Chương 68: (66) 2.19. I Don’t Feel So Good…

Second Ring Fragment Discovered! 1, 000 exp gained. Pleased to find that he not only still gained experience for discovering new fragments, but seemed to earn more for fragments the farther he went from his starting one, Vin couldn't help but grin. Despite the unnerving flat plane of death he found himself standing on. The moment they'd crossed the fragment border, the very air itself had seemed to die. There was no breeze to be felt, no smell to the air, and nothing moving anywhere he could see.

The temperature was neither hot nor cold, despite the comically enormous sun beaming down on them from overhead, so large it was taking up nearly a quarter of the entire sky. It was as if they'd stepped into an empty painting of a flat, reddish-grey line.

"Well, this feels creepy as hell," Scule muttered, his grip tightening on Vin's collar as he stood up and readied himself for something to happen.

"Is anyone else getting the feeling that we really shouldn't be here?"

"Actually, I feel better than ever," Alka said, looking surprised as she opened and closed a hand that looked more solid than ethereal for once.

"I don't normally feel anything at all anymore, so this is a strange experience. I knew from training that undead are strongest in certain environments affiliated with death, but it's another thing to experience it firsthand."

"Ugh, I'm going to try and keep my mouth shut while we're in here," Shia grimaced, a shudder running through her body at the foul taste of the ambient death mana.

"Otherwise I'm afraid we'll have to stop every few minutes for me to throw up."

"No worries, we'll let you know if we need any sort of healing," Vin said, squinting up at the only notable thing in this entire fragment. The sun belonging to this world was significantly larger than any he'd seen so far during his exploration of Edregon, dwarfing even the one that had bore down on them back in the desert fragment. The fact that it wasn't raising the ambient temperature seemed strange to him, but he didn't exactly have time to stop and worry about it. They were on a mission after all.

"Right, as creepy as this place is, don't forget we're chasing after someone right now," Vin reminded everyone, looking around and making sure he had everyone's attention.

"If the divine warrior came through here, there's no telling how long any trace of theirs might remain, so we're going to have to keep moving fast. Rather than go through the center, we'll stick relatively close to the border between this fragment and the swamp. Both in the hopes we can find where the divine user crossed over and in the event we need to get the heck out of this fragment as fast as possible."

"Sounds like a plan," Scule said, giving him a thumbs up. Seeing Shia and Alka nod their agreement, and hearing a small squeak from his pocket, Vin took off running. Unlike every other world fragment he'd explored, each one filled with alien creatures and strange looking plant life, this fragment quickly proved to be completely barren.

The sounds of his footsteps and Blossom's wooden paws clicking on the flat stone as they ran deeper into the fragment were the only noise to be heard, the very sounds seeming to stretch out into the empty landscape and fade away faster than they were supposed to. Despite the clock they were racing against, Vin had already planned to run a bit slower than usual just to make sure they didn't sprint headfirst into any sort of trap.

But after a few minutes of eerie, silent travel, it became obvious they would have to go even slower than he'd planned for.

"Broken bark…" Shia grumbled, calling for them to halt. Swinging her legs off of Blossom, Shia returned the wooden construct back into staff form, shaking her head as she carefully examined the gift from her master.

"Blossom is powered by ambient life and nature mana, and the insane amount of death mana is interfering with her travel form. I'm not sure to what extent, but I think there's a chance she might literally fall apart if I use her for too long in here."

"Crap, okay." Vin frowned, glancing around and confirming they were still utterly alone in this strange fragment. Logically, they should be able to see any potential threats coming from miles away due to the flat terrain, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to pop out at them any minute. The emptiness was so unnatural that at this point he was honestly hoping to spot a monster running at them with fangs bared. Seeing as that wasn't the case, he sighed, turning back to Shia.

"Nothing we can do about it then. You set the pace, and I'll follow." Nodding, Shia took a brief moment to stretch before taking off at a light jog. Falling in step beside her, Vin immediately had to stop himself from asking her if that was really the fastest she could go. It was easy to forget just how much his attributes and passives had changed him from when he'd first stepped foot on Edregon.

Shia was actually maintaining a pretty impressive speed for a regular person back on Earth, but to Vin's improved attributes, it felt like they were now just shambling along. Evidently he wasn't the only one.

"You know, I'm pretty certain my grandmother can run faster than this," Scule whispered in Vin's ear, careful to keep his voice low. While Shia might not have very much dexterity or endurance, the Rogue was no doubt well aware of just how high her focus was, and he probably didn't fancy ticking off their main healer while they traversed through the death fragment. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Thankfully, Shia showed no signs of hearing Scule's comment, and the two of them continued running in silence. Not too long after slowing down, Vin received a surprising notification that sent a chill down his spine. Resistance increased to lvl 8! 800 exp gained. What? Vin looked around as they trudged ever onward, but he still couldn't make out anything other than flat rock all around them. He briefly brought up the concerning notification, but his friends merely shrugged, just as confused as he was.

After nearly half an hour of plodding along, and two more levels gained in Resistance, Shia suddenly stopped running, the elf's face unnaturally pale. Giving her a concerned look, Vin stopped as well.

"Shia? Are you-" Turning to the side, the elf vomited her breakfast all over the flat ground, her hands on her knees as she bent over and began coughing.

