Bab 75: Somewhere admidst the chaos
(Rudeus POV)
I left the dead bodies as it is. My priority is to get out of here and go to the school. I don't know if it will suffice, but the Saint class Healing Circles could give back my arms and possibly most of my hands.
After changing my left eye into the X-ray Eye, I looked around the room and found the exit on a door with no handles.
What intrigued me was another person lying in the hallway.
I pushed the door and found something rather strange but intriguing in terms of fantasy world settings at the end of the staircase.
At a closer glance, it wasn't a person but a mannequin resembling one. It had twice as many limbs as a human and was damaged all over its body from both cuts and burns. In its center was a formation of crystals connected through stacked-up arrays on each body part.
After changing my left eye into the Identification Eye, I was bombarded with information about the mannequin and its various Magic Circles inside.
According to the main information, the creator's name is Chaos. What shocked me was the detail that he was the Maniacal Dragon King, one of the Five Dragon Generals like Perugius. This contraption of put-together Magic Circles formed into a doll was his unfinished dream project.
"An automated Magic Doll... finders keepers!"
Putting my ha... putting my mana-hands together, I gave a little prayer of respect to the deceased maker.
Dear honorable Sir Chaos,
by my honor as an (amateur) artist and enthusiast of magic, I will continue your work, eventually finish it, and improve it to bring a new path to artificial life creation that will hopefully not exterminate people by going back in time.
Oh boy, Zanoba is gonna breathless again once he casts his eyes upon this. But only before he discovers that someone has damaged it to this degree. There is no way I could hide that from his keen eyes, which have found every feature on my Roxy figurine.
I had no choice but to leave the mannequin here since I couldn't open my pocket dimension. Hopefully, I can find it after this monster business is over.
Going up the stairs, I found myself on what seemed to be the first floor.
Everything was run down and dusty, and there was no furniture inside this rather spacious room.
Something about this house felt weird. I can't put my finger on it, but it brought up terrible feelings within me like something was… wrong... and... and missing?
"Huh?! Why are you still alive?"
A voice called out in panic from the floor beside me. It was a middle-aged, white-bearded man covered in one of the black armors the blacksmith was tasked with making.
Wait, isn't that the retired captain of the Ranoa Knights?! What the hell? He is also an apostle? No wonder I constantly felt bad around him during the training regimen at the school.
"Useless punks. Can't even kill a kid who has no arms."
As he scowled at his deceased accomplices, he unsheathed his sword and readied to attack me.
My cards don't look good, considering my weakened state and the fact that I'm facing an experienced veteran.
It can't be helped. I will have to fight him and hope my body can handle the extensive use of Touki.
I was getting into a position just before something unexpected happened. Well, that's not exactly right. It was more like it came out of the blue.
A loud humming came from outside before the insects crashed through the walls from my right, nearly making the building collapse.
At the last fraction of a second, I blocked the attack with my mana arms before it hit me. The force of the attack, however, was strong enough to push me against the wall on the other side.
Extending my mana arms, I rammed both daggers into the insect before glimpsing that it was a wasp the size of your typical household cat and a giant barbed stinger sticking out of its rear end.
Another wasp from the left was about to try and plunge me with its stinger next, aiming for my head this time.
Twisting my body strangely, I dodged the attack and instead used the dead wasp's stinger to make the second one fly its head straight into it.
The repulsive odor of insect intestines stung in my nose, but an entire swarm of wasps was now coming from the hole in the wall.
Quickly, I charged mana into my lungs before breathing out a scorching fire, like a flamethrower, just like I had done against the Sea Dragon's severed head.
Screeching echoed as burning lumps wiggled around in agony, but something else caught my attention.
The old captain, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky as I was.
The wasps that hit him got their stingers stuck against his armor. One is in his left shoulder, another is on the left side of his abdomen, and a third is in his right thigh.
Because of the barbs on the stingers, getting unstuck would require them to rip off their weapon. Talk about faulty evolution.
Was it bees or wasps who would die after using their stinger only once and remove it? Well, I'm gonna find out soon anyway.
The guy was still alive, and so were the struggling wasps who were trying to fly out.
The wasps then ate their way out instead by crunching at his flesh. The top one biting into his face, the middle one his arm, and the bottom one..... his groin... that has got to hurt the most.
The chief couldn't even scream anymore as he looked at me with pleading eyes. But his hopeful glances at me were unanswered.
Just as Orsted would say, killing your enemy would be better. However, I don't know who else besides me was under the influence of Hitogami during my time, whatever happened to them.
Anyway, once the wasps chewed enough of his flesh off (and killed him as a bonus), I incinerated them with my fire breath before they could take flight and attack me.
Honestly, the guy should feel honored I gave his corpse any creamation, or die wearing the armor I provided the main material for.
Oddly, every person I suspected to be an apostle went down easily despite my injuries.
The wannabe god may still rely on his damaged Future Sight, or the true fighter is waiting to strike when I'm weakened. Regardless, another surprise has surely yet to appear.
One of the expected events, however, was the collapse of the structure, with the walls around me creaking. The wasps destroyed its center supports, so it was only a matter of seconds.
Literally rushing 'through' the door at the end of the hallway, I managed to get out before the roof touched the ground. Luckily, it was only a two-story building but almost big enough to be called a mansion.
