Chapter 538: Rainbow (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 538: Rainbow (5)
Garphas's Necklace.
This was the Numbered Item I obtained under the name of Knight Crusher at my first-ever noble banquet. However, because I had gotten my hands on it so early in the game, I hadn't had any hope of actually using it for years. To do so, you needed to have a solid financial backing first.
But considering how many mana stones we've been getting...
I concluded that I would be able to collect the target amount within a month or two. Furthermore, there wasn't a single thing on Basement Floor One that could give me as much of a boost as this item could right now. In a sense, the progress it could potentially afford far outclassed anything an essence could do.
So the most important thing from here on out is getting enough mana stones...
Even now, the mounds of mana stones that were no doubt littered around the chief's island sparkled in my mind's eye. If we could go back and sweep them all up after the rainy season was over, that would shorten my timeline considerably.
Still, that would be too dangerous, right?
...Wait.
A sudden thought struck me. "Wyatt Hektz. Come here for a second."
"...You called?"
"It's nothing big—I just want to ask you a few things. You said you arrived on that island of giants during the rainy season, right?"
"Yes, it was on the very first day."
"I remembered right, then. Anyway, was Giant Island riddled with monsters like this island was?"
"...Yes?" Hektz confirmed, still looking confused by this line of questioning. Regardless, he proceeded to explain how they witnessed "monsters who left behind corpses" and "normal monsters" fighting to the death.
I took this in. "Isn't that odd, though?"
"Pardon...?"
"If all the monsters were killing each other, shouldn't the island have been covered with mana stones?" When we arrived on Giant Island, all we found were monster corpses—no mana stones.
"Now that you mention it, that's true," Hektz realized. "I didn't give it any thought back then... but just like the island with the village, the island we were stuck on should have had plenty of mana stones as well."
"When did you guys first start venturing out of the cave after taking shelter?"
"It was about ten days after the rainy season ended. But back then, we didn't even know whether it actually had an 'end.'"
"I see."
I had even more questions now. Where did all those mana stones go? No, in the first place, if the rainy season happened on a regular schedule, the ocean floor should be covered in them as well by now.
Crunch!
Even now, monsters were falling into the ocean and dying on impact, disappearing into bursts of light. Over hundreds of years, the mana stones they left behind should have piled up and into underwater mountains.
But when I was down there, I didn't see anything special.
Hmm, should I hop into the ocean for a second to take a peek?
The thought flashed through my mind, but I asked the wizards for their advice before committing to it.
"Yes... That's something I've also been quite curious about."
"Let's check the bottom of the ocean right now!"
"But there's all sorts of monsters in the water..."
"Does that matter? We could discover a new law of nature down there!"
"Wait!" a voice cried. "There's a way to check without going underwater!"
"...Huh?"
At Versyl's proclamation, the excited wizards who were just about to throw themselves overboard stopped to hear her out.
"Let's use the mana stones we have to test it," she said, taking out one of the mana stones she had on her, tying a string to it, and lowering it beneath the silver waves. After that, she used all sorts of spells to monitor its condition underwater.
Thanks to these tests, we were able to obtain a new piece of information. I had no idea why it took us so long to figure this out, but...
"...It's gone?"
"The only thing left is the string."
Mana stones that fell into the ocean apparently disappeared.
***
The experiment birthed all sorts of theories and questions.
"Could it be that the ocean's silver coloring is because it absorbed all of those mana stones?"
"Hmm, I don't think we have enough evidence to connect the two phenomena right now."
"Agreed—if it's because the ocean absorbed the mana stones, then the ocean should give off a mana signature of its own, but that's not the case."
"Hmm... So if the mana stones dissolve and disappear in the ocean, then what about the ones on land?"
I used to be someone who enjoyed intellectual discussions like this. Perhaps I had lost my taste for it after living as a barbarian for so long.
"Um... Lord Baron, what do you think of all this?"
"Ugh... My head..."
For some reason, my head started to pound the longer I listened to their back-and-forth, so I bowed out with the excuse that I wasn't feeling well.
Well, the wizards should be able to handle the research side of things on their own.
I escaped from the wizards and chatted with my companions to pass the time.
Crunch!
On the seventh day of the rainy season, the number of monsters falling from the sky decreased even further.
