Chapter 154 – Sammosa Jo (1)
“Ha, finally this day has come.”
After interrogating Semira, the only surviving woman among the five from Eldland, to gather enough information, I entrusted her safety to Mono. When I was told that I would entrust myself to the Dream Demon with an alluring smile while sitting leisurely on top of the piles of corpses of my comrades, Semira grabbed me with a face as if she had seen the sky fall, but all I could do was kill Mono. All I could do was ask him not to.
Behind embarrassing moans and the sound of slugs clattering, I stood with a few gang members at the entrance to the abandoned mines of Landfill, now closed.
Landfeel is a small mining town that regularly supplies one of the most important resources in Magistos, a mineral used primarily for magical purposes called Magylite, before it sinks when the ground collapses in an earthquake and becomes an underground city isolated from poisonous gas. Was
However, after Landfill became an abandoned city, the magic stone mine naturally closed. The toxic fumes responsible for making Landfill an abandoned city in the first place are coming from inside this abandoned mine, but who would dare enter?
In the city, it is not difficult to live if you wear a gas mask because the gas components are dispersed and clouded in the air, but the story is different in tunnels where the space for gas to escape is narrow. Even with the highest quality anti-gas mast currently available in Landfill, it can only last for 3 minutes.
How do you know? There was once a brave man who actually tried and failed. According to Meyer, the brave man informed everyone that the toxic gases that had accumulated in the landfill’s abandoned mines became more concentrated and more dangerous the further inside they went, and he was soon buried in one of the few remaining cemeteries in the landfill. Said to have been buried.
Anyway, thanks to the brave sacrifice, Landfill’s abandoned mine was banned from entry as a dangerous area. Although no one would voluntarily enter such a limb without being banned.
“I never dreamed that I would end up stepping into that famous limb with my own feet.”
“Sounds useless, but…”
Landfill’s biggest headache, the operation to dispose of toxic gas in an abandoned mine. And three people with detoxification ability who were put into this operation.
Oxide, a member of the U.F., Who feels a heavy sense of responsibility for the fact that everyone here could get poisoned and die in an instant even if he tweaked his ability control just a little bit.
Leto, a member of the canine faction, laughs and jokes even in such dangerous situations.
And Knox, a member of the Acid Family, who silently does his job.
I set foot in the abandoned mine, leading three groups of five people in one group with three of the recently discovered detoxification abilities.
“Wow, this road is so damn shit.”
“Ugh, disgusting.”
The road to the source of the poisonous gas was so messy and rough that there was no such thing. No wonder. The entrance we came to in the first place was not originally the entrance to this mine, but a new passageway created when the abandoned mine collapsed in an earthquake and the city above it collapsed.
“Well?”
“Why is that, Esk?”
In this operation, Esk, one of my ardent followers and the leader of the canine faction, is also present. I brought him because I thought his ability would be of great help to this job. However, when Esk entered the entrance of the abandoned mine, he looked at the surroundings with strange eyes, tilted his head, and then shrugged his shoulders and replied.
“I wondered if the number of corpses was smaller than I thought, but it seems to be my fault. There will be no idiot in this landfill who would set foot in such a dangerous place just to save some corpses in the first place.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there really is someone like that. Oh, my God. The gas is getting worse. Knox?”
“Yes, to headquarters.”
When I called his name, Knox, who was in the lead, pulled out a pipe and put it in his mouth. And he inhaled as deeply as he could. Taking a deep breath in an abandoned mine where this toxic gas, which is thicker and poisonous than above ground, vibrates everywhere, is an act of suicide, but to him it was an exception. The gas he inhaled through the smoking pipe became purified air when exhaled again. Instead, there was only a handful of very thick, concentrated toxic liquid at the tip of the smoking pipe.
Just as a water purifier filters out dirty elements through various processes and makes the water clean, he purifies the air he sucked in through his pipe and exhales it again. And the filtered things in the process are concentrated and gathered in very small amounts at the end of the smoking pipe.
Seeing that mysterious sight, Leto, who was standing behind, said “Oh!” And applauded and admired.
“Hey, the performance of the air purifier is clear. One Knox is a must for each household, right?”
“What are you talking about, you crazy bastard!”
Oxide, who had been tackling Leto’s pointless jokes, soon started working on his own, as if he couldn’t lose either. As Nox paused to catch his breath after detoxifying a large amount of gas with his ability, the ominous green gas began to approach again, and Oxide reached out his hand toward the slowly approaching gas.
He caught the approaching gas, condensing it into a lump in his hand, as if he was squeezing the white snow to make his snowball. Around the time when one, two, and three lumps were formed, Nox, who had regained his breath, inhaled gas through a pipe to detoxify it, and the party continued to move forward. If the two of them’s cycles went off in the middle, then Leto stepped forward. Because she lacked the ability to purify the most among the three, she only set out to fill the very fine void that the two of them couldn’t help.
