“An alchemist?”
Eleanor too was quite knowledgeable when it came to alchemists.
—If you want to get potion recipes, go to the level 5 field.
It was something a well-known adventurer once said during the heyday of Blackout’s potion industry.
That’s how prevalent potion-related things were on the level 5 field, and among them, the most iconic were the so-called “Ancient Alchemists”.
However, finding traces of alchemists on the level 5 field was extremely difficult.
They’re the kind that live in complete hiding, after all.
Even in the game, it was extremely rare to become entangled with alchemists.
But whenever one did encounter them, the rewards were always extraordinary…
Jun stared at the mana cylinder in his hand, lost in thought.
Alchemists were shrouded in mystery in many ways.
Their laboratories were nearly impossible to find unless you scoured every inch of the map, and even then, you had to complete countless chained quests to uncover them.
Are those purple monsters somehow connected to the alchemists?
Just then, someone flashed through Jun’s mind.
Wait a minute. Then that guy might be here too, right?
A particular NPC came to mind.
He couldn’t be sure the guy was actually here, though.
That’s not important right now, so let’s put that aside.
Jun suddenly stood up and began frantically searching through the cabin.
“What are you doing? Why so suddenly? You’re kind of scaring me.”
Eleanor asked, and Maya looked at Jun as if he were some kind of weirdo.
“All alchemists are freaks. Every last one of them loves hiding things. They absolutely hate revealing their whereabouts to the outside world.”
“So what?”
“That monstrous creature that was guarding this cabin. And the cylinder we found inside its heart. What more do you need me to say? Somewhere around here… just like this.”
Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Thud, thud.
While Jun walked around tapping the wooden floor with his foot, he discovered a hollow space underneath.
“Maybe because this place is so remote, it was pretty easy to find.”
Noticing how the sound beneath one part of the floor echoed much more than the rest, Jun called Maya over and flipped the floorboards.
“Wh-What? It’s really a secret space? But it’s sealed off?”
Just as the startled Eleanor, had said, what lay beneath was a solid-looking steel door with no visible handle.
“I told you, they’re freaks.”
They were the type who used every bizarre method imaginable to conceal their identities.
Finding the entrance was one thing; getting inside was another matter entirely.
“Hmm…”
Once again, Jun tried to retrace the memories from his days as Lee Jeong-jun, using his [Excellent Memory].
Since alchemists were closely tied to the [Potion Brewing] skill, they had often been mentioned in various guides he had read on the community forums.
“Can’t we just smash it open?”
“They’re meticulous bastards. If you don’t open it the proper way, the whole interior will collapse.”
“…Freaks, for real.”
In the end, the two of them turned their gazes back toward Jun.
Then—
“Oh.”
Eleanor pointed a finger toward Jun’s neck.
“Hey, there’s something strange coming from your neck. Maya, don’t you see anything there?”
“…? Ah. I see it.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
Still deep in thought, Jun ran his hand along his neck at their words…and felt something hard, not soft skin.
“Huh?”
“There’s… a scale? A scale on your neck, Leader.”
“What do you mean? Wait. Maya, your forehead…”
“..…?!”
Only then did the three of them fully realize each other’s condition.
“Our skin… is splitting.”
Scales filled with purple had begun to emerge on Jun’s neck, and purple cracks appeared on Maya’s forehead.
“What is this? What about me? What’s happening to me?”
Realizing something was wrong a moment later, Eleanor asked again, and Jun pointed to the back of her hand.
“Your hand… it’s turning purple.”
“Son of a—”
At that moment, all three of them turned their eyes toward Aiden.
There, on Aiden’s head as he lay in a deep sleep—
“His ears…”
“They look like… dog ears. Drooping.”
“This is crazy.”
Ears covered in pale lavender fur had sprouted.
“…Leader.”
“Yeah.”
“Hurry up and open that damn door.”
“…I’m already working on it.”
Something strange was happening to their bodies.
All of them thought back to the grotesque creature they had taken down in the cabin.
Somehow, it felt like they were seeing a glimpse of their own future.
***
“Got it!”
Only after half a day had passed was Jun finally able to open the solid steel door.
Beside him stood an empty cylinder.
“I had a feeling… and I was right.”
The magical power in liquid form inside the cylinder had been the key to opening the door.
By channeling the cylinder’s mana through the glyphs engraved on the door, a grinding grrggkkk sound echoed as it opened.
“Come on, let’s get inside already.”
“You seem awfully eager.”
Eleanor and Maya were both on the verge of panic.
And understandably so.
In just half a day, the purple cracks on Maya’s forehead had grown wider.
Eleanor’s entire hand had already been stained violet.
Jun was no exception.
“…Yeah. Let’s move.”
With Maya carrying Aiden on her back, the group stepped into the space beyond the door.
But the moment they all set foot in the corridor—
“Wait. This place…?”
“I can feel mana.”
“Maybe it’s because it’s separated from the outside world?”
Grrggkkk—
Before they knew it, when they looked back, the steel door had once again sealed off the entrance.
“This place… feels a lot different from the others, doesn’t it?”
“It’s spotless.”
Just as the two had said, the corridor beyond the steel door was a pristine white hallway.
It feels modern.
Almost like a scene from a movie on Earth.