[23:59]
After about 11:50 p.m., not a single monster fell.
Hmm... Is this clock off by ten minutes? The thought occurred to me, but we decided to wait and drop the barrier at the agreed-upon time anyway. If a single monster ended up falling on the boat, it would damage the deck. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Tick, tock.
The hand on the clock moved. Everything around me grew quiet as I focused on its ticking path. Slowly, I raised my head to look around and noticed that everyone was also looking at their own clocks. It was like we were all counting down to the new year.
Tick, tock.
We waited in silence, and as time continued its endless march, the moment we were waiting for finally arrived.
[00:00]
The end of this damned rainy season.
"It's midnight!"
"Is it over?"
The adventurers on deck began to murmur amongst themselves, and I quickly gave the order.
"Drop the barrier!"
With that, the wizards undid the umbrella-like barrier surrounding the boat, and it felt like the world opened up around us. In a way, it kind of did, what with how the barrier had been drenched in blood from all the monsters falling and dying on it.
"Wait!" a voice cried. "There's a way to check without going underwater!"
"...Huh?"
At Versyl's proclamation, the excited wizards who were just about to throw themselves overboard stopped to hear her out.
"Let's use the mana stones we have to test it," she said, taking out one of the mana stones she had on her, tying a string to it, and lowering it beneath the silver waves. After that, she used all sorts of spells to monitor its condition underwater.
Thanks to these tests, we were able to obtain a new piece of information. I had no idea why it took us so long to figure this out, but...
"...It's gone?"
"The only thing left is the string."
Mana stones that fell into the ocean apparently disappeared.
***
The experiment birthed all sorts of theories and questions.
"Could it be that the ocean's silver coloring is because it absorbed all of those mana stones?"
"Hmm, I don't think we have enough evidence to connect the two phenomena right now."
"Agreed—if it's because the ocean absorbed the mana stones, then the ocean should give off a mana signature of its own, but that's not the case."
"Hmm... So if the mana stones dissolve and disappear in the ocean, then what about the ones on land?"
I used to be someone who enjoyed intellectual discussions like this. Perhaps I had lost my taste for it after living as a barbarian for so long.
"Um... Lord Baron, what do you think of all this?"
"Ugh... My head..."
For some reason, my head started to pound the longer I listened to their back-and-forth, so I bowed out with the excuse that I wasn't feeling well.
Well, the wizards should be able to handle the research side of things on their own.
I escaped from the wizards and chatted with my companions to pass the time.
Crunch!
On the seventh day of the rainy season, the number of monsters falling from the sky decreased even further.
[23:59]
After about 11:50 p.m., not a single monster fell.
Hmm... Is this clock off by ten minutes? The thought occurred to me, but we decided to wait and drop the barrier at the agreed-upon time anyway. If a single monster ended up falling on the boat, it would damage the deck. It was better to be safe than sorry.
Tick, tock.
The hand on the clock moved. Everything around me grew quiet as I focused on its ticking path. Slowly, I raised my head to look around and noticed that everyone was also looking at their own clocks. It was like we were all counting down to the new year.
Tick, tock.
We waited in silence, and as time continued its endless march, the moment we were waiting for finally arrived.
[00:00]
The end of this damned rainy season.
"It's midnight!"
"Is it over?"
The adventurers on deck began to murmur amongst themselves, and I quickly gave the order.
"Drop the barrier!"
With that, the wizards undid the umbrella-like barrier surrounding the boat, and it felt like the world opened up around us. In a way, it kind of did, what with how the barrier had been drenched in blood from all the monsters falling and dying on it.
"M-Mister!" While I was walking up to the bow to enjoy the fresh air for the first time in several days, Erwen shouted down at me from the crow's nest. "Look! Look over there!"
What now? I glanced up at the crow's nest to see Erwen pointing into the distance. As I turned my head to look where she was pointing, I stopped in my tracks. It wasn't just me, either. All the other adventurers who had turned to look froze too.
"...A rainbow?"
Over the wide, endless silver ocean, a rainbow had opened up as if to celebrate the end of the rainy season.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple...
The array of light was pleasant even at a glance. And since we were gazing up at it while standing atop a boat dotted with monster blood, the colors looked even more vibrant than usual.
