Volume 10 Bugs Chapter 37: Eternal Waiting
After Baron Bink's death, there was nothing more in this rubble fortress that was worth our nostalgia. We walked quickly towards the exit of the fortress, and soon, the dilapidated gate was in sight. The colorful magic vortex inside the gate formed a powerful and magical barrier, separating the inside and outside of the gate into two completely different worlds.
As I was about to leave, I felt a little sorry for old Carlson who was confined to the fortress. I was about to "go out", but for me, this simple "going out" was an unimaginable luxury for him. In fact, I had nothing to apologize for. The scales of the gods that carried the chips of fate were fair after all. I got much more freedom than him, and he got power that I could not understand.
But I still felt a little guilty. After all, it was me who took the initiative to leave this friend I had just made, leaving this free soul alone in this confined space.
"Old man, I... am leaving..." I whispered to him.
"Will we meet again?" The old troll's voice sounded as calm as ever, but I could still hear the subtle expectation hidden in his tone.
"I'm afraid it won't be possible in a short time..." I thought for a moment before answering, "...The road here is not safe. If I want to come alone, I need to be at least level 56 or 57. This will take at least two or three months."
"Fortunately it won't be too long..." Carlson's mood was much more cheerful than I thought, "...I've been here alone for almost a year, so I don't mind waiting a few more months."
"I will do it as soon as possible!" I promised.
"Don't forget about me, the blue-skinned old man..." Carlson said with a smile, "... But to be honest, you are a really strange person. You give me the feeling of being a spaceman. If I didn't have the power to see through the origin of the world, I would not be able to see through your origins. In fact, I once concentrated on studying and tried to find the field that truly describes a soul from the origin world, but the soul seems to be something that cannot be described by simple 0 and 1. I just simply feel that you seem to have a truly complete soul, while mine is incomplete - this is probably the main reason why I can't leave the fortress..."
"...I have a feeling, kid, you'll become a formidable guy in the future...so, you better not die a cowardly death before then..."
"You're just talking nonsense!" I turned around and took a last look at the broken tiles and ruins of the rubble fortress. I didn't really agree with his mysterious sigh. I just spat on the ground, then walked out of the castle gate with my head held high...
…
After leaving the fortress, we returned along the way we came. Along the way, the corrupted and wild beasts whose souls were corroded by toxins were still lurking around us, violently attacking us one after another, but for us, dealing with them was no longer as difficult as when we came here. Soon, we once again came to the manor that originally belonged to the young Baron Bink.
The residents of the manor were still holding crude weapons and bravely fighting against the corrupted ones that gathered from the wilderness. Just like when we came, the battle here was always in a stable balance: every time one of those soulless rotten zombies fell, another one would come out from nowhere to join the battle; and Miss Lemore could always release the magic of restoring life at the right time, so that no resident would die in this defense battle.
This local conflict of destruction and defense seems to have continued unabated since we left, and I doubt it will continue like this after we leave, until the next group of people like us show up.
Everything happened just as the gods had destined. We once again wiped out the group of rotten invaders, once again were welcomed into the manor by the residents like lambs to be slaughtered, and once again our damaged equipment was repaired at looted prices.
My friends did not forget the deceased baron's request. They told his sister the news of his death. For this, each of them received more than 1,200 points of soul power and three gold coins. I watched all this happen from afar, but I did not do the same thing as them. I was different from my friends who were involved in the sky. I would not use such concise words to convey this cruel news, and I did not know how to face this poor girl who had just lost her last relative.
According to the laws of this world, every time someone returns from the Stone Fortress, they will bring news of the Baron's death, causing the girl to suffer great pain again. I don't know how this weak girl can survive these countless heartbreaks, but based on the smallest kindness in my heart, I think that such sadness, even if it can only happen once less, is good.
Since I can't change the fate that the gods have determined, at least let me reduce the sadness of losing a loved one once - I hope so.
Moreover, in my heart, there is always such an unrealistic fantasy: in this world, only when you get paid, you can be considered to have truly completed a job, and for you, this thing is over forever and cannot be changed or repeated.
Before that, it is not the end. You can even think that it has not started, or...
...does not exist?
If I really told Miss Lemoire about the Baron's death, everything would be decided forever and there would be no way to change it. If I didn't tell her and she didn't listen, this information that had been decided by the gods would be forever cut off between her and me. Maybe... I know it sounds silly, but I really have this feeling... Maybe this matter would be submerged and covered up, becoming a gap in the torrent of countless information, disappearing from then on and no longer existing. Baron Bink's life or death has not yet been determined, and Miss Lemoire's waiting still has hope - at least between her and me, at least for the two of us, maybe that's the case.
