Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 295: War in the Sanctuary

“We got a big delivery,” Isaac announced as a literal metric ton of materials was dropped onto the square outside the [System], “No one touches it until it’s been checked over.”

Jason wasn’t being subtle, having literally just dumped out all the stuff in padded boxes, making sure to remove it from his storage devices a meter above the floor to ensure there was a loud clatter.

But being obvious was kinda the point. The louder he was, the more quickly Isaac could “notice” without seeming suspicious or revealing the full capabilities of his senses.

Isaac strode out of the building, once again proclaiming that everyone should back the hell away from the boxes until they’d been checked over. They’d gotten a few anonymous “donations” over the years, most of them coming from him, but never something as massive, or as suited for their current plans.

So Isaac was going to play the surly advocatus diaboli, thoroughly checking over every inch of the stuff, the suspicion of them getting the exact stuff they needed being directed towards the sender of the crates instead of him.

Up first was a thorough scan of the crates with his [Aura], then he poked certain spots with a remotely wielded Kabar, and then, the bomb squad he’d sent for arrived.

All in all, he wasted a good hour of everyone’s time, but that was fine.

Every crate had been checked, and enough snippets of conversation had been overheard that the possible uses for this stuff had become public knowledge, so the already massive crowd that had gathered to watch the bomb squad had swelled to absurd proportions.

“We’re not doing this here,” Isaac announced, “There won’t be enough space for everyone to watch, but we’ll broadcast it.”

And with that, he strode off northwards, stepping on the air a few times to get past the crowd, using his [Aura] to poke the rest of the team.

The area with all the greenhouses and crafting workshops had grown vastly in the last few years, to the point where it was larger than the original campus, but with a far more planned layout. After all, it had been built up over seven years, rather than seventy.

Most spots either held buildings and paths or were designated for greenery.

But there was a street that had one side that was just empty lots, waiting for stuff to be placed within.

Part of the reason it had taken so long to get anything done here was that it really wasn’t a priority to create animal sanctuaries, as long as Isaac had the stuff for it, they could make them at any point.

But the other problem was that when they did something that required the body parts of several severely endangered animals, someone was bound to throw a hissy fit. They needed a proper explanation for where they’d gotten that stuff from, and arranging for them to be “stolen” by Jason had also been very low on the priority list.

But things were in place, and now, they had to work their way through the summoning list.

Summoning List (Wildlife Sanctuary)

Name

Material Cost (Note: All parts must be wild-caught)

Mana Cost

Savanah Safari

Tier 8 Circle, 1 Lion Pelt, 5 Lion Skulls, 5 African Elephant Tusks, Impala Pelt, 12 Cheeta Claws, 4 Rhino Horns, …

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Savanah Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, 10 Rhino Horns, 200 Lion Teeth, 30 Painted Dog Skulls, …

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

Rainforest Restored

Tier 8 Circle, 3 Silverback Pelts, Cobra Venom Fang, 10 Flora Samples from the Desired Rainforest, …

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Rainforest Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, 15 Jaguar Pelts, 10 Anaconda Skins, 10 Indian Elephant Tusks, Complete Set of Chimpanzee Teeth, 20 Flora Samples from the Desired Rainforest, …

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

Arctic Ocean Floes

Tier 8 Circle, 15 Polar Bear Pelts, 1 Arctic Fox Skull, 5 Barrels of Crude Oil …

250,000 mana (max. 125 people)

Arctic Sanctuary

Tier 9 Circle, Fossil Walrus Ivory, 5 Narwhal Horn, 30 Polar Bear Pelts, 5 Baby Seal Pelts, 50 kg Whale Blubber, …

500,000 mana (max. 200 people)

…

Just looking at the list made Isaac wince. Even just the first six entries required an absurd amount of poaching to achieve. It was almost as if the list had been carefully curated to require the maximum amount of evil shit to fulfill. And then there was that note …

Not to mention that it wasn’t mentioned anywhere that this was a rewards-type summon, just sorta implied by the names. In reality, the first variant of every environment was just your standard 100 square kilometer pocket dimension that replicated the titular environment and filled it with animals. Animals that had never learned to fear humans and were exceedingly aggressive, but still, just animals.

