Chapter 2430 – 2430. Dark Moon
The Blood Chaser flew for nearly two hours. It wasn’t fast, which was frustrating.
“It’s quite far.”
“Indeed. We’ve encountered many monsters along the way… Especially since this is an unpopular area. The monsters are weak, and there aren’t any valuable plants, so people avoid it.”
I don’t know this area either.
It wasn’t even implemented in the original game.
‘The original game didn’t depict everything in this world, so it’s not unusual.’
Pop.
Suddenly, the Blood Chaser’s body exploded.
Aisa and I stopped abruptly.
“Just in case, I’ll ask. Did you cancel the magic?”
“Of course not. There’s a barrier blocking magic ahead. It exploded as soon as it touched the barrier.”
“I don’t feel anything?”
“If you concentrate, you’ll feel it. A barrier that’s twisting and blocking the space itself.”
“Ah, I suddenly feel like going back.”
Aisa said.
I glanced at her face. Want to go back? That’s a lie. Right now, she’s smiling as if she can’t contain her excitement.
Suddenly, Aisa bent her upper body sharply. I was taken aback. Her large buttocks were facing me.
‘Could it be, is she seducing me here?’
No, that wasn’t it.
Aisa picked up a mushroom that had fallen on the ground. It was a peculiar green mushroom. At first glance, it was easy to mistake it for grass.
“Interesting, Eugene. Do you know what this is?”
“A poisonous mushroom?”
“A nostalgia mushroom. It releases invisible, fine spores that make you want to go home. Isn’t it fascinating?”
“It is fascinating. Though, I don’t feel any desire to go back.”
“It affects the mind, but it doesn’t work on high-level mages.”
“You know such fascinating things.”
“Nostalgia mushrooms were first developed by druids, so it’s a special mushroom. Just because it’s here doesn’t mean it’s necessarily related to druids. The problem is the barrier. We shouldn’t try to force our way in, right?”
“The barrier itself is focused on secrecy, so it’s not very strong. I could break it if I wanted to. But if I do…”
“They’ll know we’re here. It’s not good to reveal our presence now. The subject we’re investigating might hide or destroy important things if they’re on high alert.”
Before that, they would definitely try to kill us first.
“So, what do we do?”
“I’ll handle it. I can create a gap in a barrier like this. Oh, can you use the Blood Chaser again?”
I looked down at the blood that had soaked into the dirt.
“I can’t. All the life force in the blood is gone.”
“That’s a shame. But it seems like we were guided properly, so it’s okay. I’ll take the lead here!”
Aisa pulled something out from her cleavage again. It was made of stones tied together with string. As the size of the thing, smaller than a pinky finger, grew, it became a necklace.
It was a necklace with a total of 17 stones. Each stone emanated a different kind of power.
Aisa held out her hand to me. When I just stared at her, she shook her hand impatiently.
“What are you doing? Grab it quickly!”
“……”
I grabbed her hand. Aisa confidently walked straight into the barrier. We were able to enter the barrier without any resistance.
Crack!
Twelve stones shattered, leaving only five.
“…I thought it would only take about seven, but twelve shattered at once. It was a much more powerful barrier than I thought.”
“What is that?”
“The Necklace of Calamity. It prevents bad things from happening. I spent five years making it, and twelve shattered at once…!”
“You seem happy.”
“The fact that the barrier is this powerful means that what’s inside is even more significant. How big of a secret could it be? It’s a scoop, a scoop!”
Despite her clumsy appearance, her eyes sharply scanned the surroundings. I could feel that her senses were heightened.
“This is a forest. As a druid, don’t you feel anything?”
“No. My magic isn’t very related to the forest.”
“I see.”
[Electric Detection]
Electromagnetic waves spread throughout the forest.
Within a 500-meter radius of me. There were no particularly noticeable presences.
“Huh? Did you just do something?”
“You have a good sense. I used a detection spell. There’s nothing special.”
“You have a charm, right? It’s effective on animals and insects, so make sure you have it with you.”
We moved quickly while being cautious.
I periodically used [Electric Detection], and Aisa made small cuts on the trees.
“What are you doing since earlier?”
“I’m expressing gratitude to the great spirit.”
“Are you paying the price for your magic in advance? You’re a druid, but you have no respect for trees.”
“It’s a prejudice to think that druids do everything for the forest.”
Aisa didn’t care about my words and continued what she was doing. Was she really paying the price in advance? I didn’t know much about druid magic, so I couldn’t be sure.
‘There’s nothing I can feel right now. It won’t harm me.’
I did what I had to do.
[Electric Detection]
“…Aisa. I found it. There’s something human-like in the 1 o’clock direction.”
“Something human-like? Is it a humanoid monster?”
“It’s a human with eight legs.”
“……Are you sure you didn’t mistake it for a monster?”
“The upper body is human. Of course, there are limits to detection magic, so I can’t be 100% sure.”
“We’ll have to check it out ourselves.”
Aisa was shocked when she saw it. But she didn’t forget her duty as a reporter and pulled out a camera from her cleavage to take pictures of it.
It was a human with eight legs, moving like a spider. Because it had so many legs, its lower body was disproportionately large, while its upper body was normal. Unlike the lower body, the upper body was that of a normal human. It was a man, and he had strange tattoos all over his body. The important parts of his lower body were covered with rags.
He wore ornaments made of bones on his neck and ears.