Will everything be like this?
In this world made up of two simple numbers, has my idea really touched the hidden laws of this world?
Or is it just a cowardly escape?
After all, I did not complete the task, but left it in my task record. Until a long time later, it was still the only failed page left in my unfinished life journey.
When we were less than half a minute away, we looked back and saw that the small manor was once again surrounded by zombies. The radiance of Miss Lemore's sacred magic flickered in the quiet evening air from time to time, like a white magnolia blooming in a corner gradually eroded by darkness, sowing a seed called "hope" in this corroded and desperate place.
There, a sister is waiting for her brother to return from the expedition, and she will wait for a long time but never in despair. In this story, there is no death, no sorrow, only endless hope and expectation.
This is a happy story.
At least, for me, that's the case...
…
Back at the Gravel Outpost, my Skywalker friends were exhausted - in my memory, this was indeed the longest adventure I had ever had with them. In fact, before they even left the swamp, they were all groggy and shaky, and with their listless appearance, even the corpse-transformed Corrupted Ones on the way could be called "full of vitality" - in fact, I did once suspect that they were really infected with a severe corpse poison, and were quietly evolving into zombies, and were ready to cut the four of them into pieces and escape at any time.
Thank God, this tragic scene did not happen to us after all - they were really just overtired. In the end, with the mutual support of solidarity and friendship, the honor of saving the world, and the guidance of the adventurers' bravery and fearlessness - of course, perhaps more importantly, driven by the greedy desire for adventure rewards - they finally returned to the Gravel Outpost, and tiredly received the reward for this commissioned adventure from Major Gutierrez, and then "logged off" with satisfaction.
The mountains were quiet and deep at night, the campfire in the camp was spitting out turbulently, and the shadows around were swaying in fear. The outpost was silent, and the human and orc soldiers were patrolling around the wooden wall that was more than two people high. Except for me, there was no other foreign traveler here.
Sitting by the campfire, I flipped through my magic diary out of boredom. In addition to the task of delivering a letter to Miss Lemore, there were six or seven other tasks recorded here. Some of these tasks were difficult to complete because of my low level, and some required a team of companions to adventure in order to continue. The only task that had no restrictions was the alchemist-exclusive task that I accidentally received in the Stone Fortress: "Installation of the Fusion Device".
However, unlike the introductions of other tasks, the introduction of this open-ended task is too brief and confusing: find all four "fusion parts", assemble them together, and explore its mysteries, and you will take a step further on the road of seeking knowledge. Where to go? Who to find? How to complete it? What is its function? There is no mention in the task introduction... no clues.
Confused, I took the three parts I had collected out of the backpack, hoping to find something. It was a closed container with an integrated interior and exterior, a double helix tube, and a strange-shaped metal bracket. The shape of the bracket was very strange and very sturdy. It should be used to fix something heavy and likely to vibrate violently. Based on my limited knowledge of alchemy, an instrument of this size is unlikely to vibrate violently. The only possibility is that it is a spiral instrument that rotates at high speed...
Somehow, an image of an object suddenly popped up in my mind. It was a thing with a lid, about the size of a hand mill, with a hatch on one side that could hold a solid object about two fingers wide. When it was turned on, it would emit a slight blue light and make some noises, sounding like there was a box inside spinning at high speed.
I can even remember where I saw this thing: right here, in this outpost. After we found a mutant zombie's heart, we found Mr. Wagner, the pharmacist at the outpost. When he helped us analyze the composition of the heart, he used this strange-shaped instrument. Looking back, it seems that there are indeed some fixed screws and pipe connection interfaces on the instrument. It seems that it is not a finished product, but I didn't pay attention to it at that time.
I suddenly felt that I should visit Mr. Wagner as soon as possible. My intuition told me that doing so would bring me unexpected benefits.
It was late, but the candles in Mr. Wagner's tent were still on. The field pharmacist, who was absorbed in his research, was hunched over the test bench, carefully pouring various medicines into the crystal beaker in front of him, with bubbles or smoke rising from time to time. The bright lights cast his shadow on the tent, making his already dry and thin figure even more bony. His slender fingers were stretched into the shape of dead branches by the lights, dancing chaotically on the tent, giving people a sense of horror from the bottom of their hearts.
