Chapter 67

Chapter 67 - Treasure Stomach 

“Human, I know you can hear me. Your girlfriend is alive and fighting. However, if you want to see her again, you'll have to work with me to subdue this thief.”

The sea dragon's voice sounded directly in Adam's ear, despite the dragon not making a single physical sound.

Long_Aotian: That's [Voice Transmission]. It's a great communication spell. The best, even.

Adam knew about voice transmission from the cultivation web novels he'd seen Mei read. She'd tried to get him to read a few of them, but he could never get into them. He preferred books on mythology and ancient history, which were often one and the same.

He imagined his voice turning into a small thread and weaving its way into the dragon's ear as he cast [Voice Transmission].

“What do you mean?”

The dragon glanced over its shoulder, a surprised look crossing its face.

“This Sea Monkey possesses an innate ability called [Treasure Stomach]. It can store any number and any kind of items inside the special treasure vault within its stomach, living or otherwise. If it dies, all the treasures disappear along with it. That means your girlfriend dies with him. So we must subdue him.”

Adam's expression tightened.

“What if Mei breaks free on her own?”

“Not possible,” the sea dragon answered instantly. “The treasure vault is guarded by one hundred Treasure Guardians, all of which possess strength on par with or greater than the Sea Monkey itself. To escape, one must defeat every last guardian.”

“You don't know Mei. One hundred enemies is just a warm-up for her.”

Adam chuckled before glancing toward the struggling Sea Monkey.

“But alright. I'll assist you.”

Without moving any closer, Adam reached out a hand and cast a spell through the surrounding water.

“[Vacuum Shield]!”

A large, semi-transparent, bubble-shaped shield materialized around the Sea Monkey. The moment it formed, it began sucking away everything within its confines, stripping the water, oxygen, and even the light from around the monster.

For a moment, the Sea Monkey was suspended in a bubble of absolute emptiness.

It was like being thrown into deep space, except without the freezing temperatures or zero gravity.

BlueDye: Finally using magic the right way.

SeeCuteGirl-iClick: Oh, I just noticed I can switch to Mei's POV.

GodGamerKyle: Hm? Where?

SeeCuteGirl-iClick: Bottom right. There's a button.

GodGamerKyle: Oh, I see it! Switching now.

HottieHunter: I'm staying here to support my hus... er, I mean, Mei's husband. Can she see these messages too?

GodGamerKyle: Yeah. She said, “You're on thin ice, HottieHunter.”

— — —

Mei clicked her tongue in annoyance as her finger hovered over the perma-ban button on a certain chatter's account. In the end, however, she pulled her finger away. She couldn't exactly go around banning everyone who found her boyfriend hot, could she? If she did, she wouldn't have any viewers left.

“My greatest curse is that my boyfriend is just too sexy. Even men fall in love with him, let alone women.” Mei sighed dramatically.

Immediately afterward, she fired her newly coined Blundervolver into the chest of a large fish-monkey creature dressed as a British guardsman. It was even wearing the long hat thingy.

The spell she cast was [Grapeshot], and it peppered the fish-monkey with a barrage of large holes. Unfortunately, the Legendary-class creature was far too powerful to be taken down in a single blow.

The Blundervolver's chambers cycled as she fired another [Grapeshot]. The revolver-style cylinder was entirely cosmetic, as were all of her weapon's functions, including the recoil. At least until she got some physical ammunition, her guns were essentially glorified magic wands.

Not that she would ever admit that out loud. Doing so would only give Adam the satisfaction of saying, “I knew it! You are a mage!”

“Oh, I should make the grapeshot explode, shouldn't I, Chat?”

The chatters watching her POV immediately agreed.

“[Explosive Grapeshot]!”

A scattering of ball-shaped magic bullets shot from the wide, bell-shaped muzzle of her pistol and blasted the Treasure Guardian to smithereens.

Xplosives-R-Gud-4-Ur-Health: :PeepoBOOM:https://cdn.betterttv.net/emote/5f4648d3afb6965d6e7ca290/1x.webp

The strange, treasure-vault-like space around her reverberated with the sound of countless explosions going off at once.

The place was like a massive maze of corridors and interconnected rooms. Every so often, Mei would stumble across a room containing some kind of treasure. Those rooms were often guarded by multiple powerful Treasure Guardians, making them considerably more difficult to loot.

The treasures themselves, however, varied wildly.

For instance, in one room, she found a grand display with a pedestal in the center holding a pair of underwear.

Male underwear.

The white kind.

Only... these ones weren't so white anymore.

Mei didn't stick around in that room for very long.

Less than a second, actually.

She immediately turned around and left.

Another room, thankfully, contained something much more interesting. Resting on a pedestal was a legendary spear called Gea Bulg.

Its effect was quite horrifying. Every time the spear stabbed someone, it split into hundreds of razor-sharp barbs, turning a single wound into hundreds.

Mei took it.

Not that she'd ever use it. But you never knew when something might come in handy.

Besides, it was loot.

And loot couldn't be ignored.

Unless it was a pair of soiled underwear.

Those could be ignored.

“How's the fight going outside?” Mei asked the chat.

SeeCuteGirl-iClick: Mei wants to know how the fight out there is going.

HottieHunter: Adam is beating the snot out of the ugly fish-monkey thing, and the sea dragon is helping. But the sea monkey is threatening suicide if they don't let it go...

Mei's expression turned slightly more serious.

Frogman: Every time Mei beats a Treasure Guardian, the sea monkey pukes blood and gets a bit weaker. It's clearly growing desperate.

“So I should speed up?”

GodGamerKyle: Should she speed up?

SweetSarah (mod): Adam says, “Yes. Preferably before I run out of mana.”