This would have made a great house after some renovation if it hadn't been for the wasps demolishing it.
I said another round of quick prayers to offer my sincere apologies to the original owner for the vandalism and demolition of the property.
After finishing, I went around the city, killing off any monster I encountered, trying to find where I was, and hopefully getting a better view of the situation.
I'm surprised I can still move despite the damage I took from that power slash. I deeply regret now not keeping that sword from North God.
But that's the least of my worries at the moment. That insect queen either left back up somewhere behind or popped another batch of eggs that grew incredibly fast. The latter is too ridiculous to be true, but we must expect the unexpected.
If only I had access to my curse already, I could regenerate my arms like when my hands melted from the two-headed Black Dragon.
'Yeah, that won't work.'
When I heard someone's voice coming off, I was startled and started looking around frantically to find a specific place: some reflective surfaces.
"Kagami.. was that you?"
I swear I heard his voice just now. And what does he mean by 'that won't work'? Does he keep something secret from me again? Does it have to do with my chains? My body in general?
Dammit! Now is not the time for that.
Brushing the frustration off, I headed to where the screams originated.
It took me longer to comprehend the source of the screams as I constantly encountered new insects that needed to be eliminated. Upon recognizing the place I arrived at, I developed a rough suspicion.
Compared to the other places, this one had a lot of mangled corpses and, weirdly, little to no shredded clothes.
"Is this the slave market?"
The question was aimed at no one. Several chains and shackles lay near some of the leftovers the insects had not finished eating.
I guess because of the number of broken slaves, moving them away was no option for the staff. It was a rushed announcement anyway, so they couldn't be blamed for not following it since most slaves have lost their will via malnourishment or physical abuse.
Walking past the blood pools and debris of the buildings, I looked for any hint of where the insects were hiding. But all I found was the same path of deceased slaves and perhaps the people who used to run this place.
It's ominous that those insect monsters would leave behind what would be precious nourishment for them. Some of the corpses looked like they had only a bite taken off before being killed properly.
I don't remember hearing about all insects having the same particular taste, but if these monsters are pilling up so much leftover, it has to be that.
My thoughts strayed back to when my arms were ripped off, inevitably turning my attention to my stumps. The queen probably did that to get an appetizer off of me.
I can only deduce that she has either developed a taste for meat from people with large manapools or for an exotic mix of special races. Either way, I might be on her menu.
Since they are searching for something exquisite and kill all the undesirable, going for large gatherings of people is the fastest way in the primitive way of thinking.
Other than the slave market, located on the city's north side, the only other place to find whatever they want is the east side, where the school is located. That's where the people are being evacuated.
Since security at the school was prioritized, relocating the citizens there was the logical approach for the higher-ups. They had so much faith in the capabilities of all three of the lower-ranking World Powers that they became careless.
But we all underestimated those insects's prowess. Things became even more dire than predicted.
I began using the Clairvoyant Eye to see where the school should be. Just as I foresaw, many insects attacked knights and adventurers alike.
Through coincidence, I saw Ingolt and Connor crushed by a bulky, giant, man-shaped rhino beetle with muscular arms and then Patris cut in half by a huge stag beetle with sword-like pincers.
Sara came into my view a moment later. With accuracy and great positioning through her Wind Magic, she managed to get into an angel and shoot at four insects with one arrow strike.
Soldat and the other are trying to keep up, but their losses are still piling up.
Readying myself to run to them, something of personal concern caught the corner of my eye. A corpse that I have overlooked due to the already mess.
Despite the left side of her face looking like it was just being chewed on, I recognized her.
It was the little Dwarf girl who I rescued a while ago. There weren't any clothes on her, only the shackle wrapped around her neck, ankles, and wrists. Her hands were bruised, probably from trying to get out of that painful torture, but it was all in vain in the end.
It was kind of heart-wrenching to see a person I had tried to save die so soon from a similar cause not soon after.
I went over to her and closed her one eye with my mana hand before breathing out fire through my mouth and cremating her, letting her pass on without becoming an undead.
This is the maximum I can do for her, but now I must leave quickly.
With Wind Magic added to my steps, I dashed away to where the others were, but an unforeseen difficulty surprised me, and I ended up stammering against the debris.
Now, on my knees and facing the ground, the blood splattering before me reminded me of the open wound in my chest.
It is astonishing how many times I was on the brink of death due to excessive blood loss. It must be the regenerative abilities my curse provides for me.
But because of my spectral chains, it's limited, especially when a puddle of blood forms beneath me. Was it my blood or one of the corpses lying around? I couldn't tell.
The very sound symbolizing a person living is currently killing me. I'm in a very critical state. Either my heart kills me, or some insect finds me weakened and starts nibbling on me like a chew toy before presenting me to their birth mother.
I tried to rep myself back up when a weird light reflecting in the puddle caught my attention.
The sky is cloaked because of my explosion, so it couldn't be the sunlight, and I don't see any source of light anywhere else.
But then I noticed the light in the blood puddle pulsating, and I was anxious to check.
It came from my open chest wound, something within me glowing through the opening.
The pulsating gave it away, though. It dawned on me that it was... my heart.
///
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone