Ship to... The Malaise? (2)

"Ugh..." I groaned as a piercing light pierced through my lidded eyes.

"GAH!!!"

Hurriedly sitting up I noticed one fact.

"Ah, your finally awake"

I wasn't alone.

Pushing myself away from the general direction of the voice and activating the vine rune secretly to attack the target.

Hurriedly using my inventory to grab the Light's Bane from within, the unknown figure in front of me whistled.

"I didn't see any weapons of any kind on your body so did you have a spatial pocket on you?"

Warily pointing my sword at the figure, I looked at them as they murmured to themselves.

"But it doesn't make sense, I already made sure he didn't have anything dangerous on his body before he woke up"

The figure wore a coat of blue that was loosely draped across the ground as they eyed me as I eyed them.

"So did he swallow a spatial pocket?"

'You can do that?'

"No, that can't be possible unless he swallows several other things as well"

'So not really'

Glancing at the figure that was hidden under the fire light, the starry night sky doing little to help me in seeing this mystery stranger that seemed to have saved my life.

But from their body stance, I could tell.

This guy wasn't someone who was good at close quarters combat.

But seeing as Terraria had guns and they're alone in what I think is the wilderness I'm not sure.

'This guy has a gun'

Holding my blade to my chest I continued to look at the figure hidden beneath the firelight's casted shadows.

"... Well it doesn't seem like I'll get an answer any time soon"

Grunting in exertion the unknown figure got up from their seat on the wooden log and moved forwards despite the ominously glinting blade.

"So..."

Moving closer to me, the fire cast light onto the figures features and allowed me to see who and what they were.

"My name is Sky, I'm a traveling merchant that saw someone in need"

Taking off the blue top hat on their head they revealed the head of silver hair underneath and blinked at me with blue eyes.

"So who are you?"

Looking at the person underneath the hat and revealed by the light I... didn't know what to think.

Should I reply in kind?

Yeah I should do that.

Sheathing my blade I tensed in case they were waiting for me to do that and attack me, before realizing that if they wanted to off me...

They would've done that much earlier.

Sighing, I placed the blade back into my inventory much to the interest of the so called, wandering merchant.

Under the shadows, it was hard to see their gender and facial features.

But under the firelight, it still was hard to tell their gender.

'Why the hell is someone so heterogenous here?'

"Well than, my name is Slade and I seem to have lost my way"

"Well you have indeed seemed to have lost your way when I last saw you, seeing as you were laying unconscious on the floor of the forest."

"What?"

Frowning at those words I sensed something was off, but I couldn't just outright ask can we?

So...

"Greetings asides, I lost my bearings quite a lot and I don't know where I am, could you tell me where I am?"

Looking at me strangely the Merchant spoke.

"Usually when people see me and I introduce myself they ask what wares I'm selling, are you not afraid that I might be scamming you"

"Well I'm not interested in whatever it is you're selling either way, and if you wanted to scam me, than you would've taken literally everything I had before killing me"

Waving my hands away I looked at the (wo)man? dead in the eyes.

"And if you wanted to have killed me, you should've made sure that the people surrounding us hid their presence better."

"What?"

Instantly manifesting my inventory to throw a few of the leftover spiked balls I had left from the Goblin Invasion.

The Spiked Balls than flew through the air as it struck the unfortunate fellows behind the trees.

Yes.

Behind the trees.

Manipulating the trees to literally bend to allow the spiked balls to strike the people behind them.

I grasped my hands and tried to grasp the people in the forest with the plants.

However I faced a great deal of resistance as I felt an intangible energy leak out of my body.

And the action I tried to put out failed only resulting in our enemies being wounded and now revealing themselves.

'I wonder when I can manipulate plants like that woman'

Recalling how the woman seemed to manipulate the plants like an extra limb, skillfully tying up the enemies while at times merging with the plants.

...

She most probably did make the plants an extra limb now that I thought about it.

Nevertheless.

The situation right now was... slightly off.

The people surroundings us were uncontrollably twitching as if they had an extremely bad case of full bladder or were partially insane.

And seeing as they were looking at us with murderous gazes while wielding swords.

It was probably insanity.

"Hah... It seems like I'm not that far than if these guys are appearing"

"You know these guys?"

"Well..."

Grabbing a burning log from the campfire and throwing it onto the ground in front of the unknown figures, the plants surrounding the log were set alight.

"What the! What are you doing!" Hurriedly using the vine rune to move the plants away, I felt the resistance again as what I think is mana leaked out of my body once again.

"Do You want to burn the whole forest down!?"

"Calm down and look" Calmly taking a silver gun from who knows where, the wandering merchant loaded the gun and held it with familiarity.

"What do you--! Oh"

Taking a look at one of the people revealed by the fire light I saw them for what they were truly were.

"Corrupted" Hissing those words, the Revolver in the merchants hands fired.

It was hard to see in the darkness, but now that there was light I saw the human being for what they truly were.

Monsters wearing the skin of humans.

The purple skinned human being screeched loudly as the incredibly deformed face looked at us from the darkness.

Wielding an incredibly rusty sword with obvious unfamiliarity, the bullet flew through the air and struck the Corrupted head.

But it seemed that it wouldn't die easily seeing as the long protruding tongue like a lizards moved around to grab the bullet lodged in it's forehead.

Taking the bullet out with it's tongue, the tongue reentered it's mouth and the being closed it's mouth roughly.

Crack!

Hopefully it broke it's teeth, but seeing as how it was roughly crunching the metallic bullet like a sunflower seed I had low hopes.

Sensing through the plants rather poorly, I turned to the other side that the merchant was covering and looked at the corrupted's walking towards us carrying weapons.

Holding the Light's bane in one hand and the Rampart in the other, I lit my hair with the fire and equipped my other items.

'I really should craft some armor when I have the time'

Spinning the Light's bane in my hand, the creatures rushed us.

'It seems tonight's gonna be a long night.'

+++

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