Chapter 446 - 'Contract'
It was a layout, no, the layout was its body, and its body was what it always observed silently.
The flickering ‘life’ and its whimsical nature, was an interesting spectacle.
Yet this was no more than a trick of the mind, the reality was the ‘life’ it really didn’t mind. For what it cared for was not their life, but their end and what it meant.
…
But lately, it was anxious. The ‘life’ it harvested was not dying so frequently.
It knew what was responsible, but to confront it was not possible. The circumstances would not allow it, as the foreign life was the one behind it. Not just that, but an intruder was nearing one of its contractee1.
If the intruder broke past and continued on its path, it would be a danger to it and all that it had. There was no other choice but to…!
…
It acted, the unwelcome guest, the uncalled visitor. It acted. The foreign life that it loathed and loved.
The cog played its part and the intruder was strayed from their path. Their efforts, their gains, they fell to the lake and were all washed away.
In its place was left a strong feeling of yearning, a teeming regret to return to the past, and to this time, make it last.
It was thrilled! Excited! The intruder that plagued it was vulnerable and saddened!
To turn it to ‘life’, all it took was a lie. All of its wishes… it could never grant.
But call it trickery, or deceit, a cunning ploy, or a flimsy fib, the intruder clutched onto hope and said goodbye to their life for good.
The energy seemed boundless as it entered its mind, but the reality was that not all could be taken. This was all per their pact.
But it was not shaken, this was the norm. It was used to this feeling of energy not filling its void.
It was teeming with yearning incomparable to the yearning of the life it just stole. It was brimming with an unknown sense of both urgency and drive for what existed beyond freedom. That the feeling of emptiness would fade out and maybe…
Maybe this was enough to loosen another hurdle.
***
The situation in the marshlands stabilized. The flagship returned to the rendezvous point and where they picked up one ship. The other ship was tasked with directing the other 4 ships to join them upon their return.
‘A ship reinforcement won’t do much though’ They still wouldn’t be able to face the enemies. At most, they would be able to switch posts with the ship currently on the enemy’s tail.
Fortunately, the inability to do much about the escaped enemies meant that Var Agus couldn’t just idle away. It was time to find where the enemies had camped.
In theory, this was a good move. They might get some insight into the enemies’ habits. Well, that might be a bit optimistic. The true reason was they might get some insight into the weapons at the disposal of their foes.
Ordinarily, Ed would not hope for that to be the case. But his means of acquiring information were not ordinary. Assessment alone could tell him many things.
‘If the Mensch lizardmen took precautions it’s a different thing’ If they destroyed everything resembling text in the location then obviously Ed wouldn’t be able to decipher anything.
‘Well, to acknowledge letters they need to know how to read’ The lizardmen did seem smarter than the orcs but their communities were more isolated. It didn’t appear as though they ever came together to consolidate their knowledge which would require an alphabet, this was unlike the orcs.
‘Whatever, I am getting ahead of myself’ On the odd chance it was really all acquired from some dungeon loot chest Ed would be speculating over nothing.
“We are at the battle point” A crewlizard said. Var Agus who was in the bottom deck nodded and came out to see the water dazzling under the sun’s bright rays. There was also some leftover debris pooled near small masses of land.
“The Mesnch lizardmen came from over that way” Var Agus said pointing straight.
“But with the chaos, the boosting away, and the hijacking, they ran away towards the left” Var Agus was currently speaking to the additional boat they brought along. The divine blood warrior in charge was none other than Crini. She was nodding along to the conversation.
“Where do you need me to go?” Crini asked. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
“You go after the enemies” After much deliberation, Var Agus decided that Crini and her crew were better suited for chasing the enemy.
It was still up to chance if they would be able to meet the enemies again but still, in the event of an encounter, Crini and her crew would hold their own.
The same could not be said for finding information from the abandoned base of the enemy. It required patience, intelligence, and also wisdom.
As the divine blood warrior of the Shadow snake, Crini did not lack patience. Her intelligence was not up to par with Var’s but it wasn’t lacking either. The only problem was her wisdom.
Var Agus could be said to be entering his middle ages as a lizardman now. Crini was still relatively young though. Most of the divine blood warriors were pretty young in fact. Var Agus had made that choice deliberately.
“Ok” Crini didn’t have reasons to refuse. There was also a hidden sense of excitement which Ed did not fail to catch.
‘Are the blood clots affecting them more negatively than I thought?’ All the lizardmen who received one were showing some signs of bloodlust or instability. Ed couldn’t tell if it was a result of the clots themselves or if the power was twisting the minds of the lizardmen.
Ed decided to put a pin on the topic for now. He could never forget what he heard of Vorgarag’s final words and actions. He didn’t want anyone to go through something like that as a result of his experiments, not anymore.
‘I was too reckless’ But there was no point in bringing that up again.
Crini and Var parted ways soon after they settled a time to rendezvous. The time was before the sunset, it would be hard to navigate the current area in the dark. Only in the vast hydra lake could they dare be so careless.
Regardless, what mattered was settled. It was now simply time to take in the sound of the water as it was parted by their ship. Well, without being able to hear, it was best to use that time to make some plans.
Ed began thinking about how he would design both this floor and the orc plains to be successfully conjoined.
‘Some deep canals wouldn’t be bad’ The swampland could be vastly improved with the help of magic.
These idle thoughts helped pass the time and before anyone knew it, they were at the base of the Mensch reserve army. The first impression was pretty poor.
“This is just a waste” Var Agus commented. There were fish bones littered everywhere and the overall area was just messy. There was some crappy wooden fencing that would let even the weakest of monsters pass.
‘If it weren’t for Mensch’s large numbers, the mobs might have been tempted to attack them’ The weaker monsters were not a problem for a small group of lizardmen to handle. It felt redundant to have a wall that only even weaker monsters would be left out by.
The lacking infrastructure was none of Ed’s business though. The more pressing issue was still the origin of the artifact.
‘Nothing points towards it’ The magical device must have been acquired somewhere nearby though. The small outpost told Ed that this was most likely a pseudo permanent settlement, they couldn’t have found the place too far.
Ed told Var Agus of his suspicions who nodded firmly believing that the mushroom god’s words were likely. But just because they were likely, it didn’t mean the task of finding the weapons’ origins was made any easier.
‘Hm?’ A who was looking around while holding Ed was surprised to find something among the garbage.
‘Is this… some sort of fruit waste?’ There were some seeds as well as what appeared to be the fruit’s peel lying around.
‘Quite durable’ A saw it fitting to transmit this information to Ed who also agreed this was a direction worth investigating. He had yet to see any fruits in the entire swamp though they had sailed for hours.
The only explanation was that the fruits were a local commodity.
[Water Skin Fruit Peel]
[ A fruit that tends to grow near places solely abundant with water mana ]
A grabbed the fruit and placed it in a position where Ed could properly examine it. The latter was satisfied with the assessment.
‘If it’s like this we just need to follow the mana’ Ed was a magic mushroom. He could know which soils were best for growth! …Which didn’t really help their situation at all. With his current senses, any insignificant increase or decrease in mana went mostly unnoticed by him.
‘Maybe it’s about time I do something about that’ His mushroom body had to be good for something.
‘Plants are supposed to be more sensitive towards these types of stuff anyway right?’ Noted, he was not a plant but they were practically the same thing, no?
Ignoring the various non-existent corrections from non-existent people, Ed started to ask himself how he might learn to find high sources of mana.