Chapter 73

Chapter 73 \n\n 

“―― Hehe, great haul today.”

 

Once I was done sending the rest of the half-dead Gomas into the afterlife, I went and started looting through their stuff. Of course, I set Rem to guard the rear since I didn’t want any surprises.

Let’s have a look see here,

 

Jagged Knife: This knife has no rust, but the edges are very jagged. One of the Gomas were using 2 so I got them both.

Goma’s Spear: A short spear that just screams shoddy. It’s basically a tree branch with a claw from some large monster tied on.

Rusty Sword: A rusty sword. Awful quality.

Torch: A torch with a long handle. No, it’s not lit.

Bone Club: A hard club fashioned out of some monster’s bone.

Stone Adze: An adze like those from the stone age. It’s made from the same stuff as the stone walls and ground.

 

The above were all I could salvage in terms of weaponry. I know it all may seem like junk compared to the Upgraded stuff Takanashi-san makes, but it was better than nothing.

 

“Right, so the only useful ones are the knife and sword… and maybe the spear.”

 

I didn’t need the other 3. It’s not like I couldn’t make use of them, just that they’d be a chore to carry.

For me personally, the other loot from the Gomas were a lot more valuable than the weapons.

 

Torch Oil: The oil used to light a torch. Looks like they put it on a piece of cloth before setting it on fire.

Goma Drug: This shit fucks you up. I’m ready to use it on myself if push comes to shove.

Goma Booze: Something that the knife wielding Goma carried in a small gourd. It reeks of alcohol, so I’m calling it booze. Was it used as disinfectant? Not a chance.

Rock Salt: I just eat it hoping it gives me my daily minerals. This is the all-purpose dungeon salt you can put on snake meat and Shrimpworms alike.

Redshroom: This fella here saved me in my first encounter with an Armorbear. Never thought I’d find Gomas carrying them.

Plumshroom: Now this is a first, it’s a purple mushroom. It looks dangerous as fuck, but it turns out that it’s not actually poisonous…

Goma’s Leather Knapsack: Also from the Knife Goma, it’s a bag made of animal hide. It’s dirty like everything else they have, but practical nonetheless.

Goma’s Leather Satchel: A different sort if leather bag, this one’s from the Goma that got done in by a Pawn Ant. It’s also dirty like everything else they have, but practical nonetheless.

 

And that’s everything.

The two bags will be super useful, and I could make Rem carry them too. The Redshroom, Plumshroom and etc. will go inside them. With additional bags, I could now carry a lot more stuff since my old school bag had been always packed full as of late.

 

“Since I’m here, might as well power up Rem too.”

 

I mean, do I not have 3 fresh Pawn Ant corpses just ripe for the picking? These were all the ones the Gomas had generously killed before I ambushed them. Ant parts weren’t as good as Mantis parts but Rem can get just a little stronger if I do add them. Though that doesn’t mean I’m also adding the Gomas, not at all. I’d become able to tell by intuition what worked and what didn’t in terms of making Rem stronger. And Gomas simply didn’t at this point.

 

“Rise from chaos, bind in foul blood, stand on stained earth――Vile Mud Doll”

 

Let’s just see what happens with 3 whole Ant bodies…

 

“Wow, pretty damn good!”

 

Rem dissolved into the chaotic magic circle thing along with all the Ants, and when she came back out, I could see visible change.

She still had the basic Mantis shell armor, but now, the places where the green armor was missing were reinforced with black Pawn Ant shell armor. Now, the only visible part of the original skeleton body was the skull. Rem’s body now looked like it was in full plate armor.

 

“GAGA!”

 

And the Mud Doll herself was also happy.

Ok then, no point in hanging around here anymore. It’d be great if I could just get going to the next Square already.

 

“―― Arff!”

 

I could hear a dog’s barking from further away in the passage.

 

“Oh, no, that’s not a dog…”

 

I recognized this kind of bark. But before I could get my thoughts in order, they’d already arrived.

 

“Arf!”

