And everything gets complicated once again...
I sighed as my thoughts raced.
Why would goblins pretend to be a foolish race in the eyes of everyone? What would they gain from it? To be underestimated and hunted as monsters?
Unless...
A thought crossed my mind. I quickly pulled up the stream ssages, a specific part, actually.
[Description: A matrix of Mystical Symbols created by a genius of the goblin race on orders from their king, seeking revenge against Terrarians, blaming them for the ancient curse that befell their race.]
A king seeking revenge against Terrarians, blaming them for the ancient curse that befell his race. Those were the exact words the stream had given .
What if they weren't pretending to be fools, but were actually like that, or rather, had beco like that?
A curse strong enough to affect an entire race. A curse strong enough to reduce a species once known as "A great race of mages and enchanters" to re monsters, beasts driven by basic instinct...
My eyes widened slightly in astonishnt at this thought.
That is, until sothing changed, and they regained their intelligence.
Sothing happened with the curse, or it weakened over ti, or soone managed to remove it sohow, causing the goblins to regain their intelligence...
My brainstorm was interrupted by the shouts of the villager in front of , or rather, the goblin possessing him.
"TELL , DAMN IT! YOU TERRARIAN BASTARD! HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? TELL !"
I blinked confused for a mont and turned my attention back to the yellow-eyed gaze.
I had forgotten about this guy for a mont...
"You don't really think I'm going to tell you, do you?" I raised my right eyebrow, unable to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
What does he think I am? A stereotypical villain, by any chance? Am I going to go around bragging about my "achievents"?
This seed to only make the goblin angrier; I could see his eyes widening and his pupils narrowing even more as he opened his mouth and probably was about to scream again with his shrill voice.
That is, if the mont he opened his mouth, I hadn't made a rolled-up cloth appear in his mouth, preventing him from screaming.
Clearly, I did this to prevent him from hurting the throat of the body he was possessing even more; it has nothing to do with him having an annoyingly high-pitched and loud voice.
Of course, I could have let him speak to try to talk to him, but from the way he referred to , throwing so curse and inserting the word "Terrarian" at the end, I felt he wouldn't be a very pleasant conversation partner.
Before I could turn to call Dylan, the door of the Humvee opened, and the guide hurriedly erged from it, pointing a bow around looking for enemies.
When he saw standing calmly, he seed to relax, lowering the bow before noticing the bodies in front of , or more specifically, the body writhing like an angry worm.
He blinked a bit confused and slowly pointed his finger at the "worm" before asking.
"I suppose the screams I heard before ca from him?"
I didn't have ti to answer before sothing curious happened.
The body with the yellow eyes, the one the goblin possessed, fell silent and closed its eyes; shortly after, the body next to it trembled slightly before opening its eyes, now yellow, the sa as the goblin's, then opened its mouth and began to scream.
"YOU BASTARD! HOW DARE YOU INTERRUPT ?! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! YOU DAMN TERRARIAN! I AM GRONGIR! THE GREAT APPRENTICE OF XANOK!"
I seriously considered just covering his mouth again, but when he started ntioning random nas from the stream, or rather, the mission I had received from the stream began to have multiple "PINGs" with the mission updating with each of his words, so I let him speak.
While the goblin shouted the nas of all the important people he knew and how he would tear apart in the slowest way possible for my audacity to have interrupted him, I turned to Dylan, who was gaping at everything happening in front of him.
"As you saw, our friend here is quite 'calm' and speaks quite 'low,' so to speak." I made air quotes with my fingers. "So, did you just prepare that?" I asked without directly ntioning the powder, as the goblin was listening to us.
Dylan chanically nodded in agreent, as if his body were on autopilot, not taking his eyes off the body that continued to scream insults.
"Great!" I said cheerfully, pointing to our goblin friend. "Do the honors; let's see if this really works."
It didn't matter if Dylan was already sure that this powder would work or sothing; after the Crimson na was ntioned, caution was essential.
I'm not crazy enough to enter that village without being sure this powder will work.
I waited for the body the goblin possessed to open its mouth again to speak and stuffed another cloth inside, finally stopping its screams. This seed to be enough for Dylan to "wake up" and start firing questions frantically.
"What is this?" He pointed to the goblin. "Why are his eyes like that?" He pointed to the eyes. "Are those people from the village?" He pointed to the village. "Why do they look sick?" He pointed back to the goblin.
And a few more questions that got lost in his rapid speech.
"Dylan!" I said in a louder tone, trying to get his attention on . When I saw that he had cald down and stopped his questions, I continued.
"I'm as confused as you are." That was a lie, but I didn't want to waste ti explaining.
"The only things I can deduce are. First. The one responsible for controlling the villagers is this tattoo on their skin." I pointed to the villagers' wrists, where the Mystical Symbols were visible, before continuing.
"Second. Those yellow eyes there." I pointed to the goblin's angry gaze.
"He spouted so nonsense, sothing about being a goblin and that he would throw us into the village to wither like the villagers, sothing about a matrix on the walls or sothing." Let's just bla the goblin for knowing this information.
