Chapter 669: Sizing up the Party
Chapter 669: Sizing up the Party
Surprisingly, the younger male wasn’t that annoying for Ryuji. “Isn’t our party a little to melee focused?” He asked while sitting on the back of the rickety carriage heading to the mountains near their quest location.
Logan glanced back with his typical grin. “Lad, you can’t judge a book by its cover.” The old dwarf then pointed to the beautiful mermaid-kin. “Take Nerim here. She might look like a fierce spear user, but her magic and agility allow her to clear 20-30 metres in the flash of an eye.”
‘Well… with those thighs.’
Ryuji didn’t have a shortage of fit, muscular women at home. But she had perfectly sculpted thighs, lumps of powerful muscle. ‘Is it because she carries mermaid blood?’ Her face turned away from him when their eyes met.
“Don’t look.” She pouted, tucking her long legs beneath her cloak.
‘Shorter than Lumina’s but much thicker.’
“Hoho.” Logan chuckled in his annoying old man’s tone, leaning closer to Ryuji. “It’s because of her blood, and intense training. All mermaids in their human form have amazing thighs, enough to crush iron!”
“That’s sexual harassment old man, don’t make me tell my mother!”
The moment Nerim mentioned her mother, the dwarf turned pale and pulled away from Ryuji. “Ah, pet… please don’t tell yer mah.” His tone became softer, rising an octave as he took out a snack of fresh fish wrapped in rice. “Here, have some I got it especially for you.”
‘Oh? Sushi exist’s in this world?’
Ryuji’s eyes shone upon seeing the familiar yet slightly different iteration of the familiar dish he loved. The blue crispy wrapping carried the same scent as seaweed. But the difference in colour made him curious. “Where can I get that kind of food?”
Logan turned for a second, and Nerim’s hand snatched the small wrapping of sushi, eating it with a bright smile on her face.
“Oh? You’re interested in this lad?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded and tapped his pack before winking at Ryuji. “Don’t worry, I have more. But when we get back, I’ll show ya the best place.”
“Good.”
Ryuji leaned back against the wooden planks, shaking and bouncing with a calm glance around the carriage. It wasn’t like the expensive royal carriage he started enjoying, but the silver-haired boy with slightly tanned skin met his eyes.
“…”
The boy maintained his curved blades in silence, his body riddled with scars and marks from old battles.
“Zahir was it?” Ryuji asked in a polite tone.
“Zahir al-Rashan.”
“I see, those blades look well maintained.”
The curved blades were a mix between a crescent blade and a scimitar; the blades curved much more than a regular blade and almost looked ceremonial in nature.
“They were my fathers, and before him my grandfathers.” Zahir’s face lit up the moment Ryuji complimented his blades. He polished the moon emblem on the hilt and looked up at him several times. “Thank you for complimenting them.”
Ryuji just nodded back; he never expected the sharp-seeming member to actually be so earnest and honest.
‘There are so many different people… I want to learn more about this world.’
At first, he didn’t like the mainland or its people. But just meeting Lucy, Logan, Zahir, and Nerim showed a different side of the mainland. He might hate their rulers and the ones with power, but hating an entire people just because of that.
‘Maybe I was being stupid, and arrogant before.’
He didn’t think of them as people; this was the same line of thought that Mephisto carried. When these thoughts started, Ryuji became disappointed in himself.
‘I almost lost myself to power.’
***
The carriage creaked as it climbed the rocky slope toward the mist-veiled mountains. The sea wind thinned, replaced by the metallic scent of damp stone. The road ahead narrowed into a broken trail, flanked by black pine and cliffs that dropped into fog.
“Close enough to walk from here,” Logan said. He jumped down and patted the horse’s neck before unhooking the reins. “Iron Maw’s gorge is just beyond that ridge.”
Ryuji hopped off the carriage and stepped onto the dirt. “Huh?” The moment he touched the ground, a foul, disgusting scent spread from the ground. A constant hum vibrated through the soil, almost as if the mountain was breathing. ‘An Abyssal has been here.’
He leaned down, touching the ground… it was diluted and weak, but definitely the same aura that Abyssal’s created.
‘Why does this feel like more work than I thought it’d be?’
Zahir stopped mid-stride and grasped his blades. “Dwarf, something’s following us.”
The dwarf rubbed his long beard. “Hmph! Probably wolves.”
However, the mermaid-kin hopped off the carriage, her spear already drawn, as she twisted her arms slightly… the sight made Ryuji confused. Her muscles twisted around her bones… it looked painful. ‘Is she alright?’