“Arr arff!”

 \nThis annoying barking was not from the common four legged dog, but from a particular kind of two legged lizard.

 

“Goars!?”

 

I hadn’t seen these dinosaur monsters in a while actually.

With their large blocky heads and maws lined with razor-sharp teeth, a total of three, four, five… Fuck me, there were a whole seven of them.

 

“Open, Rotten Bog!”

 

They were all running at me at full speed, and I plastered the path in front of me with bog acid almost reflexively.

 

“Arrrf, gaarrr!!”

 

I’d seen them do this before too. The Goars had an acute sense of smell and so instantly realized that stepping into the bog was a bad idea. One even cried out in disgust as if from the awful smell or something.

Alright, so before they think about jumping over to this side, I’ll make my attack.

 

“――Redhair Twine!”

 

I summoned up the redhair tentacles from inside the bog and lashed them at the nearest Goar.

 

“Orf, gyauunn!”

 

The Goar’s hard gray skin sizzled as the tentacles twined around it… but with a forced shake of its body, the monster tore apart the acidic bindings.

 

“Shit, that didn’t work, alright, run!”

“GA!!”

 

I couldn’t win this one, and having decided so, I turned 180 degrees and made a break for it.

Redhair Twine was going to me useless on them. With their stony skin, I don’t think the Red Knife would fare much better either.

The only way I knew to beat a Goar was to place it in my bog and bind it down for a while. That’s what I ended up doing last time when one of them got past Mei-chan. I’m saying that I needed that much time and effort to take care of just one.

Even taking on 2 simultaneously was impossible, let alone 7.

 

“Arf Arf!”

 

The one that I hit with Redhair and two others looked like they were getting ready to jump the bog. Meanwhile the 4 others had started eating the dead Gomas, and weren’t focused on me. In practical terms, I had to take on 3 of them.

 

“Grab ‘em! Blackhair Bind!”

 

Like I’d done before, I used my blackhair tentacles to grab the Goar midair as it was jumping over that bog. It landed with a splash and a coarse sizzle. One down, right in the middle of the bog.

But I had two more I needed to deal with.

 

“ Spiderweave Wind!”

 

Aiming for the moment when they landed, I shot two sticky spiderwebs at the 2 lizards. I summoned these webs from a shadow of a pillar close to them, like I’d done for the Gomas.

 

“Now’s our chance, Rem! Run for it!”

 

This was all I could do in terms of stalling. I simply didn’t have the means to practically damage them through their tough hides, if I did, I’d have used them now that they were caught in my various bindings.

The Goma stuck in the bog should need just a little more thrashing around before all the blackhairs came loose, and the two stuck in Spiderweave Wind should get out even earlier.

I needed to use this little bit of time to the fullest, either run far enough to lose them, or find a place that can hide me.

 

“Shit shit, why is being a Shaman so damn shit!”

 

Just when I thought I had my first big win, out comes a tonne of monsters as if to mess with me. But, enough thumb-sucking, I just needed to run!

 

 

“Haah… haah… t-that was not fun…”

 

With a stroke of luck, I chanced on a crack in the wall large enough to barely let me in, and so managed to lose my pursuers.

I was relieved, and yet, knew that this sort of thing was going to happen over and over from now on. I needed running-away Skills more than offensive ones.

 

“Now that’s strange, the compass isn’t pointing the same way anymore.”\n 

I was focused running for my life, so of course I hadn’t had time to check the compass. I could try going back to the crack in the wall, but the Goars might be waiting for me. Plus, I didn’t actually remember the way back anyway with how desperate I was.

 

“Let’s just hope this direction works too…”

 

I trusted the compass, and went for it.

The stone passage sometimes got wider and sometimes narrow, and I simply kept walking.

 

“Oh, a Skeleton.”

 

I met Skeletons a few times too. But Skeletons, Red Dogs and Zombies weren’t that big an issue. They’d usually come in groups of two or three, at most four, which I was greatly thankful for.

