The Scrap Tamer - Chapter 81

Chapter 81: The sleepy Senior

“They’re not moving anymore? I guess that makes this easier” He said with a yawn as his tired grey eyes looked at the mini tablet in his hand.

The tablet displayed the map of the entire city in the simulation and also red moving dots scattered around the map in groups of five.

There were also green moving dots moving around solo. These dots indicated the position of everyone currently in the simulation.

The red ones indicate the location of the cadets, while the green ones indicated the locations of junior officers like him that were out hunting the cadets.

And the particular group of red dots that he had been following had suddenly stopped. They still made minor movements but didn’t go forward or backwards.

“Let’s get this over with so I can return to bed.” He let out another yawn as he said that.

He looked completely pale as if he was a ghost or had no blood on his body and there were heavy bags under his eyes which indicated a lack of sleep, at least to anyone who didn’t know him.

This was the junior officer Owen Carter, a genius in his batch, recognized by even the higher ups of the military.

The only problem was that he was a sloth, a massive one at that. His biggest life goal was sleep and although he frequently did it, he always looked sleep deprived.

The reason why he slept so much? No one knew but most blamed his forged-beast. Which he just summoned.

Coming from his inventory was an almost translucent white hound. Mist covered the entire area as soon as it was summoned and Owen’s breath became visible.

If any other person was around, they would’ve felt a chilling cold in their bones but Owen looked unaffected, only more sleepy.

He tiredly raised his hand in the air and brought it down on the hound’s head, bonking it hard.

“Reel it in, you’re gonna reveal our location” he said.

The mist in the entire area receded and the hound’s form becoming more solid. Its ears dropped as if sulking.

Owen rubbed his eyes with a groggy sigh, then turned his attention back to the tablet. The red dots still hadn’t moved. “Yeah… definitely setting up camp. That means they’ll be easier to pick off” he muttered.

He crouched, passing a hand to the sulking hound’s cold fur. “Alright, let’s do this fast so I can go back to sleep.”

The hound let out a low, eerie growl before vanishing into thin air, its body phasing out like a ghost.

Owen exhaled lazily and started walking toward the group’s last known location, hands stuffed into his pockets.

————–

Meanwhile, Reid and his team were gathered in an abandoned building, a temporary safe zone while they planned their next move.

The structure had intact walls and a few pieces of broken furniture, making it the best shelter they could find on short notice.

Clara was perched near a window, using her falcon to scout the area. Marcus was cracking his knuckles, still feeling the aftermath of his fight with Jaxon. Ethan sat cross-legged, feeding some kind of liquid to his Lizard.

Lisa, however, kept shooting occasional glances at Reid—though whether it was because of Clara’s earlier comment or something else, she wasn’t sure.

Reid stood near the center, arms crossed, analyzing the situation. It had already been a bit more than thirty minutes since the start of the survival test.

“We need to find a more defensible position,” he said. “This place is too open. If our seniors find us first, we’ll be at a disadvantage.”

“Agreed,” Lisa said. “The only question is—”

A sudden chill filled the air.

Everyone felt it at the same time. The temperature in the building dropped in an instant, their breaths turning visible.

Clara shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Okay… did someone turn on the AC?”

“No” Reid’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve got company”.

The team looked around for the source of disturbance but spotted nothing

That’s when they felt it.

A chill like never before. The cold threatened to put them to sleep, a sleep that they felt they’d never wake up from again.

Lisa gripped her weapon, scanning the room. “Where is it coming from?”

Reid remained calm, but his muscles tensed. “Clara, your falcon. Do you see anything?”

Clara closed her eyes, connecting with her Forged-Beast. Her falcon soared above the area, eyes scanning for any signs of movement—

Then, suddenly—

“Above!” Clara shouted.

The ceiling above them cracked as something phased through it—a white, translucent hound with glowing blue eyes. It let out a silent snarl before lunging straight for Reid.

