As I gazed at Tuilë’s disappearing figure in the distance, I readied all the equipment with me. One hundred rounds were fully stacked inside ten magazines and three grenades; they were more than enough to last me some time.
After all, if push came to shove, I could switch to the two catalyst daggers. Nothing was better than them in close combat.
With assurance in mind, I stepped into one of the closest entrances. There were some miners mining at the side, but I didn’t pay them much heed and proceeded deeper.
Just when I was about to get into a descending tunnel to the left, a voice called out for me.
“Hey, you there. Where do ya think you’re going? You’re over the boundary to mine!”
I turned around and looked at a fat guy that looked like an orange Muppet character… Wait, it’s the one that I bumped at the market yesterday.
“Huh? You’re that skinny midget from yesterday.” His eyes enlarged upon seeing me.
“What do you want?”
Without even using [Identification], I could tell that he was a source user — an enhancer. This could become my warmup if his intention was to pick up a fight.
“I want you to stay away from that place. Ya hear me?” he declared with an overbearing tone.
“And what if I go there? Will you stop me?” I silently reached for the daggers on my back while checking his status screen.
Yorith
[…]
Source Level: Tier-1 enhancer
Source Element(s): Geo
Vocation(s): None
Stats:
* STR: E (33)
* AGI: E (29)
* VIT: E+ (38)
* SRC: F+ (17)
* SPR: F (14)
Accumulation Points: 19 [E-]
He harrumphed, crossing his arms, “Hmph! I don’t care. But I won’t pick your corpse, either. You’ll rot there and turn into one of ‘them,’ never return into the soil to become one with the Divine Mushroom.”
Wha… becoming one with the Divine Mushroom…? Oh, you mean being buried at the cemetery that I passed earlier… It was the exact thing that the Divine Mushroom Cult prayed to.
“Anywho, I’ve given you a fair warning. Whether you comply or not is none of my business.” He turned on his back and continued with whatever he was doing.
In retrospect, he didn’t sound like a bad guy to me. Maybe it was just my stereotypes of his overbearing appearance that instantly put him as a bad guy. My apologies.
“You don’t have to mind me; I have my own way of doing things.”
“Oh? You’re a source user, eh? Alright, I’ll give you one tip: There are undead monsters there that had been contaminated by the red fog. It’s dangerous, but not a place that many people went to. You might find something there in exchange for a higher risk.” The guy snorted.
“You seem to know a lot about this place.” If his intention was bad, then whatever awaited me inside wouldn’t be treasures, but deadly monsters. Still, it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
“This place is where I get to feed my whole family. Now shoo away and don’t disturb me.” He gestured at me with his hand to go away.
Not bothering to interact with him further, I strode to the left tunnel. After walking down for a minute or two in the tunnel that slowly turned left, a white mist began filling the air around me, and concurrently my field of view decreased the further I went in. Even worse, the illumination from the entrance didn’t reach this place.
“Maxim, the air here doesn’t contain any elements that are harmful to the body, but I detected several creatures approaching our location,” Lunaria informed while activating the drone’s flashlight.
“Thanks for the heads-up.” I readied my daggers and waited for the creatures to approach me.
Using my rifle in a place where I couldn’t see far would be digging my own grave, not to mention that I’d have to save up on ammunition.
Walking from deep within the fog were five undead creatures in ragged clothes and thinly shrouded in red mist. Unlike the typical kind of skeletons that only had bones, they were more like ghouls with rotten meat unequally distributed. Only that not all of them had the typical “human” shapes — they were the remains of the dead Fogland people.
Before I faced them head-on like a barbarian that only had muscle as a brain, I checked their stats to determine their danger level.
Species: Crimson draugr (mutant)
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Sex: Nonexistent
Age: 52 years old
Height: 182 cm
Source Level: None
Source Element(s): None
Stats:
* STR: F (15)
* AGI: F (10)
* VIT: F (13)
* SRC: F+ (16)
* SPR: F (8)
Accumulation Points: 9 [F+]
They were weak, but it didn’t make me drop my guard in the least. There could be more of them hidden inside the thick mist — waiting for that one moment when my attention lapsed.
I circulated the source energy within my body and channeled it into the two daggers, infusing them with their respective element, then I launched myself at them at my fastest speed. Offense was the best defense; I better be the one attacking than counterattacking and had my position compromised.
“Go back to your grave, you ugly corpse!”
With a cross swing of the two infused daggers, the nearest crimson drauger’s head was split into four pieces. Scorch marks were left at the slashed part of its head, and the draugr fell weakly to the ground.
In quick succession, I went for the one on my right next. It swung its arm at me while making a skin-crawling snarl, but I easily dodged and went for its neck and beheaded it — the decapitated piece bounced and splattered on the ground like a rotten meat pie.
“On your back!” Lunaria warned.
In response to Lunaria’s sudden warning, I rotated like an ice-skating athlete and chopped the assailant’s leg. With one leg gone, it lost its balance and quickly fell, and I then stepped on its head with my hard boot to get to the other draugr.
