Chapter 210 – 210. Catastrophe

I accepted the three items the investigator gave me.

One was a heavy metal flail-like object with an arrow-shaped tip, and the other was a perforated wooden gag with a string attached to the mouth. And the last item was a crude hatchet made of black stones.

I checked the details of the items. First of all, all three are treated as items.

[Arrowhead clipped by the investigator: The arrowhead-shaped blade points to the center of the macula.] [Caution. It corrodes quickly over time.]

[Seeker’s Carved Muzzle: A wooden muzzle with holes drilled into it. It prevents deadly yellow spores and contaminants.] [Caution. If you spit it out of your mouth even once, the effect will be lost.]

[The Seeker’s Sharpened Hand Ax: A hand ax made of obsidian. All kinds of seals can be broken.] [Caution. It has low durability and is easily destroyed by impact.]

Each was a flat pointed pointed at the center of the macula, a muzzle to prevent contamination, and an obsidian ax to break the seal.

All three were items with a very primitive feel. Also, all three items were labeled with a warning that they could be destroyed very easily.

It was like a warning that if you use it recklessly, it will be destroyed right away. Even the muzzle, once used, could not be removed from the mouth until it was completely out of the macula. If you take it out of your mouth, you can never use it again.

‘No, but I want you to go into the center of the macula by yourself with these…? How is that possible? Do you recognize me as a huge strong man? ‘

Maybe the Seekers of Hell have a very high opinion of me. It looks like they are expecting a lot just by welcoming me as if they were praising me as an apostle of disaster… I am strong enough to make my companions and summons go insane. I am not a strong person myself.

And what kind of place is Narak, and I wonder if I can walk around alone.

No matter how you think about it, this is like going to die. If you run into a party of warriors along the way, you could be killed.

Although I occupied the Crimson Zone, which is said to be the second most dangerous area in the Maw, it was purely because the Mushroom Man and Parasitic Trees I bought, including the Jet Black Wheel, were good at it, not because I was strong.

I know my level well. To be honest, it might be hard for Eunji to win if I told him to fight one-on-one right away because I had grown my power tremendously through a unique route.

So, if I told you to fight head-to-head with the beggars who were able to send Nick and Meiling to the goal with their instigation, fabrication, and trickery in the House of Tremors, I would have made friends with them and died together.

Yes, I am a ruler and master of slaves, not a warrior who fights on the front lines. This is my essence, and now this crazy bastard is telling me to go alone to the center of the macula somewhere in the abyss.

“Hey, I’m sorry… I’m sure I’ll die if I go into the center alone… Wouldn’t it be pretty troublesome if I died?”

[Hmm..]

Seeing that I was weaker than he thought, the investigator changed the shape of his hand as if embarrassed. Then he pulled out two more pieces of wood from his bosom. It was a muzzle that could be sustained in the center of the macula.

[Hmm.. There are only two of them… Be satisfied with this.]

“And. Thank you.”

I quickly tried to snatch the two muzzles from the Seeker of the Maw. Then the investigator quickly dodged and muttered in a slightly annoyed voice.

[Uhh.. This isn’t free.. Make sure you pay for it. Thirty thousand in one..]

“Ah, yes.”

A piece of wood worth 30,000 coins each. Still, I bought both because they seem to be necessary to get into the center of the macula.

‘The macula itself can go together, but it is a must-have item to enter the center… Me and Merang… Who are you taking… Cheshire? Ayla? Or should I drag Palus down… Dragging Helen, who has a sense of crisis, would be fine…’

Thinking about who to go with, I asked the investigator if he was selling anything else. From what I’ve heard, the Seeker of Hell was the only merchant NPC in Hell, so it seemed like he would sell anything.

Maybe you can get something that will help you survive.

[There are only three statues made right now.]

“Aha.”

The investigator seemed to be an NPC selling statues.

All the things I received a while ago seem to have been cut by the investigator myself… But I can’t hope for a finished product like the one sold by the peddler in a place with only stinky filth and strange-looking parasitic humans.

“Could you show me all three of them first?”

At my words, the investigator took out strange-looking statues from his bosom.

[Blue disease statue: Sacrificing three parasitic humans to create a parasitic human with blue scales. Blue scales are much faster than normal parasites and have a shorter lifespan.]
[Price: 50,000C]

[Red Disease Statue: Sacrificing three parasitic humans to create a parasitic human with red horns. Red fire has much higher strength than normal parasitic humans and has a shorter lifespan.]
[Price: 50,000C]

[Twisted Disease Figurine: Sacrifices 10 parasites to create tentacled parasites. They are superior in every way to normal parasitic humans.]
[Price: 100,000C]

‘It’s a twisted disease statue…’

I want to buy all of them, but I don’t have enough money to invest in them right now. It was because he had almost used up all the coins he had saved on the black market.

