Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 45- Stalker

Thirty minutes continued on like that.

In those thirty minutes the human eyed goblin watched us. Although, I want to be vain and think it was purely staring at me, I'm not the protagonist in this world. To assume that everything or everyone was thinking about me is simply too much. I lived my previous subpar life dodging the doctors successfully and noticing how little the world cared for me as I felt sorry for myself.

No, but at least in this world I already have official reviews from my original world that this world's protagonist is shit. The uplifting truth.

It's comforting to know that.

So, the human eyed goblin was probably just watching us destroy the core by digesting it. Feasible as it was, could the human eyed goblin not be curious about the process. It probably was something new in its eyes.

After said thirty minutes were up I stopped absorbing the energy from the core that was dissipating into the surrounding dungeon. The breakdown of the core gave us sufficient time to move out of the dungeon to the next.

The time it took for the dungeon to destroy itself due to the lack of a core, was visually apparent in the wilting surroundings.

What was previously a lush expanse of messy green grasslands, that allowed goblins to ambush their prey, had now become dried and blackened strings. The changing grass hurt as we passed through the dungeon. The strings whipping us as we jostled the air with our movements. Blackened strings that had tightened into rubber whips whose process of change beguiled me. Either way they chose to fight us by using the wind our movements caused.

The land had dried up and became infertile when I reached the wall with a word that had been carved into it. Moments before it was still invisible even in its carved state, with its style of font following the familiar pattern of dug soil that held the shape of the shovel it might have been dug out with.

The word glowed as we reached closer towards it, until it opened up to reveal a door. All done in a familiar greenish brown hue.

My pace slowed down to a jog as I reached closer to it, so did Felixes.

Passing through we entered a humid desert plain. From the Ogre and monster cows in the distance it became apparent that it was another dungeon.

The sand here was yellow. In fact the surroundings weren't that amazing. There was barely any energy in the air, but dungeons tended to be somewhat ordinary in this world. The leap of common sense didn't really apply to all the dungeons, worlds and abilities when you come into this world. No, the leap in common sense was definitely more applicable to the live streaming and increased learning/memory that everyone was born with in this world.

Looking at Felixe I incline my head in a certain direction. "We're going to just pass through this dungeon and take some time at the door to the next one. It will probably be boring for the next month, but given the core absorption speed we'll take less than a month on this and getting medicinal plants."

"Most dungeons are boring." Saying nothing else he took off for the direction I pointed out.

The distance widened between us as I gawked at him running. Disdainfully all I had left to say was, "He's sick right?" After that I began to chase after him.

...

A week has passed. A singular week! And we were done with the cores.

I previously thought it would take me a month alone. That I was hardworking etc.

I was wrong. I'm not only lazy, but my species completely sucks.

On the good side of things Felixe stopped looking at me like I was some pathetic dog he was taking out on a walk. I believe his word was cat since two days ago. But regardless, I had to sleep even if he didn't need to.

I woke up on the hard malnourished dungeon grounds once again. My back hurt and made me feel aged. To think I'm just sixteen years old.

The dungeon was slightly better this time. For one reason or another, the dungeon was a cave with brittle rocks that weren't too hard or sharp. It still felt a bit worse than sleeping on gravel, but beggars can't be choosers.

Lights in the cave came from a few plants on the side of the caves.

The dungeon was meant to have trolls in it, but the troll's were simply too lacking in quality. This was especially the case when we were around the incandescent lights. That didn't mean much since we came to take the lit up plants to eat raw and help our health.

This medicinal plant's name is Lit Joy. It was written on the walls of some ruin I entered with a diagram. The information showed it to be some kind of sinful drug. In actuality it wasn't a drug if you didn't burn it. The smoke of the plant becomes a kind of aphrodisiac and hypnotic drug. The smoke was noted as being a sinful drug due to it being misused. Usually it was used to train a person's resistance to aphrodisiacs, mind control, hypnosis, some lower grade poisons and sleeping drugs. But I'm going to use about 30% of what I harvest to improve my health by eating it raw. For the other 70% I'll be trying to find more information in ruins about how I can use it for training instead of simply using it as a drug for pleasure.

Thinking it through, a slight blush coloured my cheeks.

Felixe saw this and curled his eyes slightly, "What are you thinking about?"

The entertained voice caused me to jump slightly and smell the sweat on my body. It wasn't a bad heavy smell, but it took away the blush on my cheeks and brought me back to reality. "No. It's nothing. But do you know why he's still following us?"

Felixe tilted his head slightly. It might have otherwise been a charming action if his smile hadn't disappeared and if he had spoken it might have been reassuring to some degree. But he didn't.

In sync we both moved to look at a corner in the darkness where a human eyed goblin was eating a troll leg.

His skin had changed from the bright cartoonish green that reminded me of the cartoons I had watched when I was- well, I still do watch them. He followed us from the very first dungeon core we absorbed and when we made our way to find medicinal plants he stuck close to me. So I noticed his changes more clearly than I'd like to admit.

His eyes were no longer that old blue colour he had, but a colour that reminded me of the phrase green sea. I've never been or seen it, but it's human eyes seemed to show that. Speaking of eyes and human like, he was in a word human like. His eyes were now younger looking after always taking or expectantly looking at us to take our medicinal finds. He specifically looked more so at me than Felixe who always sent out his share of the plants whilst asking how much it would take to make a single pill or portion of medicine for himself.

The goblins' enlarged nose was no longer so pronounced that it showed off his species as clearly as before. But it wasn't quite human-like yet. His ears and mouth hadn't changed to become more humanlike, but became more 'wild'?

The mouth now had lips in a muddy brownish red colour, like a freshly killed corpse had left some reddened blood on his green skin. The inside of the mouth now had a full set of teeth, but they were all slightly dented spikes or triangles. He doesn't like me looking at his teeth, so I don't know much else.

Then there's the ears. More enlarged and robust than elven ears. The green pair had grown smaller and larger at the same time. It seemed less like a goblins ear and more like some hairless flimsy animalistic ears that were close to a goblins.

The goblins skin peels after eating some medicine like I do and reveals younger lighter green patches of skin beneath. His body has also changed slightly. As time passed it was less goblin like and more childlike without the pot belly. Although, the goblin always had clothes covering himself like a normal human would have, so I couldn't see much.

It was in this way that the stalker drew my attention and kindness.