Chapter 591 Night Shock
In the early morning, outside the wooden cabin…
After one night’s worth of rain, the grounds of the forest had turned muddy.
Outside the wooden cabin, somewhere no more than 10 steps away from the door, there were surprisingly two square boxes.
The boxes were made of wood but were lined with brass. The surface of the brass area was adorned with a type of pattern. Appearance wise, they possessed a simplistic and ancient look of exquisiteness.
After Chen Xiaolian gave his shout, Hossein stepped out from the wooden cabin and saw the two boxes placed outside. The former holy knight’s face contorted as well.
Those boxes possessed no feet. They could not have walked by themselves here. Neither did they possess wings to fly down from the sky.
These two boxes had appeared somewhere no more than 10 steps away from the door leading into the wooden cabin. The only explanation for this was: Someone had moved the boxes over and placed it there.
“Yesterday night, when I was checking the outside, I did not see anything,” Hossein quickly said, a livid look on his face.
Chen Xiaolian believed Hossein’s words wholeheartedly – considering how big those boxes were, there was no way he could have missed them last night. After the sneak attack by the blood-sucking bats, Hossein had rushed out to check their surroundings. If there were boxes outside the cabin, could Hossein have missed them?
The only explanation for this was: Last night, some time after they were attacked by the blood-sucking bats and before dawn, sometime between those two points in time, someone had secretly come to this place outside the wooden cabin and left these two boxes here. Then, they left – during the process, Chen Xiaolian and Hossein, who were inside the cabin had not sensed anything at all.
Realizing that fact, both their faces contorted to the extreme.
“… open it up first.” Chen Xiaolian sighed. At this point in time, there was nothing else they could do. He retrieved a sword and walked to the box. Using the tip of his sword, he lifted up the cover of one of the boxes.
“… humph!” After seeing the contents of the box, Hossein was unable to stop himself from snorting out.
Surprisingly, the first box contained a pile of gold coins. Amid the gold coins were several red coloured, fist-sized crystals.
“Those are Blood Crystals, something belonging to the Bloodclan.” Hossein frowned. He used his hand to grab one of them and examined it for a while. “Low-grade Blodclan’s Blood Crystal. Its purity is quite low – in the instance dungeons where I had to face off against the Bloodclan, there is a chance that this item would drop out when killing off a low-ranking Bloodclan member. Utility wise, this item is quite good. If you have an equipment of the darkness attribute, you can use this item to temper and augment your equipment. However, the higher the level of your equipment, the less effective this low-grade Blood Crystal becomes.”
Chen Xiaolian thought about it. These Blood Crystals appeared somewhat similar to the Demon Soldier Fragments that he had used in the past.
Reaching the line of thought, Chen Xiaolian’s heart skipped a beat.
This… … what is this supposed to mean?
Last night, both him and Hossein had killed off two low-ranking Bloodclan members.
Then, when dawn came, two boxes containing low-grade Blood Crystals and some gold coins were sent to their doorstep.
This… … what is this supposed to be?
Loot from the mobs killed in-game?
How… … absurd!
Hossein had also thought about it. With a complicated expression, he exchanged glances with Chen Xiaolian. He abruptly pulled out a sword and shouted aloud as he hacked down the two boxes before him.
Seeing the gold coins and Blood Crystals scattering upon the ground, Chen Xiaolian sighed. With a wave of his hand, he kept those items into his Storage Watch.
“Regardless, there is no need to waste it.” Chen Xiaolian shook his head and continued, “Maybe the other side wants to provoke us. Or maybe they are toying with us. However, no matter what, we need to remain calm. It is pointless to get angry.”
Hossein harrumphed and walked toward the forest. There, facing the air, he shouted loudly, “Sneaky bastards who won’t reveal yourselves! If you have guts, come out and fight us!”
He shouted out repeatedly for a few times. Seeing that no response was forthcoming, he turned around and walked back to Chen Xiaolian’s side.
Chen Xiaolian, who had wanted to give him a few words of advice, suddenly noticed the look on Hossein’s face. Hossein’s face appeared to be full of fury. However, a closer look revealed that his eyes were calm and clear.
This fellow was putting on a façade.
Chen Xiaolian instantly understood.