“Is this a blocked road?”
“If you look closely, there’s a gap leading to the other side. It’s probably because the mine collapsed due to an earthquake and the passage collapsed. Esk, it’s your turn.”
“Yes, of course sir.”
The leader of the canine faction, Esk’s ability is Penetration. Make a hole through the opposite side on the side that is in contact with the weapon in his hand or your own hand. And without any impact whatsoever. That’s why even though there was a neat hole in the wall collapsed by the power of Esk, as if it were measured with a ruler, no impact was applied to the process, so at most the pierced passage did not collapse again.
The three talented people deal with the toxic gas in their own way, and the road collapsed in the middle and there is only a narrow gap for people to pass through.
As I was heading underground and underground, I noticed something strange.
“This…”
“They’re corpses. They’re relatively fresh, too.”
It’s refreshing to see a dead body. I looked at the slaughterhouse member who had spit out those words with cold eyes, and he cleared his throat and averted his gaze.
“That, before serving Seongwoon Do, he was in the butchering business…”
Anyway, although the expression was a bit strange, the member’s words were not wrong. The body we found looked like it hadn’t been dead for a while. And at the same time, it was a face I knew.
“This guy…Is the kid who targeted me a few days ago.”
“Yes? Why is he here?”
“That’s right.”
Those who attacked me by accepting the offer of the guys from Eldland. Among them, the living ones were driven out of Landfill, but those who were inevitably killed during the suppression process had no choice but to dispose of the bodies. I had no choice but to leave the corpse alone and avoid the misfortune of some cannibal using it as a cooking ingredient.
And those corpses were usually thrown into the mouth of these abandoned mines. No one dares to touch it because the powerful toxic gas vibrates anyway, and if left in this gas, it will quickly rot and become brittle. The question is… Why are the remains thrown at the entrance strewn about in such a deep place?
That too…
“It looks like it was eaten by a big beast.”
“Traces eaten by beasts, does that make sense? What kind of animal can live in a place where poisonous gas vibrates like this?”
The corpse’s abdomen had clear scars, as if it had been bitten by a gigantic beast.
All the casualties that periodically occur in Landfill were dumped in this mineshaft, so the beast must have lived on, feeding on the flesh of the men who died in this collapsed mineshaft.
An animal that is larger than most predators, such as lions and tigers, and has adapted to live in this poisonous gas. Even though there are only dead things, there are beasts that have tasted human meat… The risk of this work is higher than expected. Although the members of the organization I brought are not on the side of being inferior in combat power, I wonder if those who have fought only with humans will be able to properly fight against the unknown monsters living here…
“For now, keep going.”
“Yes, I understand!”
The deeper we went underground, the thicker the gas and the shorter the distance between which human remains were visible. Later, there were human remains rolling everywhere.
“Her…”
And in the wide pupils that finally arrived, I saw something I had never imagined.
Pure white bones filled the floor. And in between, jewels of vivid blue light exuding intense magical power… High-purity margilite ores were rolling around together.
“What is this again…”
Confused by the unexpected sight, the party soon discovered the owner of this eerie nest with something falling from the ceiling and being slammed into a pile of white bones.
It was a truly hideous monster.
The beast is as big as a bull, and has a pair of wings on its back folded neatly into the thick fur. Its head was that of a wild dog, but its eyes were nowhere to be found, its front legs were abnormally long compared to its stocky hind legs, and the tails of three rats swayed dizzily on its hips. In the middle of the dark and spacious cavity, it lifted up with one hand the corpse that had just fallen from above.
The disgusting creature stuck its nose into a seemingly recently dead corpse and sniffed, then licked its lips ravenously and opened its long snout. What would happen after that, anyone could have predicted.
The monster ate the remains of dead humans. The sight of grabbing a human arm that no longer breathes with its teeth, holding it in place with the power of its powerful jaws, tilting its head back, ripping the arm off its body, and munching on the meat in its mouth was truly terrifying. .
Shocked by the sight of a creature not of this world eating a person like themselves, no matter how dead they were, some members of the organization vomited in a subtle voice so as not to be noticed by the monster. However, a more disgusting sight occurred later.
After the monster gulped the flesh in its mouth over its throat, a large amount of poisonous gas, recognizable at a glance, spewed out with a powerful push-ee-ee-ee from the numerous small holes in the monster’s back. No doubt. That monster had just spewed out, that unmistakably ominous, dark-green gas, was undoubtedly the poisonous gas that had been filling this mineshaft. I was confused by that fact.
What the hell is this? Wasn’t the landfill’s toxic gas ejected when the mine collapsed due to an earthquake? But no matter how much you wash your eyes, the troublesome gas that isolates the city is what that disgustingly shaped beast exhales.
