Chapter 115: A world of death

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*Creaack....*

As I stepped over the border of the ship, I glanced down towards the vast landscape of dead land below me. There were no signs of life besides the small plants that grew from the devastated soil... If they even had life in them in the first place, because as far as I would tell by my inability to connect to them, they had no life, or at least, they were not plants...

Suddenly, while I was still checking up on the surroundings, an enormous wave of putrid smell passed by my nostrils. Almost made me puke due to the sudden change in odors.

*Cough Cough!!*

"What's with this horrible stench...? Is it coming from the ground?!"

There were no visible dead bodies or decomposing food... Yet, why did it smell like I was standing on top of a trash mountain?

This place is even more disgusting than I thought...

Fortunately, arriving at this place wasn't exactly a bad sign. Several months ago when I visited the Elf Kingdom for the second time, I came across this book that explained the geography of the continent and found out that the corruption and crimson were located on the border of the continent surrounding the Goblin Kingdom on the north. Now, all I needed to do now, was to locate the Goblin Kingdom in order to understand better in which direction is the Human and elf Kingdom located... 

*Hup!*

Jumping down from the ship, I landed on top of the ground and examined everything in my surroundings carefully. After all, in this place, there are giant worms that come out of the ground ready to eat you in one bite... Or at least it was like that in the game, whether it's like that here or not, I don't care. It's better to prevent than to cure.

"Hey, Aspen, where in the world are we?" The groggy voice of Yuuki sounded from above, it seemed that she had woken up from the impact of our landing.

Because I was still a bit wary of making sounds, I simply gestured her to shut her mouth for a moment while I inspected further this place. 

Yuuki frowned in displeasure and prepared herself to jump down from the ship. However, I soon gestured for her to stop, as a distant memory came back to my mind at that moment.

I rapidly checked up my skills section and opened the description of [The player] blessing that the goddess had given me when I arrived at this world.

"There it is..."

As I glanced at one of the many characteristics of this blessing, I squinted my eyes and looked at the ground with doubt in my gaze.

'Immunity?'

It wasn't like in the game the Crimson and the Corruption acted like viruses that affected you... They only infected the world. However, if this blessing actually gave me something like an immunity, then that meant that other humans weren't "immune" to whatever the Crimson and Corruption were... Or at least, it didn't seem like it.

'Are they gonna become zombies or something like that? But wait, zombies already exist here... I forgot about them since they are more like monsters than undead humans to me... Then, crimson and corruption Zombies?

I glanced at Yuuki, who was just looking at me with a confused look in her eyes and imagined her becoming something like a zombie or such.

'That would be pretty annoying...'

"Stay at the ship. This land is made of a special virus that might affect you and make you a mindless monster if you stay on it for too long"

Yuuki visibly recoiled when she heard what I said, but soon looked at me with a dubious gaze. Probably because I was just chilling out while standing on a seemingly mortal and dangerous ground that would make me a monster if I didn't get out of there fast.

"I'm immune, so just stay over there while I check up this place and wait for this pirate to recover his lost mana. It's not like there is much in this place for you to explore anyways"

Hearing me say all that, Yuuki nodded in understanding and went back inside the cabin of the ship to wait while I explored this place.

*Crack...*

Stepping over a dried branch, I looked at the vast landscape in front of me and sighed.

"Well, time to take every possible value from this place until nothing it's left"

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*Crack...*

"This feels like I'm approaching my death on my own..."

Looking down at the seemingly bottomless pit in front of him, Aspen sweatdropped a bit in nervousness and prepared himself to start descending through it.

*Howl...*

As the air entered the enormous pit, a sound similar to a howl echoed all around the pit, much to the nervousness of Aspen.

"It's like it is telling me that I will die here... As expected from one of the Evil Biomes..."

Not giving it more importance, Aspen soon started descending at a rapid pace through the large pit. It took him quite a lot of minutes until he finally reached the end of it, and just as he expected, at the end of it there was an enormous cave with several minerals spread across the walls.

However, there was one mineral in specific that was the objective of Aspen at that moment.

"Demonite... There it is"

At one of the walls of the cave, there was an enormous vein of a purplish and shiny mineral. It was constantly releasing purple mist around it, as it seemed to be made of some kind of corrupt energy that leaked due to how concentrated it was.

He had previously gotten some of it back then when he defeated the Eye of Cthulhu, However, it was still a very small amount and he still lacked some to craft some other weapons and tools.

*Growl...*

However, as always in life, nothing comes without a price... Or in this case, nothing comes without a problem.

From far in the cave, several putrid and strangely shaped monsters started emerging from the darkness. All of them had enormous eyes that protruded from their body in a grotesque manner, two enormous mandibles that were probably for pulverizing everything that was near them, and had several parts of their body rotting for some reason. However, they didn't seem bothered by that at all and were instead looking at Aspen with extreme hunger and murderous intentions.

"Three... Five, seven... Shit, there's ten of them in total"

Although a number of enemies to be wary of, it wasn't that much of a problem for Aspen as long as he was away enough from them. After all, he had just obtained an incredibly powerful gun thanks to the pirate, and monsters like these would be done in just a matter of seconds after he started shooting.

