Hope
"First squad."
"Failed"
The group stood in silence for a bit trying to process what they were seeing. This was clear evidence that their mission here, was not the first of its kind.
Sora stood in place, then opened her mouth.
"But why? Why lie to us"
Nazurak closed his eyes and then looked away from the skeleton.
"I don't know, I see no reason for them to lie...could be they didn't know either."
Dylan took a quick breath to recover from his embarrassing scream before talking.
"I'm more worried about the thing that kill him...her? The skeleton. Obviously it's been here for a while but we should double check the area."
Thinking about this Nazurak recalled the times they'd spent studying the parasites, though it wasn't a long time, they didn't see any other creatures aside from the mushrooms. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.
They all agreed and separately searched the area while still being close enough to assist each other if needed.
Nazurak first decided to take a look at the words engraved into the center mushroom. He always loved to study past events and learn from them. Finding this engraving here and knowing someone else had also struggled on this planet brought him a strange comfort.
He thought about who they were and how many of them had come to this exact spot. What did they eat? How did they adapt? Who were they?
He would love to piece together information and come up with a theory if he had enough clues, unfortunately, he had none. Nevertheless, this still intrigued him.
'Very interesting...'
He hovered his fingers over the words and then touched them, feeling the sharp and aggressive slashes that spelled out what was possibly the last message from its creator.
'This was done with a knife or something sharp at the very least. If that is still laying around here, it'll be an extremely valuable tool for us.' he thought as he got up.
Saving that thought he began to walk around the base of the mushroom, it's width was large, Nazurak had guessed that if 30 humans were to join hands they still wouldn't even be able to wrap around it.
As the sun began to set, a shimmer in the grass caught his eyes. Curiously walking over to it, he kneeled to inspect it.
'Well, I'll be damned...'
He pulled the item out of the ground revealing a fully black bayonet knife, it looked fairly plain with a basic guard and grip. His heart pumped faster as he held it firm.
A weapon, he actually found a man made weapon in this foreign world.
"Guys you need to take a look at this!" He shouted to get their attention.
Waiting for the others to arrive he took a closer look at the weapon and noticed a signature etched on the heel of the blade spelling a single word.
'Fireshing...that must be the blacksmith of this-'
His eyes slightly widened as he felt something moving inside the blade. Due to Nazurak's Soul Trait of transferring life essence, he was also able to feel it inside objects.
'There's essence inside it, which means...this is an Armament.'
Armaments are created by blacksmiths and can be forged from parasites to gain their corresponding rank, there's even a chance of obtaining a special trait the parasite had if the blacksmith is talented. However this is just what Nazurak heard online back in his school days, he really didn't know the process of making such a weapon. What he did know though, was that the only people who would wield armaments are the soldiers that fight against the Aberrants.
As if he didn't already know the planet they were on was dangerous, now he had physical proof that the war with Aberrants had also taken place on Loctus, and with it still being unclaimed by mankind, that only left one victor.
He shivered and dismissed the thought. Then closed his eyes to take a closer look inside the blade. The essence flowed with life and meaning to form words he could understand.
<Name: Relentless Bayonet>
Class: Hostile
Quality: Flawless
Description: This bayonet will submerge in the ground when intentionally dropped, chasing after its target creating a single medium size spike underneath them. The material of the spike will adjust to the material it flows through.
Nazurak stood in silence, completely shocked by the weapon he was holding. The bayonet sounded amazing. Though he had never seen an armament before, he had a gut feeling this wasn't your average weapon.
After reading the description, his eyes fell on one of its features.
'Quality? Never heard about that before. Flawless sounds good though'
He wanted to study the weapon further but the others had arrived. To his surprise, Dylan was holding a Dadao on his shoulder. The blade was pure black and the guard formed an S shape. Its grip was wrapped in leather.
Dylan looked at Nazurak holding a Bayonet.
"Hey! You got one as well." He said with an energetic cheer.
Sora unfortunately was holding nothing, seeing this she crossed her arms and pouted, asking where they found it and if they had seen others, only to find out that they hadn't.
"Don't feel so bad, I can do all the attacking for us!" Dylan said pointing his new weapon toward the sky.