However, we couldn't just stand around staring at it with our mouths open. We were adventurers. Be it a rainbow or a piece of hell on earth, if we saw something unusual, our first instinct was to run over there to see if we could make money off of it.
"Auyen! Jot down the direction of the rainbow!"
"Pardon? Oh...Yes!"
We first figured out where the rainbow started. The timing of its appearance was way too suspicious to ignore.
Something that can only be seen if you're out on the ocean right after the rainy season ends...
What were the odds this was just a natural phenomenon? What was more, the rainbow we were looking at had a rather unique shape. If regular rainbows formed arcs or curves, this one looked like a pillar of light that was shooting straight into the sky. It was like a marker in a game meant to notify the player that there was something special hidden there.
"Twenty-one degrees from our current position, and thirty-four degrees from Stone Island! As for the distance... I can't tell yet!"
Auyen rattled off a few pieces of jargon I couldn't follow, but there was one thing I understood. He had succeeded in ascertaining the direction it was in.
But we don't know how far away it is yet...
That was a bit of a problem. Should we turn our boat in the direction of the rainbow right now, or should we keep heading toward our original destination?
"Huh? The rainbow is disappearing!"
Just as I was contemplating our next move, the rainbow in the distance began to fade away before vanishing entirely. The whole display only lasted about five minutes.
So, after the rainy season ends, we only get five minutes to see it...
Wasn't that a sign that this was exactly what we were looking for? But even so, I didn't give the order to turn the ship.
"Huh? Bjorn? Aren't we heading toward the rainbow?"
Ainar seemed confused by my decision, but as the leader of this group, I felt it was the only logical choice.
Giant Island, Tree Island, or even Library Island—we hadn't cleared any of them yet. We needed to improve our specs before anything else, and since we knew the general direction of the rainbow, we could always head there another time.
"Auyen, how long until we reach Giant Island?"
"We'll arrive there in about three hours!"
And so, we maintained our course for three more hours. When we finally made landfall, the first thing we did was stand there, jaws dropped. Man, I knew I had a good feeling about coming straight here.
"M-Mister!" While I was walking up to the bow to enjoy the fresh air for the first time in several days, Erwen shouted down at me from the crow's nest. "Look! Look over there!"
What now? I glanced up at the crow's nest to see Erwen pointing into the distance. As I turned my head to look where she was pointing, I stopped in my tracks. It wasn't just me, either. All the other adventurers who had turned to look froze too.
"...A rainbow?"
Over the wide, endless silver ocean, a rainbow had opened up as if to celebrate the end of the rainy season.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, purple...
The array of light was pleasant even at a glance. And since we were gazing up at it while standing atop a boat dotted with monster blood, the colors looked even more vibrant than usual.
However, we couldn't just stand around staring at it with our mouths open. We were adventurers. Be it a rainbow or a piece of hell on earth, if we saw something unusual, our first instinct was to run over there to see if we could make money off of it.
"Auyen! Jot down the direction of the rainbow!"
"Pardon? Oh...Yes!"
We first figured out where the rainbow started. The timing of its appearance was way too suspicious to ignore.
Something that can only be seen if you're out on the ocean right after the rainy season ends...
What were the odds this was just a natural phenomenon? What was more, the rainbow we were looking at had a rather unique shape. If regular rainbows formed arcs or curves, this one looked like a pillar of light that was shooting straight into the sky. It was like a marker in a game meant to notify the player that there was something special hidden there.
"Twenty-one degrees from our current position, and thirty-four degrees from Stone Island! As for the distance... I can't tell yet!"
Auyen rattled off a few pieces of jargon I couldn't follow, but there was one thing I understood. He had succeeded in ascertaining the direction it was in.
But we don't know how far away it is yet...
That was a bit of a problem. Should we turn our boat in the direction of the rainbow right now, or should we keep heading toward our original destination?
"Huh? The rainbow is disappearing!"
Just as I was contemplating our next move, the rainbow in the distance began to fade away before vanishing entirely. The whole display only lasted about five minutes.
So, after the rainy season ends, we only get five minutes to see it...
Wasn't that a sign that this was exactly what we were looking for? But even so, I didn't give the order to turn the ship.
"Huh? Bjorn? Aren't we heading toward the rainbow?"
Ainar seemed confused by my decision, but as the leader of this group, I felt it was the only logical choice.