And, perversely, the Sanctuaries were actually the more dangerous of the two. That was because they weren’t actually all about showing cute animals but earning the right to be surrounded by cute animals. They started out as what basically amounted to Dungeons, with the end result being dependent on how well you did in them.

One could retreat at any time, but there’d never be another chance at the prize, and completely beating the whole thing was damn hard.

In the end, it was decided that they’d just work their way through the list from the top. The people with the highest mana pools on campus had been identified long ago and asked if they’d be willing to help with projects like this, and gathering them only took slightly more time than Karl spent hooking up the broadcast. Five minutes instead of five seconds.

The portal flashed open inside a steel cage after the ritual had concluded, shining brightly and steadily, revealing a gorgeous vista on the other side.

“Well, nothing to do but go in,” Isaac said, and marched in with Raul and Amy following right behind him, while the others waited outside.

They knew there was nothing dangerous in there, now they just had to verify that in a way that could make its way into scientific publications.

***

The Savannah smelled … interesting. It was nice, natural, and free of most of the standard nasty smells like decay or, well, animal shit. Though the latter was currently in the process of changing, so Isaac hastily dialed his sense of smell back.

And then, a lion attacked. Amy dodged so quickly that the cat probably hadn’t even seen her move. In fact, Isaac had never seen a big cat look so absolutely stupefied.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, how far most of the natural world had been left behind humanity in terms of power.

The lioness, though, hadn’t quite realized what she was dealing with, attacking again and again until eventually, Amy just gave up on dodging or pushing the cat away with magic, which left her standing there, arm outstretched, with a big cat literally gnawing on it. It achieved absolutely nothing except to get her sleeve wet, but it looked silly.

Isaac snapped a quick picture while Raul gently pried off the animal and it scampered off, chastised without him ever having to say a word. This would probably repeat itself quite a few times.

Hungry animals that had never seen a human before, unable to comprehend the sheer danger magic posed to them until it was used to truly hurt them. Even a flashbang could cause damage if they were unlucky. Could they have figured out a way to chase off the animals with a spell in a way that would have absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever? Probably, but that might have been difficult.

Much easier to have a Ranger explain just what would happen to any critter that decided to push their luck. Less bloody too.

After dodging rhinos, hyenas, and one particularly ballsy cheetah for half an hour, they’d gathered enough information to confidently state this whole affair was a near-perfect replica of the savannah in South Africa, similar to the Kruger National Park, and that walking in without a stupendous level of protections would result in damages to the visitors, the animals, or most likely, both.

And then, they summoned the Savannah Sanctuary in the next lot over. Instead of a simple portal into natural, unspoiled, wilderness, a crimson wall manifested that just barely revealed a hellish, twisted, variant of the wilderness.

Welcome to the Savannah Sanctuary Creator!

As you make your way through these chambers, you will have the chance to determine just what ends up in what might be the last refuge for some of the world’s most magnificent species!

Every foe you defeat and challenge you overcome will enhance your final reward, securing another piece that can be added onto the Sanctuary you’ll receive when you cease your delve.

WARNING: You will only receive one shot at delving into this Dungeon, and after one hour without any challengers entering, the challenges will begin to spill out (rewards will still be doled out for out-of-Dungeon kills).

So yeah, this would have been a problem for most people. People who didn’t have a group of six S-Ranks to run that place.

“Let’s go,” Isaac announced, and led the way inside, stepping through the portal. The red veil covering everything vanished as he put his head inside, but other than things becoming easier to see, you wouldn’t know.

The skies overhead were red, occasionally broken up by coal-black clouds, while the ground underfoot was dry and dusty, the only vegetation present sparse, dry, and looking intentionally placed to present a problem. Brambles with thorns sharp enough to cut through most non-masterwork armor, thick patches of grass that blunted sensory [Auras] to a degree, clearly designed to allow for stealthy approaches.

But the most obvious and alarming flora were the trees, towering hundreds of meters into the sky, as they rose like skeletal fingers, spindly and dead. There were probably all sorts of nasties waiting up there.