In an instant, Nyx reacted. [Void].

Reid teleported to the side just as the hound’s claws slashed through the space he had occupied. The ghostly beast twisted mid-air, landing without making a sound.

Marcus swung a massive fist at it, but his punch passed right through the hound’s body like it was nothing but mist.

“Shit,” Marcus muttered, stepping back.

The hound let out a low growl, its glowing eyes shifting between them, analyzing.

Then a voice spoke from the darkness.

“That was annoying.”

Owen Carter stepped forward, his hands still stuffed in his pockets, looking even sleepier than before.

He let out a massive yawn before lazily rubbing his eyes. “Can we, like… not make this too difficult? I wanna go back to bed.”

Reid met his gaze, unbothered. “Then leave.”

Owen blinked slowly. “Tempting. But nah.”

His hound stepped forward again, preparing another attack. Owen tilted his head, his voice completely indifferent.

“Let’s just get this over with.”

[Forged beast successfully scanned].

For the first time in a while, Reid saw this pop-up from Evo again.

[Species: Phantom Hound.

Rank: High gold tier.

——-

Abilities: Phase shift, frostbite mist, silent hunter, dreamstalker, Lethargy Mist, lucid terror, basic dream domain

]

“F*ck,” Reid cursed under his breath. It wasn’t the sheer number of abilities that caught him off guard—it was the fact that the hound possessed a basic domain, just like his own Forged-Beasts.

That changed everything.

Domains weren’t common. Even at platinum rank, only a select few Forged-Beasts had them, and those that did were monsters in their own right.

Reid was sure that he was the only gold rank tamer with forged-beasts that had domains but he was proven wrong today.

Owen let out another yawn, completely unfazed by the tension in the room.

“Man, you look like you’ve seen a ghost” he said before pausing and looking at his forged beast “oh wait, I guess you kinda do. But I assure you, Pixel isn’t a ghost.”

Reid ignored his comment deciding to focus more on what his domain did. From the name, it was already obvious that the domain dealt with dreams.

How? He had no idea. Maybe by sending everyone trapped within it in a dream state, or making your dreams come to life.

Lisa stepped up beside Reid, her wyvern in its smaller form since it couldn’t move freely in this small room if it took its original size. It was the same for Marcus’ forged beast.

“How should we handle this?” Lisa asked Reid.

But before he could answer, Owen exhaled slowly “you know, us seniors were only supposed to to push you to your limits without going all out.”

The team looked at him wondering why he was suddenly mentioning it but they understood when he continued.

“But honestly, I just wanna get done with this and get back to sleep” he completed.

The temperature dropped again, making a cloud of mist appear in the room and this time, the team’s vision blurred for a second before snapping back to normal.

The hound had used [Lethargy Mist] on them and it almost forced them to sleep.

“It’s using a skill on us, do not fall asleep no matter what” Reid ordered.

“Tch, you noticed that fast” Owen’s drowsy voice came but it didn’t sound annoyed, just tried.

He raised a hand, snapping his fingers. The mist around them thickened in an instant, swallowing them whole.

Then—

Darkness.

For a split second, the world vanished. No teammates, buildings or simulation. Nothing but the dark empty void.

Then, one by one, the team found themselves somewhere else, all alone.

______

Reid’s feet landed on solid ground. But he was not in the building anymore, he now stood in a field full of corpses.

The sky that hung above him was blood red and the air was filled with the stench of blood.

Bodies covered the landscape as far as the eye could see and in the distance, on a particularly large pile of corpses sat someone with blood stained white hair.

The figure raised his head, revealing a face Reid knew all too well—his own.

The only difference that existed between the two was that Reid had blue eyes while the other had red ones.

But there was no mistaking it, the person sitting on the pile of corpses was Reid himself or something wearing his face.

It grinned when their eyes met.

“Welcome to your nightmare Reid, we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”

_________

Read the author’s thoughts please..