Giant Island, Tree Island, or even Library Island—we hadn't cleared any of them yet. We needed to improve our specs before anything else, and since we knew the general direction of the rainbow, we could always head there another time.
"Auyen, how long until we reach Giant Island?"
"We'll arrive there in about three hours!"
And so, we maintained our course for three more hours. When we finally made landfall, the first thing we did was stand there, jaws dropped. Man, I knew I had a good feeling about coming straight here.
"...Mana stones."
Thousands of mana stones littered the island's beaches.
The reason I had chosen to visit this particular island again was simple. Of the islands we had seen so far, this was the only one with a portal stone. That really big giant we saw at the end still worried me a little, but I concluded that there were more secrets to be found here if we were willing to take the risk and explore it.
Ba-dump!
But forget whatever secrets this island may or may not have—my heart started to pound as soon as I saw the mana stones covering the beach.
Of course, compared to Chief Island, there were far fewer mana stones per square foot on the ground. But Giant Island was several times larger than Chief Island. What if we were able to collect all the mana stones here?
"This is unbelievable..."
There was a chance that I could even reach the amount I needed with this island alone.
With that, we all got off the boat and went to work picking up all the mana stones that were lying there waiting for us. Getting them wasn't as easy as I was hoping it'd be, of course. The rainy season had just ended, so there were still monsters prowling around.
Maybe it's because they're the ones who survived the rainy season, but these monsters are all a pain to deal with.
The ones left were all at least rank four. On top of that, a few new monsters with weird essence combinations were also popping up, making for some incredibly tough fights.
However, we were also slowly but surely starting to get stronger. Myul Armin was the best example of that.
[Myul Armin has cast Supersensitive Skin. The damage taken by his target increases by 30%.]
[Myul Armin has cast Eternal Frailty. The target's physical stats decrease by 30%, and the effectiveness of all curses used on it will increase by 1.5x.]
This guy was a necromancer who specialized in curses and debuffs. His active skills fell under that specialty, and his summons stuck to the theme as well.
[Myul Armin has summoned Spirinsect.]
Spirinsect, for example, was a summon that didn't do any physical damage, but every hit it landed drained the target's MP by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned Corrosive Hound.]
Every time this one bit a target, it lowered its resistance by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
That one was a summon that closed in on its target before blowing itself up to inflict curses on everything in the surrounding area. This was why I gave him the Man-Faced Bird's essence. Its passive skill Mother Bird was particularly useful for necromancers.
[A summon within your range has been dispelled. You have regained 80% of the Soul Power used to summon it. The corresponding skill's cooldown has been decreased by 80%.]
It was an essential skill to pick up if you wanted to climb the necromancer ranks. With just this one essence, Myul Armin had become over five times stronger than before.
A rank-two core essence had that kind of effect on people.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit...]
With the MP refund and the decreased cooldown time, he was able to chain summon as many spirits as he wanted.
Boom!
Since this one didn't deal physical damage, to begin with, there wasn't much of a visible effect, but the curses were stacking as the explosions continued.
It's so much easier to hunt monsters when they all have huge debuffs working against them.
Also, Myul Armin ended up being the perfect person to have around in our current situation. His was a class that shined more when you were fighting a single strong enemy rather than multiple weaker ones.
"You worked hard, Myul."
"Worked hard... I'm not worthy of such praise."
Hmm, recently, he seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with me. He also always called me Lord Baron and had been stiff and sort of distant.
Is he trying to pull back now that he got everything he needed out of me? Just in case I try to get him to pay me back?
The thought was kind of depressing, but since that could just be my own biases talking, I decided to keep an eye on him for a while longer before jumping to any conclusions.
One day, two days, three days...
We spent several days picking up all the mana stones we could get our hands on and fighting off all sorts of monsters.
[00:00]
Before we knew it, three days had passed since the end of the rainy season. And it was in the middle of gleefully scooping up even more mana stones that we got some bad news.
"The mana stones... They're disappearing."
The mana stones that hadn't been picked up yet were starting to disappear like fruit rotting away back into the soil.
"How interesting... The mana is definitely being dispersed... but I can't find even a trace of where it's disappearing to."
Whatever the reason, this was an unfortunate development for us, but there was also a bright side.
"Versyl, how many mana stones have we collected so far?"