The goblin looked at with wide-eyed surprise before returning to screaming, or trying to scream in this case, probably asking how I knew this information or sothing.
He could just be cursing my entire family again too, you never know.
I just didn't understand why he didn't switch bodies as he did before; maybe so kind of cost? Is he a bit dumb and forgot?
"Speaking of which," I comnted, "Don't touch them; that disgusting tattoo on their skin gives chills. I wouldn't risk touching it if I were you."
Dylan looked at as if I were crazy for so reason.
"A matrix that spreads on touch? That's impossible," he said, his surprise giving way to disbelief. "There's no such thing; the amount of mana required would be absurd, not to ntion that the matrix would need to be almost alive for that!"
Huh? Strange. What makes him so sure about this?
"I think it's better not to touch them anyway." I comnted lightly before turning my gaze to the side and seeing one of the descriptions that the stream had given about the matrix.
[WARNING! DUE TO EXOTIC MATERIALS FROM THE "Crimson" BIO, THE MATRIX KNOWN AS "CrimsonBind (Prototype)" IS TRANSMISSIBLE BY TOUCH!]
Yes, I wasn't going to touch that thing. I'm sure so kind of glove or special material was needed to deal with this matrix; otherwise, I doubt even the creator could do anything with it.
"In fact, I'm sure it's not ant to be touched, but if you're confident, you can touch it." I shrugged. "Just give the powder before in case I need to throw it in your face to wake you up." I took a few steps back, waiting for Dylan to test the powder.
He looked at briefly with a skeptical look before turning around, and his eyes glowed slightly in blue as he looked at the tattoos.
It didn't take even five seconds for his skeptical look to turn into a look of surprise, then disgust, and finally, complete aversion.
"What the hell is this?" He exclaid as he took a few steps back.
"Is this thing almost alive?! What is this?! What materials are these?!" His face seed to get greener with each word, as if he were reading about what the matrix was.
"Terrarian blood!? Sli!?" He seed incredulous before his face turned horrified, and he whispered so low that I could barely hear.
"Crimson?!"
His face had changed from green to white. He seed close to fainting, just the na of the bio having made him react like this.
So, did he know the bio? Or at least had heard of them... Curious, I had searched the entire library for both the red and purple bios, and there seed to be no sign of either of them, which was expected, since I only had access to the lower floors of the library.
So, Dylan knowing them, or at least the Crimson, was at the very least intriguing, sothing related to the Guide Order perhaps? But he had ntioned being a novice in it, sothing common knowledge?
I didn't think that was it, but anyway, before I could continue my train of thought, Dylan didn't hesitate before tapping the ring on his hand twice with his finger, making a light blue bag of considerable size appear in his hands.
He wasted no ti before putting his hand into the bag and pulling out a handful of what looked like a bright light blue powder, more or less the sa color as the bag but glowing.
He opened his hand, palm up with the powder, and blew.
The powder seed to have a life of its own because when Dylan blew it, it went to the bodies on its own, or rather, to the tattoos, sticking to them like glue.
It didn't take long for to see the effects; the tattoos began to "burn" off the villagers' skins, the ink turning into black smoke with a foul sll before disappearing, leaving only scar marks where the tattoos used to be.
I whistled, impressed. I didn't think it would be so effective, especially with the Crimson involved.
As I watched the tattoos slowly disappear, and the villagers of Jille regained so color in their skin, Dylan took the opportunity to grab two small glass bottles with water inside and mixed the powder.
"Here, take this." He tossed the bottle and didn't hesitate to drink the other. "I roughly know what these things are made of." He pointed to the smoke from the tattoos.
"If it were the place where they got the ingredients to make this abomination, it wouldn't help, but since it's just so diluted materials, drinking the powder should help prevent infection."
"Infection?" A very inviting word from Dylan.
Without hesitation, I drank the water with the powder; it had no taste, just water. After I drank, the stream opened my status on its own.
-//-
[Purification Powder ingested! "Purified Mana (Temporary)" Status Received! - Ti: 1 hour 2 minutes]
[Purified Mana: Due to Purification Powder in your system, your mana is in a more "pure" state.
Resistance to negative effects increased by 50%!
Resistance to ntal corruption increased by 50%! (Immunity due to the title "The Strear")]
-//-
Excellent effects, even though I could only enjoy one of them, as my title made immune to ntal corruption, but it seed that this didn't apply to my body, so this was a welco effect.
Dylan, seeing that I had drunk the entire bottle of water, spoke again.
"This is just a last resort, a precaution, so to speak." He said, and I could see that he was still affected by everything that was happening.
"Don't let them touch you if you can avoid it; each touch should spend part of the effect, too many, and it will disappear completely."
I didn't intend to anyway, but it was good to know that it wasn't an exact hour; this could be "spent," so to speak, when purifying sothing in my body.
Seeing that the villagers were still breathing, I loaded their bodies and placed them in the car's trunk. Not without checking their status first, of course.
Seeing that they were "clean," so to speak, I didn't hesitate and put them in the trunk since leaving them here was practically signing their death sentences.
"So, Dylan."