Their rotten bones were nothing in front of my catalyst daggers even if they were strengthened by the red fog. Preferably, a blunt weapon would be the most effective against them. As for guns… I guessed shooting their heads was an option, but that would be for last when no alternative was present.
Leaving that aside, the other two were also quickly taken down with only one attack each. It wasn’t as much of a sweat for me; I truly had become much stronger than before.
As I was rejoicing over my victory, another one with a larger body approached me from within the mist. I was sure it was a First-Order draugr from the meager source energy it radiated.
“GROAR!!”
It issued a growl, angry that its companions were killed earlier. With a sudden burst of movement, it closed our distance and sent its rotting hands at me. Once caught by its assault, what awaited me would be a big bite to the neck.
Even with its speed that was two times faster than the others, its movements were flimsy and predictable, making me easily dodge it and subsequently cut its side. And when it turned at me, I kicked it in the stomach, tumbling it to the wall behind — it groaned weakly, unable to put up a resistance as I ended its life by breaking its skull.
Picking up the source crystal located inside its chest with the daggers, I bragged, “Phew. Is that all they can do?”
“Here we go again with your overconfident self. Are you not afraid of having the tables turned?”
“Hm. Guess you have a point.” I didn’t want to make the same mistake by getting complacent. “Anyway, I wonder why there are undead monsters like these in this cave.”
It was quite likely that the miners above stumbled into this place in the past and died an unfortunate death, thus turning into these crimson draugrs. As time went by, more and more of them somehow piled up here, becoming the place it was now.
I was certain of this because my assumption was supported by Lunaria.
Exploring more around this mist revealed to me that this was a large cave, and the mist originated from the vapor of a water source nearby. I didn’t know exactly how large it was, but I’d made sure that Lunaria mapped this place so that I didn’t get lost in my way.
Along the way, I encountered several more groups of draugrs. For better or worse, most of them were in groups of three to six. Rarely did they wander alone. I wasn’t keen on finding out the reason why as long as there was some First Order mixed in.
Unfortunately, that was rarely the case. Only three groups so far, other than the first one, had a First-Order mutated monster leading them.
Well, the total population of Aquarine was quite small, maybe about three thousand or so. Due to that, the total amount of source users was even smaller; it could be less than one hundred — I had been checking this yesterday. Even in the most generous estimate, it wouldn’t exceed two hundred.
What was more, I noticed that daggers didn’t perform well when fighting against this type of monster. Also, the durability of the daggers had been chipped away even though they had always been infused by Pyro and Electro when used. Maybe I’d switch to a longer weapon such as a sword or spear down the line, but this should make do for now. Ah… If only there’s some kind of weapon that can be used in all sorts of situation…
After an hour or so fighting these draugrs, I decided to sit back against the cave wall to get a moment of respite.
“There’s no ending to them… It’s quite annoying to fight the small fries, but if I ignore them, they’ll become troublesome later.”
“I must say that rather than blindly exploring the place, it’s better to stick to one side.” A classic strategy, huh…
Adhering to Lunaria’s advice, I stuck closer to the cave wall and followed along its course, after which I encountered less and less of them.
At the end of the way was a large pit that its bottom couldn’t be seen. Looking at the insurmountable chasm had me gulping down my saliva to the point that it was audible. Ever since falling from the sinkhole, a mild trauma appeared at the back of my mind when seeing large holes…
“I think it’s better we leave this place for later… No, wait…” I looked at Luna-1 while making an impish smile. Associating with Tuilë had made me a bit more mischievous as of late.
“You don’t say…” Lunaria had most likely realized what I was aiming for and conceded, “Alright. I’ll have the drone explore its bottom.”
Not that long after, Luna-1 came back unscathed and brought the news of what lay under the pit.
“Maxim, the pit is about twenty-five meters deep. I don’t spot any monsters near the perimeter below, though, but I’m not yet sure deeper inside.”
Good. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about something attacking me when descending. Safety was the biggest concern here, but what about the benefit?
“That said, there are traces of ruins there worth exploring,” she added, dropping the bombshell.
“Huh? Ruins? You said ruins?!” Can I get a second Lunaria if I find another airship?
“Hey.” At this time, her hologram projection appeared with her hands on her hips. “You must’ve been thinking of getting another me or something along that line, right?”
Crap. She was as sharp as ever, but it’d be better to play dumb in this case.
“No, Miss Know-It-All… I don’t know what you’re talking about. One Lunaria is all I need.”
“Hmph. Fine, I’ll leave it at that. Anyways, we don’t have the necessary tools to scale down this hole, so I propose that we leave this place for another time.”
“Mhm.” I agreed with a nod. “Better safe than sorry. Besides, I’m a bit sensitive to large holes now.”
I couldn’t just go down like I did when saving Tuilë last time since I couldn’t get back up then. Doing that would give me a one-way ticket to hell.
With that in mind, I turned around and went back to the place I came from to hunt more crimson draugrs.