Nazurak looked at Sora, he could tell she wasn't too bothered by it.
"We could check the area again, but your trait is extremely helpful regardless if you have an armament or not."
He thought for a bit then continued.
"We can also make you a simple sling or a bow, then I could enhance it for you."
Sora smiled, she knew how helpful these weapons were and she didn't care too much about who kept them. As long as they had them in their possession then their survivability on this crazy planet would increase.
However, now that Nazurak had offered such a favor how could she resist?
"Deal! Don't you go back on your word now, when can I get it? Can you dye it?"
Nazurak slightly held up both of his hands.
"Whao whao slow down, first I'm going to enhance my bayonet then I'll get to yours...and uh dye it?"
Nazurak scratched his head.
"I don't know how?"
Sora giggled.
"I was joking about that, but I'll still take your offer on enhancing a bow!" She said with a warm smile.
Dylan whistled, or at least tried to, he didn't know how to whistle so all that came out was weird sounding air.
"An enchanted weapon sounds nice" he said looking at his dadao and back at Nazurak multiple times.
'These guys are going to drain me dry!' Nazurak thought.
"Don't worry man, I'll enhance yours as well. If you both can bring me parasites without killing them it'll speed up the process. Do you mind if I take a look at your dadao for a second Dylan?"
The color scheme of both his and Dylan's weapon looked very similar, Nazurak had speculated that they were created by the same blacksmith. Confirming his speculation he looked at the heel of the blade and there it was, engraved near the guard was the same name that was on his Bayonet "Fireshing".
Intrigued, he closed his eyes to take a look at the weapon's information.
<Name: Skirmisher>
Class: Hostile
Quality: Great
Description: Taking a stance with this dadao will ready it. The next attack will produce an additional slash randomly on the target's body.
Nazurak let out a slight smile while reading its information, armaments are something he's only seen today, and looking into them brought him excitement to see what they could do.
'The quality is great for this one huh? Hopefully I'll find out what that means soon.'
Opening his eyes he handed back the dadao to Dylan and explained its ability. Dylan and Sora were a bit shocked to hear what Nazurak had shared, both because they didn't know he was capable of reading into weapons and the fact that it was an armament.
After chatting for a bit longer they separated once again to explore the mushroom that surrounded them.
Nazurak was sitting with his back leaned against the gigantic mushroom that bloomed at the center of this plain.
'Let's check my essence'
[Life Essence: 16/100]
'Not bad, not bad at all. This bayonet's rank is Hostile, I wonder if the essence required to fill it increases, it's only logical that it does right?' he thought as he brought up its status.
<Name: Relentless Bayonet>
Class: Hostile
Quality: Flawless
Description: This bayonet will submerge in the ground when intentionally dropped, chasing after its target creating a single medium size spike underneath them. The material of the spike will adjust to the material it flows through.
Reading the information, he didn't see anything that mentioned essence however he could clearly feel the option to pour his life essence into the blade.
To test a new theory that popped up in his head he transferred a single essence into the Relentless Bayonet.
A new section was added to its status.
<Name: Relentless Bayonet>
Class: Hostile
Life essence: 1/50
Quality: Flawless
Description: This bayonet will submerge in the ground when intentionally dropped, chasing after its target creating a single medium size spike underneath them. The material of the spike will adjust to the material it flows through.
"50!?" He said out loud.
'I've never had that much in my life!'
He pondered about it then sighed.
'It is what it is, how about a test?'
Opening his eyes he looked at the Bayonet and then casually tossed it into the air. As it made contact with the dirt it seemed to sink effortlessly, eventually disappearing.
Nazurak heartbeat increased.
'Incredible...'
He looked around to find a suitable test dummy but found nothing.
'Hmm, I can always test it later' he thought as he recalled the bayonet, catching it as it popped out from the ground.
The light of the sun was in its last hours, and the cold air of the night slowly replaced the comforting warmth of the day. New parasites came out which changed the white noise of the forest.
An unexpected blue glow appeared from the mushrooms. At first, Nazurak was startled, but soon realized it was natural light.
'Time to find the others'