"Ugh," she weakly uttered, spitting onto the ground and accepting the cloth rag Scule offered her, wiping her mouth with it.

"Sorry about that… I think the constant taste of death mana finally got to me. I've been feeling more and more nauseous since we started running."

"Yeah, keeping up a pace like that would be challenging for someone not currently gagging on death mana," Vin chuckled, glad Shia was doing okay.

"Let me know if you need to stop again. We can slow our pace down a bit as well if you'd like. Despite how weird this place is, nothing's tried to kill us yet after all."

"Weird is an understatement," Scule muttered, motioning for Shia to just toss the rag once she was done with it.

"Something is going to jump out at us any minute now, I just know it. Hells, I've been watching our surroundings so hard I've given myself a headache! The sooner we get out of here, the better."

"Sorry guys, I'll move as fast as I can," Shia said, offering them an apologetic grin. Alka hovered protectively next to the elf, looking concerned, but she didn't say anything after seeing the determined look on the Druid's face. Semi-recovered, they took off once more, this time running even slower than they already had been.

Shia still looked paler than usual, but Vin was hopeful her weird taste buds worked the same with magic as with regular food, and that she'd eventually grow accustomed to the bad taste of death mana. As they jogged along, Vin began getting an uneasy feeling in his own stomach. More than just worry, it felt as though he'd eaten something rotten, and it was only just now hitting him.

Not wanting to believe Peter gave them tainted food, Vin was just about to ask if anyone had thought their breakfast had tasted funny or anything before Shia stopped again, vomiting what little was left in her stomach all over the flat ground.

"Shia!" Alka exclaimed, reaching out and growling as her hand passed straight through the doubled over elf's shoulder.

"You should take a break! Let Vin carry you or something!"

"I'm fine," Shia said weakly, coughing and waving off the ghost's concern.

"I'm surprised the taste of death mana is making me this sick, but it's nothing to be concerned about. I told you, death mana on its own isn't actually harmful. Not even in these amounts."

"If it's not concerning, maybe don't make us stop every five seconds!" Scule snapped, the petian clutching his temple with his free hand.

"Scule!" Vin frowned, looking at the squinting Rogue. Vin was about to admonish him for his comment, when he realized the petian didn't look much better than Shia did. Scule's face was contorted in pain, his legs seemed to be shaking, and his skin looked far paler than usual as well.

"Sorry, my head is absolutely killing me," Scule moaned, closing his eyes as he continued to rub his temple.

"And after seeing her throw up twice, now I'm starting to feel sick."

"Yeah, I'm feeling it a bit too," Vin admitted, rubbing his stomach at the nausea that was slowly building.

"Maybe it's more than just the death mana… Maybe there was something wrong with the food the stone villagers gave us? I don't know if their world has their own version of E. coli or whatever, but it has to be something other than just the ambient mana if we're all feeling this unwell. Just to be safe we should get out of this fragment as fast as possible. At least until we know what's wrong with us."

"Glad it's not just me," Shia grinned, sweat running down her face as she struggled to stand up straight.

"I suppose this is what I get for neglecting to put any points in vigor."

"You and me both, sister," Scule groaned, looking more and more like he was going to be sick with every passing minute.

"It always seems like such a useless attribute… Right up until you actually need it for something."

"No kidding," Shia laughed, leaning heavily on her staff.

"I think I might just drop a point or two into it after all this. How's Reginald doing?"

"The bastard's fine," Scule grumbled, his statement confirmed by a happy sounding squeak from Vin's pocket.

"I have him spread his attributes evenly between dexterity, focus, and vigor, so he's probably got the highest vigor out of all of us."

"You can worry about your future level ups once we're out of here," Alka frowned, glancing back and forth between the three of them.

"Vin's right, if you're all feeling this bad, we should hurry up and get out of this fragment. We don't want whatever is giving off all this death mana to find us like this, and you all are probably gonna have a wicked sunburn to boot if we stay any longer." As though Alka's words had flipped a switch, Vin started at Alka's mention of getting sunburnt. Glancing between his sickened friends and the monstrous sun hanging overhead, his face paled even further at his sudden realization. Resistance increased to lvl 11!

1, 100 exp gained.

"It's not gas… It's radiation!" He cried out, his blood freezing in horror.

"Radi-what-now?" Scule mumbled, squinting at him in confusion.

"Oh God, why didn't I realize it earlier?!" Vin said, wondering just how much radiation they'd been bombarded with over the last hour. The three day long survival prep course Project Ark had put them through had covered radiation exposure, but only briefly, as little more than a footnote during their first aid lessons.

"Nausea… Headaches… Vomiting… They're all signs of radiation sickness! We have to get out of here, now!"

"Vin, calm down," Shia said, giving him a reassuring smile that was somewhat countered by her pale face and trembling frame.

"Whatever this is might be a serious issue on your world, but you're forgetting we have magic here. It won't be very effective until we leave the fragment, but I can probably just cast Neutralize Poison and fix whatever's wrong with us. All we need-" It was at that moment that the ground violently exploded out from under them, sending the entire party hurtling through the air in different directions.

Vin had just enough time to make out the hulkish form of some sort of rock encrusted monster standing where they had been moments earlier before he slammed into the ground hard and everything went black.