I asked while looking at the Minimap, the red dots behind us walking back and forth, not advancing. I didn't know if this was good, but it was better than them running towards us.
"What's the plan?" I pointed to the village. "You said you had a way to spread the powder throughout the village. How?"
I asked the guide who was looking at the village walls with a disturbed look.
He hesitated for a mont before responding.
"The Jille village, like most villages around the kingdom, has a well in the middle of it. We need to get there. But it's going to be tough with that thing painted on the walls." He pointed to the red Mystical Symbols on the village walls.
I also didn't think it was a good idea to enter the village with that matrix active.
"If I destroy a part of the wall..." I asked slowly. "Damaging the matrix, will that make everything explode, or will it deactivate?" I didn't have a good experience with runes; if the Mystical Symbols were sothing similar to that, the chance of an explosion was quite high.
Dylan looked at confused before asking.
"Deactivate it, of course. Why would it explode?" He seed genuinely puzzled, as if this were common knowledge.
"You know, when you do sothing wrong with Mystical Symbols, they don't explode or sothing? Like lting the tal they were engraved on?" I asked, fearing the answer a bit.
His look beca even more confused. "No...?" He answered hesitantly.
"That doesn't happen; they just don't work and need to be re-engraved. If a Mystical Symbol explodes, it's because it was designed to do so." He pointed to the walls.
"From what I can see of the size of this matrix, how it was made, its materials, size, and engraving thod. It was entirely focused on stealing vitality and mana..." He made a disgusted face before continuing.
"As much as I hate to admit it, whoever made this matrix is a genius. Just having it work is sothing I can't quite understand; having explosive Mystical Symbols?" He shook his head, his eyes stopping glowing.
"It's not impossible, but it's very unlikely. So, damaging a large part of the matrix should deactivate it. Do you have sothing that can do that?" He asked, turning to and finally noticing my face.
"Are you okay?" He asked hesitantly, vaguely pointing to my face. "Because you look like you have a stomachache."
I should look like that to him. Because, after all, I was almost in physical pain at this mont.
What do you an Mystical Symbols don't explode or ss everything up when you make a mistake with them? I felt very deceived at this mont.
If I made even a tiny centiter mistake with a rune, it would do sothing wrong, and fifty percent of the ti, that thing would explode in my face.
Now, this guy is telling that Mystical Symbols don't do that? Damn! Of course, I looked like I had a stomachache, as I felt I could shit bricks at this mont with the anger I was feeling.
"Nothing... I'm fine." I shook my head, dismissing Dylan's concerns. "Get in; let's get this over with. I have sothing to destroy part of the wall." I pointed to the Humvee as I stood up and headed for the driver's seat.
After Dylan got into the car and fastened his seatbelt, I said.
"From now on, things are going to get serious." More serious than they already were, in this case. "We haven't known each other for a long ti, but I'll trust you to do your part, Dylan." I said seriously.
This made the guide look at surprised before nodding with a serious look, but I could see he had a small smile on his face for so reason.
With that said, I accelerated the Humvee, driving the car straight towards the village gate.
Before the Humvee could collide with the gates, I turned the steering wheel, making the car drift and perform a drift, becoming parallel to the walls.
Now close to these Mystical Symbols, I could clearly feel how disgusting they were. Just being near them, my nostrils were attacked by the sll of blood and decay.
I could feel the malice emanating from the symbols, as if they wanted to devour and couldn't.
While the Humvee accelerated again, I didn't hesitate to use one of my trump cards, so to speak: dynamite.
I didn't have many of them, ten to be exact, as the few Souichiro had, he spent on clearing zombies while escorting survivors from the property to the port... That didn't stop from stealing so while no one was looking.
Of course, I had helped kill even more zombies after that, so I think it was a fair compensation.
Briefly looking at the Minimap, I could see that no one was behind these parts of the walls, the dots representing the residents scattered throughout the village.
Seeing that no one was behind the walls, without hesitation, I lit the fuses of the dynamites and started throwing them at the wall with a few seconds' interval, giving ti for the Humvee to distance itself.
After a few seconds, I began to hear the explosions.
I turned the Humvee again, turning the car to see the damage the dynamites had done, and it was not a small amount of damage.
The village walls were made of wood, nothing like the stone and steel walls of Terraria; just the ten dynamites I had caused a huge hole in the wall, knocking down about thirty ters.
I could sll the decay and blood slowly diminish, even the malice I felt coming from the symbols decrease, until, finally, they disappeared completely.
Only a faint sll of blood and decay remained in the air.
Seeing that the plan had worked, I didn't hesitate to accelerate the Humvee again, this ti towards the debris of what had been the village wall seconds ago.
The woods already destroyed by the explosions were no hindrance at all, with little effort and minimal impact on hitting the debris, we were inside the village.
I accelerated the Humvee for a few more ters before stopping, why? The villagers in front of .
Jille village was a farming village, so it was expected that so of the roads within the village were large, for carriages and carts carrying goods to pass.
But not large enough for to ignore the village residents and pass by them without running them over.
If they were like the HOTD zombies, I wouldn't hesitate to run them over; maybe even if they were enemies, humans, or Terrarians, I could harden my determination and run them over with minimal hesitation.
