Chương 6

Oliver jogged through the forest, carefully avoiding any suspicious patches of shrooms. Still, every step still released spores into the air as even the mossy forest floor was coated in tiny mushrooms. There was no possible way to escape the presence of fungus here. All he could do was trust in his amazing 0 Luck stat to keep him safe. In comparison, maybe his own biome hadn't been so bad.

If he ended up somewhere like this forest, where every plant had the potential to kill him, who was to say if he could have survived five years? Then again, he suspected there was a steep learning curve. He would have definitely required a ton of luck to get through the first weeks of living in a new environment like this; however, once he understood what to stay away from, it likely wouldn't be as bad. At least the shrooms he'd seen so far were all rooted to the ground.

The same could not be said for undead and vampire spawn. A light laugh like the tinkle of a broken shot glass broke him from his thoughts.

"A new friend?" a feminine voice called out to him.

"Come join us!" The voice didn't sound human, so Oliver suspected it to be a biome resident rather than a fellow experiment subject. There was no way in hell he was about to follow after the voice. He stayed his course, picking up a bit more speed as he jogged on.

"Come back!" He ignored it. A minute later, a dozen flashes of lights, all in different shades of rainbow, burst in front of his path. He stopped.

"Much better," one of the lights said.

"We don't like being ignored! We have a task for you to complete!" A quest offer appeared. Oliver declined it with a thought.

"No fair!" another of the lights pouted.

"You didn't even listen to our request!"

"I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"We have a task for you to complete!" the first light repeated.

"Accept the call to action!" Again the quest offer appeared. Oliver frowned. Usually quest givers would give up after the first decline. In his experience, they only brought the quest back up if directly prompted. He decided to leave the notification up. If they could make it reappear again there was no point in declining it immediately. A pink light morphed and in front of him fluttered a humanoid scantily clad pink young woman, a handspan tall and with the wings of a butterfly.

As if lifted directly from a child's storybook, a fairy now addressed him.

"Our town has been invaded by terrible toadstools. We need your assistance to destroy them and reclaim our home! Help us and we will reward you with all manner of wealth and fame."

"Your name will live forever in our village's history records," a second fairy said, this one forming from blue light.

"How far is your town?" Oliver asked, against his better judgement.

"By the crow's flight it is but—""In miles."

"One and a half," the first fairy answered, sounding a bit put out.

"Direction?" The second pointed. It would be a detour for him, but one that should hopefully not add too much time. It wasn't in a completely different direction at the very least.

"How much fortune are you offering? And does your town have vendors?"

"We offer a fortune of [425] Mel! And once peace is restored, the resident vendors will happily buy and sell goods once again!" His immediate instinct was to refuse and continue running to the edge of the biome. But then he recalled James. A fellow experimentee who entered this mess ten levels ahead of Oliver. And Oliver was under no illusion that there weren't others like him. They would hunt and kill him given a moment's opportunity. The most secure safety was getting stronger.

That meant following through with idiotic quests set up by the experimenters and fighting for levels and equipment.

"Fine. Accept." The quest notification disappeared. He now participated in two of the limit of three quests. The fairies fluttered forward and guided him through the forest. He followed after them, now slowed down to just a brisk walk. They chittered and commented on his dark clothing while they traveled. He replied to them without giving his response much thought. Instead he was constantly on the watch for traps.

The nice thing about the fairies is that they were a wealth of information in regards to the more dangerous mushrooms in the forest. Over the next half an hour, he gained enough knowledge on the subject to have a decent overview of which would most likely release spores that could kill him.

"Toadstool!" one of the fairies wailed. They all zipped up as a red and white mushroom hobbled up to him. It moved slowly, with nubs for legs. Unlike the rest of the mushrooms he'd seen, this one had a gaping mouth splitting its shaft. With a row of triangular teeth. Oliver, cautious about getting close after seeing how the spores released from the earlier shrooms he killed, drew his blunderbuss. He fired a single shot, shattering two of its front teeth as the bullet penetrated the creature's soft tissue.

It dropped to the forest ground and squirmed about. Not dead, but it looked in pain. The damage didn't seem to release any spores, so Oliver deemed it safe enough to approach and finish off in melee, rather than waste a second bullet. The shovel's blade lopped off a chunk of the cap. The creature growled and gnashed its teeth as it squirmed in his direction. Unable to right itself, it attempted to gnaw on his ankles.

Instead, its mouth met the flat of the shovel, shattering the remaining teeth and launching it backwards where it slammed into the shaft of one of the massive mushroom trees. One final stab, chopping the creature in half, and the fight was complete. Congratulations! You have defeated a Toadstool Citizen, level 25. You have been awarded [2] Mel. Oliver frowned. The word 'citizen' implied that it was a part of a civilization. But it was also nameless, unlike when he had to kill the villagers back in his biome.

