Chapter 68: Old bones Jack

...

*Screeeeeech!!!*

"AAAAAH!! Get the fuck away from me!!

Out of nowhere, while I was not paying attention, suddenly a cave bat came out from the shadows and lunged at me with its fangs ready to suck my blood dry.

*Slash!*

However, as soon as my Blood butcherer slashed him apart, the bat fell to the ground heavily and started convulsing in pain after having its chest bared open by the sharpness of my new sword.

"Come on, die quickly, you abomination of nature!!"

*Bam!*

*Bam!*

*Bam!*

*Bam!*

*Splat!*

*Splat!*

Soon, after a minute of kicking repeatedly the sliced body of a bat to make sure it couldn't come back from the dead, it soon turned into meat paste and stopped moving completely.

"Huff, these guys are going to kill me one day because of a heart attack..."

*Screeeeeech!!*

"AAAAAH, MOTHERFUCKER!!"

*Slash!!*

*Screeeeeeeeeeeech!!*

*Bam!*

*Bam!*

*Bam!*

*Splat!*

*Splat!*

"Huff... puff, what's with these guys? Do they enjoy going kamikaze just for the sake of scaring me?"

My Blood butcherer, that was now ironically covered in blood, was an enormous sword with a savage and intimidating shape that could make anyone that saw me using it, think that I'm some kind of sadist that likes butchering people for my own enjoyment. Its blade was covered in a dark luster that gave off a sinister aura, and it had a few crimson colored engravings on its blade that seemed to resemble blood bubbles coming out of it. 

All in all, it seemed the kind of sword an evil and vicious sadist could use indeed.

(A/N: I just made the letters, the glowing effect, and the background. I don't know who drew the sword, but it looks just like it looks in the game)

Although its damage was numbered as 22 by the system, thanks to the fact that it was bigger than the other swords and thus heavier, plus my super human strength when swinging it, the damage it could deal to my enemies increased a lot more, to the point that I could immobilize a bat with 90 HP in one hit!

Though killing it in one hit was another matter... I still needed to hit it a few more times before it finally died completely.

There's also a few lucky hits where I manage to hit their heads and kill them instantly, but because they move so fast, and my sword is a bit heavier that the previous ones, it's kinda hard to do it all the time.

But immobilizing them is not a problem whatsoever!

...

*Crack!*

As I walked through the narrow walls of the cave while watching attentively every corner of the cave just in case there was a bat waiting to take me by surprise in one of them, I finally managed to reach what seemed to be an open area of the cave. 

*Tack!*

Suddenly, I accidentally kicked away a rock that was in the floor, and made it fall from what seemed to be a cliff that separated the high floor of this cave to the lower floor.

It actually took the rock a few seconds before the echo of it hitting the lower floor reached my ears, so I deducted that the lower floor must have been at least a hundred meters below where I was right now.

*Fuooosh!*

I took out a torch from my inventory, and threw it down through the cliff to see what was down there, and to my surprise it was clear from enemies!

Although there were a few skeletons scattered here and there, they were dead skeletons, not the undead ones. If they were actually alive, then they could be walking and patrolling the cave as they don't need to rest nor sleep due to their body moving because mana or something.

So, they were just corpses of people that visited this cave before.

*Shiew!*

*Kachin!*

Suddenly, the hook hidden within my armor flew towards the wall of the cave and attached itself to it, before it pulled me at great speed towards the said wall.

Hmm... no bats... that's strange. Maybe I should check this place one more time.

As I Illuminated the place with the torch in my hand, I was unable to see anything moving nor anything actually alive. So I just shrugged my shoulders and continued moving down towards the lower floor.

It took a minute or so before I finally managed to reach the ground, and started looking around for anything valuable. After all, I had already been diving down for at least a week or so since I entered this cave, so I was probably pretty low already.

The only thing I need to be cautious about here, is from the lava and maybe falling into hell.

Yes, hell is a thing here. If you dive too low into the earth, then you will end up reaching hell.

Or at least that's what the old books from the library and my game knowledge say... After all, those books were from human explorers that dove deep into the layers of the underground and managed to reach hell after suffering many hardships.

However, those explorers were from before the great war 1000 years ago. So, I don't know if there's any difference in what they explained or not.

*Clack*

"Hmm?"

I suddenly heard a small noise from behind me, and when I turned around, I saw a very well-dressed skeleton lying down in the ground, completely immobile and devoid of any life.

