[Chapter 116: To kill or not to kill... Fuck it, it's a goblin, who cares about that at all?]
...
"Aiho"
*Cling!*
"Aiho"
*Cling!*
"Aiho"
*Cling!*
"Aiho"
*Cling!*
*Crack!!*
"This thing sure is hard... It takes so long to mine with a gold Pickaxe even with mining potions..."
Inside the corruption underground, Aspen continued mining without minding the occasional Eater of souls that would try to attack him. He was, after all, too focused on getting all the Demonite possible in the shortest amount of time possible. After all, who knew if the Eater of Worlds was lurking around or not...
If he was not wrong, there should be some Shadow orbs below where he was right now. However, besides giving him some new weapons, these things weren't much of interest for Aspen, as breaking three of them would mean to call the Eater of Worlds and ask himself to get killed
He was fast, agile, and super strong compared to other humans. However, in a small cave-like this, against a giant Worm who can shoot acidic spit from his whole body repeatedly, he didn't think there was that much chance of surviving.
Thus, all he cared now was about the Demonite in front of him. Maybe, if he learned enough about smithing, he would be able to produce his own armor without the need of the shadow scales that one would receive from the Eater of Worlds after killing it... However, for the time being he just needed to care about hurrying up before anything bad can happen.
It was then, during one of his usual inspections to his surroundings just in case there was any kind of new enemy or a horde too difficult for him to handle, that he noticed a certain figure watching him from afar.
The figure had a bluish-green tone on its skin, and it had the same sharp ending ears of Elf and Goblins... All in all, it looked pretty much like a Goblin.
It was wearing some dirty and mistreated robes all over its body, so it had some kind of fugitive feeling around it. However, for Aspen none of this mattered, a goblin was, after all, a goblin.
In just the split of a second, he channeled an enormous amount of mana and heat on the tip of his finger and then pointed it towards the Goblin hiding behind one of the walls of the cave.
Without hesitation, Aspen released the highly condensed heat-ray from his finger and shot towards the spot where the Golbin was hiding, aiming specifically for his head.
Surprisingly, as if sensing danger, the Goblin rapidly threw himself to the ground and dodged the death-ray of Aspen by just a few centimeters. Making Aspen widen his eyes in surprise, as he didn't think that a Goblin could actually have reflexes like those, because as far as he has understood, Goblins lacked a lot in the mental, reflexive, and speed departments...
"He does look a bit different now that I think about it..."
Soon, the Goblin got up rapidly from the ground and turned to look at Aspen with a hostile expression in his eyes. It didn't utter a single word, however, it soon took out two spiky balls attached to chains that he started swinging around in an intimidating manner, and then took a battle pose while looking at Aspen with an expression full of readiness to die.
Taking out his BloodButcherer, Aspen also prepared himself to fight a new type of Goblin he had not seen before. However, in order to make sure that he knew what kind of enemy he was dealing with, he decided to check up his status and see if it had some weird status related to chaos or something else, after all, chaos seems to be the thing that always causes him problems... Be it the Chaos God, the Lunatic cultist being a chaos human, the Eye of Cthulhu... and so on...
°°°
Name: Gnudar
Race: Goblin+
-Status-
-[Hp: 250/250] [Mana: 60/60]
-Strength: 52
-Stamina: 25
-Resistance: 35
-Defense: 4
-Comprehension: 50
-Mental stability: 50
-Mental power: 15
°°°
Immediately, Aspen withdrew his weapon slightly as a certain possibility arose on his mind. Until now, all of the people with resemblance to the NPC's in the game had been humans with a race of [Human+]. So what would it mean for a goblin to have a [Goblin+] race?
It meant that this was probably the equivalent of the only Goblin NPC in the game, and one of the most hated but needed NPC's in the game.
The guy that would take your 999 platinum coins in the blink of an eye, and worsen your weapon while looking at you with a devilish grimace as he walks away with all your money... But also the guy that unlocks the most useful and necessary function in all the game... Accessory fusion.
'Am I some kind of magnet to these [Race+] guys? How is it possible that I'm meeting all of them so easily even when the world is so fucking big?'
(A/N: My bad, I need story progression, Aspen...)
Rapidly, Aspen took a step back and asked with squinted eyes at the Goblin in front of him. "Who are you?"
After all, even if it was some kind of counterpart of the Goblin Tinkerer in this realistic world of Terraria, who said that he was any different from the Goblins that pillaged and destroyed everything that once belonged to humans? It was better to be careful anyways.