Confuse the enemy?
After realizing that, Chen Xiaolian, too, swore out loudly. After that, he pulled Hossein back with him into the wooden cabin.
The four of them used some time to tidy themselves up before leaving the wooden cabin. Then, they continued onward.
After moving out from the wooden cabin, they got their bearings and continued to move toward the castle.
However, after moving forward for some time, they saw that the forest remain unending. Chen Xiaolian’s pace gradually slowed. Finally, he stopped and said to Hossein, “We cannot go on like this.”
“Mm?”
“Someone has clearly tampered with this forest. If we continue to foolishly move forward like this, we will only end up wasting time and stamina. If we don’t figure out what they did to this forest, we will not be able to reach our destination no matter how much we walk.”
“Do you know any spells or magic?” asked Hossein with a scowl.
“I don’t.”
“If that is the case, what you said is just nonsense,” Hossein shouted. “No matter how powerful the magic is, there is no way to turn an area infinite in size. There must be an edge to this area. Since we do not know magic, we can only use the most foolish method to forge ahead! We will reach the edge! When that time comes and we find who has been tampering with it, I will hack that bastard into pieces!”
“But you are being too reckless! Maybe the other side has already secretly set up a trap and is waiting for us.”
“Pei! The way I see it, you are just afraid!”
Seeing the two of them argue, Lin Leyan and Jenny turned dumbfounded.
Jenny quickly moved forward to tug Hossein’s arm. Lin Leyan, too, had moved over to grab Chen Xiaolian’s arm, hoping to stop him from continuing.
“I am not going to quarrel with you!” Chen Xiaolian harrumphed before furiously pulling Lin Leyan with him to the side. They then sat down somewhere beside a big tree.
“Chen Xiaolian, you two…” There was a troubled look on Lin Leyan’s face.
It was then that she suddenly realized that Chen Xiaolian was secretly winking at her.
Lin Leyan was a smart person after all. She was able to instantly grasp what was going on. Chen Xiaolian was most likely just putting on an act.
On the other side, under Jenny’s appeasement efforts, Hossein shouted with what seemed to be suppressed fury, “Fine! If that is the case, we will rest for a while! After a rest, we will continue moving forward!”
“Humph!” Chen Xiaolian gave another loud harrumph.
Throughout the whole morning, Chen Xiaolian and Hossein argued with each other twice.
Each time, thanks to the appeasement efforts of the two women, the two of them restrained themselves.
However, during the second time, the two of them came close to fighting each other. It would appear that the two of them were gradually becoming more infuriated.
Then came afternoon – another day had gone by, but there was still no end to this strange forest.
When evening came, Chen Xiaolian and Hossein’s faces sank. In the forest before them, the same thing had appeared… …
A wooden cabin.
It was very similar to the wooden cabin that the four of them had stayed in last night… … if not for some minute differences in certain spots, they would have thought that they had gotten lost and ended up returning to the same wooden cabin.
“Same rules, we will take turns keeping watch for the night. I will keep watch in the later half of the night while you keep watch for the first half of the night.” After finishing his duties in the cabin, Chen Xiaolian said to Hossein in a hard manner.
The two of them took up a spot in one of the corners of the wooden cabin each. They appeared uninterested in chatting. From all outward appearances, they appeared very aloof.
Late at night, it was Chen Xiaolian’s turn to keep watch. Seeing that the fires in the fireplace was growing weak, he moved the charcoals around. All the while, his ears continued to listen to the sounds from his surroundings.
Then, his eyes suddenly took a grim look.
A series of strange sounds, sounds of movements, suddenly rang out from outside the cabin. The sound had come from within the forest.
Ta, ta, ta, ta…
It was a neat and rhythmic sound. It sounded as though something was hitting the ground from afar. However, that something was moving closer.
It sounded like… … someone walking while wearing wooden clogs.
After reaching a certain spot not far from the wooden cabin, the sound stopped.
Chen Xiaolian’s hand was already gripping the hilt of his sword. With his body leaning forward, he slowly stood up and walked to the door leading out of the cabin.
It was at that moment that the “ta ta” sound re-emerged from outside the wooden cabin.
This time, the movement pattern of the sound changed. It no longer moved closer to the cabin. Instead, it circled around the cabin.