He looked like a primitive man, far removed from civilization. He looked around and headed somewhere.
Despite his bizarre appearance, the energy he emitted was similar to that of an ordinary person. I quietly asked Aisa while looking at him.
“Is that the result of human experimentation?”
“Probably. It’s probably not just about mutating humans and observing them. Let’s follow him. He’ll probably lead us to a village or something.”
“What will you do when you find a village?”
“Of course, I have to report on it. I’ll find out the truth and reveal it. That’s why we’re here.”
The place he arrived at wasn’t a village.
It was a cave.
A cave with its entrance cleverly hidden by trees and bushes. There was a stench around the cave. It was a familiar smell. The smell of rotting corpses.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to go in.
Before going in, I used detection magic.
[Electric Detection]
It was blocked.
The electromagnetic waves couldn’t enter the cave. An invisible force was protecting this cave. It wasn’t the kind of barrier I knew. It was a bit more alien.
“Detection magic is blocked. That means there’s something inside. There’s also a possibility that he lured us here. It’s suspicious, so I don’t want to go in.”
“If you don’t want to go in… are you suggesting we give up? You’re more of a coward than I thought.”
“Who said anything about giving up? I’m saying we should change our plan. Instead of us going in, we should make them come out.”
“Hmm. How?”
“They’ll come out if we set it on fire.”
Whoosh.
I created a fireball in my palm. This one would make it very hot.
Aisa smiled and said.
“No, we can’t. I have to take pictures of what’s inside.”
Aisa, armed with a strong sense of journalistic duty, confidently walked forward.
She may seem like a great reporter on the outside, but… the Liberals she belongs to were the media company that attacked my company. In other words, a group of trash reporters.
‘I knew she’d do this. If she was going to turn back easily, she wouldn’t have hired me.’
I followed behind her. The stench grew stronger. As soon as we entered the cave, rotten corpses greeted us.
It felt like my sense of smell was going numb. I suppressed the urge to burn it all down and stayed close behind Aisa. I felt good when I smelled her unique scent of a maiden. Aisa didn’t mind my closeness and quietly took pictures as she went inside.
We went inside. A creature with a tongue on its armpit was sitting on the floor, dozing off. Its eyes were half-closed and unfocused. Aisa boldly approached the creature and clicked the camera shutter.
“Hey. Weren’t we supposed to move quietly?”
“It’s okay. The stealth charm is working properly. Look. Even if I make noise like this, they don’t notice us at all. They may look a bit peculiar, but they’re just ordinary people. They can’t recognize us.”
Satisfied with the pictures, she moved again.
“Kyahahahahahaha!”
“Ooooh ooooh ooooh!!”
“Akar! Akar! Akareeeeeee!”
About a dozen primitive men and women were dancing around a fire on an altar. Blood, entrails, and flesh were scattered around them. Human heads were piled up like a tower in the center of the altar. At the very back of the altar was a bizarre-looking statue. It was a statue that was impossible to tell what it was supposed to represent.
As soon as I saw the statue, I felt extremely unpleasant.
‘This is fucking disgusting. I want to burn them all to death with Thunder Break.’
“Akar! Akar! Akar!”
The creatures, reaching their peak of excitement from dancing, tore off pieces of flesh from the corpses, drank blood, and decorated their bodies with entrails. Each of them had an appearance that was far removed from humans, so it looked like monsters were frolicking.
“Wow. Amazing. This is a real scoop. To think that a tribe with such cannibalistic culture still exists…”
“Aisa. Let’s wipe them out. They’re cannibals. You’re not going to say we should let them live, are you?”
Cannibalism is just an excuse.
I just wanted to kill these bastards.
As a vampire, I like the smell of blood, but the smell of blood these guys emit is just disgusting.
“We need to keep some of them alive. There are things we need to ask them.”
I was about to activate my mana rod and weave a spell.
The bizarre statue at the end of the altar twitched and turned into a mass of flesh, swelling up in an instant. It was a tree made of crimson flesh. Things like blood vessels formed the roots, and bones that stretched upwards became branches. Blood kept flowing from the flesh. Then, hundreds and thousands of eyeballs grew on the bone branches.
Those eyeballs were looking directly at us.
The creatures who were enjoying the cannibalistic party all stopped at once and turned their heads to look at us.
“They are blasphemers!! Kill them!!!”
“Akareeeeeeeeee!!!”
The creatures shouted and charged at us. Surprisingly, they could speak the common language. I didn’t know what the word Akar meant.
‘They’re slow. The spell is already prepared.’
There was a lot of blood here.
A lot.
“Blood Spike.”
Spikes of blood shot up from the puddles of blood, dealing with the charging cannibals. The blood spikes didn’t stop there and stretched out to pierce the flesh tree. It had no effect. Rather, the blood spikes were absorbed into the flesh tree.
“Blood magic doesn’t seem to work?! Fireball! Use Fireball!”
“…It won’t work.”
“Huh?”
“As the statue turned into a flesh tree, the power of magic decreased. Normally, this entire space should have been filled with Blood Spikes. There’s enough blood here for that. But only a few dozen were created.”
Aisa was still taking pictures while I was talking.
“Oh, um. So, that means we should run away?”
“…I can’t think of a way to get rid of that.”
“Let’s run away! Quickly!”
Aisa turned around and started running. I was about to turn around as well. Suddenly, the world stopped.
[Crisis Detection is activated. Remaining stacks: 7]
