Chapter 506: Island of Devil’s Maw (12)
“Timber~” Atobe shouted loudly while jumping up into the air. He launched a swift kick at a high spot on the trunk. That way he would ensure the tree would fall to the other side and would not crash down on the players who were standing on this side. The vines at the top of the trees had rapidly curled up and dried a few minutes ago so they did not stop the fall from falling. Several seconds later, one could hear the sound of rock brushing against bark, the howling wind as the tree cut through it rang out in quick succession before they ended with a giant hum of a thud against the ground.
“Ah~ I have been wanting to shout something like that.” After Atobe landed, he wiped away his sweat, picked up the sweat and said while assuming a pose that he believed to be quite handsome. Feng Bujue darted forward, ignoring Atobe completely towards the trunk of the tree that had been chopped off.
“Ah hah! An equipment!” Feng Bujue was the first to find the ‘reward’ mentioned by the treeman. But Brother Jue did not hurry to pick it up because in this new version of the game, there were many items that were bound to the players after they were obtained. If this was someone that was useless to him but extremely useful to others, then he would have harmed their team. Thankfully, Thriller Paradise Version 1.10 added a new function and that was the players would be able to examine the property to unidentified items once they were close enough, they did not have to pick them up.
Name: The Helm of a Pessimist
Type: Armor
Quality: Excellent
Defense Point: Medium
Element: None
Special Effect: Discern a safe route through the Haunted Swamp
Equip Requirement: Chosen Walker as their choice of faith
…
Whether it can be taken out of the scenario: No
Remark: All reality begins from a dream, but not all dream will ferment into reality.
This Helm of a Pessimist has the appearance of an ancient roman helmet and currently the equipment was embedded inside the tree’s root. The ‘aim at my waist’ given by the treeman was quite a big hint. If the player had aimed too high or too low, they might miss this equipment.
“This is prepared for the disciple of Walker.” After reading the description, he pulled the helmet out from the trunk and turned to tell Uncle Worthless. “Hmm… I believe we will soon find its use.” Uncle Worthless took several steps forward and accepted the helmet. He observed for few seconds and said, “Indeed, depending on the choice of your faith, everyone will have their use at a certain time.”
“Hmm, this proves that our tactic was right when we were asked to choose our faith.” Ambitionist agreed. “Consider this… if none of us have chosen, Weston, then we would not have known about the ‘shortcut’; if none of us have chosen Idiente, then we would not be able to chop down the tree and find this equipment.”
“Actually… the choice given then was merely to lower the difficulty of the scenario.” Feng Bujue chose this moment to dampen the mood. “Currently, aside from the benefit of different faiths, there are many other ways to push our way through…” He paused before adding, “if we do not know the shortcut, then we can find it ourselves or take the long route; if no one has the axe, then we will risk taking the upper path, and exhaust a few more antidotes.” He pointed head. “It will be the same for the Haunted House. Without this Helm of Pessimist, we will most likely land in some trouble, but… it won’t be something that we cannot solve.”
Brother Jue’s statement technically filled up his teammates’ intellectual blind spot. Upon closer reflection, one would realize… as useful as these faiths were, they were not ‘necessary’ condition to clear the mission. The plot of choosing one’s faith, to put it frankly was the system providing the player a chance to adjust the difficulty. The teams with great curiosity or those who considered problems on all sides would make the same choice as Feng Bujue’s group did; and the team with a more conservative way of thinking might choose to focus on one or two faiths and that would cause the succeeding progress to be more difficult. In any case, everything was built on the basis of ‘choice’.
Obviously things could have turned out differently when it came to the plot regarding Leideson. And the key difference would be at the choice of Weston, the God of Wisdom. There would be three plot difference here, first, the players did not choose Weston. In that case… Leideson might drop a hint about the shrine’s general direction before leaving but he would not reveal the shortcut. The second was the type Brother Jue’s group was experiencing… someone chose Weston and asked the question related to the main quest. With that, Leideson would point out this shortcut and leave. And the third would be, someone had chosen Weston but they asked something unrelated to the main quest. And this… well would be a dead end. If the player did that, Leideson would leave immediately and mention nothing about the Shrine of Faith.
Of course, the three mentioned above were merely a set of the many possibilities. There were many other possibilities to the side quest, like ‘failure to complete the side quest’, ‘initiated a battle’, ‘rambling nonsense when asked to choose a religion’ and so on… most of them would lead to insta-death so the author would not get into the details here.
….