But they weren't.
They were just civilians, villagers from a random village who had been caught in an evil plan and used as batteries. They were not to bla for being controlled to stand in my way...
I squeezed the steering wheel until my fingers turned white.
" and my damn empathy..." I muttered to myself.
Without hesitation, with a ntal command, I threw the Humvee back into the inventory, causing , Dylan, and the four unconscious n in the trunk to fall to the ground.
"Devas?!" Dylan asked as he quickly got up. "Why did you store the chanical carriage?"
Already on my feet, I didn't hesitate to respond as I prepared for combat.
"Dylan, I'm not going to make a massacre." I pointed to the people in front of with my hand. "They're not to bla for being controlled. I'm not going to paint the village red as I run my way to the center."
I could see that Dylan hadn't thought of that, as when I finished my words, he turned with a green face, as if he were imagining the carnage it would be if I just ran over everything and everyone in the way.
As a sign, when I stopped talking, the villager in front of , a man, trembled slightly before his eyes changed, going from a common brown to the goblin's yellowish eyes.
"YOU BASTARD! HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS?! HOW DARE YOU DESTR--" Without hesitation, with a fluid motion and a thought, two black boxing gloves appeared in my hands.
I took quick steps forward the mont the goblin had started talking, not letting him finish, I delivered a quick punch, a jab with my right fist to his stomach, making the body he possessed bend forward.
Before he fell completely, I spun my other arm and delivered a blow to his chin, making the goblin's yellow eyes roll back. The body unconscious.
It seems I restrained myself enough, as the villager's body still breathed, which was good. A stomach and chin ache from the punches were a better option than death.
"Quick, Dylan!" I shouted to the guide when I realized the rest of the villagers were running towards us. I lifted the guide quickly by the arm, and we started running.
I could easily defeat these people, but that wasn't the goal, so I focused on running, briefly hitting the villagers who got too close with one or two punches before we continued running.
It wasn't very difficult to dodge the villagers; they were frankly slow and predictable since their movents were chanical, I suppose due to the ntal control the matrix had over them.
The only annoying part was this guy.
"YOU WILL DIE, TERRARIAN! I WILL PERSONALLY TEAR YOUR LIMBS SLOWLY, ONE BY ONE, AFTER I EXTRACT THE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU KNOW ABOUT OUR GREAT MATRIX AND OUR SECRETS!"
This goblin was annoying as hell, seriously.
He had learned that if he possessed a body near , I wouldn't give him a chance to speak, punching his face as quickly as possible, so he now only possessed the villagers who were far from , forcing to choose whether I would go to him or continue my way to the center of the village with Dylan.
Of course, I could use my inventory to make our way to the center of the village easier, even shut up this annoying goblin who couldn't speak without shouting.
But I had been avoiding doing that since I entered the village for a simple reason.
The goblin. He had been watching us all the ti since we entered the village.
I didn't want to show too much of what I was capable of to him. Sure, he already knew about my inventory since I had used it to tie the first bodies with the chains, but that was it.
He didn't know the maximum range or what else I could do, so if I could avoid showing him what I was capable of, I would. After all, as much as the villagers were a problem, they were a lesser problem.
At all tis, I kept part of my attention on the minimap, or more specifically, on the red dots in the forest.
Since Dylan and I entered the village, they had only increased; at this point, I would guess there were about five hundred of them in the forest, and they didn't seem to want to stop increasing.
The real problem was this damn army that was forming little by little, so I was conserving my strength in case sothing happened, not showing my trump cards.
But look on the bright side, I now had confirmation that they could only appear in one place, as all the red dots ca from the sa region in the forest.
Was it useful information? Kind of, but it was better than nothing.
"RUN, RUN PATHETIC TERRARIAN! RUN LIKE THE PREY YOU ARE! HOPING TO ESCAPE THE GREAT PREDATOR I AM!"
"Damn, you're so annoying!" I shouted back at the goblin as I pushed a village man to the side, being careful not to touch his skin.
"Do you only know how to scream?! Your voice is irritating as hell! Didn't goblin mommy teach you manners?" I couldn't help but taunt the goblin; I had been doing that for so ti now, making him irritated.
It had worked so far, as Dylan was a few ters ahead of , practically totally ignored by the villagers, all of them running towards as if I owed sothing to them.
Before I could shout anything else to the goblin, I had to quickly raise my arms to defend myself from a punch that had co at much faster than the previous ones.
"Urhk!" I grunted lightly as I received the impact of the punch on my forearms, more from surprise than real pain, as I didn't expect the force of the impact.
Looking at who had punched , it was the goblin, who was now possessing the body of a male villager, but unlike the others, this one was muscular, very muscular for soone who had had their vitality stolen for almost a year, which was strange...
I had to take a few steps back to defend myself from the quick punches and kicks the goblin was unleashing at .
"WHAT'S WRONG, TERRARIAN?! ON THE DEFENSIVE?! IT SEEMS YOU ONLY BARK! LIKE THE DOG YOUR PATHETIC BREED IS!" The goblin shouted again, not stopping the rain of attacks coming at .