As for the way I took care of them, I used Redhair Twine, my only active damage curse, along with Rem. Yup, this was the appropriate difficulty for me.

That’s not to say I underestimated these small-fry, cause I totally didn’t. These were the limited types of enemies that I could handle solo. I was going to make full use of them for combat practice.

And so I continued on my new path, getting some fighting experience but not much else.

That said, fighting was still exercise, it was pretty tiring. Just walking on and on was tiring me out too.

I seriously needed a Fairy Square right around now. But instead, I got something unexpected.

 

“… Huh? The walls here, they look kind of purple.”

 

All of a sudden, I realized that the stone walls around me had taken on a faint purple tint. My guess is that it’d been getting more colored gradually, and now was when I finally noticed.

 

“I, I can only hope this thing isn’t broken.”

 

At some point when I was being chased around by the Goars, the compass in my notebook had started pointing in a completely different direction. And that was the direction I’d been following for a while now.

This just gave me a bad feeling. Changes in the dungeon’s scenery meant that there will be new types of monsters. And I doubt they’d be kind enough to be weaker than Skeletons.

There was a good chance that there’d be Mantis class powerhouses in this new place too.

 

“No other choice though…”

 

I had no choice but to head deeper in if I ever hoped to meed Mei-chan again. And at this point, going backwards wasn’t an option either.

Screwing up my courage, I only kept walking forward through the, now slightly purple, stone passage.

And soon after, the scene changed even more drastically.

 

“What the actual hell is going on with this place?”

 

The walls were now completely dyed purple, making the area look almost toxic. That wasn’t all, now, there were traces of deep purple tree root like vines running all over the walls. The creepy looking plant life continued further in.

 

Purple Roots: Very poisonous. They come from normal trees.

 

I concentrated on them for a bit, and Intuition Pharmacy gave me some details.

These roots coming from normal trees most likely means that the soil they grew into was saturated with poison which affected the roots too.

 

“So it’s a poison zone from here… Won’t I get, like, poisoned?”

 

I mean, it was a valid concern. But I didn’t feel like trying to find another route this far in… yeah, let’s try heading further in.

But the moment I feel anything off, I’m hightailing it out of here.

 

“… Which doesn’t seem to be happening.”

 

As I went further, the volume of poison roots increased, now fully covering the stone walls. Even the floor I was walking on had turned to mostly root and I had to watch my step around them.

And after a while, when even walking was becoming a tasking effort, the passage finally ended.

 

“Huh. It’s a lot like――”

 

I’d come to a place very similar to a forest dome. But there was none of that abundance of nature. All the trees were leafless, withered, and had gone white. The number of trees were far more scarce than in a forest, the ground was muddy, and the place was dotted with some weeds here and there.

The place seemed absolutely deadly, and I had a good name for it too.

 

“―― It’s a poison marsh alright.”

 

This whole zone seemed to love the color purple with how much of it everything here was. And it wasn’t just the color that made me think the place was toxic. I could see purple liquid bubbling out of places like lava.

It was like they took an area straight out of an RPG game. I mean, yeah the whole dungeon is like that, but did we really need to recreate a poison zone too?

I could almost feel like there was a purple skull icon above my head, indicating a poisoned status that slowly drained my HP to 0.

\n“Shut up! I know just the way to take care of plant monsters like you!”

 

My gamer instincts tingling, I swiftly drew my Red Knife with a Blackhair tentacle and stabbed the Matango.

 

“Skreee, skreeeeeee!!”

 

I jammed the firey blade inside and gouged left and right. This Matango’s body was nowhere as tough as that of a Goar, and the red hot edge easily sliced up the fungus.

In no time at all the Matango’s whole body was on fire, and the monster was reduced to an obnoxiously large roasted mushroom.

I was able to attack away from the range of its spores and defeated it rather easily.

 

“Wait, no, get away!”

 

Well, it wasn’t quite done roasting yet, and was thrashing around in pain with its body engulfed in flames, which was getting a bit too close for comfort. Note to self: stay away longer next time.