“No,” Nerim said while twisting her arm further. “It can’t be wolves…” Her voice thinned as her pupils contracted. “That smell… it’s the sea. It shouldn’t reach this high.”
A strange sound, almost a voice, broke through the mist. Followed by wet, dragging steps as the voice became clearer. “…Help… please… help us…”
“Victims?” Zahir asked while looking at Logan and Ryuji.
Ryuji shook his head. “No, those distorted voices…” He couldn’t call them human. It sounded like multiple voices stacked together, and the strange eeriness reminded him of the undead and puppets of Mephisto.
Four shapes emerged from the mist, stumbling forward.
At first glance, they seemed to be human, fishermen maybe. But their flesh carried dark, rotting scales, and strange wounds covered their bodies.
“W-What!?”
“Those marks… they look like the mark an octopus leaves when using its suction pads on prey,” Logan added while setting up his weapon.
Nermin’s gills swelled up and flapped as her arm started turning purple, with bulging veins.
“No, they are the taken.”
Ryuji didn’t have time to ask what that phrase meant.
He wanted to see how his team would perform.
The four shapes burst from the mist, shrieking in warped voices that scraped across the ears. Their movements were jerky, each step visibly tearing at tendons that no longer functioned enough to walk, and yet they did.
One lunged straight for Zahir. The young man twisted aside, drawing both blades in one smooth motion. A single cross-slash opened the creature’s chest, but instead of blood, thick black brine and a fishy scent poured out.
“Definitely not human.” Ryuji muttered, taking a step back.
The second creature darted for Logan. The dwarf snarled and swung his hammer, catching its leg and shattering bone with a wet crunch. “Aye, keep ’em off me, lad!” The ground shifted beneath his feet as he complained to Ryuji.
Nerim moved next.
Her arm twisted again, and finally she let out a deep breath, steam flowing from her mouth. Faint streams of blue light poured from her gills as she locked her grip around the barbed spear. She dashed forward as the weapon began to spin rapidly while vibrating with mana so dense it hissed in the air as her speed tripled.
“Move!”
Her entire body twirled through the air like a tightened coil, exploding forward like an arrow.
The rotation turned her into a blur of blue and silver. Her spear formed a drill of condensed pressure. She hit one creature mid-charge. The impact detonated with a crack of displaced wind. The monster’s torso vaporised into a mist of seawater and shredded flesh, spraying the rocks.
“What the hell!?” Zahir gasped.
Ryuji also found her attack amazing, as the pressure tore through the air, creating an aura of water while he crushed the neck of the last human using his bare hand. He didn’t hide his skill and instead showed just over half his physical prowess.
Only silence remained after the last monster fell.
He watched Nerim, worried that she might have injured her arm. She landed lightly nearby, the spear tip steaming. Her breathing was steady, but the arm she’d twisted earlier was slowly untwisting itself, muscle fibres smoothing as if nothing had happened.
Ryuji’s eyes flicked to the motion and shook his head.
‘Even she’s a monster, that kind of regeneration isn’t human…’
Of course, she ignored his gaze and instead knelt beside the mangled corpse. Then dug into the chest cavity with her fingers, fishing around in the vile, fishy-scented muck.
“What’s she doing?”
“Oh lad? She’s looking for a core.”
‘A core, like a mana core?’
He thought only monsters and demons had those, but when he heard a dull snap and squelch, he flicked his gaze to the mermaid. She pulled out a small, dirty stone that looked wet with a weak purple shine.
“They’re infected… or cursed. The organs and flesh inside them are being replaced.”
Logan’s face became serious as he faced Nerim. “By what?”
Nerim wiped the black blood from her spear and fingertips and looked at Logan, then Ryuji, with a serious expression. “Iron… or corrupted iron.”
Then she lifted the pulsing purple gemstone, at least that’s what most people might think it was, but the foul energy became clearer the longer they watched it.
“Damn…”
“So is this the cause of people becoming iron?”
Ryuji closed his eyes and tried to put the clues together, but all he thought was, “Let’s avoid drinking anything that comes from this area for now. I think this quest will be much more annoying than we think.”
Logan nodded while looking to the mountain, his reason for being something Ryuji knew well. He then nodded. “We should first find a good place to camp tonight, then worry about the dungeon.”
“I second that.” Nermin, who collected all four of the strange cores, answered.
“Then, Zahir are you fine wit hit?”
The silver-haired swashbuckler just nodded and sat beneath a tree.
‘Thankfully, the mist cleared when they died…’