Since the goblin had possessed this body and co to attack , the other villagers had stood still, their vacant eyes looking at nothing.
A limitation in the matrix? Or was it a limitation of the goblin? It seed that he didn't have very good control over the villagers while he was fighting himself.
Dodging a long punch he had given with his right hand, I took advantage of it to duck and deliver a hook to his chin, which the goblin defended with his left hand and kicked back, making step back to avoid being hit.
This wasn't a normal villager, even though I was restraining myself a lot, the speed of my punches shouldn't be sothing a farr could see, dodge, or much less block, which ant only one thing...
"This body belongs to a Guild contractor..." I murmured lightly as I blocked a low kick with my shin.
"Tell , little goblin." I teased the body possessor slightly before continuing, a thought coming to my mind.
"How long have you been luring Guild contractors into this pit you call a trap?"
Dylan had said before that the number of people in the village was three hundred and sixty-seven, but the current number I could see at a glance on the minimap was at least five hundred.
And that would make sense, after all, who had more mana and vitality: a common farr or a contractor who spent a good part of their ti on missions, training, and fighting?
It was a simple answer.
The mission all this ti had been a trap, not to kill Terrarians for revenge, but to lure them and use them as batteries.
That's why it was in such a visible place, for soone to accept it as quickly as possible before soone from the army saw it.
That's why it was also on the low-ranking mission board, even with such a large reward, the chance of a very strong contractor accepting it was low.
That was the only clue missing for to figure out why no one had accepted this mission before. I thought I might have seen it wrong, but no.
When I went to get the mission to exterminate that pack of wolves, the mission wasn't there, but when I ca back to deliver the reward and ended up eting Dylan, it was.
It wasn't that I had missed the mission the first ti I went to the mission board, no, it was that the mission hadn't been put on the board yet.
When I t Dylan, it was around ten in the morning, about the ti the Guild starts to get crowded, most contractors go there at that ti.
What better ti to put a mission you want to be accepted quickly than one of the Guild's peak hours?
It was luck, or in this case, bad luck that I had taken this mission. If I had gone to the mission board minutes before, it might not have been there, minutes later, soone else would have accepted it in my place.
Such damn bad luck, as always.
The only thing I didn't understand was how no one had noticed this before. This shouldn't be the first ti this mission appeared on the mission board, so how...
"Tsk."
I clicked my tongue as I dodged a kick coming from my right, courtesy of the goblin possessing the body in front of . Then I crouched to dodge another punch.
It was obvious, damn it! How had no one suspected this trap mission? No, how had the goblins put this mission on the Guild in the first place...
A traitor, there was a traitor in the Guild. And not just that, soone with a high enough position or contacts in high places to hide this for almost a year if what I'm thinking is correct.
The goblin growled through the Guild contractor's throat, annoyed by my ease in dodging his attacks and the way I seed to belittle him by calling him a "little goblin."
It was easy to notice his anger increasing, with each blow he beca more ferocious, his attacks more furious and faster, but also easier to predict due to his clouded mind and troubled thoughts.
But contrary to what I expected, he didn't say anything, didn't retort or speak at all, choosing to remain silent while continuing to attack .
"What's wrong, little goblin~?" I intoned the word, as if speaking to a small, not only that, a particularly stupid little animal.
"Not gonna say anything? Did I hit a nerve? Or is 'little goblin' the nickna your boss uses when he calls you into his tent at night?" I continued my taunting, dancing around his attacks, not bothering to counter, trying to make him even more irritated.
That seed to be enough as he snarled and shouted while speaking.
"YOU PATHETIC CREATURE! WHEN I GET YOU, I WON'T EVEN BOTHER TRYING TO GET ANY INFORMATION FROM YOU! I'LL TORTURE YOU PURELY FOR MY PLEASURE OF SEEING YOUR FACE TWISTED IN PAIN AND YOUR SCREAMS OF AGONY!!"
He took a few steps back, stopping his onslaught of attacks. I could see a malicious smile forming on his face before he opened the arms of the body he possessed and stared at with a superior look.
This ti, he didn't shout, just said slowly and clearly, as if wanting to make sure I understood his words.
"Yes, Terrarian, it was one of my best ideas!" He smiled proudly as he waved one arm, as if presenting the village to .
"I ca up with the idea of putting this mission in your pathetic realm, in your pathetic Guild!" He growled with what he said about the realm and the Guild, his hatred apparent in his words.
"It was so simple, just a paper with a reward higher than usual, and you, stupid Terrarians, ca here like flies, one by one fell into my trap..."
He pointed with his finger at , who was silent just listening to everything, with each of his sentences a "PING" appeared in the stream, or rather, in the mission that was updated with each new piece of information received.
"You're no different from this body I'm using." He ran his hand over the right arm. Slowly as if showing off a trophy or rare item from his collection.
"This pathetic Terrarian sack of flesh. Like you, he ca confidently to the Guild, his pride so great, his arrogance so high that he didn't even realize what was happening until he was under my control."