Jun looked at Aiden, who still hadn’t regained consciousness.
He would’ve really liked this if he were awake.
He had always loved anything with an adventurous vibe, so it was easy to imagine.
As they walked down the hallway, they soon came upon a room without a door.
“What’s this place?”
“Looks like some kind of laboratory.”
“There’s a lot of stuff here.”
The lab was spotless; there wasn’t even a speck of dust to be found.
It was filled with various cylinders and papers scattered in a chaotic mess.
There were also anatomical models and giant cylinders filled with unidentified liquid.
It was clearly no ordinary space.
“An alchemist’s lab… That’s rare to see.”
Jun immediately began reading through the documents nearby.
Each one was written in an ancient language, but interpreting them wasn’t too difficult.
Are these potion recipes? Doesn’t look like anything we need right now.
He sorted through the documents one by one and also opened each of the many books tucked into the drawers.
“Found something.”
“What is it?”
“A journal. Probably belongs to whoever used this lab.”
After briefly explaining to the others, Jun started reading the journal.
The first line read:
—Our world has been abandoned.
It was a grim start.
To summarize the content lightly…
To lightly summarize the content…
The advancement of technology, and the resulting downfall. And finally, the appearance of an outer god…
With the appearance of the outer god, the people of this place realized that their world was collapsing.
So they began searching for various solutions.
The result was human experimentation.
—All results were born through a process of failure. However, we are out of time.
From that point on, the journal was filled with talk about failed experiments and vague signs of progress.
“Skip, skip…”
Jun skimmed through the journal as quickly as possible until he found something useful.
Still, since it was nearly the size of an encyclopedia, it took quite a bit of time.
Even so, he managed to pick up a few pieces of information.
“Uh, Leader. My neck’s looking a bit better.”
“What?”
As more time passed, the physical changes that had rapidly appeared on the four of them began to subside.
The scales that had once covered more than half of their necks had somehow shrunk to about the size of a fingertip.
What kind of ridiculous [Field Trait] is this?
And it wasn’t until the following morning that they finally uncovered the secret behind those changes.
“Found it!”
The journal was packed with secrets hidden within this field.
***
“Mm…”
Aiden suddenly opened his eyes, about half a day after that.
By then, all the physical changes the four of them had experienced had completely disappeared.
Jun noticed Aiden slowly waking up and immediately stopped what he was doing.
“Aiden.”
“S…enior?”
“You okay?”
“Ah… how did I…”
“Phew. I’ll explain later. How’s your body feel?”
“Other than feeling a bit weak… I’m fine.”
Jun then looked over at Eleanor.
She channeled her divine power and scanned Aiden’s body, then gave a nod.
“Yeah. Nothing wrong with his body.”
“Really? Ha… that’s a relief.”
When Jun let out a deep sigh, as if he were truly relieved, Aiden spoke up.
“I feel like… I had a long, long dream.”
“A dream?”
“Yes. I’m not really sure, but in the dream, I was incredibly angry.”
“……”
“But strangely… it felt like it was me, and yet not me. As if I had entered the body of some other being…”
Jun’s expression as he listened was subtle and hard to read.
An expression caught between understanding and uncertainty.
That was because he had a hunch about the phenomenon Aiden had experienced.
It’s too early. Far too early.
What Aiden had gone through was eerily similar to a scene that appeared when progressing through Adrian’s storyline in the original game.
Was it because of the encounter with the Outer God?
If there was any silver lining, it was that Aiden didn’t seem to have been completely overtaken. It was thanks to the innate status effect resistance granted by the [Beast Body].
The reason he hadn’t woken up until now was because he didn’t have enough mana to resist “that phenomenon”.
Unlike the outside world, the mysterious alchemist’s lab was rich with mana.
It seemed that Aiden had been able to awaken thanks to that influence.
“Anyway, the important thing is that you’re awake. Take it easy for now. Our current situation is…”
With that, Jun proceeded to explain everything that had happened while Aiden was unconscious.
“We… fell to the level 5 field?”
“That’s how things turned out. But while you were out, we managed to learn quite a bit.”
First of all, the physical changes the group had undergone were caused by the violet mist outside.
“It’s best to think of it as a kind of [Field Effect]. Just breathing it in gradually turns you into a monster.”
“What kind of bullshit [Field Effect] is that?”
Eleanor, who had been listening from the side, let out a deep sigh.
“Still, it’s not like there’s no solution.”
“What is it?”
“Absorbing mana. That’s the only way.”
“But there’s no mana outside… Oh. That monster?”
The liquid mana they had found in the heart of the dead creature.
“Right. That’s also the reason mana flows through this space now.”
“You mean the mana we used to power that sealed door?”
That was why mana existed in this laboratory.
“Then why is there no mana outside?”
“Hmm. It’s a bit complicated. To put it simply, it’s also because of that purple mist out there.”
“Haa… I see.”
“Um, Senior. Then… is there no way for us to get outside?”
“That’s not it. The problem is… we have to go through here.”
Jun pointed to the map he had laid out.
“The city of alchemists. ‘Hedravan’. We have to pass through there to get out.”
For now, it was believed to be the place where the kind of monstrous lifeforms they had faced existed in the greatest numbers.
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