Chapter 34 - A Rose's Depravity.

Merlin began his journey, leaving the safe confines of the beginner village Lycoa. There weren't any official maintained paths connecting the beginner village with the rest of the towns, villages and cities. It was pretty isolated from the rest of the world, separated by either a large forest or steep hills, depending on what side you approached it from.

Fortunately there was a relatively safe path through the forest, often traversed by merchants hoping to restock their wares, or villagers looking to purchase items that nobody in the village produces. The forest path was relatively well maintained by the villages up to a certain point, however once you passed that point, your safety was never guaranteed.

Merlin traversed the path while taking in the scenery. He travelled through the relatively clear area, any trees that would have gotten in the way or made the path feel clustered had been cut down. The villagers had also gone through the effort of thinning out the forest near the clearing, cutting trees down deeper into the forest to provide more line of sight as you travelled along the path, this made the area feel safer.

The path he was on was well lit due to the sparse canopy above him, the lack of foliage blocking out sunlight was mostly due to the clearing efforts the villagers had done. Merlin admired the bright orange sky as he walked, it was rather close to sunset at this point, meaning nightfall would soon be upon him.

He picked up the pace, he wanted to make it to town before night as he didn't bother obtaining another torch after using both in the mini dungeon. It was more dangerous to be in the wilderness at night time, one of the biggest threats at night were nocturnal predators, and wolves just so happened to be very common in this area.

As he ran through the clearing, something within the forest caught his eye. It was a little off the beaten path, but he could see it due to the tree thinning efforts. Merlin stopped running and instead made his way towards whatever it was, weaving through the various forms of foliage and tree trunks.

He came across a small clearing, and within it stood a large monolithic headstone, standing alone amongst overgrown rocks and thick old stumps. The headstone was in a still somewhat respectable state, there were clear signs of wear caused by the elements, and the sides of the stone were starting to be overgrown with moss.

As Merlin approached the headstone, his eyes locked on to the bundle of withered roses resting in front of the headstone. Merlin felt uncomfortable as he approached, he didn't realise why until he moved close enough to notice the faint scent of blood.

As Merlin leaned in to take a closer look at the bundle of roses, the scent of blood became stronger, leading him to assume the roses themselves were giving off the scent. It was as if someone had squeezed the thorns until it punctured their skin, as the rose's thorns were blood stained.

He turned his attention to the headstone, he had an ominous feeling about this place, especially as it was about to become night time, but it also felt like a secret waiting to be discovered.

His eyes glazed over the face of the headstone which was engraved with a strange foreign text. Unfortunately Merlin didn't have the knowledge required to read it, which probably meant that the quest, if there even was one, was currently unavailable to him.

Feeling quite disappointed Merlin turned his back to the grave and began walking towards the path, until he suddenly felt a painful stabbing sensation in his hand. A wave of fear rushed over him as he checked where the pain was coming from, and his fears were proven correct when he found several puncture wounds scattered around his hand, followed by an eerie notification.

「You are being hunted by a malevolent being, seek the light.」

A gust of cold wind started to blow, causing leaves to lift into the air, buffeting Merlin's body. Every inch of his body was telling him to run, he wasn't equipped to fight an evil spirit, not just yet.

Merlin ran towards the main path, weaving through the forest with everything he had. From where he was now, it should only take him a couple minutes to reach the next town. And for Merlin, a town meant light sources, which is what he desperately needed.

As he ran down the path, the previously maintained treeline became more dense, it seemed he had finally left the village's safe maintained area, although he was having a hard time seeing how it was safe at the moment.

As he continued down the path, he almost missed the glint of an arrow flying towards him. Barely stopping in time, he let the arrow fly past him before unsheathing his blade. It seemed his newest problem were a small group of bandits.

These bandits were here to prevent an unprepared player from leaving the safety of the beginner village. They also had the added bonus of teaching the player that not all humans in this world were good or quest givers, some had hostile intentions and would even kill you, given the chance.

Unfortunately, Merlin really didn't have the time to have a drawn out fight with them, he had to deal with this as efficiently as possible.