He smiled, a twisted smile that didn't seem natural in the body he inhabited, especially with the alien yellow eyes in the body.
It was true, I had fallen into this trap in a pretty pathetic way. I didn't even stop to think why the reward for what seed like such a simple mission was so high.
Looks like I owe the girls, the lost hours of sleep really took their toll, if I were in my best state, I doubt this would have happened.
"But I figured out your plan quite easily, didn't I?" I sang innocently, teasing the goblin as I sat on a wooden box next to one of the houses on the street where we were fighting.
My gaze quickly went to the minimap. Dylan was already close to the well, which was good, but the increasingly populous red dots were a bad sign.
"A bit foolish on your part, huh? Letting in and finding out everything like this, your parasitic matrix." I pointed to his body, or rather, the tattoos. "The cannibal matrix on the village walls." I smiled maliciously with fake guilt.
"Matrix that I blew up. Sorry about that, hope it didn't give you too much trouble to finish it, I would be devastated if that were the case." I raised my hand to my forehead and pretended to faint, as if genuinely sorry.
The goblin in the Terrarian's body growled in anger. I could see that he almost attacked again, but he held back. Interestingly, after that, he stopped, remaining silent for a few seconds before smiling in an innocent way, which frankly, was very uncomfortable to watch.
"True, true. It was foolish of not to attack you the mont you started pushing that weird machine." He comnted slowly as he sat on a box on the other side of the street, mimicking my movents.
"I'll give you that point. You're a good planner and have a keen eye. You noticed that sothing was wrong with the village the mont you got kiloters away from it." He clapped slowly as if congratulating .
"If I hadn't reacted quickly and summoned part of the army, you probably would have escaped and ssed things up even more."
He seed impressed by sothing. With how I had noticed sothing strange in the village? With his quickness in summoning his subordinates? I didn't know.
"I should have suspected that sothing was wrong with you right there. After all, you discovered the existence of the army behind you almost instantly and acted accordingly, pretending you hadn't noticed anything and acting as if your transport was broken." He seed impressed and guilty in equal asure.
"But I've always been too greedy, I'll admit. I wanted to see what else you would do, how you would fight before I crushed you under my feet!"
He snarled slightly before continuing.
"But it seems I bit off more than I could chew. After all, you managed to find out about the two matrices, and your companion even has that strange powder that can easily disperse the matrix of mind control. A foolish mistake on my part..."
The anger on his face was visible even as he tried to hide it. He was a diocre actor, but if he wanted to hide sothing from , he was a few hundred years ahead. After all, I had experience with actors...
...And compared to my "father," this goblin was more than a diocre actor.
At this point, it was easy to guess that he was buying ti for the rest of his army to be summoned, but I was doing the sa. After all, Dylan was by the well of the village at this point.
"But tell one thing, Terrarian." The goblin in the Terrarian's body sang innocently, the sa way I had done before, and smiled, opening his arms and pointing to the village around us.
"You have a sharp eye, as I said. So answer this... Have you noticed that there are no elderly, children, or babies in the entire village..." He feigned concern, as if this fact were sothing bad... and it was.
I had already noticed this. I wasn't the only one. So more observant people in the (CHAT) also, and all of them, including , couldn't find anyone with these descriptions.
No elderly, children, or babies. No matter which way I looked while fighting the goblin. No matter the house, window, street, alley. I couldn't find any.
[(MOD)RedHuntressLive]: What?! Why? Why are there no children in the village? Didn't Dylan say there were 22 children and 12 babies? 27 elderly too! Where are they all?! (Worried Little Red Riding Hood emote).
[WiseWizardGleam]: ... Using this kind of mind control is sothing horrible. This vitality-stealing matrix? Even more... But killing babies and children? How wicked.
[HalfBloodPrince]: It reminds of a certain dark lord... What a pathetic thing to do. (Emote of a green snake with a disgusted face).
[BestToadSannin]: Even the most wicked nukenins and enemies I've encountered hesitated to murder children and babies... How despicable to see.
[(MOD)GeniusBillionairePlayboy]: ... And the press says I'm the monster for selling weapons... (Sad Iron Man sighing emote).
Yes... I had that impression too.
I'm glad that at least Red is innocent enough not to have realized what had happened yet. But it seems the goblin was going to address that.
He changed his smile from an innocent one to a malicious and twisted one, a smile so big that it slightly tore the lips and cheeks of the body he was possessing.
"SUCH FRAGILE LITTLE THINGS!" He shouted as he stood up, hands in the air. "SO PATHETIC AND USELESS, WITH SO LITTLE VITALITY AND MANA! WITHERED AWAY SO QUICKLY!" He chuckled a bit before turning his face towards .
His yellow eyes, red iris eting my brown ones.
"THE ELDERLY LASTED LONGER, THEIR WILLPOWER HOLDING ON TO THEIR PATHETIC LIVES, LASTED ABOUT A MONTH!" He laughed before continuing.
"THE CHILDREN?! LESS THAN A WEEK! TERRARIANS! PATHETIC EVEN IN THEIR INFANT AGE! THE BABIES?!" He licked his lips maliciously before uttering the words that would make hunt him in the future.
