Chapter 10: Dungeon Expedition(3)
These soldiers...
I didn't notice before but the armour they all used had the symbol of the Morvas kingdom on the back.
There's a good chance that they're from the escape party that the king organised...
The feeling of sadness and pity starts to rise in my chest as I look around at the other skeletons that were melted and scattered across the ground.
Gosh, I'm such a weakling.
I don't even know Godefray, let alone these soldiers, but I'm still feeling depressed.
Damn it, I've always been bad with tearjerkers.
Undead are said to be born from a combination of the high density of mana in the air and the negative emotions and thoughts of the dying individual. These people probably died with regrets...
The dungeon itself probably has a high density of mana so the conditions for the undead to be born is easily fulfilled.
Considering how strong he was when I fought him, this guy was probably a powerful warrior when he was alive.
I stared at the unmoving moving body of the axe-wielding skeleton as many different thoughts about the undead went through my mind. When the undead is born they retain most of their combat skills from when they were alive, making them vary in strength.
I hope Godefray's escape party got out...
After heaving out a depressing sigh and thinking about the castle for a bit, I brought my attention back to the spoils that laid on the floor.
I shouldn't mess with the dead too much, it's disrespectful.
Might as well take what I can and leave.
As I moved forward to pick up the broken pieces of the cursed axe and the magic bow, my「Mana Sense」began to pick up signals from both the skeletons and the centipede corpse.
Oh! right!
I almost forgot about the cores.
Ahhh, I'm such an idiot.
I floated towards the closest skeleton body, which was the axe wielder and concentrated on my 「Mana Sense」to locate the source of the mana signals. Soon, I find that the signals seemed to be coming from the skull of the skeleton, where the brain would normally be. Peeking inside the opening I had created with Arondite during the battle, I spotted the monster core which was about the size of a tennis ball and looked quite different from the core I got from the greater cave arachnid.
Hmm?
It's dark-grey coloured and my「Mana Sense」is picking up bigger signals from it, is it because its an undead core?
I think I remember reading somewhere that a core's colour and size can also be influenced by the race of the monster. In this case, the core of the undead is probably dark grey colour.
Using「Telekinesis」, I held onto the skull of the skeleton and attempt to pull out the monster core. During this process, I realised that the diameter of the core was wider than the width of the cut so getting it out would be hard. I exerted more force into the pull.
GWEHHH!!!
Come on!!!!!
This core is mine, I will take it out!
*CRACK*
The amount of force I put into the pull ended up making a big part of the skull break off, finally freeing the core. I floated there and stared at the skull in shock.
IT WASN'T ME!
I'M INNOCENT!!
...
Urgh, sorry...
I hope the owner doesn't mind having their dead body messed with...
Please don't haunt me.
Afterwards, one by one, I went to collect the cores from the other skeletons that were lying on the ground nearby. Luckily I didn't have to break their skull to retrieve my cores because they were already in pieces. Two of them had half their skull melted by the centipede, one had its skull obliterated by my hammer, and one was already in pieces from the magic bow, so it's all goods!
...It's good, right?
I then went to the corpse of the giant centipede and pulled out Arondite to once again beginning the disgusting process of taking apart the giant bug.
Disgusting.
Damn it, why do I have to take it apart.
Games normally have a collect option right??
The core was protected inside its super hard-shelled head, but after a few gruesome minutes I finally got the core out. The core of the giant centipede was about the size of a volleyball and it shined in a pale red colour.
Next, I gathered all the cores and laid them on the ground in front of me as I looked at them in anticipation.
One pale red core the size of a volleyball from the centipede, one dark grey core the size of a tennis ball from the axe skeleton, and four smaller dark grey cores from the three weak skeleton soldiers and skeleton archer.
As I stared at the cores, the same urge from before begins to arise and encourages me to eat the cores.
Right then, here goes.
I then used my「Magic Extraction」skill on the cores one by one.
One after another, cracks began to form all over each of the cores and enlarge over the course of a few seconds. After the cracks enlarged to a certain point, the cores began to break apart in front of me into small pieces and dissipate into the air as blue particles. Just like before, a refreshing and comfortable feeling washes over my body for the next few seconds.
Fwahhhhh, this feels great.
Haha. I think I might get addicted to this.
These aren't like drugs right?
I enjoyed the feeling until it came to an end and looked around to observe the changes.
The changes were more noticeable than when I performed my first absorption on the spider core, probably because both the quality and quantity of cores has increased. Although the core of the centipede was much bigger, I feel like the core from the axe skeleton made more of a change. Quality over quantity I guess.
All my senses seemed to have sharpened and the range and precision of both「Mana Sense」and「Telekinesis」have noticeably increased. My mana pool seems to have increased as well since it hurt less when I tested the magic bow on a nearby rock.
I think it's safe to assume that the cores are something like XP packs to me now like in RPG games. Whenever I absorb them my stats all improve.
I wonder if there's a max level?
Gweheheh, if there is I'm definitely gonna try to hit it and conquer the world!
That's if I ever get out of this stupid cave though...
Next, I brought my attention to the two magic weapons I won from the battle. One was the cursed axe which is now in two pieces and the other was the magic bow.
---
Object: Vengeful Battle Axe(Broken)
Enchantments:「Weak Magic Reinforcement」,「Curse of Anger」
Description: Formerly a two-handed cursed battle-axe that causes its user to act violently when wielded. Now a piece of junk.
---
What! No!
WHY IS IT A PIECE OF JUNK!
WHO BROKE IT! WHO!?
...Damn it, that's one fewer spoils for me.
Should I try extracting the skills from it?
No. I'd rather not absorb a cursed item into my body.
I'm not sure what the consequences are and I sure as hell don't wanna find out the hard way.
After picking up the two pieces of the broken axe and chucking them into my「Dimensional Storage」, I brought my attention to the magic bow and began to think of what to do with it. At first, I wanted to use「Magic Extraction」and gain some skills from the bow but I ended up scrapping the idea.
If I did actually absorb it then the attack range and flexibility of the skill would be limited since the mana arrows would only be able to fire out from my body.
On the other hand, If I keep it as is, I would be able to maneuver the magic bow around and fire the mana arrows in different angles.
This way I would have more options during battle.
Gweheh, I'm a genius.
It's also why I didn't want to use「Magic Extraction」on Arondite. It might be a mistake to absorb the enchantments from the sword because not only would it ruin the best weapon I currently have, but I also probably wouldn't be able to use the skills right now due to the painful mana consumption. I don't think I'll extract the enchantments from Arondite until I'm able to create weapons at atleast the same quality.
It's a legendary sword after all, ruining it so early on would be a shame.
Plus, It looks cool when it floats around like this.
Can't stop me!
After fiddling around with my weapons a little more and wiping Arondite onto a piece of cloth to get the bug blood and guts off, I turned around and headed towards the tunnel I entered from.
Mmmm, I hate it when Arondite gets dirty.
Maybe I should get a different tool for taking apart corpses.
Just as I reached the entrance of the tunnel, I turned around and cast one last glance at the skeletons.
...You know, I just can't help but feel bitter about how they might have felt when they died...
I mentally slapped myself on the cheeks to bring myself back to business and floated down the tunnel exit of the cave section.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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