Blood sprayed across the hilltop as Gaius severed the head of the sixteenth snowpyre, and as his body continued on its trajectory, he fired the Straight Shot in his left hand. Another snowpyre’s head exploded into bloody fragments, dyeing whatever white left onto the ground into a dark red. Dropping into a roll where he landed, Gaius’ knife snapped out to intercept a fragment of flying ice.

Cold blanketed his exposed face as the fragment zoomed past his body. The boy glanced at the remaining three enemies, and as they braced themselves for a new offensive, Gaius had vanished again. Air split with a howl as the furthest snowpyre keeled over, a clean red line on its throat.

Barely a second later, another snowpyre fell, a knife buried in its throat. The last snowpyre turned to track Gaius, only to face the barrel of Gaius’ Straight Shot levelled at him. Its head exploded, and the hilltop was empty of enemies once again.

Gaius walked over to the centre of the hilltop, where a veritable mound of snowpyre bodies were piled up. It helped to distract incoming enemies by drawing their eyes, and acted as an emotional baggage for those who dared to face him. It was Orb’s equivalent to setting up decapitated heads on a spike, and if not for the fact that Gaius didn’t have enough disposable spikes, he might have replicated the brutal sight on the spot. He was operating on a set of assumptions, but the idea that these beings were somewhat intelligent had served him well so far.

At first glance, it did seem that Gaius had the whole situation under control, but taking on what amounted to a small army wasn’t really realistic. It was fortunate that the snowpyres never got around to developing communications, since the group encamped below were clearly unaware of the fate of those who were sent up. If Gaius killed every single snowpyre dispatched to the hilltop, the ones at the foot of the hill would not know about this presence there.

At most, the lack of returning snowpyres might condition them to think that there was some unspeakable danger there. Gaius was banking for such animal instincts to kick in for his own sake.

The mound of snowpyre bodies continued to grow, as small groups of snowpyres continued to make their way up towards the hilltop, despite the gruelling climb. Gaius couldn’t really figure out why these snowpyres were headed there, but it was a lot easier now that they were coming separately. An exhausted snowpyre was little different from an exhausted human, and the young boy soon fell into a regular rhythm of ambushing a snowpyre that just ascended the hilltop, dragging the body over to the centre, and then returning to his ambush spot.

Over and over.

Since there wasn’t a sun in Heritage, the closest Gaius had to something that could tell the time was a small dial handed out to all Harvesters, which informed the viewer about the time remaining before the rift to the Basestation was closed for the week. If he didn’t make it back there, he would be stuck in Heritage for another three days.

That would not do.

The first day had flown by completely, but Gaius was never one that needed sleep. His body, however, was in an inordinately comfortable position for an ambush. It was a luxury he could afford to have against what amounted to humans with no sense of danger and caution, which the mass of bodies in the centre of the hilltop could attest to.

Were the snowpyres here replaced by an actual army, Gaius would have been forced to flee after a while.

The world shuddered, sending a ripple through the air that disrupted the ambient ether in the air as Gaius entertained himself with his thoughts, and the encampment of snowpyres below stirred. It was as though as an ancient beast had awakened, and within seconds, the snowpyre rabble had marched off towards the source of the ripple.

The ground shook with every step that the snowpyre army took, a cadence that would have alerted Gaius if they had moved like this hours ago. It was as though as they were declaring their presence, shouting war cries as they moved towards an enemy. Something had happened within them, and the boy wasn't really going to find out what it was.

Gaius glanced at the snowpyre army, and then at the hundred-plus snowpyre bodies that dotted the field of snow. After making sure that the army wasn’t going to return anytime soon, the young boy settled down to do a grim job of dissection. The little masses of energy inside the monsters he’d encountered so far — Gaius tentatively called them ether cores — definitely had value, even if the Basestation didn’t accept them.

The random gust of ether that had entered Gaius hours ago had dissolved in his body some time ago, and he was feeling all the better for it. His muscles weren’t protesting in pain, which should have been the case due to his level of activity in ambushing the snowpyres.

Unfortunately, Gaius didn’t know how to use these cores optimally. It was possible that they could be ingested orally, but the young boy didn’t really want to put something unknown into his mouth for swallowing. He had tested his sanity by placing the Flame Box into his water pouch, but swallowing something that came right out from a snowpyre was too much.

It wasn’t even sashimi or raw fish that could be used in sushi, so he ruled that out immediately. He might consider it, however, if someone he trusted tasted the core and said it tasted like sweets. That said, Gaius wasn’t going to let Nakama see these cores either. She didn’t need to be his tester.

“Oh, this one has five cores,” Gaius said to himself. “I wonder why?”

Does the number of cores indicate its level of strength? But Gaius didn’t notice any particularly outstanding snowpyres amongst the ones that he’d struck down. But that did seem to be the case, seeing as one of the five cores were larger and had a deeper shade of blue.

As Gaius held it in his palm, the core crumbled into dust, and energy rushed through his blood vessels again, this time in a far greater amount. There was some viscous quality to the energy too. If he likened the previous instance of energy as water, then this right here was corn starch or oil.

Gaius stared helplessly at his palm, and then placed the other orbs on it. Nothing happened. His daze continued for another minute or so, and then he went back to dissecting the last few snowpyres. Maybe he could try crushing them into little pieces when he went back to the Basestation, to use as an energy source for his artefacts.

After tossing the last snowpyre corpse aside, Gaius got up. If another Harvester were to see the sight of so many snowpyres killed, cut up and left on this hilltop, it was likely that the Harvesters’ map would be updated with a new danger again. He looked at the small pile of ether cores that couldn’t be packed into his bag, and then started descending the rooftop.

It was time to go home.