Chapter 97: Chapter 93: The Ruined City of Areinia

Chapter 93: The Ruined City of Areinia

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"Do you feel any pain?"

"Just a little bit, but I think the wound has probably closed already"

"That's great then... Everyone, we will start moving soon. The city shouldn't be that far away either!!" Jeffrey, who was looking at the injuries of one of the Knights, turned to look at his group and placed his hands on his waist before announcing that they could depart soon.

""Yes sir!!""

"Okay..." Aspen's voice was lazy as always, and he replied a few seconds later than the Knights when they heard Jeffrey gave his orders.

Jeffrey's eyebrows twitched a bit when he heard Aspen, but he just ended up sighing exhaustedly. He was getting used to it anyways.

After Aspen decimated the swarm of Antlions almost by himself, two other swarms appeared and tried to stop them from advancing further. However, they were still defeated by the group rather easily with the help of Yuuki and Aspen, and although some Knights ended up being injured during the fight, there were no casualties or whatsoever.

The group soon resumed their trip when the injured Knights recovered enough energy. They found some wandering Antlions during the way, but Aspen killed them before they could scream. And thus, he avoided attracting more swarms towards them.

And then, after walking for a few hours under the scorching sun of the desert, and killing a few wandering Antlions, the group finally managed to arrive at what seemed to be the ruins of a very enormous city.

Before entering, Aspen drank a hunter potion so that he could detect any hidden enemies inside the crumbling buildings, and as he expected, many Antlions were hidden inside the ruins of the city. Not only that, but he could also see thousands of Antlion's eggs scattered around the place.

'This Kingdom is bound to perish if that scientific's weapon doesn't work...' Aspen saw the number of soon-to-hatch eggs of the Antlions and honestly gave up on any thought of killing all the Antlions by himself. Although he knew that such a thing was impossible, there was still the small thought on his head when he saw how helpless were the Antlions in front of him, However, seeing this horrendous number of eggs, he gave up completely and decided to start looking for the Artifacts that these people were mentioning.

'Storm spear... it should look like a spear right? They couldn't call a sword a spear right?' Aspen started looking at his surroundings with attention, just in case he managed to spot any of the artifacts.

"The Storm spear should be at the Church of the city. Since it was considered a sacred artifact that proves the victory over the Demon Cthulhu, and the reason why we are all alive... As the Mysterious Poseidon's conch was also considered a sacred object, it should also be at the church, but as for the Staff of Thunder... It should be at the Mage's guild building of this city..." Yuuki, who saw the confused Aspen, and knew that he was pretty oblivious to their culture, explained to him while smiling gently. 

"Oh, is that the church then?" Aspen looked around the city and saw a very large building in the distance with similar appearances to the churches from his past world. Funnily enough, The Humans from the Human Territory do not believe in gods, or at least not so much. At most, the only thing similar to religion there is the worship of the heroes from the ages before the Great War, which coincidentally were also called similar to the gods from the Greek mythology.

But unlike Greek mythology, here their origins were a bit too messed up. For example, Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon's father was indeed Kronos... Well, his name was Crowno in this world, and they killed him because he ate their lunch...

Don't ask...

Also, many of the gods who were children of Zeus (And the grandchildren), in this reality were from completely different origins. Hermes for example was the messenger of Gods, and he was a child of Zeus. But in this world, the guy was simply an Elf with incredible talent that joined the other heroes' fight against Cthulhu.

It's rather a complicated story.

"There are at least ten Antlion Chargers there... So recovering the Storm spear and Poseidon's conch might not be the best idea... Where is the Mage's guild?" Aspen continued looking at his surroundings before he asked Yuuki who was the one next to him.

"Eh? Well, it should be... that one" Yuuki looked a bit startled by the number of Antlions that Aspen said there was on the Church. Then when she heard the question she turned to look at the many buildings scattered across the city and pointed to a rather big building that occupied a great part of the main street.

'Hmm... Nope, that looks like a motherfucking nest itself... there are at least fifty Antlions there' Aspen shook his head before he turned to look at his group and explained the situation.