Maybe the skeleton moved because of a small tremor in the structure of the cave?

"Whatever..."

*Clack*

The sound came once more, and although I could have just ignored it before going away, the possibility of a skeleton with intelligence feigning to be dead just to catch me for surprise passed through my mind and made me unable to ignore the sound as if it didn't happen.

However...

"Hello there..."

"AAAAAAAAAAH, GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!!"

*Bam!*

I punched the skeleton away and sent him flying towards the wall.

However, just right when I was about to swing my Blood butcherer to behead it instantly, the skeleton suddenly started screaming in fear before it started waving its arms in front of him in a panicked manner.

"Wait wait wait! Calm the fuck down man, I don't want to hurt you"

"That's what a skeleton trying to kill me could say..."

"Oh god, please hear me out, young man! I'm just a merchant that got lost in this enormous cave and ended up dying from hunger! Since then, I have been living as an undead skeleton and roaming these caves in order to find something to sell and become rich for the moment I leave this caves for good"

While the skeleton continued talking with an enthusiastic manner about his past, I happened to make contact with his red glowing pupils inside his sockets, and thus activated the system to tell me his status.

Hum...Curious.

"Anyways, My name is Jack Sellington, you must have heard about me right? After all, I was a pretty famous and renowned merchant back when I was still alive, and if I may say so, the most important merchant of those times"

"No, I got no idea who you are, nor there was information about you in the many books of history I have read, but anyways, my name is Aspen... Just Aspen.

"Well, Aspen, could you be so gentle to bring me to the surface? I have been down here for quite some time, and I must say... I'm already tired of the same dark, cold, hard, spiky, dangerous, horrible, silent... and lonely walls of this cave....... Hehe, sorry about that. I'm kinda desperate for leaving this place already. Besides, I have already collected enough valuables to become rich once I go out, so..."

"Valuables?"

"Oh, Let me warn'ya young man. If you try to rob me I will fight to the death, even if it only means taking with me one of your arms... Though I'm already dead, hehehe..."

"No, I'm just curious. After all I'm considered pretty rich in my city. What do you sell?"

"Ho hoh! Very well, let me show you!"

Jack suddenly picked up a bag that was lying on the floor and started looking inside it with what seemed to be a smile on his... err.. mandibule?

"I have some beautiful gems that I managed to pick up due to them being not to attached to the walls of the cave, just at 1 gold coin each, you must be very impressed by how cheap they are, but don't worry, I'm a great merchant after all!"

Gold coin? The heck is that.

"I also have some strange potions that I created after using different ingredients that I found inside this cave. You know, like spiderwebs, dust, rotten meat from corpses, fragments of gems, bones, and even some strange plants that hanged from the ceiling! You can buy it just for 5 silver coins!"

Silver coin? The heck is this guy talking about?

"Here, take a look at it!"

Jack passed me one of the potions, and right at the moment I opened it the sudden smell from whatever was inside made me almost vomit.

*Blgh!*

"Oh, come on! It doesn't smell that bad! Though I don't have a nose now that I think about it"

Even though It looked horrible and smelled even worse, its description made me consider buying it.

That could be pretty handful once I reach my limit in mana. Which should be 400 points as far as I know... At least, just using natural means that is...

 "Oh, I also have these beautiful glowing sticks! If you wet them, they will start glowing a lot! You can buy it just at 10 copper coins! Pretty cheap if you ask m-"

"Hey man, first of all... what do you mean with gold, silver, and copper coins? We don't use that kind of money"

"Huh...? I see, did that fucking royal family change the name of the money once again? I told them that it was okay with just being called gold, silver, and copper coins! Next time I see their descendants, I will kick them in the ass!"

"Err... what do you mean royal family? There's no such a thing... we barely have a militia to defend ourselves, having a royal family could just be a waste of money"

"Huh...?"

"Huh...?"

"But, then how do you guys mantain in check the nobles?! How do you know they are not allying with other countries?!"

"There are no nobles, the highest position you could hope to achieve within our city could be of a commander or a council elder... or me... How much time have you been inside this cave man?"

"I... I don't know... a few years at least... or at least decades... or..."

"Centuries?"

...

Jarron7

New character! And sorry for the lack of uptades, but I have been lacking inspiration lately. So tomorrow I will play a bit of terraria to see if I can recover some inspiration from it.

That's all for today.

Bye bye.