth, probably closer to Samuel's time than the futuristic Victoria's time which was approaching closely to the age of space-faring, or Hans's time that despite being farther ahead into the future was stagnated technologically, but still far more advanced compared to Samuel's time. Hans didn't know from which time frame Rosemarie came but looking at the trend he draws a conjecture that Rosemarie also possibly came from the future looking from the perspective of Samuel's time.
While it was relieving to meet some form of civilization that wasn't like something from the Stone Age, it also means that he should consider the possibility that they would fight this world version of the firearm. As it was now, they were using a very dated technology of weaponry even by Samuel's time standard. This changed everything from how they would approach things to how they would plan to respond to future aggression when they faced civilization comparable to or maybe even more advanced than Earth, always preparing for the worst, an age-old advice that almost always works every time.
"Now the crocodile people, Archosauria… was it? I see them not far from here… a convoy of considerable numbers, some big guys with big weapons and armour. The reasons are possibly related to the fighting festival mentioned in this morning's Prisoner of War interrogation. Yup, this is enough report for them."
Satisfied with what he thought, he hurried his walking pace with a phone in hand that contained pictures and videos of his findings in the mine and some of the big crocodile people from earlier.
This investigation mission has been a successful one.
0o0o0
A/N:
"If I had a gun and a bomb, I wouldn't be on the run to the tomb."
-Me hauling ass when playing Metro after running out of bullets and consumables.
