Chapter 84
Leaving only a corpse from which it was difficult to identify the creature’s previous identity, Desmond proceeded to suspend his imaginary audience on the identity of his last encounter in the forest. . . but I completely forget that zombies always hang out in groups, just as I forget the fact that he just incredibly anticlimactic revealed the identity of the creature he had just killed.
′′ Araszh enick orizae. . . arazsh enick orizae. ′′
Spinning around with incredible speed, Desmond fired a second arrow behind him, blowing up a second head causing a second bloody rain.
“Damn, I don’t remember zombies in the movies making those weird satanic whispers, they’re usually more monosyllabic noises, but at least they explode in such an exaggerated way that it’s actually kind of funny. . . but I better kill them from afar, I don’t want to spend the rest of the day cleaning the blood from my clothes. ′′
Unfortunately, Desmond forgot that even bringing a pair of quivers with him, his arrows were still somewhat limited so while he wouldn’t spend the rest of the day cleaning zombie debris from his clothes, he would still have to clean up the ones that got stuck on his arrows.
′′ At least I don’t buy triple-edged or mechanical arrowheads, it would be more than just a pain in the ass to clean those. ′′
As soon as he finished speaking, more whispers were present in the surroundings and Desmond was painfully aware that these were not the animals of the forest coming to play. . . Unless of course they also emitted those devilish whispers that the zombies he just killed made.
But wisely assuming that this would not be the case, Desmond warmed up for a high-intensity shooting session. . . that I did not arrive, well the zombies did come, but they were slow as turtles and weak as aqua rabbits; Maybe Desmond on his first day in the Serefia forest would have been a nuisance, but for today’s Desmond it was more like playing a little shooter game with lots of head explosions.
.....
Desmond had a good time shooting zombies left and right for at least an hour until there were no more zombies left that he could see, after having so much fun in his first moments in this place, Desmond was quite positive in his expectations for this. mission. But that only lasted until he spent two hours searching and collecting his arrows, plus another hour washing them in a small stream.
A little sulky Desmond realized too late, that normally he did not have this kind of problem because before he did not collect most of his arrows back, in addition to that even on his best day in the Serefia forest he had only hunted 6 prey They were worth it and he didn’t bother with the arrows because they were basically disposable for him at that point. But now using more valuable arrows of which he has a fairly limited stock added to the fact that the zombies here do not seem to travel alone, he found himself in a dire situation where if he did not wash his arrows, they would completely fill his quiver with blood and waste.
In the process Desmond continued to deliberate regarding his current situation, it may appear that he had spent the last few hours just having fun popping zombies and then retrieving his arrows, but he had also explored the surroundings in the process while gathering as much information as possible.
From which he gathered a couple of clues that were interesting to him, firstly, the nearby rocky area certainly contained a higher density of metallic and earth mana but the concentration was not high enough to find valuable minerals in the open air; which was certainly relevant to his mission.
The second clue he found was more related to zombies, he found that in their corpses he could feel the same kind of disgusting presence that he had felt before in the mana of this place, only that it was much denser and seemed to somehow parasitize the zombie; of course, Desmond had no proof for these assumptions, but at this point, his instincts were all he had.
But Desmond had one last guess that didn’t seem to cheer him up much, one of the reasons Desmond hadn’t been too pessimistic in taking this mission was that from the information Elaisa provided, this area of ??Erack should have some metallic beasts not too powerful, whose bodies contained high-value minerals and large amounts of it, that should be able to help him finish this mission more quickly and train in combat a bit as he was at it.
For Desmond’s misfortune, he was inclined to believe that his chances of hunting these beasts at least in this area were practically nil, this was precisely due to that strange energetic substance that poisoned the environment. When Desmond tried to channel the mana around him, he realized that this substance was trying to mix with the mana he absorbed only to be repelled by the natural mana from his body; but during the process, Desmond felt an almost instinctive discomfort and revulsion at the substance.
Taking into account that human beings are less akin to their instincts than beasts, Desmond believed that the latter probably felt what he felt, but several times stronger so they left the area.
Seeing that nothing had been overlooked and that all of his arrows were as good as new, Desmond was preparing to leave when he got up he heard a small noise accompanied by a careless gasp behind him; so taking a bow and arrow he turned around to see his new guest.
′′ who’s there? ′′