"Our only option is to try and recuperate first the Storm Spear if by any chance we alert that enormous number of Antlions while trying to enter the Mage's building, then probably all the Antlions inside this city will come towards us... Thus, our only option is to retrieve the Spear and conch without alerting the Antlions inside, or killing them before they can alert his companions and retrieve both artifacts... As for the Staff of thunder... We might need to either retrieve them and escape right away..." Jeffrey massaged his chin while thinking about a way to  retrieve the artifacts without alerting the whole swarm of Antlions living here.

"I can retrieve it" Aspen suddenly raised his hand with a calm expression on his face.

"What?" Jeffrey thought he heard wrong.

"I have a method to infiltrate within the Mage's guild and not be detected by the Antlions. However, it might not be 100% fail proof, so I need to do it once you guys have already retrieved the two other artifacts, that way we can just simply run in case the entire swarm tries to attack us"

"How do you plan to infiltrate within the Mage's guild building without alerting the Antlions living there?" Jeffrey crossed his arms and asked with a dubious expression. After all, no matter how good Aspen might be in combat or other things, how could he enter a building that is completely inhabited by Antlions, and leave alive without even alerting one of them.

Aspen, who heard his question, grinned slightly before he took out a certain potion from his inventory.

"Invisibility"

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-Aspen POV:

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*Tap*

*kieh?*

An Antlion heard the sound of my footstep and turned to look in my direction. However, when he saw nothing there, he just continued patrolling the Building.

'Damn this is gonna be hard, they have surprisingly good hearing abilities for insects that don't even have ears in the first place...'

Currently, I was walking through the second floor of the building, checking if that stupid Staff was somewhere here. However, just like I expected, it was probably on the third and last floor. Because for some reason important things are always on the last floor. Or in a secret basement, who knows...?

After I drank an invisibility potion I infiltrated the building and decided to start checking up the rooms from the first floor first. I didn't find a thing though... There was quite an enormous amount of Antlions in the first floor, but there seemed to be even more in the second floor.

*Tap*

*Crunch*

I accidentally stepped over a piece of wall that had fallen to the floor and accidentally crushed it. The next moment, suddenly ten Antlions came out from who knows where to look at what had happened.

It was pretty scary.

'What the heck should I do, these fuckers are pretty sensitive to sounds... Why did they come so hurriedly when they only heard something breaking? Crazy bastards... Hmm?'

I looked towards my feet and soon had a 100 IQ idea. 

I moved the mana inside my body and created a mana barrier with absorbent capabilities around my feet, it was easily permeable, and any object could enter, once my feet approached it enough. However, when I stepped over a piece of the wall again, no sound was heard, even when I crushed it.

'Neat, now I can suppress sounds, it was rather easy compared to enhancing flowers either way... Though, I guess it doesn't count as a type of magic since there's no new ability popping up...'

I then moved the mana barrier towards my mouth and tried talking a bit. No sound was heard...

'This might be quite the sinister magic, huh?'

After testing a few other things I decided to continue inspecting the rooms of this building, this time of the last floor though.

There were a few books about magic that I accidentally threw into my inventory, though most of them had been slightly munched by the Antlions, so it was a bit hard to understand them.

There were also a few magic staff that were probably sold here, and although most of them had already been destroyed by the Antlions, there were still some of them that still worked properly. Left to say that they also disappeared into my inventory accidentally...

Err... to be exact, there were actually quite a bunch of things that disappeared into my inventory. A book about magical creatures, ingredients for potions that amplify slightly the mana, a book about jewels and their magical properties, a bunch of rubies and sapphires... They all also disappeared mysteriously when I passed next to them... strange...

When I was about to enter the last room, I noticed that there was an Antlion inside the room roaming randomly. What called my attention was the impressive size it had compared to its peers. At least two or three times bigger than your normal Antlion charger, who usually is two meters long... It was quite an impressive beast...

As I entered the room, I finally was able to see it properly.

Usually, Antlions have an orange exoskeleton covering their insides from enemies, and two long yellow mandibles with grade sharpness on their ends.

But this one had longer extremities that could easily make it look like a spider, two enormous mandibles similar in size to the tusks of elephants, and a snow-white color in all its body.

As I looked into the eyes of whichever kind of monster this was, soon its status displayed to me and I became quite shocked.

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