Chen Xiaolian turned to look back and saw that Hossein was already up. The two of them exchanged glances within the darkness. After giving Hossein a hand signal, Chen Xiaolian abruptly charged out like an artillery blast.
With a bang, his figure slammed through the door of the cabin and he practically flew out to land somewhere within the forest.
In the darkness of the night, Chen Xiaolian’s gaze swept through the exterior of the wooden cabin in a circular motion. There in the darkness, not far away from him, was a vague looking black coloured silhouette.
Chen Xiaolian focused his eyes to look at it. Next though, he was unable to stop the hairs on his body from standing up. Even his scalp felt numb.
After tying Sawakita Mitsuo to her back with several layers of rope, Nagase Komi’s crouched body wavered unsteadily and her rate of breathing grew slightly more ragged.
“Why don’t I carry him instead?” Phoenix, who watched the near-bald girl exert herself, asked.
Nagase Komi shook her head. “No, it is better for me to carry teacher. I am already wounded. If we encounter those monsters, I would not be able to contribute too much in a fight. Your condition is the best among us three. Should we encounter those monsters, you will be our main combatant against those monsters. Carrying someone on your back means exerting some of your strength. As for me… … I no longer have much strength left to fight.”
Phoenix sighed and replied, “All right.”
They then departed from the place. Phoenix took the lead, searching for the way out within the gap between the glaciers.
After moving forward for some time, Phoenix raised her head to look at the cracks between the glaciers. “Here.”
She produced two blades. Using a strip of gauze, she wrapped the blades around her hands. Next, she thrust the blades into the surface of the glacier, repeating the action at a higher elevation each time to climb upward. A few moments later, Phoenix then sent a rope down from above. The end of the rope was tied into a bowline knot, allowing Nagase Komi to put it around her.
Phoenix, who stood above the glaciers, pulled the two below up.
A snowstorm was raging at the moment. Phoenix, who stood up there, was immediately turned white from the snow.
The snowy plain was vast. No matter which way they looked, they could not see an end to the snowy plain.
After Nagase Komi got up, she tightened the rope tying Sawakita Mitsuo to her back. Then, she moved toward Phoenix and shouted, “Where should we go?”
Phoenix pointed in a certain direction. “There! When I was exploring the way yesterday, I had taken this direction!”
After saying that, she pulled out a magic wand from her waist and raised it up above her head. Instantly, light burst out from the surface of the wand and a translucent barrier of light appeared, blocking off the snowstorm.
It was like a transparent umbrella which protected the three of them from the snowstorm. Once again, Phoenix took the lead. Her body leaned forward as she laboured to lead Nagase Komi into the snowy plain… …
If one were to observe the snowy plain from the sky, they would see that, somewhere hundreds of metres from Phoenix’s group, a large and crowded mass of rapidly moving objects were forming a circle. They were converging together. Clearly, their objective was Phoenix’s group.
…
In a large and black coloured room, the only source of illumination came from a crystal ball in the centre. Images floated upon the surface of the crystal ball: An endless plain of snow, a magical barrier blocking the snow, a young woman, a near-bald girl, a wounded person on her back… …
A thin hand pressed down on the surface of the crystal ball to gently stroke it. The image and the light disappeared. The room was once again reunited with darkness and silence…
“You guess. Which among these fellows will make it out first?”
“Humph! So, are we going to bet on it? What is the wager?”
“… … let’s wager 100 years.”
“Call.”
Two voices permeated the darkness of the room.
…
Outside the wooden cabin, Chen Xiaolian stared at the thing opposite him intently. He could feel the pores in every corner of his body.
It was not exactly due to fear. Truth be told, considering his present level of strength, even if he were to encounter a powerful opponent, or some powerful monster, it would not cause him to feel fear.
However, this thing standing before him right now was his one nightmare.
An intense feeling of fury instantly broke all his sense of reason. All of it seemingly broke down in a fiery flame.
Chen Xiaolian’s eyes were on the verge of spouting flames.
An animal-like howl escaped his lips. It sounded as though it contained an extreme amount of rage and sadness. His entire body shuddered.
The thing standing outside the wooden cabin was surprisingly… … a human.
