System Programmer Chapter 12: Trolling The Snakes

Catherine rolled her eyes when hearing this.

"I'm glad you're so enthusiastic, just try to not get us all killed," she said.

"I know what I'm doing... most of the time," he added as she pointed to a burned mushroom.

He made three drones appear and had them fly around the party. It was the maximum he could deploy with his current energy stock.

"You can see through them too, right?" he asked.

"Yes. What are you planning exactly?"

"Just watch," he said while flying over towards the snake along with the drones.

The snake was circulating around the island as usual. Joshua kind of pitied the snake for having nothing better to do and figured it had to be bored out of its mind. Therefore, he decided to do the snake a favor and give it something to do. As soon as the snake was in sight, he made some noise to draw its attention. As usual the creature immediately focused on him and drew closer.

When the snake was within the hundred meter range, Joshua launched the drones at him. They were flying at high speed, turning around the snake. It was clearly annoying by those pesky little bugs and tried to swallow them, but the drones were too fast. Joshua snapped his fingers and activated the rune engraved into the drone and suddenly lightning shot from the drones toward the snake.

He decided to use his lightning rune since that was the element he controlled the most. By using a combination of the rune and his new aiming assist, the drones were shooting small electric attacks at the snake at regular interval. While the damage was low, the snake was clearly irritated and was starting to move frenetically between the drones, trying to catch them.

The rest of the party was observing the situation from a safe place. They were wondering what Joshua was doing, while his attacks were hitting the snake, there was no way he could beat it that way. They looked at Joshua, he was just standing there, looking smug while drinking a cup of tea.

Finally, the snake couldn't take it anymore and charged at Joshua. Seeing that, he simply entered the ground below him, causing the snake to hit its head. You could hear it scream in anger. Joshua merely reappeared a few meters further up and resumed shooting with the drones, waving at the snake.

The snake was growing livid and charged again. Of course, the result was the same and it hit its head against the ground. This while circus lasted for a few minutes, the snake growing more and more restless while Joshua was messing with it. By the end, Joshua was even yawning at it, clearly making a fool out of the snake.

The snake tried to stay underwater and hit the ground with its tail, but to no avail. The rocks were too solid, and the drones merely had to shoot the water near it for the lightning to connect to it. Ultimately, seeing nothing was working, the snake retreated and quickly disappeared from view.

Joshua dismissed his drones and went back to the party, looking extremely smug.

"What an idiot. He never thought about changing tactics," he said.

The group was kind of taken aback by what just happened. While it had technically worked, the beast was still alive, he had just annoyed it so much it left.

"You know those things are going to come back as soon as we set sail again right?" Catherine said.

"Of course they will. That's where the next part of my plan comes in. Oh… actually, it looks like they're already coming."

Luna had just detected several forms approaching, it looked like the snake had called its buddies.

'Perfect!' thought Joshua. It was actually safer to try out the next phase while still on the island.

"Catherine, prepare to summon the boat, we should be ready to leave soon."

Catherine was not sure about the situation but nodded, deciding to trust him.

He summoned his drones again and waited for the snakes to arrive. There were five in total. Joshua recognized the one who he had annoyed by all the bruises on its face it had obtained by hitting the ground. He waved at it causing the creature to let out a big roar.

He launched his drones again, like before they started to rapidly circle around the snakes, causing them to get annoyed. They tried to bite, but the drones were too quick. However, these snakes seemed to be able to coordinate their actions and by launching multiple attacks toward the same drone, they managed to swallow them, one by one. Seeing this, Joshua's gaze took a more worried look. As for the rest of the party, they thought Joshua had bitten more than he could chew by facing five snakes at once.

The three snakes that had grabbed a drone looked at their bruised buddy in disdain before turning their head toward Joshua. They all lowered their head and stopped about five meters from him, all smiling.