He didn't like the inconsistency. Did that imply these creatures were less relevant or intelligent? Werewolves, wraiths, and vampires all had names accompanying their deaths. Ghouls and common animals never did though.

"You did it! You did it!" the fairies cheered as they rejoined him. They danced around the dead toadstool's corpse, laughing and rejoicing. Over the next hour of travel, Oliver killed eight more of the toadstools. None of them posed much of a challenge, but after the last one on the outskirts of the village, he received a level notification. 41 already. He tossed the free points in Resilience to hit the 40 point threshold. A bit more durability would help. The town was tiny.

Hardly bigger than three or four dinner tables. It made sense, when Oliver considered the size of the fairies, but it also irritated him to have come all this way hoping for a vendor when just his shovel alone would take up a block's worth of real estate. Unlike the waist high enemy toadstools he'd fought on the way here, the fairy village was instead covered in white little puffballs. As he stepped forward, one of the shrooms launched itself at him.

Oliver instinctively batted it away, the flat of his shovel smashing into it. While the main body of the thing ricocheted off of his weapon and flew across the forest and out of sight, it left behind a white cloud of spores where it had made contact with his shovel. He received a kill notification for killing a puffball fungus.

"Oh, dear!" one of the fairies cried out.

"It'll infect him!" The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. At that lovely exclamation, Oliver scrambled backward, putting space between himself and the puff of spores. He backed up further, not wanting to risk touching the spores. But, instead of dissipating, it began to spread into a wider area. Just when Oliver was considering abandoning the quest and retreating, the spore cloud finally stopped increasing its radius and drifted down to settle on the forest floor. Good.

Now with his vision unimpeded again clear, Oliver took stock of how many of the puff balls remained in the village. A rough count led him to believe it would be about half of his remaining bullets. But, assuming he could buy more, the Mel earned would outweigh that cost considerably. He took aim, his blunderbuss cocked. Then the ground under his feet shifted. An ever so familiar sensation reminiscent of years of experiencing zombies breaking free of their resting places.

Oliver immediately lunged and ducked into a shadow, activating his Shadow Slink skill. A hundred little bodies erupted from the forest floor. Fairies, their bright lights faded to pale gray and their bodies speckled in white boils. The living fairies screamed and darted away. Unable to spot Oliver through his ability, the infected fairies gave chase. Oliver waved a hand.

"Down," he commanded them. To his relief, his Death Aura skill activated. That meant these were considered undead. He couldn't command them with his skill, but he could at least placate them for a little while. Now that their prey was out of sight, they had nothing to rile them up or break them from his skill's soothing effects. The spores he kept encountering gave him an idea. He reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a pouch.

It was his last one, but he couldn't see a more effective means in which to take out so many enemies all at once. Scooping up the handful of silver dust, he scattered it out among all the tiny undead. As the tiny flakes of metal settled on the skin of the undead fairies, they entered combat with him which immediately broke them free of his skill. But it was already too late for them.

They struggled and squirmed, but the silver dust burned holes in their wings and left red blisters along their skin, to match the white boils. Congratulations! You have defeated an Infected Fairy, level 30. You have been awarded [3] Mel. Oliver stepped back while a stream of notifications piled on top of one another. The undead fairies gave him between 0-4 Mel each death. Another level up. Oliver blinked away the notification in surprise. Already he'd gone up twice in a single day.

He supposed massacring a village worth of undead fairies was far from a minor accomplishment, but it took surprisingly little effort using the tools he had on hand. He shuddered at the idea of how difficult it would be to kill a swarm of these things without his skill keeping them placid. Not to mention Silver Potency burning them. He threw two more free points in Resilience and glanced at his full status. Oliver Nightingale. Level 42. Class 1 - [Grave Robber] Skills 1 - Appraisal, Shadow Slink, Shovel Proficiency.

Class 2 - [Underkeeper] Skills 2 - Death Aura, Summon Sanctuary (Coffin), Echoes of the Dead. Class 3 - [Paranormal Slayer] Skills 3 - Silver Potency. Uncanny Sight. Pistol Proficiency. Status Points - Strength 30, Dexterity 94, Resilience 43, Mental 5, Speech 5, Luck 0. Mel - 987 It certainly didn't look too bad. Though he still didn't know what his Uncanny Sight skill did beyond give him slightly better vision. The final infected fairy died and Oliver returned his attention to the puffballs.