"THE BABIES, I WAS RCIFUL! I KILLED AND ATE THEM MYSELF THE MONT I STEPPED INTO THE VILLAGE! THEIR FLESH WAS SO TENDER! SO DELICIOUS!" He laughed even harder before taking a deep breath, calming down and saying in a lower, calr tone.
"My only disappointnt was not being able to rape every woman in this miserable village! to see their despair on their faces as I deflowered their bodies in front of their children, fathers and husbands!." He seed disappointed by this fact.
"It's sad, but what can you do? That would take away so of their vitality, and we can't waste any of our precious batteries, can we?" He smirked maliciously, ignoring my angry glare and clenched fist.
This goblin's luck was that the body he possessed wasn't his own. It would be pointless for to destroy this body in front of . Nothing would change, except that I would have killed an innocent person.
"You're going to die, goblin," I said coldly, locking eyes with him. It wasn't a threat, it wasn't a statent, it was a fact.
I would kill him myself.
I could understand his anger, his species' anger towards Terrarians. To find out that his race is cursed, a curse that took away their intelligence, their gifts, and the supposed beings who cast this curse upon their kind would be hunting them like cattle?
I understood his anger, his contempt.
But this? Using people as batteries? Murdering children? The elderly? Babies who had no sin on their backs? That I couldn't understand, and wouldn't want to.
The final straw was the rape. This goblin would really have done that, the only thing that stopped him being, oddly enough, that disgusting matrix. Batteries... isn't it?
How I hated that act, even that word. Just hearing it made angry...
"I know. Terrarian, we all die soday," the goblin chirped cheerfully while smiling.
"You? Screaming and begging for rcy at my feet. ? Peacefully in the midst of my harem of slaves, very, very old." He laughed one last ti before speaking his final words in this body calmly.
"See you later, on the battlefield... Don't run away, in~."
Then the body fell to the ground, like a puppet with cut strings, its eyes returning to normal, the goblin undoing its possession.
It seed he had realized it was useless to continue this charade; he wanted to take the fight elsewhere...
I stood up calmly, ignoring my turbulent thoughts and the anger I felt, and ran towards the center of the village, where Dylan was. At no point did any villager try to stop , all looking blankly into nothing.
With no one to stop , it didn't take long for to reach the well, where I could see Dylan drawing mystical symbols around the stone structure and throwing plants and materials I didn't know into the well, into the water.
Dylan noticed a few seconds after I arrived. Tensing up and pulling his bow, pointing it at . When he realized it was , he seed to relax, especially since I didn't have any tattoos like the villagers or yellow eyes.
I approached the well and stood behind the guide, who had returned to throwing things into the well, finally pouring all the Purification Powder.
"We'll have company soon, Dylan," I said calmly as I looked at the red dots clustering in the forest. "Is your soup ready?" I couldn't help but make the joke, even in this situation.
Dylan chuckled lightly before nodding, but didn't verbally respond to , choosing to continue what he was doing before tapping the ring on his finger twice, making a book appear in his hands.
I widened my eyes slightly as I looked at the book, I knew what book this was, how could I not?
The book had a dark brown cover. In the center of the book's cover, a small light blue jar was surrounded by a set of light squares that seed to glow.
The first magic book we could get in Terraria, the ga, the Water Bolt, the book we found in the dungeon.
Dylan seed to focus, his attention fully on the book as he opened it to one of the pages.
As he opened the book, before I could read what was written, the book began to glow in a light blue hue. I could feel the mana in the atmosphere slowly changing.
I could see sweat accumulating on Dylan's forehead every second, but I didn't focus on that; I was busy feeling the change in mana.
Every second, the mana in the atmosphere seed to shift, concentrating at a point and dispersing, flowing gently like a river, stagnating like a lake, furious like a sea.
Even for , soone entirely ignorant of magic, I could perceive this. The mana was taking on a more "wet" aspect, as if turning into water.
Dylan then placed his right palm on the book and calmly uttered two words.
"Water Bolt."
The words seed to resonate with the mana in the atmosphere, then, like magic, which it really was, the well's water flew into the sky.
Liters and liters of water soared into the sky in less than a second, gathering into a large water ball, floating in the sky. The ball glowed faintly in light blue, perhaps due to mana? The ingredients Dylan had thrown into it before? I didn't know.
Then, in a second, the water ball floating in the sky exploded into a rain that seed to cover a good part of the village. The small drops falling rapidly toward the ground.
When the drops hit the ground, unlike normal rain, this "rain" was not normal. When the water droplets hit the ground, they didn't just wet it; no, they bounced off the ground!
Every drop, every droplet hitting the ground ricocheted, flying in random directions. So hitting the villagers, others the walls of the houses, so even and Dylan.
I quickly shielded my eyes when I saw raindrops coming towards rapidly, but my concerns were unfounded. When the drops hit my body, aside from getting wet, of course, they didn't hurt .
On the contrary, they seed to heal slightly. I could feel the slight fatigue I had disappearing quickly with every water drop that hit .
And it continued, with each new surface the drops reached, no matter what surface it was, ground, house, Terrarian, or , human, they ricocheted again and again.
