Chapter 85: The Bazooka Returns
Quash went around the mining sites, trying to find the wall that he only knew from the novel.
He knew what he was looking for, so that was not a problem. But where it was remained the issue, forcing him to run around a lot. Through this, however, he learned a lot about how the economy of the Academy City works by talking to a few dudes.
This rush of students near the low-level dungeon would last only about a month before they stopped coming. After a few months, they would be stable enough to afford long-distance travel and stacked enough to make long trips.
He also asked around if anyone knew of some quiet place to mine. The reason for doing that was to avoid looking suspicious.
Imagine a guy with a makeshift mask just walking around with no pickaxe where everyone else came to mine. That would surely arouse suspicion from the prospective students.
They might follow him. Although he had his perception skills active, they could still be bypassed by someone with advanced Stealth skills. He did not want to take any risks.
So after a while of just asking around and getting a few directions, he visited them one by one.
Initially, he had gotten sixteen directions, but he narrowed them down to five because, in the novel, it was mentioned that the wall was near the river—but how near, nothing was stated. So he was left with five options he needed to manually check for any signs of a wall that had a small cavity behind it.
Quash hoped he would find it within the first four. It would be really sad if the last one turned out to be the thing he was looking for. What would be even sadder was if he didn’t find it among any of them at all.
With the locations fixed, he got down to business. He arrived at the first location, around 500 meters to the right of the throne room. He looked closely around to find any sign of the wall.
What he found was dirt that smelled like the odor itself had fossilized over time, alongside massive rocks. He did not have a pickaxe to break these rocks, which were tougher than Rare Grade materials.
If not for the fact that these rocks had low practical applications, they would have been treated as Rare Grade items for sure.
But Quash smiled despite knowing that he might have to become Minecraft Steve and punch the rock until it broke.
Because he had an item that was far more effective—AND ITS NAME IS THE BAZOOOOOKKKKAAAAA!!!
(A/N: And his name is John Cena type shit basically. ☝🤓)
Quash took out his favorite toy after a long time. He had thought of buying a pickaxe, but he wanted to absolutely bomb this place.
Do rockets cost more than a pickaxe?
Who cares, they weren’t his points anyway. He had gone to Gagon this morning to get a few upgrades on the Bazooka for this exact reason. He wanted to flex his wealth by firing at random.
But because of his spiritual enlightenment at noon, his mindset had changed a bit. Even so, he would still go through with it as planned.
Because he had no other option unless he wanted to become Steve!
And he was not willing to punch rocks for no reason. He has a wife now; he needs to take care of his body.
Quash took out the Bazooka with a big smile on his face. He started to walk back while loading the weapon simultaneously.
After he felt he was at a safe distance, he fired.
The speed of the new rockets had increased, and they closed the distance almost instantly.
BOOM~!
A shockwave greater than any shockwave he had felt before hit Quash like a physical blow. He was on one knee, so he didn’t get knocked off his feet, but the destruction was absolutely thrilling. A part of the dirt and rocky wall exploded outward, falling down like debris after a volcanic eruption. A few fragments hit him, but they didn’t hurt.
He couldn’t help but nod. He knew this could give away his attempt to hide his identity, but who cared?
If he didn’t explain anything, the onlookers would just come up with something of their own to fill the void. That might ultimately create a veil of mystery that could come in handy.
Just as he was about to fire another one, quite a few dudes rushed over, wondering if some treasure had dropped. Instead, they found a lone guy about to fire a Bazooka.
They left in disdain. There were a lot of these Bazooka-firing guys nowadays. The students had suffered a lot at the hands of the Bazooka-using crowd after it got famous because of some guy who was now rumoured to be married to the Vampire Princess or something.
They wondered if that guy was him, but they quickly dismissed it. Why would a 20th-ranked person be in a try-hard beginner zone?
It did not make any sense at the moment. But they did feel suspicious about the guy with the ruby-red eyes. However, they were too high on adrenaline to care, so they just went back to their own work.
Quash fired again after they left. Another chunk of dirt and rocks was decimated. And the third shot revealed a yellow, gold-ish wall behind it.
"Just what happened to this place?"
He murmured but kept firing anyway. The wall caved in at the first shot. But that was not enough; after three more shots, that part of the wall was no more, revealing only more dirt behind it. Meaning there was no cavity.
From what he remembered from the novel, the cavity was supposed to be very cramped in diameter, but the ceiling would be incredibly high.
So this place definitely wasn’t it. But just to be sure there actually wasn’t any cavity on the other side, he tapped on the rock to check the sound, though he couldn’t really understand the difference. So he just fired another rocket, but the result was the same.
Still, he had to admit that these walls were highly damage-resistant. Even though millions of years had probably passed, the materials were still this tough. Now, how tough would they have been when they were first built? He could not imagine.
But he didn’t need to. He just needed to continue doing his thing. And that’s exactly what he did.