Chapter 84: Walking of the Air Cleaner Part 1

Valley of Lost Souls. It’s a place a little bit further down the road from the Ancient Ruins…… It seems it’s the place of the final battle that nearly decided the extinction of the human race in the times when they were much more technologically advanced than they are now.

Ironically enough the battle itself was supposedly interrupted by the arrival of a monster army, but the fact that so many deaths took place there made it has become a perfect breeding ground for various forms of undead.

Many years have passed since then and this place was still as dangerous as ever, not only for humans but for stray monsters too. You could practically feel death and curses permeating the air in here……

While Emul was explaining to me the backstory of this place, he was doing that in a lowered voice, as though he was telling a horror story or something like that.

Unfortunately for him, I was pretty resistant to horror stories and horrors in general. In fact, I loved rail shooters with zombies, which were basically a breeze once you get your hands on a shotgun or any kind of weapon with a high enough kick to it. Unless we were talking about horror games where zombies and monsters can tank a whole clip without collapsing and run like professional athletes while being shot at…… Then it was not so funny anymore.

No, that was hardly the problem here. The problem lies in the characteristic of the Valley of Lost Souls.

「Rather than having an Area Boss, this whole place feels like a boss fight. If we stay in here long enough, we will get afflicted with “curse” status. What’s more, a large portion of enemies here can use debuff magic, and if the battles are prolonged enough, they might call reinforcements that are as strong as sub-bosses……」

「That is why you need a priest when you come here! Or at least huge amounts of holy water!」

Unless you have a Priest with you in the party that can use “Purification” magic or use the Holy Water to negate the effects of the “Curse” status you are going to suffer it continuously. And it would cause more and more harm and discomfort to you as the time goes on. And the prices of Holy Water in Fiftsia were outrageously high. What a messy area this is, but……

「…… Say, Emul? Maybe we are just way too overpowered for this area?」

「My thoughts exactly……」

「The air is getting purified around ya fer some reason.」

This must be the work of the “disabling all other curses” that the Curse of Luukan has on me.

Also, since the monsters were running away from us, I could only assume that their levels were way lower than mine at the current moment.

But contrary to the cursed vapors filling the whole area, the air in my close vicinity was surprisingly clean and devoid of any such vapors. What’s more, since I didn’t suffer the level reduction penalty like Katsu and Pencilgton, I was actually able to level up quite nicely from the Wezaemon fight……

「Take a look at that, Emul. They aren’t just randomly walking around, but they are holding their positions. It must have been a very strict and powerful army when they were still alive.」

「That may be so, but it still doesn’t change the fact that they are running away from us the moment we try to approach them.」

「Who would have thought that even Zombie Wyverns would be afraid of the Night Prowler?」

As we were taking a stroll through the bottom of the valley, we saw various types of enemies running away from us in terror.

「I thought It might have been a good idea, but going to the bottom of the valley gives us literally nothing.」

「Is that what ya are worried about? Sorry, but if ya want to commit suicide by running into a horde of monsters, do so without me!」

「There was something like a crystal scorpion at the top of the valley. I’m pretty sure I saw something just like that out there. If we manage to find one and defeat it, we might get a whole lot of precious crystal gems for ourselves! And it shouldn’t even take that long for us to gather them……」

Incidentally, that crystal scorpion’s level should be around level one hundred. Hahaha, wouldn’t it be like trying to bring down a brick wall with my bare fists? That thought alone was a way bigger horror than the backstory of this whole area.

Well, from the meta viewpoint I could understand something like that. A monster like that was a means of preventing the players from going over the valley rather than through it. And once you become strong enough to beat that scorpion it will become a great source of loot and will unlock a shortcut through the area. Like that, the time you’d need for going from Fourthsier to the optional location “Eitolato” would become significantly lower.

「Umu, umu…… I know that we probably aren’t ready to take that thing on, but a part of me still wants to give it a go, just for the heck of it.」

After a while, we heard a sound of hooves and heavy breathing growing closer and closer. It seems that some monster was currently approaching us without showing any signs of running away. No, or was it that it simply failed to notice us?

「Dullahan, huh? …… Nice, as if I hadn’t had enough of fighting horses and their riders recently.」

The rider as well as the mount were headless, but I got a feeling that during his lifetime this knight must have been rather famous. His armor was almost entirely decayed, and the mount was giving off a dignified aura.

「T, think we could go for a preemptive strike……?」

「Wait just a moment! Stay! Stay, I said! Maybe it is an NPC and we can actually reason with the guy without having to fight it?」

「You moron! Dullahans have no mouths! How the hell you expect him to communicate with us, huh!?」

「Ubyaah! It drew it! It drew its sword!」

「Hahaha! Now that’s more like it! Go! Go! Go! It’s time to hunt us some Dullahans! But watch out for yourselves or you might end up dead!」

I jumped before the Dullahan that was charging straight at us, Empire Bee’s Swords in hand. They were properly repaired and enhanced, so let’s test out those new skills, shall we!?

「For starters, let’s see how this works: “IGNITION”!」

This skill has limitations placed on it. It can be used only once at the very beginning of the battle, and once activated, it gives you a boost to your movement speed. The effect was supposed to last for one minute but the “engine” needed to heat up for thirty seconds before going into effect, so the actual duration of the skill was those thirty remaining seconds.

Although the effects were hard to see during the initial thirty seconds, the movement speed was still rising, but still, the Dullahan was able to dodge to the side and avoid a certain collision with me and the impact it would bring.