The Corruption.
A purplish evil that acted like a plague to the world itself.
It was akin to a cancer of humans if you thought about it.
But nevertheless, people had to ask.
Why was the corruption (Besides the name) So bad?
Couldn't it just be solved by leaving the land contaminated by it alone?
Well there comes the problem.
The Corruption wasn't so simple.
Just like it's name, the biome, also called an evil biome, corrupts.
Any that step foot on the corruption eventually are corrupted by the purple miasma that was local to it and transform into monsters that only have instinct.
And that instinct could be narrowed down to three things, eat, destroy and spread.
In other words.
Work for the corruption and make the corruption eventually take over the world, by eradicating anything else.
However the good thing was that some unknown figure had been selling purification powder for a low price to fight against the Corrupted's attempts to convert the world.
---
'And I must say'
Slicing the neck of the Corrupted man and letting the black rift that followed do the rest by slicing the neck a second time.
I blocked a bow strike to the head.
Correct.
A bow strike.
'These guys really are just instinct left'
The Corrupted adventurer's party was currently fighting us and were doing nothing but melee attacks with their weapons.
There was no sign of co operation among them as they just struck with their weapons.
'Although it seems that although technique is gone' Dodging a sword that cracked the ground and the sword itself underneath it's weight.
'Their power is still there'
Bending over backwards to dodge the metal bow whistling through the air I thought 'No, isn't it much greater?'
Sword in hand, I attacked the outstretched hand that was holding the silver bow and sliced it off as I continued to fight the Corrupted.
And while doing so, a few doubts couldn't help but surface on my mind.
'Didn't I have a respawn point?'
Recalling the last time I slept on a bed was on the ship heading towards the sea I nodded.
'Actually scratch that'
Glancing at the Corrupted and spotting a flaw in it's movement's I weaved through the gas and stabbed through the monster's head.
Using the black trail to cut the rest of whatever was in the area.
'When that thing attacked I'm pretty sure that my bed was destroyed with it'
Weaving through the attacks and using the vine rune to trip up the enemies who were dead set n tearing me apart with their strengthened bodies.
"Whoops" Tripping over an upturned root in the middle of my thoughts, the enemies didn't miss the chance presented to them and attacked simultaneously.
Not that some rolling couldn't solve.
Rolling out of the danger and shooting several arrows with the infantry bow that got stronger when I was closer to my targets, unlike the marksman's bow that was the opposite.
'I really should invest in some armor when I'm done with this'
I had to many close calls to count that I'm pretty sure that I would fail soon.
Spinning one of the arrows in my hand around and piercing the mouth shut of some corrupted I looked at the Merchant.
They were holding up much better than i thought.
But that didn't mean they were doing good.
Sweat poured off of their face as they continued to fire the revolver at the crowd of Corrupted that were chasing them.
I still didn't know their gender but they were doing good for now.
Switching to the marksman's bow and firing an arrow, it pierced the head of a corrupted about to attack the man? Woman? with it's fists.
'They aren't someone who was specialized in combat however'
Seeing as how they were surprised at the unknown appearance of the enemy that had been felled by yours truly.
I quickly finished off the one guy remaining on me before going to help the wandering merchant.
And with our combined forces we quickly took down the rest of the corrupted.
However I still had one question that lingered in the back of my mind.
"Where the hell did the corrupted come from?"
Holding the head of a corrupted by it's thick black-purple hair I looked at it curiously as it's long unnatural tongue lolled around.
'I wonder how this happened in the first place actually.'
Ignoring the incredibly tired panting of my newfound comrade I secretly sucked all the blood into my inventory.
Before going to loot the corpses, the merchant stopped me.
"Hey... Who are you? I haven't heard of a Fighter as strong as you before"
Glancing at the merchant who had tiredly propped their body up and tried to cool down their flushed face.
Glancing at their fire arm I replied in kind as I touched the corpses before looting them instantly.
Although to the merchant, it just looked like I was storing the equipment that the monsters had into my space pocket.
Although they technically weren't wrong, I just took a bit more than the equipment.
"I could say the same to you, I haven't heard of a profession of wandering traders before"
Leaving behind the incredibly butchered corpse behind without batting an eye I continued to loot the corpses under the guidance of my fire head.
Glancing at my flaming head of unnaturally burning black flames, they answered my question.
"Well on the Continent of Aria it of course is rare as it's a more common practice in the Continent of Minaft or in the eastern peninsula's."
Glancing at them I wondered whether to ask for some information about the continent of Minaft as it seemed they were from that place.
Cross continent travel didn't seem like something easy to do, otherwise I would have seen more signs of refuges, as it seemed the war over there was rather...
Intense.
Images of chimeric beings composed of various beings surfaced in my mind and the ensuing fight with the mechanical robots formed of inanimate objects.
Now that I thought about it, it could be likened to a fight between the living and the non-living.
Ignoring my random thought I looked at the merchant and instead asked another question.
"And since you've revealed that you were a merchant, one that wandered at that, I haven't seen any signs of you having any goods at all"
Finishing my looting and pointing my blade at the merchant I asked with tangible suspicion in my voice.
"Are you really a merchant?"
Looking at me with dumbfounded big blue eyes the merchant chuckled to themselves as they rummaged their bag while keeping a hand up.
And when I waved my blade threateningly they replied.
"Wait! I'm just getting my proof out"
And if what they said was true, than hopefully the thing that looked suspiciously like a bomb wasn't going to suddenly explode.
But here's to hoping.
Taking out a strange device, the merchant looked at me with slight wariness that could be attributed to my fighting prowess.
But more so with the blade pointing directly at their face.
"Hey, what I'm going to do might be surprising"
Holding the item that looked like a round disk with a blue button on it they showed it to me.
"So you promise you won't be surprised and slice my head off with your sword right?"
"Well, if you keep dawdling, I feel like my sword might slip out of my hands and into your face so..."
Popping their mouth in affirmation they pressed the button.
And not gonna lie...
I was much more surprised than I thought I would be.