"Eeeeeh???"
Cecilia was alone, at the center of a circle of devastation. Around her, a gruesome scene of death and decay.
"I should have expected the effect of the spell to be like this, after I've seen the other times I cast other necrotic damage spells. Still, this is… ugh, the stench!"
She hurries out of the circle, trying to find a place without the miasma.
Right outside, she stumbled onto the body of a grattak. It was Ugh'uk, who had managed to escape the fate of his friends.
"Did you escape right after receiving the first blow? I see you're still alive… Ephen na'rath silurai, Thalen mori en'shae."
("By the soft wings of ending, Let stillness give way to breath.")
The open hole on the guy's abdomen had been regenerating, but the injury was too serious, and he had lost a lot of blood. He seemed unconscious, but she couldn't tell with certainty, yet she cast a healing spell on him, closing the wound, and left.
She didn't have a grudge against the grattak, or Ugh'uk in particular. If anything, she felt guilty for killing his friends in the spur of the moment. She was reeling with the pain and a bit afraid, so she used one of the strongest spells in her arsenal.
And that spell was absolute overkill.
"To be honest, I never thought that I would one-shot monsters that are practically level three thousand, and with an AoE spell. I wonder what exactly happened… Wait. Ugh'uk was super high level, but maybe his friends weren't?"
In the game, grattak were brutal monsters, but their individual levels were more around the 2,000 threshold. They were dangerous because they roamed in bands. But, in the game, monsters didn't earn new levels after spawning.
"Again, it's just another proof that knowledge from the game can't be applied directly to this world. Game is game, real life is real life."
She thought about the pain she experienced. Even though it was short, it was an excruciating experience.
If she had been thinking straight, she would have never chosen that big spell. It took too long to cast, and she was lucky that the grattaks didn't attack her while she was casting. It was stupid.
"I need to get some real-life combat experience before I find myself facing a powerful foe. I can't rely on the same strategies as in the game. But, for now, let's find that base."
She had finally reached a place far enough from the combat scene that the miasma wouldn't reach her.
There was a trunk fallen down, perfect to use as a bench, so she sat down. She was about to check the region map when something in front of her caught her attention.
It was a discarded plate. But not any discarded plate.
She hadn't tried using her cooking skills yet, mostly because she didn't want to eat the monster-based recipes she had. But, in the game, when you created a dish it would be created along with the plate it was in.
When you 'ate' the dish, the plate would disappear along with it, because you wouldn't actually eat it, the item just disappeared. In the real world, though, you would eat the content, and the plate would remain. At least that's what she thought.
And, right now, she had one of those plates in front of her. It was a very peculiar design that only existed in dishes created using the Cooking skill.
"Appraisal"
[Porcelain Plate (diamond)
It once held a portion of fried banshee eyes.
Crafted by DarkLord92]
"Martin…? What were you doing here?"
Martin, known in the game by DarkLord92, leader of the Dead Nerds Society guild, first king of Drakestadt. He crafted the dish from which this plate originated.
"I remember that dish. It was used by other races to be able to see in the dark. Martin's character was a bear beastkin, so he would need those to be able to see in here like I see. But I doubt that they would taste any good… just thinking about eating fried eyes… Ugh!"
She kept fiddling with the plate for some time before stashing it away in her inventory.
"Well, whatever the reason, Martin was here. Let me see if there are any other signs. Hmmm, 'track'."
She activated a technique that showed the beings that had traversed the place in the last 24 hours. Yet, it didn't return anything. Whoever was there had left more than a day ago.
She sighed, then opened the map. With the help of the tiara she was using, the map had opened in a big circle around her, spanning almost half of Mycorgloom.
"I remember the base being in the northeasternmost corner of the cavern complex. So, let's head there."
She rose from the trunk she had sit on and walked away.
:::
This time, she ran, dodging mushroom trees and would-be predators on her way forward. She didn't want to get entangled in another fruitless battle.
Two hours later, she was finally around the place where her base should be.
"I think I recognize this place… Hmm… Around here?"
When she found the entrance to a low tunnel, she knew she was on the right track. From the outside, it looked very inconspicuous, just a slit on the cavern wall, too small for a person to walk in comfortably.
She crouched down to enter the place, then saw a sign carved out in the rock right at its entrance, in the inner part of the wall. It was the drawing of a skull and a butterfly.
"Huh? Was someone here? Martin? Wait, what's this?"
She noticed a small nook below the sign, which emitted faint traces of mana.
Cecilia took a knife from her inventory, then inserted its tip in the nook. A few moments later, a dark sphere was in her hand.
The moment she turned her attention to the sphere, a pop up window appeared.
[DarkLord92 sent you a friend request. Accept?]
"Huh? Yes."
After she answered, both the pop-up and the dark sphere disappeared.
"Weird… I don't remember there being an item like that in the game. Well, that seals it, Martin was here. But how did he find my base…? Anyway, later I'll ask him directly. For now, let's just get in."