"Oui?! What is youze doing here?" A tall, pale green-skinned orc asked Maddox since he had bumped into him rudely in the middle of the tunnel.
"Yeah, w-hat's about it?" Maddox replies to the best of his abilities but being a teenager tends to have some unfortunate voice cracks, so that failed
"Huh?" Those were the last words the orc said before his brain exploded within his thick skull, leaving him more brain-dead than before
His brainless body stays standing for a moment before eventually slumping down to the floor with no sound.
Maddox covers the body with his miasma to hide it for a while, as he may bring it back for a more scientific way of researching what his miasma is capable of to the body.
Continuing further into the underground, Maddox looked at his first goals in mind, which included mapping out the topography of the nest so that way he could learn a generalized layout of these nests to have an easier time when he eventually takes them out by himself in the future.
His second goal, though, was to find Katherine since he felt like he owed it to her to at least try and help her.
She was kind enough to set up the return party for him once out of the hospital, and the pdf, although only containing the basics, had provided him with the doorway into essence use which one day he would be able to unlock its secrets.
So walking around, Maddox could see this tunnel leading into the darkness further in; however, this was an excellent time to practice more stuff with his miasma.
Sending out his miasma out from his body Maddox could have a sort of echolocation going as his miasma would launch out and then return to him once it hit something.
Since he could not modify his body since it that might lead to his miasma transforming him, he could at least do this instead of having night vision plus, this was more reliable than sight since it could give him a 360 view of everything around him.
Though it did feel weird as he was getting a sort of 3D view of his surroundings blasted into his head which was slightly uncomfortable, to say the least, since it was his first time using it while moving around.
Navigating the underground, Maddox stayed hidden in the shadows and his illusions as he mapped out every room within the lair while avoiding detection from the infected within this hell hole.
From what Maddoc had gathered, most of the infected stayed in three significant rooms of interest.
First was the eating area, where unfortunately for Maddox, he could see where the dead victims were mutilated and eaten raw by the infected in a sort of feeding pile from where body parts were placed in a pile for anyone to grab and eat.
Maddox was pretty confident that most infected were either nose-blind or had no sense of smell since he was sure that the smell of rotting flesh alone almost caused him to throw up whatever he had in his stomach and make sure he did not eat anything for the next week.
The second important room was the sleeping area, where a good part of the infected lay down on the ground and used pitiful excuses of blankets to keep warm on the cold earth.
Now, this room was not a set sleeping room as Maddox had seen that most of the infected here chose to sleep anywhere they felt like it, but this room was where a good majority of them slept.
Then there was the other gut-wrenching room... the breeding room.
Maddox, unfortunately, had to steel himself before entering the room since he knew that was the most likely place that Katherine would have to be here.
Still, entering the breeding room made Maddox regret joining the nest since this is where all the females that the infected had caught were usually kept so that more infected were born, thus increasing the nest size.
A typical female would be able to give birth to one or two low-ranked goblins every week for a random time before either dying of the shock of the delivery or because her reproductive system was destroyed and could no longer be used.
After that, the female would become food for the creatures she birthed.
Now that was typically a non-essence user female.
Essence users usually lasted a minimum of a month, producing mid-tier infected slightly older, with some being older than an infant more often than not, meaning more powerful cannon fodder within a shorter period.
This is why most female essence users were generally taken alive since nests needed them to gain more breeding women.
As for the conditions of the women... well, to say it was pleasant would be an understatement of the century which was what Maddox had to see.
Females were chained up along the walls in various positions, with no one left open or room to rest, as most of the infected in the room used every opening of theirs.
It was simple to conclude that infected were generally horny bastards that would swarm women if given a chance.
Still, though the smell of sex lingered heavily in the air, the infected were lost in their thrusting and grunting to take notice of anything else happening around them.
Maddox was sure that if he were to kill one of them that another infected would push away the body and take his place in thrusting into the poor woman being used.
Maddox felt unclean just gazing into the room, but he had to find Katherine at the very least.
So stepping inside the room, Maddox felt sick to the core with his miasma acting up even more so than before, which unfortunately was not helping in this situation as he was trying his best to ignore the sights, sounds, and smells surrounding him, like the woman who just gave birth to three low tier goblin infants who were taken away by an orc who was finished with his time in the room.