Sure, in the game he was some kind of alienated goblin who was tied on the underground by his peers who didn't like him. But was it the same here? Maybe in this world, he was some kind of member of the cultists that will immediately attack the moment Aspen let his guard down. Perhaps he was some kind of evil scientist that plans to destroy him in order to bring the world to its end, or maybe he is Cthulhu in disguise expecting me to lower my guard before then killing me rapidly.
Well, the last one might be a little bit improbable... But you never know...
Thus, Aspen still gathered mana on his finger, just in case something was to go wrong at this moment.
"... I'm... Gnudar... What is a human doing in this kind of place...?" Seeing that his opponent had seemingly stopped being hostile, the goblin soon relaxed a little bit more and answered Aspen with an exhausted tone in his voice.
He had just escaped from a Devourer, so he wouldn't allow himself to fight in a situation like this. It was not like he had anything against humans anyways, so for the time being, he wanted to find a secure place where to hide from that Devourer, as he was sure that monster was still looking for him...
Aspen, on the other hand, started to wonder about how to deal with him. Although his instincts were telling him to kill the Goblin in front of him, like he had done several other times during the war against Goblins, he also knew that this was probably the equivalent to the Goblin tinkerer, and he may be trapped with his actual accessories for eternity if he killed him just because he felt like it.
'In the worst case, I will just imprison him and make him work for me for free... Maybe in that way, I can get revenge for the dozens of platinum coins that disappeared because of this bastard... Well, it wasn't technically him, but who cares...'
Just as Aspen was about to do his move, suddenly the entire floor started shaking, and the sound of something approaching would be heard from the depths of the earth.
"Shit, was I right all this time?!" Sensing the small earthquake, Aspen panicked and immediately prepared himself for the battle against the Eater of Worlds. However, soon as an enormous figure rose from the ground and screeched at them, and at that moment, the expression on Aspen's face turned into one of speechlessness from the previous panicked expression he had before.
'Doesn't this Eater of Worlds look a bit small...?
°°°
Devourer
Race: Corruption worm
-Status-
-[Born from the Corruption: This being was born to consume, exterminate, and pollute everything on its path. Due to that, it will attack anything on sight]
-[Hp: 600/600] [Mana: 0]
-Strength: 186
-Stamina: 140
-Resistance: 42
-Defense: 2
-Comprehension: 1
-Mental stability: 1
-Mental power: 1
°°°
'Shit, it's just another of these guys... And here I thought I was done for...' Sighing in relief, Aspen soon furrowed his eyebrows with a pissed-off expression and walked fearlessly towards the enormous and intimidating creature.
"Human, stop it! What are you doing? We have to escape now or else we will be the lunch of that thing!!" Gnudar rapidly called out to Aspen, he had been escaping from that beast, and now it had found them, what else would they do but run away in front of such a terrifying creature?
*Pzzzzz!!!*
From Aspen's hands, suddenly two rapid torrents of water struck the body of the Devourer and pushed the giant worm a few steps back due to the pressure of the water.
Soon, however, the water started freezing rapidly. It took a few seconds, but soon, after the whole torrent of water became ice, the whole body of the Devourer became stiff like a stick.
*Screeeeeeech...!!!*
The Devourer continued trying to intimidate Aspen and Gnudar even when it was freezer under the thick layer of ice. Gnudar, who was looking at everything with incredulous eyes, gasped in surprise when he finally noticed that the beast he had fought a few seconds ago had been defeated just like that.
On the side, Aspen simply walked towards the monster, and soon, started chopping its body slowly but surely while using his Blood-butcherer.
*Bam!!*
*Bam!!*
*Bam!!*
*Bam!!*
*Crush!!*
The skin and body of the creature were incredibly tough and resistant to attacks. However, in the end, after a dozen swings or so, the beast ended up succumbing to the damage produced by the Blood-Butcherer.
Normally, the Devourer should have been able to escape from his restraint, and attack Aspen. However, he was not only covered in simple ice, as Aspen knew that something like ice would have been easy to break free for a monster like the Devourer. Instead, it was a much more complex and deep technique that he was trying now that his elemental magics had been buffed.
Just like when the ice mage from the Elf Kingdom had frozen his muscles and blood before, Aspen did something similar to the Devourer. He moved the water through all the joints of its body and froze all the muscles necessary for movement. The anatomy of a worm was, after all, a lot more simple than that of a normal animal or person, and thus, the difficulty of stopping its movement was also several times easier.
*Pat!*
*Pat!*
*Pat!*
Patting his hands to clean the remains of mana, Aspen then turned to look at Gnudar with a serious expression on his face and grinned slightly.
"Shall we talk for a bit?"
...
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A/N:
Sorry for the wait, I was busy finishing all the homework I forgot to do.
Anyway, here's the chapter. I hope you like it.