Merlin ran towards who he assumed was the bandit squad's leader, as he was wearing well-maintained leather armour and had a decent looking weapon, as opposed to the rags his two associates were equipped with.

The bandit leader swung his sword towards Merlin, only to have his blade parried by the shield. Merlin responded by slashing down at the bandit, cleaving through his shoulder, but unfortunately the bandit jumped backwards in an attempt to limit the damage. Merlin stepped forward to slash again but was intercepted by the other two bandits, he avoided their attack and quickly backed away.

"Open inventory", Merlin quickly chanted a command, causing his inventory window to open up before him. He threw his gladius and shield into the inventory before pulling out the cleaver he took from the boss.

"I really don't have the time to play with you, move!" Merlin shouted, rushing towards the group of bandits. He swung the large blade with his entire body's strength, and before the blade made contact he chanted once more, "Heavy Strike."

「Skill ⟪Heavy Strike⟫ Activated, your next attack does an extra 5% damage, and has a 10% chance to trigger the stagger effect.」

His blade began whistling as it ripped through the air, the leader ran up and attempted to block the swing with his sword, but found that the force behind the blade was more than he expected. The blade cleaved through the leader's torso, leaving a large gash in his stomach.

The momentum hadn't died out however, and as if copying the move from the blade's previous owner, Merlin began spinning, using the large blade as a counterweight. The second rotation caught the leader by surprise, the blade easily cleaved through him once more, finishing him off.

Moving this blade was extremely taxing, it was obnoxiously unbalanced and hard to use, even for someone who had way more strength than the average level two.

Although it was cumbersome and inconvenient, it was a heavy blade that dealt eight extra damage per hit. This was on top of his already high base damage due to his strength stat, so Merlin planned on abusing it until he could earn more points in dexterity, at least enough to make his goblin dagger a viable alternative.

The two remaining bandits pounced towards Merlin, weapons drawn and ready to strike, however an ominous screech coming from behind Merlin caused their bodies to freeze. Likewise, Merlin himself was also caught by the screech. He noticed as the two bandits started recoiling in terror, he wasn't yet able to turn around, but he honestly didn't even want to.

"Open inventory" Merlin chanted the second his body could move again, he threw the cleaver back into his inventory and ran, not even caring about the bandits anymore he sprinted past them. The ice cold sensation that ran down his neck moments prior was the only reason he needed to keep running until he found light.

The bandits let out pained screams only seconds after, although he was curious he knew he had to run, turning around meant slowing down, which was something he couldn't afford to do. The sound of a woman's eerie laughter echoed throughout the forest, the air grew colder and the leaves started whipping around in the heavy winds.

Merlin's heart was beating heavily, and his body felt exhausted, as if he had been running for hours non-stop. Eventually he saw light in the distance, an oil lantern hanging from an archway, guarded by two militia wielding spears.

Eventually Merlin was close enough for the militiamen to see him, and from their reactions, they could also see the creature chasing him. Just a few meters away from the light, Merlin felt a claw dig into his leg, causing him to trip over and slide towards the guards. As he slid along the dirt he turned around to catch a glimpse of his pursuer.

The creature chasing him was a tall pale woman with a sunken face, her long black hair was dishevelled and she wore a long red dress that was torn and shredded, her dress complemented her blood red lipstick. Her fingers were long and bony, with the tips being more like claws than actual fingertips, and black thorny tentacles jutted out from her back, still dripping with the blood of the two bandits she slaughtered not too long ago.

As Merlin stopped sliding the creature only a metre away, its claw thrust out towards Merlin's face, only to stop a few inches away, it seemed Merlin was now considered in the light, meaning he was safe from this ghost for the time being. The ghost tried taking a few more swipes towards Merlin before letting out an ear piercing screech and vanishing into the darkness.

"What in Pan's name was that?" One of the militiamen blurted out in shock, to which he received a friendly nudge from his fellow guard to regain his composure.

Merlin merely laid there on the ground before them, panting as if he had just run a marathon.