To be exact, it was a dead human.
…
The person wore a common set of casual wear; had a slender figure and noticeable curves. The pair of jeans revealed the figure’s pair of slender legs. However, the person’s entire body was covered in blood.
That was especially true of the waist area. A considerable number of parts there had decayed. The wounds rotted while the mucus from the wounds had a faint greenish colour.
Both the person’s clothes and body were in tatters.
The figure stood there with a contorted posture. There was a peculiar air of stiffness and clumsiness in the posture.
The person’s hair was long and dirtied. The head slouched, while the face was also covered in blood and mucus. Even so, it was still possible to know how the person had originally looked like.
It should have been a beautiful face, with exquisite facial features. Now, however, it appeared stiff. Rather, it was the type of stiffness that would rouse the feelings of disgust in others. The eyes on the face could still swivel about, but they too, carried an air of clumsiness. At the same time, the muscles on the left cheek had been torn off, causing the gums and bones beneath to become exposed.
To sum it up, the ‘thing’ standing before Chen Xiaolian was surprisingly a human, a young female human.
To be precise, it was a zombie.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, that was the name that many movies and drama series had given it.
A creature of the dead.
However, this person, this face, this was someone Chen Xiaolian knew.
Even without looking at this person’s face, just by looking at the person’s figure, he would recognize her. There was no way he would be mistaken.
The female zombie stood before Chen Xiaolian, its mouth faintly releasing “hou hou” sounds.
At that moment, Chen Xiaolian’s eyes had turned bloodshot. His entire body trembled. Even his fingertips trembled.
He clenched his teeth hard and bit his lip to forcibly suppress the howl of rage and grief from escaping his mouth once more.
Finally, Chen Xiaolian opened his mouth. Looking right at the female zombie standing before him, he softly uttered out a name.
“Qiao Qiao… …”
…
Roar!
The zombie Qiao Qiao pounced. Despite being a zombie, she was exceptionally fast. Her figure vaulted through the air like a bolt of lightning.
As she was still in the middle of the air, however, a black silhouette flew forward and slammed her away with a bang. At the same time, a hand moved to vigorously pull Chen Xiaolian away.
Bang!
The falling zombie Qiao Qiao managed to fall upon the spot that Chen Xiaolian was standing upon earlier. Her fingers were like hooks and they pulled a large clump of the earth out as she got up.
Chen Xiaolian, who was rolling away on the ground, was pulled up by Hossein. “You fool!”
“She!”
“Is fake! All of it is fake!” Hossein shouted with a concerned fury.
Chen Xiaolian turned and saw the zombie Qiao Qiao snarling at him. Decayed gums could be seen on the left side of her cheeks.
Zombie Qiao Qiao charged forward once more. Hossein grunted as he raised his sword to hack at her.
It was then that Chen Xiaolian shouted out.
Clang!
A sword heavily deflected Hossein’s sword attack. Zombie Qiao Qiao’s body twisted and she sent one hand out to grab Hossein’s shoulder. Hossein swore. Although he did his best to dodge, she managed to rip out a small tear on the protective suit he wore.
“Chen Xiaolian! You stopped me? Have you gone crazy?”
“She is my companion!”
“It is fake, you idiot!” Hossein was furious. After having his attack deflected by Chen Xiaolian, he grew infuriated. “You idiot!”
Chen Xiaolian panted. However, he placed himself in between zombie Qiao Qiao and Hossein. “No matter what, do not kill her… … just subdue her first.”
“Fool!” Hossein harrumphed and quickly backed off. He then stood before the door of the wooden cabin and said, “If so, you handle it on your own! If you get bitten or scratched by it and die as a result, it’s on you! I won’t save an idiot!”
Chen Xiaolian’s eyes were filled with grief. He stared intently at zombie Qiao Qiao, which stood before him.
“Who are you?! Who? Who?!!”
Chen Xiaolian raised his head in the direction of the forest and bellowed, “You dare use something like this on me? I will KILL you! Kill you!!!”
…
“The target is growing angry.”
“Interesting, I like this method of playing the most.”
“Humph, that is because you are a sicko.”
“Eh? Wait up. The three in the third area are quite interesting… … that bald guy, it looks like… …”