"Uh, if I were to do the conversion according to the rates set by the exchange ... I think we have about a billion stones?"
In other words, a profit large enough to gamble on the necklace.
"...Mana stones."
Thousands of mana stones littered the island's beaches.
The reason I had chosen to visit this particular island again was simple. Of the islands we had seen so far, this was the only one with a portal stone. That really big giant we saw at the end still worried me a little, but I concluded that there were more secrets to be found here if we were willing to take the risk and explore it.
Ba-dump!
But forget whatever secrets this island may or may not have—my heart started to pound as soon as I saw the mana stones covering the beach.
Of course, compared to Chief Island, there were far fewer mana stones per square foot on the ground. But Giant Island was several times larger than Chief Island. What if we were able to collect all the mana stones here?
"This is unbelievable..."
There was a chance that I could even reach the amount I needed with this island alone.
With that, we all got off the boat and went to work picking up all the mana stones that were lying there waiting for us. Getting them wasn't as easy as I was hoping it'd be, of course. The rainy season had just ended, so there were still monsters prowling around.
Maybe it's because they're the ones who survived the rainy season, but these monsters are all a pain to deal with.
The ones left were all at least rank four. On top of that, a few new monsters with weird essence combinations were also popping up, making for some incredibly tough fights.
However, we were also slowly but surely starting to get stronger. Myul Armin was the best example of that.
[Myul Armin has cast Supersensitive Skin. The damage taken by his target increases by 30%.]
[Myul Armin has cast Eternal Frailty. The target's physical stats decrease by 30%, and the effectiveness of all curses used on it will increase by 1.5x.]
This guy was a necromancer who specialized in curses and debuffs. His active skills fell under that specialty, and his summons stuck to the theme as well.
[Myul Armin has summoned Spirinsect.]
Spirinsect, for example, was a summon that didn't do any physical damage, but every hit it landed drained the target's MP by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned Corrosive Hound.]
Every time this one bit a target, it lowered its resistance by a set amount.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
That one was a summon that closed in on its target before blowing itself up to inflict curses on everything in the surrounding area. This was why I gave him the Man-Faced Bird's essence. Its passive skill Mother Bird was particularly useful for necromancers.
[A summon within your range has been dispelled. You have regained 80% of the Soul Power used to summon it. The corresponding skill's cooldown has been decreased by 80%.]
It was an essential skill to pick up if you wanted to climb the necromancer ranks. With just this one essence, Myul Armin had become over five times stronger than before.
A rank-two core essence had that kind of effect on people.
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit of Vengeance.]
[Myul Armin has summoned the Self-Destructing Spirit...]
With the MP refund and the decreased cooldown time, he was able to chain summon as many spirits as he wanted.
Boom!
Since this one didn't deal physical damage, to begin with, there wasn't much of a visible effect, but the curses were stacking as the explosions continued.
It's so much easier to hunt monsters when they all have huge debuffs working against them.
Also, Myul Armin ended up being the perfect person to have around in our current situation. His was a class that shined more when you were fighting a single strong enemy rather than multiple weaker ones.
"You worked hard, Myul."
"Worked hard... I'm not worthy of such praise."
Hmm, recently, he seemed to be having trouble making eye contact with me. He also always called me Lord Baron and had been stiff and sort of distant.
Is he trying to pull back now that he got everything he needed out of me? Just in case I try to get him to pay me back?
The thought was kind of depressing, but since that could just be my own biases talking, I decided to keep an eye on him for a while longer before jumping to any conclusions.
One day, two days, three days...
We spent several days picking up all the mana stones we could get our hands on and fighting off all sorts of monsters.
[00:00]
Before we knew it, three days had passed since the end of the rainy season. And it was in the middle of gleefully scooping up even more mana stones that we got some bad news.
"The mana stones... They're disappearing."
The mana stones that hadn't been picked up yet were starting to disappear like fruit rotting away back into the soil.
"How interesting... The mana is definitely being dispersed... but I can't find even a trace of where it's disappearing to."
Whatever the reason, this was an unfortunate development for us, but there was also a bright side.
"Versyl, how many mana stones have we collected so far?"
"Uh, if I were to do the conversion according to the rates set by the exchange ... I think we have about a billion stones?"
In other words, a profit large enough to gamble on the necklace.