“Tell him to use the Mana Battery. It isn't like it will explode.”

Mei paused.

“Well... okay, it might explode. But it probably won't.”

— — —

“That's easy for her to say. She isn't the one with a portable nuke in her pocket,” Adam said. “But fine. I'm immortal anyway. I think?”

The Sea Monkey clearly understood that Adam's equipment came with some serious drawbacks, so it deliberately kept the fight at close range. That allowed it to trigger the abilities of his cursed gloves over and over again.

The strategy was working, at least to some extent.

The Sea Monkey was battered, bruised, and bleeding, but Adam was suffering from a growing collection of semi-useful buffs and entirely useless cursed debuffs.

For instance, one buff had somehow lengthened his left pinky until it was the same length as his right pointer finger. Adam wasn't entirely sure how that was classified as a buff, but apparently the System had its own definition of the word.

He did, however, discover something important. The buffs and debuffs only affected him and his enemies. Now that the Sea Dragon was technically on his side, it was completely spared from their effects.

“Just spit out what belongs to us, and we'll let you go,” Adam said as he repeatedly punched the Sea Monkey in the head.

“N-neber!” the Sea Monkey sputtered through its broken teeth. “I'd raber die!”

Instant Regeneration Buff Applied to Sea Monkey. All minor, non-life-threatening wounds are immediately and continuously healed.

Soul Damage Buff Applied to Adam Colt. Attacks are imbued with a soul-damaging element.

The Sea Monkey's wounds completely healed in the blink of an eye. However, every time Adam's fist connected with its face, it released another bloodcurdling scream.

Adam unfortunately knew exactly how much it hurt.

He had experienced soul damage not long ago, and as far as he was concerned, it was the worst pain imaginable. Physical wounds could be healed. Even broken bones and mangled flesh could be repaired with the right skills or magic.

Soul damage was different.

It hurt somewhere deeper.

Even as the wounds on the Sea Monkey's body healed, the damage being inflicted upon its soul continued to accumulate. Eventually, the creature began to grow listless. Its eyes rolled back into its skull, and its body went completely limp.

“Wait! You'll kill it if you keep attacking. Its soul will be obliterated,” the Sea Dragon warned.

The massive dragon had wrapped itself around the Sea Monkey like an enormous boa constrictor, keeping its movements restricted and eliminating any chance of it fleeing again while Adam handled the beating.

Adam stopped punching and looked toward the dragon.

“What do we do now?”

The Sea Dragon could only slowly shake its head.

“Nothing. Just hope your girlfriend is as strong as you claim and that she can fight her way out on her own.”

“Can't I go inside?”

Adam pointed toward the Sea Monkey's open mouth, which was dripping with a mixture of blood and drool.

“No. You would only end up inside its actual stomach. Without its consent, nothing can enter its Treasure Stomach.”

Adam frowned.

“So I'm basically useless until Mei gets out?”

The Sea Dragon gave him a look that seemed to say pretty much.

xYzXyZ (mod): Don't worry, Mei's got this. So she says.

— — —

“Hey! What's that 'so she says' supposed to mean?” Mei demanded, glancing briefly at the chat while dodging a water arrow spat out by one of the British guardsman-cosplaying fish-monkeys.

She sounded confident, but the bleeding cuts covering her body told a different story.

The treasure room she had discovered was guarded by dozens of Treasure Guardians, all of them surrounding a pedestal that held an ocean-blue pearl.

She had tried casting healing spells on herself, but because her class was focused on combat, her healing abilities were only half as effective as Adam's, if not worse. At best, they could patch up a few minor cuts and stop some bleeding. Her more serious injuries remained basically untouched.

Her left side had taken the worst damage. A particularly nasty hole torn through her flesh poured out what looked like a river's worth of blood. It had been caused by a water arrow she chose to take head-on when dozens of Treasure Guardians attacked her at the same time.

To conserve mana, she had been forced to rely on the Bloodletting Dagger and her innate ability to fire zero-mana-cost bullets from her fingertips.

Now that she understood the risks, she was far more careful with her abilities. She only used them when absolutely necessary, firing occasionally to prevent herself from being overwhelmed.

More water arrows shot toward her.

Some she sliced apart with her dagger, while the rest she dodged as best she could.

Then...

Ding!

A metallic sound, like a pin dropping onto stone, echoed beneath her feet.

Mei glanced down and frowned.

A piece of her dagger had broken off and was lying on the floor.

She immediately remembered the Bloodletting Dagger's biggest flaw.

Its durability was terrible.

“Damn, maybe this isn't as easy as I thought...”

She quickly glanced at the chat.

“Do not tell Adam I said that!”

As she spoke, she raised her hand and formed her fingers into the shape of a pistol, aiming at one of the Treasure Guardians.

“[Finger Blast]!”

She had modified the spell by adding an explosive aspect. The moment the attack punched into the fish-monkey's chest, it detonated from within, spraying steaming blood outward as the creature was thrown backward.

The Treasure Guardian stumbled behind the dozen others surrounding it, its wounds already beginning to heal.

“Twenty-something against one isn't fair, you know?”

The mobs completely ignored her complaint and continued launching water-based spells.

“Hey, chat, how many have I killed?”

GodGamerKyle: 69

SeeCuteGirl-iClick: 41

Vytr26: 41

xYzXyZ (mod): 41

OffBrandWiki: 42... I think? 🤔

Somebody: 420

Someone: 42069

“So forty-one.”

Mei glanced around at the remaining Treasure Guardians before looking down at her bleeding side.

“And there's one hundred?”

She cracked her knuckles.

“Okay. Seems doable.”