“It’s a little difficult right now, and I will buy it next time.”

[Do that.]

He put his statues back into his bosom as if he was a bit regretful. If you succeed in mass-producing parasitic humans, each person will receive 70 coins, so it seems that you can slaughter them and quickly supply coins to buy them.

‘I can pull out a jet-black wheel from a dead parasitic human… And use the remaining bones for a parasitic parasite… Perfect.’

Mushroom people seem to be able to increase numbers very quickly in this place. Of course, if you increase more than 300, you have to be careful because the ‘Queen’ will appear, but…

‘But the existence of that spore queen… I think it belongs to Manmajeon for some reason…’

It’s just my feeling, but somehow it seems to be so. However, seeing that the evil gods didn’t bother to call out the Spore Queen, I thought that maybe they weren’t very friendly towards me.

The strength evaluated by the poacher was on the level of Kishilia or Anax, so it must be about the right hand of evil gods.

‘It sounds like a considerable monster… But let’s not think about it for now.’

You have to settle down in the Maw and farm, but you can’t call out crazy spore masses that can’t be controlled.

I nodded to the seeker who had entered meditation again and called Eunji and Hwayoung.

“Let’s go to the exit first.”

“Would you like to leave and come back?”

“Huh. Because the road to go back is long. I thought it would be nice to go out and go to the entrance.”

One thing to be careful of is that you have to go right in as soon as you leave. One minute outside is one hour inside, so a huge amount of time may have passed inside in a moment of glance.

‘Since I left, I’ll have to tell Hajin-seong to send in the relief goods as soon as possible..’

There were a lot of items that hadn’t been brought in yet because I didn’t know exactly what was going on inside, but I should tell them to put them all in as soon as they left. One minute outside is an hour here, so even if you put things in as quickly as possible, it will take a lot of time to come in.

For example, if it takes 24 minutes to put all the stuff in, it has already passed a day here.

******

Michael and his spring water search team managed to get out through the wall of the nest. When they all got out, the walls of the caged nest closed again like a wound healing.

“Ugh…”

“Is it a wall made of meat from here?”

“This place is also full of disgusting smells…”

What spread out in front of them when they came out was a fleshy wall full of disgusting incense.

They escaped their caged nest and entered the Crimson Lands. It was quite far from aiming.

“Aran. Have you ever seen something like this?”

Aran shook her head at Saint Anna’s question. She was half-human, half-dragon, and even he couldn’t easily see a scene like this, so she was both interested and displeased.

For reference, out of the nine players in the Fountain of Wisdom Exploration Team, there were five players: the hero Nicholas, the great sage Michael, the saint Anna, the jester Roy, and the gladiator Alex. The other four were NPCs.

In order, there were Aran the Dragon Blood Knight, Dantae the Giant Slayer, Kylian the Beast Hunter, and Caesar the Heretic Stalker.

Like Hellus, Cheshire, and Palus of the Aiming camp, they were also those who joined through Nicholas’s talent, and all of them were monsters with considerable skills.

Of course, all four of them are weaker than the dragon slayer Siegfried.

“Killian, where should we go now?”

“If you go in this direction, you will come out. Because the roots are pointing that way.”

Beast hunter Killian nodded, looking at the wriggling green roots in his hand. It was an item given to him by the World Tree, and it was a tool to track the cursed brand.

In a word, it could be said to refer to Henry, the cursed contractor. Because there is a fountain of wisdom where Henry’s body is rampaging, they decide to track Henry’s body.

Killian thought as he put his roots into his pocket.

‘I was told to kill cultists and druids…’

Killian agreed to Manguijeon’s request after deciding to receive a ‘something in return’. His target was no longer Nick’s memory, but a cultist or druid that might be somewhere in the Maw.

Beast hunter Killian was struggling a lot because if he couldn’t kill it, he could be penalized for failing the request.

‘It’s a cultist hunt… Rather than messing around with 10,000 battles… Hunting a druid that has already been beaten would be less troublesome…’

The beast hunter decided to target Kang Hee-seon.

I thought that seven bullets would be enough.

He didn’t know that druids hadn’t entered the Maw.