Thick wafts of nether assaulted Liam's nose and he felt as if he had just drunk a cup full of good coffee. He felt invigorated.
Just like the others, he also smelled the pungent scent in the air but the warm feeling of the nether nullified that effect.
"We are here?" Liam grinned looking around. The presence of nether was a good sign. This means that the quest was already in his favor.
There were not many places in Xion with rich nether energy so he could only have this advantage in selective areas.
He quickly opened his status screen to take a look at the quest.
[Kingdom Quest - Investigate the village Jekuja and find out why the inhabitants are falling sick.]
[Reward - Permission from the King to set up your estate]
"So this is the village?" Liam opened the map and saw that they were actually a few villages away from the Jekuja village.
They had not actually reached their exact location.
However, whatever sickness or spell was affecting the Jekuja village, it was clearly also affecting this village and spread until here.
"Is this the quest spot?" Mia asked.
"Yes. It looks like it." Liam replied while simultaneously tapping his fingers on the air in front of him.
He took out a bunch of potions and other consumables and handed them over to everyone.
The others as well prepared themselves as Liam had already warned them about the difficulty of the quest.
A kingdom quest was not to be taken lightly! This was a lesson he had learned the hard way!
Taking a couple of minutes, the group cautiously moved into the small village.
It was probably once full of life, with people living in it but now it just reeked of death and sickness.
"Ewww! What is this?" Mei Mei was very close to jumping on Liam's back and getting a piggyback ride.
The entire place was crawling with cockroaches and worms!
"Chicken, Rabbit, Come out. Take care of the critters."
Liam let the two small undeads handle these tiny nuisances and he continued looking around.
Almost immediately, the two spectral beasts got down to business. They were silent this time as Liam asked them not to make noise.
Yet, they were extremely energetic running around everywhere as if they were high on smack.
"Are they stronger in the presence of nether?" Liam observed the two, before reaching one of the small houses and checking inside.
Others as well followed his lead and paired up with their neighbor to check the group of houses clustered on the small mud street.
But surprisingly when everyone looked around, all the houses were completely empty with not even corpses of the villagers left behind.
"What happened? Wasn't the quest talking about sickness? Why is everyone here missing?" Mia asked Liam. Something did not feel right.
The group started rummaging through the contents of the houses looking for some clue when Liam remembered something similar that he had seen in the recent past.
This village looked very similar to the village where he had come across the Dark Mages.
Besides, the first part of this quest also involved the small black beads that he had found in that place.
Perhaps here also some cult just like that was involved? Were they once again sacrificing humans or doing something of that sort for gaining power?
Liam pondered as his eyes now specifically searched for the presence of any black bead when suddenly something crept up under his feet.
He immediately moved several paces back in alarm.
For a second, he thought that he was mistakenly freaked out by his own shadow but he was wrong.
At the spot where he was standing just a moment ago, a circular symbol appeared. It looked like it was made in black ink and the pattern was unrecognizable.
Even with the new languages, he had picked up in the nether realm, he still couldn't understand this one, but he could sense strange energy seeping out from within it.
"What is this?" While Liam was still looking, suddenly the symbol started glowing. Black wisps of nether slowly coiled around the symbol.
Observing this, Liam curiously commanded them to come to him.
They also responded to him, quickly dispersed and flew towards him rather than the symbol.
But that did not stop the occurrence for long. The next second, black wisps of nether once again started coiling around the symbol.
Liam was about to summon them again when he realized that there were numerous houses around him and what if the same thing was happening everywhere.
He quickly rushed out and ran into the adjacent house where Shin Soo was exploring and saw that he hadn't even noticed the pattern on the ground.
He was standing right on top of it without being aware of it. He couldn't see it?
Liam still did not know what this symbol was but he did not have a good feeling about it.
"Get out of the houses." He quickly stepped out and loudly shouted in the empty street, attracting everyone's attention.
Liam did not have to say twice.
Hearing his voice thundering outside, everyone understood that there was probably some sort of danger inside the houses and rushed out.
But unexpectedly, as soon as they stepped out, they noticed that the previously empty and deserted street was now covered by a thick black mist obscuring their view.
It had happened too fast and even Liam also noticed it only after coming out. "This is nether..? No… this is something else."
Mia and Alex as well cast a couple of dispels to see if they can remove this mist but it was spreading too fast covering everybody.
And before anyone could make sense of what was happening, suddenly a rain of arrows started pouring, coming out of nowhere.
Under the cover of this thick black mist, endless arrows aimed for the group zoomed from all directions.
They were also not weak and dealt a huge chunk of damage when they hit someone.
"Who is attacking us? I can't see."
"What the hell?"