“Lion,” Isaac warned via the party, highlighting its location in a patch of grass in front of them. It could have attacked right then and there, but lions were ambush predators. If possible, they wouldn’t charge straight into the teeth of prepared prey, instead waiting until it passed so it could go at its back.

At this point, it was pretty simple. He threw a fireball that, upon touching the grass, instantly ignited the entire patch. For a long moment, nothing happened, and then a very furious lion jumped out with a furious roar.

It was a full-grown male, majestic mane now ablaze. But even if the damn thing hadn’t literally been on fire, it would have still looked downright demonic. Eyes reminiscent of burning coals, a deep burgundy coat reminiscent of an old bloodstain, claws that gleamed like obsidian, jagged and cracked like someone had started hacking away at a chunk of the stuff, knocking off shards until something vaguely resembling a claw or tooth had come out.

All that being said, there was a massive difference between looking scary and being scary.

Amy’s forcebolt hit it between the eyes in midair, punching a marble-sized hole through the skull and expanding inside until it had completely crushed the lion’s skull until it finally impacted the back side of the bone, bringing the creature to a dead halt. After a split second, the spell vanished, the corpse thumped to the ground, and finally transformed into a token the size of a bottle cap. It depicted an admittedly adorable lion cub on one side and read “1 km^2 of space, 1 lion pride (4 males, 8 females, 1 male, and 2 female cubs)”.

The next set of monsters arrived after less than thirty seconds, a group of African Painted Dogs. According to Raul, they’d initially been called Wild Dogs by farmers who wanted to hunt them all down because few would feel bad for something with a name like that, but conservationists had recently renamed them to give them a more approachable name.

As Isaac saw it, they should have just shown people pictures of their young. Puppies. Everyone liked puppies, right?

And yes, Painted Dog puppies were adorable, but the new arrivals were neither young nor even remotely cute.

Pony-sized abominations with spots so dark they sucked in the light on a sulfur-colored pelt that stank to high heaven, foaming at the mouth, charging in a group of 37.

Shield spells flashed out, forming overlapping bulwarks while Isaac waved his hand and sent out a diffuse cloud of flame. Nowhere near enough to significantly drain his mana, but sufficient to ignite fur and blind eyes.

At the same time, the ground reshaped into a pitfall moat filled with razor-sharp spikes by Karl and Raul’s dragon flew high into the air, expanding into its regular size.

Blinded, confused, and distracted by the dragon, the dogs either outright fell into the pit, or slammed into the wall and then fell in.

A rapid flurry of spells and blades took out most of those that remained outside of it while Karl and Raul obliterated everything caught in the pit. No cooldown [Skills] needed, or [Skills] with a cost more than a couple of thousand points of mana for that matter.

The sanctuary was absolutely stuffed with crap, ranging from a rather irritating herd of unnaturally aggressive impala to, well the big five.

Lions, both as individuals and hunting parties.

Leopards plunging out of the trees from hundreds of meters up.

Water Buffalos proving why they were some of the most dangerous creatures in the world.

Immense Rhinos the size of trucks, with razor-sharp obsidian horns as long as Isaac was tall, who created massive shockwaves whenever they charged.

And worst of all, house-sized elephants that caused earthquakes by stomping, unleashed literal storms with their trumpeting, and had tusks that a mammoth would have been jealous of.

Sure, there was also the occasional wildfire, but the danger they posed was less than nothing with Isaac around, he just took control of them and hurled them at the monsters.

It took several hours, but by the end, they’d gathered so many tokens that they wouldn’t have fit in all their pockets combined, for a grand total of over two thousand. Considering that each of them would also add an entire square kilometer to the final pocket dimension, they’d end up with a huge area by the end of this.

Of course, they needed to deal with the final boss first.

It was meant to be some kind of incarnation of the savannah at forty meters tall, made largely of the dried and cracked soil of the wasteland, four elephantine tusks wrapping a leonine face, four arms tipped with obsidian claws ready to start tearing into the beast’s unfortunate victims.

The monster charged, great strides tearing up the ground, boosting its speed above that of sound in seconds.

But no matter how powerful the beast was, it was still “just” a Tier 9 [Field Boss].

