Chapter 315 - Cursed City (2)

The building used to be a meeting hall for a city-wide announcement. That was why when Auron first entered the building, he was greeted by a large hall.

Unfortunately, it was dark inside. There was no source of light inside. Moreover, the sun had set at the outside. They could only rely on the moon's light.

There were also many building rubble and broken furniture inside. After blocking the door with [Earth Wall], Auron, Semial, and Remus immediately moved away from the door.

They wanted to go upstairs. However, the stair was broken in the middle. Auron looked beside the stair. There was a door. Without thinking it for long, they chose to go inside the room.

Boom... The bandits destroyed the [Earth Wall] that was blocking the door. The archer had used [Explosion Arrow] to destroy the [Earth Wall].

The bandits went inside when the leader said, "Search inside!"

There were only a few rooms inside the building. Moreover, the way that led to the room was blocked by the building's rubble. They could not find any trace that Auron and his group passed by into the room, so they didn't bother to check the room.

"Leader, it looks like they went inside this room." One of the bandit pointed at the door beside the stair.

"Let's go in." The bandits opened the door and went forward.

When they opened the door, there was only a stair going downstairs to their left. The bandits immediately took it hurriedly. They didn't want to let Auron escape once more.

Soon, they arrived downstairs, and it was a kitchen. Back then, occasionally, there would be a party at the city hall. And, this kitchen would be the place to cook the food to serve to the guest.

Right now, the kitchen's condition was messy. All of the kitchen tools were in a mess. If someone saw the state of the kitchen, he would surely not want to eat food coming out from this kitchen.

"Search the place!"

The bandits scattered around the kitchen. The leader opened up a door, and it led to a storage room. The foul smell of expired food ingredients immediately covered the kitchen area. The bandits quickly closed their nose and the door.

Another two doors were opened by the bandits. However, they found nothing. As the kitchen was not too big, the bandits completed the search in no time. Unfortunately, they could not found Auron's traces at all. It was as if they disappeared.

"Search the place once again. Carefully!"

However, it was futile. No matter how many times they searched the place, they could not find Auron anywhere. The leader pondered. Then, he realized something. 

How could there be food inside the storage? This place was emptied a long time ago. There should be no food left. Moreover, there was a time when many people were searching for this place for treasure.

"Open that foul smelled room." The leader commanded.

As one of the bandits opened the room, all of the bandits closed their nose. However, the foul smell didn't stop them from entering.

As the bandits went inside the room, they realized that there was no food at all. So, the smell didn't come from expired food ingredients. They traced the smell and found a big hole in the wall. The smell was coming from the hole.

Previously, when Auron was in this room, he also surprised by the discovery. Back then, when there was still a lot of players searching for a treasure here, there wasn't any hole in this room.

However, this hole suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Unfortunately, Auron could not ponder about the issues as he was being chased by the bandits. So, Auron and his group went inside the hole.

[A strong, pungent smell affecting your mind]

[Your mana point will decrease by 1 per second]

[When you run out of mana, your health point will start to reduce]

Auron frowned, seeing the notifications while escaping deeper into the hole. He started to feel that his mana point was decreasing each second. Fortunately, not all of the announcement was bad news.

[Your body's smell have been integrated with the pungent smell]

[You escape the dark and mysterious power detection]

[You have 05:59:20 to get out from this place]

[You will not suffer a mysterious death even though the countdown had ended]

Due to the smell, Auron and his group could escape the mysterious death effect. He didn't have to worry about the mysterious death. Before, Auron was concerned that he could not find a way to escape this place until the timer had ended.

Although Auron still had to be careful because of his mana point reduction, at least, he would suffer an immediate death because of something unknown.

Auron didn't forget to tell Semial and Remus about the loss in mana point. As Semial and Remus were an NPC, they didn't get the notification like Auron did. So, they didn't know that their mana point was decreasing. It was thanks to Auron's reminder that they realize it by now.

At first, Semial and Remus panicked. As a mage without any mana, he could do nothing. Meanwhile, Semial, who was a swordsman, had a little mana. Soon, his health would start to reduce.

However, Auron calmed them down by showing a lot of mana and health potions. He distributed some to Semial and Remus and told them not to worry about it. They could ask more when they needed it.

At least, that was what Auron said in front of them. However, deep inside, he sighed. It seemed he had to spend a lot of money again to stay alive.

However, he could not escape the responsibility. He had to do it, or he would lose his mage character. If that happened, he would suffer a more significant loss. 

Auron had no choice but to sell all of his useless items and stationed his swordsman character in the potion's shop. He bought some potion supplies first before focusing back on his mage character to find a way out of this predicament.