I was surprised for a while, but thanks to the influence of emotional restraint, I was able to quickly find my composure. Yes, no matter what, the cause of the poisonous gas that made the city of Landfill sick is right in front of you. Little did I know that it was not a substance buried deep underground, but a by-product of an unheard-of monster erupting after a meal.
After several blows of vicious gas, the beast purred and let out a low howl as if in good spirits. And we saw Something shining came out of the beast’s butt and fell to the floor. Even in this wide, dark pupil, the blue stone that could be seen at a glance was undoubtedly a maglite ore.
…It’s really diverse.
At that shocking scene, one of the gang muttered in a trembling voice.
“Could it be that now… You ate people and made toxic gas and magyrite ore…?”
A monster that eats the remains of the dead, emits poisonous gas that kills people from its back, and wraps expensive jewels used in magic in its excrement. I wondered what the hell kind of disgusting bastard’s idea came from. To the point where I want to rip off the head of the proposer right now.
The incident that happened at Landfill was not an accident. Landfill was engulfed in noxious fumes after the earthquake engulfed the city along with the mines, so the monster must have had some sort of connection to that event.
Well, honestly, it’s a story you can easily imagine. Research to supplement scarce natural resources, an unintended by-product of the process. A monster that eats people, exhales poisonous gas, and makes expensive magic stones. Earthquake… No, a city collapsed by someone’s hand and a monster trapped in an abandoned mine.
The monster swallowed human corpses falling from above and vomited magic stones and gas, and no one could recover the magic stones, but the gas came up through passages and cracks everywhere, putting Landfill in danger.
People are killed by poisonous gases, and their bodies are thrown into the mouth of an abandoned mine where poisonous gases rise and descend into this cavity. And that monster that spewed out gas from here receives and eats the corpses that come down and creates magic stones and gas again.
A vicious cycle that continues to fuel people’s lives.
“I, sir… What should I do?”
“What?”
“No, uh… Look at that magic stone. You can’t find such a high-purity magyrite anywhere easily.”
“That’s right. Besides, they don’t eat living people, and if it’s a guy who makes expensive ore while eating corpses that need to be disposed of anyway, I’d rather just leave them alone…”
Are these crazy
“Are you really insane? If you have brains, think about it. Do you think it’s really profitable to feed the corpses of dead people and collect and sell the magic stones that that monster spits out? Does that monster only spit magic stones? It also produces poisonous gas. Because of that gas, you can’t even think of ways to make a living, such as raising livestock or farming, in Landfill.”
“But in the first place, Landfill is not a place where the land is good enough to grow livestock and agriculture, and it has already been heavily polluted with that toxic gas. How much help would it be if we stopped it now?”
“And if we can keep a steady supply of this amount of Magyrite…”
“Agriculture and livestock were given as examples, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will do that! And, that monster stably supplies magic stones? If it’s this much over the years, the amount of magic stones that monster packs a day isn’t that great. Do you want to live with this stuffy gas mask for the rest of your life, holding on to just a few pennies?”
However, even after saying this, the members of the organization still couldn’t abandon their lingering attachment to the magic stones between the white bones on the floor. He’s blinded by the gains right in front of his eyes, and he doesn’t know how to see the future at all. There’s a magic potion to keep these guys awake. I named and called one member of the organization.
“Hey, you. Do you have a wife or children?”
“Oh, no. No.”
“Then do you have any plans to make it?”
“Uh… If you have the chance, are you willing to start a family?”
“So? So you’re saying you want your offspring to live in this dangerous, noxious city, wearing a stuffy gas mask for the rest of their lives?”
“Oh no, that’s…!”
That monster spits magic stones. However, in order to make that small stone, one person and the future of the city are used as food. I know that magic stone is expensive, but the profit he gets from the magic stone it creates is nothing compared to the damage these landfill people suffer from that poisonous gas that is a by-product of the process.
Landfill’s poisonous gas cannot be left unattended any longer. Especially when you consider that it is the gas exhaled by a monster that eats human remains and makes magic stones.
Leaving that monster alone is tantamount to selling a priceless future for a few pennies. And in order to change this city, one of its fundamental problems must be dealt with.
“I’m going to change this city. To do that, I have to kill that beast that makes this city sick.”
Did he feel my firm will, or did he finally open his ears, which he had closed while concentrating on his meal? The monster that was eating the corpse turned its head toward me despite having no eyes, and then began to growl menacingly, revealing its teeth.
“Damn it, I’ve been caught. Everyone, prepare for battle. If you’re from Landfill, I believe you’ll be able to protect your body properly, even if you can’t injure that monster.”
At the same time as my instructions were given, the disgusting beast that finally defined this side as the enemy (or the freshest prey of all time) burst out with a terrible scream that made you want to cover your ears, revealing clear hostility.