He fired off his shots carefully, picking them off. By the end, the entire town was white, like a fresh winter day's coat of snow. No movement. Nothing else. Oliver reloaded his pistol before holstering it. He had to admit, having a ranged weapon was incredibly convenient. Over the years he'd once gone through a phase where he experimented with using sharpened trowels like throwing knives, but that hadn't been quite as effective as he wanted. Shovel Proficiency's flexibility only went so far.

A few minutes after the dust spores settled, the party of quest-giving fairies returned.

"I completed your request," he said. He held his hand out in their direction, palm open. Quest Complete! Reward- 425 Mel Fairy Ring A ring appeared in his outstretched hand. Appraisal told him it was Uncommon rarity and worth 150 Mel. Unlike his last quest reward, the brief description actually told him what the ring could do. Once a day it could be activated to create a fairy formed of light that would last for up to one hour. He slipped the ring on and activated the enchantment, curious about the effect.

It was better to understand exactly what it was capable of now than to wait until it was needed and not fully understand the artifact. He'd learned that the hard way and had scars to serve as reminders of his past over confident blunders. A bright violet light formed into a giggling little fairy that floated over his hand. He poked at it. Unlike the real fairies, it had no substance. It was just light and noise.

Still, sometimes a distraction could shift the balance of a fight, he could understand how it might be useful in the right circumstance. The fake fairy fluttered about over their destroyed village, joining the real ones as they carefully scavenged their home. Unlike his illusion, their faces were mournful as they picked through the rubble. Nothing in the village appeared to even be worth looting.

The fairies quickly recovered any valuables and the few potion bottles that had survived the mushroom invasion were so small as to be useless to him. And, unless he wanted to armor his fingers, no equipment was going to fit him here. This town appeared to be an absolute bust.

"I don't suppose those vendors happen to still be around?" Oliver asked. They glared at him and apparently didn't deem his question worth responding to.

"Is there another fairy village nearby I could visit? Or really, any village at all." He had money but nowhere to spend it. It was a unique issue. In the past he'd always known the closest towns and vendors but rarely had the money to actually purchase anything worthwhile. Now he had the funds, but no vendors. One of the fairies pointed in a direction and muttered that it was a twenty minute walk. Nothing else to go on, and already having detoured this far, Oliver decided to head off that way.

He didn't bother saying goodbye to his questgivers; now that he'd served his purpose to them, they didn't seem to care about him in the slightest. His little light fairy perched itself on his shoulder as he jogged through the forest. She, at least, seemed to enjoy his company. Unsurprising, as Oliver always had a knack for befriending imaginary friends. It didn't take long for him to locate this town.

Unlike the dead fairy village he'd just departed, the walls, made out of a hardened mushroom substance, were of height with the villages he was used to. He rounded the corner to the village gate and let out a sigh of relief when he saw the guards. Humans. That meant a chance for real equipment and gear that would actually fit him. The guard directed him towards a vendor and Oliver soon found himself with a fat sack of money in hand while surrounded by goods. He decided to forgo purchasing any clothing.

The colors people wore in this biome were garish. They, admittedly, would probably function as better camouflage in the colorful mushroom forest than his black gear, but he didn't plan to stick around here for much longer. A potion seller sold him three health potions for 100 Mel each. A robbery of a price, but the vendor refused to barter and Oliver had the money so he paid the fee with a heavy heart. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any sort of firearms in this biome.

That meant no more silver ammunition for the time being. He needed to be more frugal with his bullets. Enchantments, however, seemed abundantly common. He handed over his muddy boots to an enchanter who promised to upgrade them with a stealth enchantment and his jacket for a durability enchantment. Together, that cost 700 more Mel. That was about half the price as it would have been back in his home biome but was still expensive. He sadly watched his money disappear into the hands of the enchanter.

Having already spent a grand of Mel, Oliver perused the artifact collections on display with a more thrifty mindset. He mostly browsed as a way to pass the time until the enchantments were complete. Nothing in his price range particularly stood out to him. He shrugged and turned to leave. That sudden turn likely saved his life. A scythe of magic sliced through the vendor's stall, grazing Oliver's arm and slicing an inch deep into his flesh. The vendor on the other side of the stall wasn't as lucky.

The man fell over, dead, as his stall collapsed all around him. Oliver immediately ducked and rolled around the corner of a building.

"You missed!"

"God damnit, Sally! The town guards are going to swarm us now! Learn to aim!" He peeked back around the building and spotted his assailants. On a nearby rooftop, three girls his age glared down at Oliver. All decked out in gear. One stood a step closer than the other two, recovering from having clearly just swung the massive scythe in her hands. Obviously, she had just activated a skill or a spell in an attempt to kill Oliver. Fellow unwilling participants in this deadly experiment.

Unfortunately, like James, these girls had signaled they had no intention of working alongside him. These three girls had just told him that they wished to be removed from the experiment. Forcefully.