I opened the Minimap while ignoring the raindrops soaking ; with that, I could see, live, each orange point within the village slowly turn yellow.
One by one, none escaping the artificial rain Dylan had created.
In the end, within the village walls, there were only two green points, and Dylan, surrounded by yellow points.
Taking my eyes off the Minimap, I turned to congratulate the guide on the good work and ask what the hell that was before realizing the state Dylan was in.
He was shaking a lot, his skin pale as if all the blood had drained from his body.
I could see that besides being wet from the rain, drops of sweat were running down his face.
I didn't hesitate to go towards the guide and help him sit down, placing the book, which had lost its glow, next to his body.
Before I could ask anything, he said. "Just... a... second." His voice sounded tired, breathless, as if he had run a marathon.
Between his breaths, he managed to squeeze out a few words.
"This... took more... mana... than I... expected."
Slowly, he brought his left hand to the right, tapping the ring on his finger twice.
Quickly, a small blue stone, the size of a grain of rice, perhaps smaller, appeared in his hand, coming from inside the ring.
With trembling hands, he brought the small blue stone to his mouth and swallowed it. It wasn't instantaneous, but I could see the effects on his face.
Slowly, the color seed to return to his skin, his hands stopped shaking, and the sweat running down his forehead slowly stopped, his breathing returning to normal.
"Are you okay? Better?" I asked the guide sitting on the ground.
After a few seconds of silence, he seed recovered enough to speak. The first words out of his mouth confusing .
"I suck at magic." He said as he tried to get up. I extended my hand to help, a hand he grabbed and pulled himself up.
I raised an eyebrow in doubt, was this being bad at magic? Damn! If this was being bad, what would a real mage do? I didn't know if I wanted to know the answer.
As if understanding my doubts, he sighed and explained.
"I can't use spells properly..." He shook his head. "Actually, I can only use a single spell effectively." He pointed to his eyes that now had a light blue glow.
"This." He finished, making his eyes return to normal.
He bent down slightly, picking up the book from the ground and putting it back into the ring.
"But I'm good with Mystic Symbols, and my sister is a strong contractor." He seed a bit bitter about this fact. "So I cover my weaknesses with items I make and so of the items she brings back for ."
"Like the book." I affird. Possibly being one of the items his sister brought back from sowhere for him to use.
"Like the book." He agreed.
Before I could ask anything else, I could see the people in the village starting to wake up, one by one.
They still looked sick, but whatever the rain had done, they were much better than before.
If before they looked like terminal patients on the verge of death, now they just seed to have a strong flu. It was still bad, but it was a significant improvent.
Then, without any warning, a shout echoed in the distance, saying the words I never thought I would hear in life.
Words I didn't want to hear.
Words that I had only read on a computer screen in an innocuous 2D ga before.
Words that were now the harbinger of a threat...
"A goblin army is approaching from the west!"
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First of all, sorry for the lack of a chapter yesterday; I had to go to the dentist and ended up forgetting to post. But... today's chapter is longer than usual, as it's an arc that I really enjoyed writing.
The next chapter should be the final chapter of this arc (maybe the penultimate, but it shouldn't go beyond that).
Well, let's get to the chapter:
The plot thickens... I used so information from the Wiki and Terraria Lore to change a few things, first of all, the goblins. They were cursed so ti ago, sothing happened in the past that ssed up their race, turning them into the "common" goblins we see in stories, the dumb ones.
They were really a normal race, like Terrarians, Bestkins, Dwarves, and everything else. But, as I said, sothing happened. What? That's a topic for another day. No spoilers.
Dylan is damn useful!!!!
The plot I created for Dylan, his family, his involvent with the Guide Order, and his involvent in the story in general is one that I liked a lot.
But as always, there are so "buts". Is he useful? Yes. But he's more focused, so to speak. As he said, he has only ONE spell, which is the "blue glow" he has in his eyes. (Devas still doesn't know what that does, but has a vague idea.)
About the rest, he's more about improvisation and "I'm rich, bitch." He has a special talent for Mystic Symbols, yes, but most of the things he does involve the magical items he bought/received. Like the Water Bolt.
About the runes, I saw so people saying that they don't work like that and that's not how to use them.
Yes, the "normal" runes aren't like that, but these are Terraria runes.
My focus, both for runes and Mystic Symbols, is only one: Creation!
It's Terraria; both runes and Mystic Symbols can be used in battle? Yes, but in a weaker way; their focus is literally on creating.
Items/Matrices (Runes and Symbols)/Accessories/Weapons. Everything.
After all, that's what we do most in Terraria, create items.
Well, that's it, I've written a lot already, good reading for those who stay, and a good afternoon!
PS: Devas has a past; we'll discover a bit more about him in the next chapter!
PSS: As always, comnt! I'll try to respond as much as possible, and I'm reading all (or trying to).
PSSS: I changed the story cover, but I don't know if it reached everyone. For those who can see the new cover, what did you think? I used AI to create it, but I found it pretty cool (It's Devas on the cover, it turned out quite faithful to what I imagined).
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