Chapter 137: Fourth village?
The more he remembered his conversation with Dhruv, the angrier he became. Vexar was angry with himself for daring and even had the thought of trying to refuse his own master’s order.
He was angry with himself, that was right. But he was even more angry at something else...
’That damn tree...’ With this thought in his mind, he sped up his pace, and within a minute, the tree—at least what was left of it—was within his sight.
Vexar didn’t exactly know that it was the work of that fruit, but he had his own guesses, and the tree was the perfect suspect that could have influenced him.
After all, this whole thing started after he ate that damm apple.
Reaching the tree, he instantly lifted his hand and cast the spell fire pillar once again. The fire pillar touched the tree and it was once again engulfed by the fire and began to burn.
Vexar didn’t stop there and continued to fire one spell after another. The fire began to grow uncontrollably, threatening to burn this whole jungle to the ground.
As if was in some kind of madness, Vexar didn’t pay attention to any of this and continued to cast his spells.
After an unknown period and an uncounted number of spells later, he finally came back to his senses. He didn’t come back to his senses on his own, no... He was forced to do that after realizing that his core was about to get dry of mana.
Vexar stopped casting the spell and looked in front of him. He couldn’t see anything due to his entire vision being covered in smoke, which was the result of the uncontrolled casting of spells. After waiting for another two minutes, the smoke finally cleared, and he saw the aftermath of his madness.
At least a 10-meter area around the tree was burned to the ground, with not even ashes left to show any history of their presence.
Looking at the aftermath, Vexar didn’t celebrate like usual and instead took a deep breath. After calming himself down, he lifted the sword and put it to his throat.
’...Only death shall be the end of one who dares to refuse master’s orders.’ With this thought and determined to end himself he put some pressure on the sword.
Blood began to drip from his neck as the sword went deep into the flesh. Not wanting to prolong the inevitable, he decided to finish himself in one swift slash.
Vexar was about to slash himself but stopped when he realized that...
’...I’m doing the wrong thing once again. If I have refused master, who am I to punish myself? This honor only belongs to the master.’ He thought.
Determined to receive a death sentence from his master, he began to walk toward the portal for the third time. This time, he was determined to complete his journey.
...
Looking at the portal in front of him, Dhruv thought, ’Where is Vexar? How long is he going to take to reach the portal?’
He began to wait for him while thinking about how to proceed with the experiments. He mainly wanted to do two experiments at the moment.
Dhruv had finally found some time to fully experiment with his op True Fusion skill. He hadn’t done many things with it due to time constraints and a lack of resources.
Now he had both—plenty of items looted from the gang and plenty of monsters to experiment with as well. He was planning to start his experiments after finishing the map of this dungeon.
The second experiment he wanted to do was with that tree and its fruit, determining how much fruit it took to hypnotize a person with its effect and the level of its effect the more one eats the fruits.
Not having anything else to do at the moment, Dhruv opened his status and looked at his skills. The moment his gaze landed on the screen, he instantly became depressed after seeing that there were only two skills listed and he couldn’t invest his coins in the stats even after having this much.
Mud Manipulation and Map Maker were the only skills that he had acquired after his evolution, so they were the only ones left. Mud Manipulation was at Level 3, and Map Maker was at Level 4.
Map Maker had reached Level 4 quite some time ago, so he knew it was about to level up once again and would reach Tier 2. He had high hopes for new features at Tier 2.
’I really should buy some more skills,’ Dhruv thought as he began to create a list of skills that he wanted to purchase from the store. He had a few ideas from the trio’s lists and a few of his own.
While thinking about skills, he suddenly heard something – the sound of someone walking and it was coming from ahead of him.
’Is Vexar here, or is it a goblin?’ Dhruv thought as he prepared to get into a fighting position. But before he could even assume that position, he realized that it was indeed Vexar who had finally reached the portal.
"What took you so long, Vexar? Did you find any villages on the way or not?" He asked.
During their previous connection, he had been so focused on the fruit that he had even forgotten to ask this question.
Instead of replying to Dhruv’s question, Vexar came close to him. He stopped after reaching one meter away from Dhruv and then intentionally bowed down in a position where his neck was clearly exposed and vulnerable to any attack.
"Huh! What are you doing?" Dhruv exclaimed, looking in front of him.
"Master, please kill me. I dared to refuse your order," Vexar said, still not lifting his head from the ground.
"Kill you? Why would I do that?" Dhruv was growing increasingly puzzled, but he also quickly connected the dots.
’Is this about your hesitation regarding cutting the tree?’ That must be the case.
"Man, this guardian of mine is so..." Dhruv sighed and lifted Vexar from the ground. Looking directly into his eyes, he asked, "Did you cut the tree or not?"
Vexar hesitated for a moment but eventually confessed, "Yes, I have burned that tree."
"Then, haven’t you already fulfilled my order?" Dhruv said, trying to make Vexar understand that he had indeed followed the order.
"But, master, I tried to refuse your order," Vexar repeated.
"Okay, I understand that, but it was because you were being influenced by that tree," Dhruv said as he began to explain to him about the fruit and its effect after eating it.
After listening to the explanation and some comforting words from Dhruv, Vexar finally managed to come back to his senses once again.
Looking at him, Dhruv asked again, "Did you find any village or not?"
"Yes, master, there was one village in the south as well," Vexar replied.
Nodding, Dhruv began to ponder. ’So, there are three villages in three directions. Does that mean there is a village on the west side as well?’