However, bullets were pretty expensive. So for the time being, it was a better option to just fight them using his newly developed magic. That way he would be able to train it at the same time.

He was going to need it for later anyways...

*Growl!*

As the pack of soul eaters dashed towards his way, ready to eat him alive, Aspen's hand rapidly started to gather a great bunch of mana that he released right when the soul eaters were close enough.

Waving his hand, an enormous shockwave of ice struck everything on its path, and soon reached the walls of the cave in the direction where Aspen had attacked. The soul eaters, which were on the way to the attack a moment just now, were now covered in a thick layer of ice.

They were still moving. However, due to the amount of ice covering their bodies their movements were considerably slower than before. To the point that Aspen could run around them without any problem as they were too slow to catch up with him.

Their Hp had already lowered by 40 points or so with just that attack, as the cold seemed to have entered their bodies and affected their organs or whatever they had inside.

"Maybe that worm can be affected by ice as well? He is rather flexible after all, if I take his flexibility away then maybe he may not be able to move anymore due to his worm anatomy... Well, that was interesting. Bye-bye"

Waving his hand in a shoo-shoo manner, Aspen sent an enormous burst of ice magic towards the pack of soul eaters and slowly killed them from inside, freezing all their organs and muscles in just a few moments.

*Wuooooosh...!!!*

"Very well, time to go back to work..."

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A few kilometers away from where Aspen and Yuuki landed...

"Catch him! His majesty is going to kill us if we can't bring him back!"

"Those artifacts he has are too strange, how is it possible that we haven't been able to catch with that trash?!"

Across the devastated land of the Corruption, the sight of someone running at an incredible speed across the landscape, seemingly running away from a group of Goblins would be said. His entire figure was covered in a black tunic that completely hid his appearance from anyone around him, and around his waist, an enormous and thick belt of metal with several kinds of tools attached to it could be seen.

The feet of the person running away would once in a while release an enormous amount of fire below them, something that helped the person to gain an enormous momentum and keep increasing the distance between the pursuers and him.

Suddenly, the goblin in the lead raised his voice and yelled at the person running.

"Gnudar, you can't escape from his majesty! If you continue running away then even his majesty might not show mercy on you! If you stop running then I will personally tell the king that you reconsidered things and came back on your own, maybe that way you won't be executed!"

"Shut up! Do you really think I don't know how his majesty acts? He will obviously not kill me, but he will make me live a life worse than death if I allow myself to get caught! That monster that enjoys the sight of blood and death is not someone that I want to serve!" The person running raised his voice and turned to look at the pursuers with a hostile gaze on his eyes. Soon, the person took off the hood that covered his face and revealed the appearance of a goblin wearing lenses!

"How dare you!" Angry at the sudden insult towards his king, the goblin on the lead soon dashed towards the goblin called Gnudar and raised the cleaver on his hand high into the air ready to chop him in half.

However, before the cleaver could slash down, suddenly an incredibly rapid projectile hit the face of the goblin and sent him flying away with an enormous injury on his face.

When the goblin turned to look back at Gnudar in confusion, he saw that both of his arms had metal bracelets that were connected to long chains with spiky balls on their end.

"To think that a failure like you learned a bit of combat... It seems like we didn't teach you correctly about your place! Men, attack together!!"

""Ohhh!!!""

Soon, the conflict became inevitable. The group of goblins rapidly lunged at Gnudar with murderous intention, all of them holding enormous weapons in their hands.

'It's better if I die here... I can't allow that king to get his hands on my knowledge...'

Reading himself to fight to the end, Gnudar raised his fists and prepared to attack. However, before the Goblins would even approach him, suddenly an enormous tremor struck the earth, and soon an enormous figure appeared from within the ground and engulfed the entire group of Goblins in one go.

*Screeeech...!!!"

In front of him, an enormous worm of several meters long and putrid appearance looked down at him seemingly ready to pounce upon him at any moment. Gnudar, who was filled with courage and was ready to fight, suddenly had his face pale up immediately. 

"W-why is a devourer here?!"

His expression turned to one of terror and fear, and soon, Gnudar ran away at full speed in the opposite direction. The Devourer, who saw his prey run away, immediately dived into the ground and started swimming across the earth with ease.

*Screeech!!!*

Gnudar took out several tools from his belt and continued running away while using his devices to dodge each of the Devourer's attacks. However, soon, the small grappling hook was everything the Goblin had left.

Cornered, Gnudar looked around to see if there was somewhere to run, and soon, noticed an enormous pit on the ground where he could be able to hide from the worm.

As he entered the pit, he continued descending for a few minutes until he finally managed to arrive at what seemed to be the end of the pit. In front of him, there was an enormous cave that seemingly had no visible end due to the darkness surrounding it. The smell was horrible, however, due to being in danger, Gnudar had no more option but to eat his complaints and hope that the worm wouldn't be able to find him.

*Cling!*

"Huh?"

*Cling!*

Startled by the sudden sound of metal colliding against a rock, Gnudar looked into the distance and saw the figure of a man mining what seemed to be a purplish metal he had never seen before. His body was covered in beautiful shiny armor, and his long brown hair covered his face from his gaze due to the constant movement the man was exercising while mining.

However, that was not what startled Gnudar the more.

"A... Human?"

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