After chopping down the large tree, the five moved through the valley and continued their way forward. The back of the valley was still within the perimeter of the mocking forest. So after 100 metres of walking, they were once again surrounded by a sea of scolding. But the players had gotten inured to this and considered them the sound of the wind…
Atobe was still leading the way as he chopped down the trees and vines. They continued like this when he suddenly said, “The forest is getting thinner…”
“That means that we’re getting closer to the edge of the forest.” Feng Bujue explained. While the two spoke, Atobe’s axe cut open a wall of vine that blocked their way. Instantly, a horrible stench hit them like a wall…
“What the fuck!” Atobe cursed. He lifted an arm to block the smell and staggered back a few steps. Initially, the four behind him thought Atobe ran away because he saw some kind of danger but 2 seconds later, they too picked up the horrible smell that was carried by the wind…
“Erm… What is this?” Pegasus closed his hands over his mouth and said in a muffled tone.
“You can’t fart in game… so the possibility of the smell coming from one of us can be removed.” Ambitionist spoke through the sleeve that covered his nose.
“That is such an empty analysis…” Uncle Worthless reacted the same as the former, he too used his sleeve to cover his face.
“Hmm… this should be the smell of shit.” Feng Bujue stood at the front. He pinched his nose and said contemplatively.
“Fuck! I sucked in such a big breath without any warning…” By then Atobe had retreated to the back of the ground. He collapsed to the ground and his face was covered in dark clouds. “I felt like I have lost something very important….”
“You just took a sniff of some shit.” Feng Bujue said with ease. “Do you need to be so dramatic?”
“I say… Brother Feng, how can you be sure that this is shit?” Uncle Worthless was cautious when he asked this question because he had a bad feeling about the answer that he might get.
“Oh, it’s like this… When I was in secondary school, the subject of my biological study is—’the research of horrible stench’.” Feng Bujue replied.
“Have your teacher lost their mind?” Ambitionist couldn’t help but comment. After saying that, he realized something and added, “Wait, they were forced into madness by you, weren’t they?”
“The assignment given was ‘free study’ so in other words, you could pick any topic you wish to research on.” Feng Bujue said, “I hesitated a long time between the study of horrible stench and the perfect crime. Considering the latter might cause some misunderstanding, I ultimately chose the former.”
“If you are afraid of causing misunderstanding, why can’t you just do what normal people did? Grow a potted plant, keep a growth diary and that should be it!” Ambitionist roared. “By the way… how is the research on the perfect prime part of biology?”
“In any case… I have made up categories based on human being’s level of tolerance towards different horrible smell.” Feng bujue ignored the man and started to explain his study with the fire of a mad researcher. “The lightest was ‘acceptable’, examples include smelly tofu and garlic; then came ‘generally despised’, examples include farts, body odour, smelly sock, moldy food and soon; then more serious will be ‘extremely despised’, which include the decay of dead body, shit…” He paused for 2 seconds to change his breath, “Last but not least is ‘irresistibly awful smelling’, the matter in this category were the greatest offense to our sense of smell, in fact some of them might actively harm our biological body, example include hydrogen selenide, ethanethiol and skunk…”
“And this bouquet of smell that is coming towards us…” Feng Bujue glanced at the direction. “…has to be shit. Because that is definitely the smell of indole and skatole. They are different from the smell of a dead body. Even though they both give off chemical smell that originated from the bacteria in our digestive system but…”
“Enough! Stop talking! Do you want me to vomit?” Using the axe as support, Atobe stood up again as he shouted to stop Brother Jue, “That is not the point okay! Can’t just tell us what that is and stop there? Why the need to go into details?”
“Ha ha… Of course, I have my reasoning to tell you all of these things.” Feng Bujue commented with a smile. “I am helping you a ‘disgust threshold’ mentally so that you guys can be better prepared to face what might come next.”
“What do you mean?” Pegasus widened his eyes. “Do we have to push our way through this stink?”
“Of course.” Feng Bujue said matter-of-factly. “Do you see any other option?”
“He’s not wrong…” Ambitionist concurred. “This place does not have a second path and going back is not an option… so no matter how disgusting the smell is, we have to move forward.”
“Don’t worry.” Feng Bujue shrugged. “After a while, your sense of smell will get numb to it. If you really can’t stomach it, the worst that could happen is vomiting.” He waved at Atobe. “Come on, don’t waste time. It’ll be over before you realize it.”
“Can I just force quit? Really, from the start of the scenario, I’ve been intending to do that!” Atobe resisted with all his might.
“Ah… It will be fine, Atobe.” Uncle Worthless added weakly, “When we reach the shit sw… Erm… Haunted Swamp, I will be one leading the way.”
“Hey! You meant to say Shit Swamp, right! Why the sudden change at the last minute?!”