Seeing this depraved sex hole in front of him, Maddox felt broken at this sight as he was there right in front of them, and he could help them, but his reasoning was the only thing keeping him from doing so.
Even if he went on a rampage, Maddox was sure he could, at the very best, kill half of the infected within the nest.
The most significant factor limiting this would be his miasma since he did not have enough reserves to utilize in destroying infected.
Either he concentrated solely on passive inhalation of his miasma of the infected or actively directed it to reach their brains. Maddox could not kill them all since he could only do so much.
No matter how much essence or miasma was in his body, Maddox was human and could not achieve the impossible.
While he had ambitions of killing infected and these so-called spirits ultimately so that he could make life better for everyone, Maddox was forced to be painfully aware of his human flaws.
Unfortunatly he would be forced to live with his humanity since embracing essence would mean death, and miasma would lead to him turning into the enemy, so... he would have to face the infected as a human.
With this painful truth before him, Maddox could only close his eyes and allow his heart to bleed as he tried to find Katherine within the room of lust where dead-eyed women stared at the ceiling, having accepted their fates as nothing more than breeding tools for the infected.
"Fucking bitch!!" An orc cries out, drawing Maddox's attention to the noise since most of the room held no sane words
A stark naked orc was standing up, holding onto his groin in pain as he hobbled off to the side while muttering to themselves.
The woman he had been using had taken it upon herself to attack him apparently as the woman looked in better condition than the others surrounding her as she had the fire of defiance in her eyes.
Though it was not Katherine, Maddox continued and left her to her fate, as she would eventually be rescued when he returned.
The breeding room was the largest room out of them all, as most of the time, the women caught would be brought down there to add to the nest's numbers.
It was an endless cycle that would only be stopped once the Coalition sent out a cleaning squad to attempt to wipe them out though more often than not, they would cut down a few of the numbers in the nest before they would bring them back up from the essence users that arrived at their doorstep.
Though there was one thing that had been bugging Maddox since he entered the nest, and that was where the leader was.
Thinking of an infected nest like an RPG dungeon, there were the cannon fodder monsters that gave way to the boss, which meant that the boss had to be somewhere.
Thinking about it would mean they would be someplace off themselves to live away from their subordinates which makes sense.
So after checking the faces of all the women in the breeding room and seeing Katherine was not among the unfortunate women who were being used with no breaks, Maddox began to search for the boss's lair.
Getting a breath of 'fresh' air allowed Maddox to recenter himself and mentally scrub his mind of the horrors of the infected, but deep down, he knew that he would have to face these horrors again when it came to the infected. If he wanted to play in the wicked world of the infected, he would have to grow up mentally and learn how to cope with it in any way he could.
Searching for the boss's area proved to be easier than expected since there were fewer common infected around and guards standing in an opening leading into a room of the nest which they were guarding armed with shotguns in their arms and lazily holding.
Slipping past them was easy since he was invisible, and they were also lazy with their job so that Maddox could get into this place quickly.
What surprised Maddox was that the once dirt floor turned into clean white tile being illuminated by light fixtures, which he cursed since he had to spend some time cleaning his shoes of dirt to prevent himself from being given away by his footprints on the tile.
Once satisfied that he would not give himself away, he moves on to see what is in this area.
Most of the section had been modified to look more like a house's interior as the dirt floor and ceiling were replaced with tile floors and wood ceilings.
This was unsettling as this boss of the nest seemed to have connections to some people to pull this job off and seemed to like showing off their power.
If Maddox remembered, he could say for a fact that the boss of this place was a high-tier infected who was that skeleton-looking infected, which worried him slightly since he was unsure of its capabilities or standing.
Still, Maddox was at least confident enough not to be caught by him, and if not, then he was at least confident enough in his capabilities to escape the skeleton with minimal injuries.
Walking down the tile corridor, Maddox is met with a wooden door at which he raises an eyebrow as it seems this skeleton was attempting to make his home seem like a natural home rather than someplace underground.
Looking around, Maddox tries to see if any miasma is being used in the area around him for any reason, like an illusion since that is entirely possible.
Nothing shows up, leaving Maddox slightly perplexed, but that feeling is wholly changed into panic as the door swings outward, revealing the skeleton-infected standing there wearing a black cloak and staring dead set into Maddox's eyes with his own red glowing eyes.
"Well, I am pleasantly surprised to see a visitor," Skeleton says in its hoarse voice