Joshua just smirked and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, three explosions went off, one inside each snake. The snake's bodies instantly disintegrated, as Joshua expected. Those creatures were spirits, like him, so he knew if they took too much damage, their physical form would be destroyed. He expected to see their soul form float around but was surprised to see none. There was nothing remaining after the explosion, leaving him confused.

The remaining two snakes saw their three buddies be reduced to nothing just like that and looked at each other. The one already bruised just bolted it. The remaining one hesitated before following.

Seeing this, Catherine didn't waste time and started to create the boat while questioning Joshua.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"I copied the rune those crazy crows had on their bodies. Honestly putting it on a little machine that explodes is a far better use of it."

"I see… So you let them swallow the drones on purpose?"

"I did, you may have noticed they didn't attack with lightning that time. I can only put one rune on a drone for the time being."

"Do you think they'll come back?" Lydia asked.

"Probably not immediately. There is something bizarre about those things, but I'm not sure of what. I suggest we move as far as we can before they manage to form a new plan." Joshua replied.

The boat was soon ready and everyone hopped on. Not wanting to waste time, the twins moved at full speed. They quickly found the cavern wall again and moved alongside it. They sailed for a few hours without any trouble. Finally, they arrived at the end of the lake. Everyone was surprised things went so smoothly, but no one complained about it. Soon, they reached the shore and sailed by it, until they found a passage in the wall. The passage was fairly large, about thirty meters wide. Joshua took a peak and saw it was a corridor going downwards. They checked for other passages, but it was the only one they found so after sailing back to the passage, they landed next to it.

Catherine dismissed the boat, they would no longer need it. It was around noon, so they briefly paused to eat lunch before going down this new corridor. They walked for about an hour before emerging into a large area, spreading several hundred meters in diameter with a ceiling comparable in height as the one of a cathedral. This new place was covered in bizarre fungi, with many stalactites and stalagmites sticking out the ceiling and the ground. The area was very humid, with many small ponds present, with fish swimming in most of them.

As they explored the area, Catherine and Joshua detected something unusual. There appeared to be a humanoid looking figure further ahead, except it was surrounded by something, making it immobile. Joshua went ahead to look and soon saw a large cast of ice with a person trapped in the middle of it. The person inside appeared to be an extremely old man. To his surprise, Luna detected the man was still alive.

'Did this man freeze himself so he wouldn't die?' he thought, but he quickly shook his head. The idea was ridiculous though, who would freeze themselves over ten kilometers below the surface.

Informed by Joshua, Catherine brought the party next to the giant ice coffin.

The group started to debate what to do.

"Now that's something you don't see every day," Eric said.

"Should we do something about this?" Cynthia wondered.

"I mean, I could probably melt the ice if you give me a few hours, but if we do that, the man would probably die soon, judging by the state he's in."

The discussion went on for a few minutes. Joshua was keeping watch but didn't detect anything besides this old man. The talk came to an abrupt end when they all heard a voice in their head.

"Run… It's coming back…" it said.

They all turned at the figure, the message seemed to have come from the old man.

"What's coming back?" Joshua asked. He didn't detect anything so he wasn't worried.

"Wait… there is something over there!" Catherine said, pointing in the direction she perceived something.

The party looked but no one saw anything besides Joshua. What was coming toward them was a spirit hiding its presence. Since it wasn't a physical object, Luna's radar couldn't detect it.

Not only that, Joshua recognized the shape all too well. Those long necks and dumb snake faces were all too familiar. There was a major difference between the ones he had seen before though, All the snakes were connected to a single body. Remembering mythical creatures he had heard about in his past life, Joshua could only attribute the term 'Hydra' to such a monster.

The creature looked at him with its many heads with anger, recognizing him. Clearly, this was the main body of those snakes they had encountered in the lake.

Joshua saw the hydra focus its energy and take a physical form, appearing in front of the party. He quickly summoned three drones, realizing his cheap tricks wouldn't work a second time.

Chapter end