Chapter 45: 45 After the Demon Tide

What now?

Lin Jun was truly stunned.

No matter how he thought about it, this dragon-person before him must be the ancient dragon's daughter, right?

That's right, a daughter; Lin Jun had just checked.

The dragon-person was covered in thick, large scales, and its facial features looked both masculine and feminine, so he hadn't actually been able to tell before.

But these were all trivial details.

The problem now was that the parasitic fusion couldn't be cancelled...

Her current state was much like Dylan's; she had been parasitized, but was still one final step away from becoming a puppet.

He didn't know if sending it back through the other rift would still be in time.

"I've only parasitized half of your cub; now I'm sending it back to you!"

Haha... Lin Jun could even imagine the scene where his true body was sliced into four pieces by dragon claws, then taken separately to be burned, frozen, crushed, and melted.

By the way, where is the great dragon's true body?

The Deep Zone?

Probably not; although there was no corresponding intelligence, the demons emerging from the rift differed far too much in type from those of the Amethyst Dungeon.

It was likely some other gathering place for demons, or even another dungeon?

He would ask Dylan about it later.

If it was another dungeon, he didn't know whether that ancient dragon had any way to get out.

Just now, although the electric arcs appearing in the dungeon had repelled the dragon claws, the ancient dragon had only suffered minor injuries and did not seem to have exerted its full strength.

If it truly had a way to break through the dungeon's rules, then even if he hid on the fifth floor, he probably wouldn't be safe.

Regardless, being targeted by an ancient dragon was simply too terrifying.

Fortunately, things had not yet reached an irretrievable point.

Right now it was only parasitism; she hadn't been turned into a puppet yet!

Moreover, the ancient dragon probably still didn't know the specific situation of its cub.

There was still room for recovery!

There was... right?

—

"Waaah... what a tragic scene..."

Dylan, who had just returned to Silent Wind Town, was somewhat frightened by the sight before him.

Charred roof beams and crumbling walls leaned against each other, while broken load-bearing pillars slanted into neighboring rooftops.

The once-bustling streets and alleys had turned into a continuous belt of rubble, and even the adventurers' guild hall, built of granite, now left only a few pillars jutting awkwardly toward the sky.

More than half of the small town had been destroyed.

Walking on the street, the soles of his boots transmitted an unpleasant sticky sensation; the ground was covered with congealed blood, impossible to distinguish whether it came from demons or humans.

There were also corpses everywhere, along with people currently processing the corpses.

After the demon tide crisis, the United Kingdom and the Adventurers' Guild jointly issued a reconstruction mission.

Most of the people here had come after accepting the mission.

In the center of the town, a massive three-headed snake corpse, which had lost its head, lay horizontally across the middle of the road.

Surrounding the snake corpse was a ring of venom; no one present dared to handle it.

He had heard that the head of the Relic Association had arrived alone ahead of schedule.

He had killed most of the demons that had already broken into the town and caused widespread destruction, preventing the disaster from expanding further.

But even so, many town residents had still suffered casualties, and the adventurers had fared even worse.

He had heard that among the adventurers who had accepted the gate-guarding mission, fewer than one-fifth had survived.

Fortunately, he had listened to the boss's orders, had not stayed here, but had gone to other places to undertake the mission of investigating the situation of the duke's daughter.

Otherwise, with his meager strength, he was afraid he would have been one of the victims.

It was foreseeable that even after Silent Wind Town was rebuilt, it would be countless times more desolate than before.

Continuing forward, a relatively intact building appeared before Dylan, making him exclaim in admiration.

"The Rotten Willow Tavern actually survived!"

Although it wasn't completely unscathed; one wall of the tavern had collapsed, and there were obvious burn marks around it.

But compared to the ruins next door, it was already nothing short of a miracle!

Dylan entered the tavern, intending to check the internal damage, but unexpectedly found someone already inside.

"Cole! You actually ran back so quickly?"

The tavern owner glanced up at the newcomer, saw it was Dylan, snorted disdainfully, and then continued to focus on repairing the broken-legged chair in his hands.

"You don't mean you didn't run at all, do you?"

Only then did Cole reply: "At my age, what's there to run? If the tavern is gone, you might as well just kill me."

Dylan admiredly gave him a thumbs-up; he was a tough guy.

His luck was also heaven-defying; he actually managed to survive this.

"But with the town turned into such a state, how much business can you possibly have?"

Cole acted as if he didn't care, rubbing his wine-lees nose:

"As long as the Amethyst Dungeon still exists, this place will sooner or later return to normal."

"So can we descend into the dungeon now?"

"What are you thinking? Of course not; the announcement already stated that the dungeon must remain sealed for another half month."

Dilan smacked his lips; did that mean he still had to stay up there for another half month?

Other aspects didn't matter much; the key was that money was running low.

This trip, he had brought exactly five gold coins in total; who would have thought he'd be out here for so long.

Drinking mana potions every day, his money was almost gone.

He missed the mycelium coffin boards of the dungeon...

Dilan approached the counter, picked up a wooden cup on his own, and ladled some wine from the wooden barrel underneath.

"Around here now, there aren't any profitable jobs, are there?"

"Profitable? Aren't those guys outside already doing them?"

"Ahh—" The cheap wine slid down his throat; the over-fermented sourness made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in pleasure. "Cole, you know I'm not talking about those menial jobs."

Cole stopped his carpentry work, turned around, and sized Dilan up and down.

"What? Short on cash?"

Dilan nodded: "Tight on funds, urgently short."

"Then..." Cole glanced around; no one else had entered the tavern besides them. "There really is something you can help me with."

The wooden trapdoor emitted a sour creak as Dilan followed Cole into the wine cellar.

The two arrived before a large wine barrel.

"Help me transport these to Fish Sail Port; I'll give you three gold coins as a deposit, and once the job is done, the contact person will give you seven more. How about that?"

Saying this, Cole lifted the barrel lid; inside were entirely monster materials and weapons and equipment, most still stained with dark red blood.

These things gathered together, the foul smell made Dilan lean back slightly: "Old man, you're even profiting from the dead?"

Clearly, these were all stripped from dead monsters and adventurers; a blatant violation of the rules.

"Just say whether you'll do it or not!"

"I'll do it, why wouldn't I!"

If he didn't earn money soon, he would die from mana depletion.

"But there's so much; I can't carry it all out alone. You wouldn't arrange a carriage for me to take the main road, would you?"

Cole resealed the wine barrel.

"Of course not the main road. Come back tonight; four people, one bag each, take the western forest."

"Isn't there still a chance of encountering stray monsters?"

"Otherwise, why would I give you ten gold coins? To subsidize you?"

Dilan nodded; the tavern owner made sense.

Stepping out of the Rotten Willow Tavern, Dilan already had three extra gold coins in his pocket; he needed to buy a bottle of mana potion for the road first.

What Dilan didn't know was that a human-skin book emitting a faint mana fluctuation was also mixed among the stolen goods Cole had shown him.

Careful readers must have noticed long ago: the two storylines are not synchronized; for narrative needs, the surface timeline needs to lag slightly behind; they will synchronize later.

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(End of this chapter)