I gently lifted the door curtain and was about to say hello when suddenly, with a light "bang", a handful of pale green mist spread out in front of Mr. Wagner. "Hahahahaha..." A low and hoarse laugh floated out of the pharmacist's mouth, like a sharp awl piercing my eardrum, making me feel uncomfortable and itchy all over. He stretched out his right hand and gently picked up a small bottle of blue-gray viscous medicine. His back was still hunched, and he turned sideways, turned his head slightly backward, and looked at me with his bloodshot gray eyes.
"...You've come just in time, young man..." He narrowed his eyes and smiled. The fanaticism hidden in that smile made me feel a little uneasy. "...You have witnessed a great moment. My experiment has just been successful. Perfect life was created in my hands. From this moment on, history will be rewritten, and humble humans will officially set foot in the realm of gods. From today on, all life on the Falvi continent will possess eternal power, and the Doomsday Empire will eventually be vulnerable. The savior is born! The savior is born tonight..."
Wagner raised the potion in his hand high, staring at it proudly. There seemed to be something burning wildly in his eyes, and that morbid fanaticism seemed to want to burn himself to ashes first.
The thing in his hand shocked me. The evil color and brilliance once became a nightmare memory of mine - on the top of the command tower of the Gravel Fortress , in the hands of the fallen witch Black Knight Arthur Dengott - it was the raw liquid of the finished product of the Undead Toxin. My friends and I went through life and death many times before we destroyed it. Even the residual liquid was poured out without a drop left. But what I didn’t expect was that just four hours after I returned to my own outpost, this dangerous substance that was enough to destroy the entire continent appeared in the hands of "one of our own".
“This… this is…”
"That's right..." Wagner looked at me and nodded, "...This is the toxin extracted from the infected heart you gave me. Ah, wonderful life forms, these tiny things that cannot be seen by the naked eye have a magnificent vitality that you can't imagine. The tiny controls the huge, and the instinct controls the wisdom. How wonderful! They are the most powerful creatures in the world. The magnificent beauty of this cannot be described in words..."
"…But I don't want to use it to commit suicide. I successfully modified them so that they can enhance the host's ability without destroying his brain. If the mind does not change and wisdom is not lost, we can keep our souls, while knowledge and power can be eternally increased. This will be the most perfect life in history, do you know? I have completed the evolution of life on behalf of the gods!"
“I declare that I will never monopolize this great achievement. I will let every life in this world benefit from it, and every soul will share the opportunity to touch eternity. The future, the endless future, is waiting for us. Here we come! It’s coming!!!”
He cheered hysterically, as if he was singing a hymn of joy and solemnity; his eyes were red and tears were in his eyes, obviously moved by his crazy idea. Damn it, I swear this is the most talented and generous madman I have ever seen. He is wholeheartedly and unreservedly benefiting mankind, and the method he uses is actually...actually...poisoning everyone?
"You're crazy, put it down! You're going to ruin everything!" I drew my sword and pointed it at his chest, feeling angry and panicked. This is not the dungeon area controlled by Old Carlson, and I can't guarantee what the consequences will be if the toxin spreads here. Even though I still doubt the consequences, I dare not try to end it easily.
"Pathetic life, jealous of the wise, afraid of change. Weapons can only arm your body, but can never protect your weak soul. Fortunately..." Wagner glanced at me with contempt, and brought the bottle filled with potion in his hand closer to his pale lips...
"...Fortunately... this world... is not controlled by you..."
"No!" I shouted and rushed forward, trying to stop his crazy behavior. However, it was too late. Before my sword cut off his arm, he still took the deadly poison.
"Ah..." Wagner screamed while holding his severed arm. Bright red blood spurted out from the broken part of his arm, but after a moment, the blood turned yellow and sticky, emitting a smell of corruption. His skin became even paler, and all the smooth and delicate vitality gradually disappeared from his skin. At the same time, dark purple blood vessels were faintly revealed, covering his cheeks. All the changes made him more and more similar to the zombies wandering in the lowlands of Sitvinia. The only difference was that although his pupils turned into a ferocious dark red, they still retained a trace of rational luster and were not completely eroded by the zombies' instinct to hate living beings.
I was about to catch up and strike him again when suddenly the ground in front of the test bench sank, revealing a dark tunnel. Wagner, who had already begun to decay, immediately rolled into the tunnel, along with all his instruments, and then the entire tunnel began to collapse until the entrance was completely sealed.
"No one can stop the evolution of wisdom, no one..." Wagner did not forget to shout loudly until he disappeared. His declaration was hoarse and shrill, like a ghost floating in the world but invisible, and it took a long time to dissipate...