Amy’s ability to combine spells had been dangerous in a group of regular mages. When it was her, Patrick, and Raul casting the individual components, the destructiveness was off the charts. An actual nuke could have more raw power, sure, but the spell outclassed even a Tsar Bomb in penetrative capacity and power concentration by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Most spells did, for the most part. The sheer power of the atom, harnessed for destruction, was not to be underestimated, but compared to even the crudest spell, it was a stone-age era sledgehammer.

In addition, the [System] did not like nukes. It didn’t prohibit them, it didn’t weaken them, but it did not particularly empower them either. Doubling the output was, as far as Isaac knew, the limit. Well, that, and a few other boons like creating some approximation of a shaped blast, reducing radiation output, and a few tricks that basically amounted to very limited friendly fire protection.

So no, the monster did not get erased from existence along with a large chunk of its surroundings. Instead, the basketball-sized sphere tore through its chest as if it were butter and detonated, spraying slowly disintegrating gore all over the place.

In the place where the largest amount of viscera had landed, a token rose to hover at chest height. It was larger, around the size of an adult’s palm, and depicted an idyllic ranch perfectly suited to the African Savannah. Really, it looked like a child’s playset.

The opposite side spelled out how this token added another five square kilometers to the sanctuary, as well as a base camp that would be safe even if the final design was as “dangerous” as the basic Savannah Safari had been.

“Unless anyone has a problem with it, can I take care of this?” Raul said, but of course, no one had anything to say about it. He was more than qualified, and everyone else decidedly wasn’t.

***

After six hours, Raul decided he was ready for the big show and tell, so everyone else joined him in the pocket dimension once more.

The ranch had been dropped onto the portal, with the entrance to the dimension sitting snugly in the central courtyard, the building rising three stories tall on every side.

A large gate led outside on one wall, revealing a healthy-looking savannah. And within that gate stood Raul, grinning ear to ear, some of the world’s most adorable creatures all around him.

“What’s up with all the baby animals?” Isaac asked as he hastily jerked his foot out of the way of an exuberant baby rhino. He’d have been fine, of course, an entire herd of adults could tap dance over his shoes without him feeling a thing, but he doubted the baby would enjoy stepping on an armored combat boot.

“Figured you guys would enjoy being around them,” Raul said, “The animals here are only as wild as I want them to be, and until I send them out, they’ll essentially act like they’ve been around people their entire lives. In fact, I could make it so that they’ve basically been tamed, like normal pets.”

“So I could keep her?” Amy asked, picking up a lion cub and scratching it under the chin.

“Absolutely not,” Raul said, only to grin after a long second, “Lions are extremely social animals, you can’t just have one. But what about a leopard?”

He pointed to another adorable creature padding across the floor near Patrick.

“Wait, seriously?” Amy exclaimed. Clearly, she’d never realized that there was a chance she’d actually get a pet big cat.

“Like I said, they’re only as wild as I want them to be. If I wanted to, it’d be just as domesticated as any regular cat,” Raul shrugged.

Amy put down the baby lion and started petting the leopard. Isaac, meanwhile, had sat down and pulled a baby cheetah onto his lap and was feeding it ground beef from his storage space. It had meant to be for dinner, but oh well, kitten-eyes could be described as a higher power.

It was a peaceful time, peaceful and relaxing. Adorable animals, most of the troubles of the world locked outside.

And then Amy planted herself right in front of Bailey, offering him the leopard cub and asking if maybe, just maybe, the team needed a mascot?

It didn’t even take much convincing. The cub was cute, a mascot would be nice, and there’d be plenty of people to take care of it. And let’s be honest, a cute mascot could help with visibility even for an already famous research team.

Raul released the rest of the animals into the wild, and giving them the same starting position as the rest of the creatures. Comfortable with humans, and not aggressive with them, but still decidedly wild animals, and aged up a few years to the point where they were considered adults for their species.

In the end, there was just one problem. A leopard was a big cat. And a big cat was a cat. So when the leopard decided that Isaac’s armchair in the conference room was now her seat, and absolutely refused to be moved.

… Isaac gave up after three tries.