 

“Phew, glad this thing wasn’t too strong…”

 

I sighed in relief after the Matango died, its body now completely ash. Which was too bad, since I couldn’t even use it for parts now.

But this did prove one thing: there were in fact new species of monster here.

I continued on my way, on alert for other new monsters that might appear. But nothing much happened for a while after that. The same bubbling pools of poison here and there, the same white trees, mushrooms, Mandragoras and the occasional Matango. The same scenery.

Let’s see, what else, I caught a snake that should be good for dinner, and panicked a bit when I found a giant leech on my leg like the time with the frog Boss, that’s about it. Matangos were just weak. So long as I took care to avoid the spores, they were a bunch of clumsy pushovers. They were weaker than Skeletons and didn’t come in groups either.

This place didn’t seem so dangerous after all. No, that kind of thinking will get me killed. It was going to get serious soon. Why? Because I was soon about to reach the center of the poison marsh where I’d supposedly find the boss.

 

“Heck, even the ground is turning purple.”

 

A clear change from just before. The muddy ground under my feet was taking on that same toxic color as if it was permeated with liquid from those poisonous pools. It was the type where you’d get damaged just by walking on it, but I seemed to be fine.

 

“And what’s with all the Mandragoras?”

 

There were way too many Mandragoras here. It could be because this tainted earth was a good fertilizer for them, but there were just so many that I thought someone might be farming them here.

And beyond this Mandragora farm, I spotted a large, if not the largest pool of poison here.

The long body of water was actually in the shape of a crescent moon, and right beyond the pool, surrounded by that moat of deadly toxic lay the thing I was looking for. It was resting openly there like it owned the place.

 

“That’s the Boss alright.”

 

A giant lizard, no that rounded smooth body reminded me more of a Japanese giant salamander. It’s figure was a lot like that somewhat protected species back on Earth.

But that isn’t to say it was exactly like one. The beast was larger than an Orthus, clocking in at 5 meters long, and also, it’s whole skin was an eerie off white.

I don’t know if this was just how it was or if it was an albino variant, and it didn’t have red eyes so… No, it didn’t have eyes at all.

I couldn’t find anything resembling eyes on it’s smooth, round head and I’m sure they weren’t just closed. Instead, it had linear slits on both sides like the gills of a lamprey.

This thing really creeped me out.

 

“Giant Salamander… No, let’s call it Basilisk.”

 

And then it, yawned, I think. It opened it’s gaping maw with a skaa!! and let out a thick purple haze. Instantly, Intuition Pharmacy reacted and told me that that gas was a poison more potent than even my Rotten Bog.

This Basilisk had an extremely deadly poison breath attack, of that I was now certain.

 

“A-and there goes my dream of taking it down solo…”

 

I wasn’t even thinking about trying to attack it as a test run or something. I was absolutely terrified, making myself small behind a thick tree trunk, at best managing to spy on its actions from afar.

I couldn’t get any closer and let it notice me. Actually, it might’ve noticed me already now that I thought about it. It didn’t have eyes, which meant it didn’t use sight in the first place. Meaning that it used its other senses to detect things.

Scent, for example. Which meant that me hiding like this served no purpose at all.

And since it wasn’t trying to attack me or anything, I might as well go back and be on my way….

 

“But that’s definitely the transfer circle over there.”

 

I’d noticed it already. The Basilisk was actually resting right on top of a stone platform. And I could see the runed circle carved on it. Even the compass was pointing straight at the Basilisk so my guess was spot on.

That was my ticket out of here.

It took a lot of effort getting here. And if I went back, it was Goar territory. Could I really just walk away…?

 

“I’ll just watch it for now.”

 

Information was key. This wasn’t an enclosed room like the Orthus Boss, it was open world. I will lay low for now, observe every action of the Basilisk, like a wildlife photographer.

I will know the Basilisk, and only then will I decide on how to proceed. Whether I decide to fight or flee, I need to wait for now, with patience.