Chapter 102: The World of Sacrifices

In-between Mountain. Unnamed Cave Route.

A spider scuttled across the ceiling, scouting for ambushing creepy-crawlies…

Below, the spider’s summoner followed the scout while playing with a skeleton monster card.

By his side, his samurai buddy dumbly followed along, but every three steps, the man can’t help but glance back.

“What’s wrong, Ken-kun?”

“Aniki…” Ken fiddled with his sword nervously, but didn’t hide what was bothering him. “Are we really leaving like this? That Iruka hasn’t come back yet.”

Sasuke shot his idiotic friend a bored look.

“No need to wait. Since he’s not back after so long, he most likely met an expert or betrayed us.”

“Ah? Is that so?” Ken tried to put his brain to work, but can’t figure out how his aniki came to that conclusion. Anyhow, aniki can’t be wrong! Just follow aniki’s lead!

“Then, what now, aniki? Just tell me where to go and who to cut down!”

Sasuke patted his aggressive weapon’s shoulder to rein him in.

“Now, now, Ken-kun, how many times do I have to tell you? A man must not act recklessly if you want to achieve great things.”

“Oh, oh!”

“As for what we’ll do now…” Sasuke thought about it carefully.

His Duel Monster summoning ability gave him quite the upper hand during this early-game. However, though re-usable after a cooldown, each monster card has a limit of three copies.

Currently, there’s only nine cards in his deck: 3 spiders, 3 skeleton soldiers, 2 skeleton archers, and a copy of that Death Angel that roams the night!

Just those were enough to make most of the survivors here wet their pants!

If the wind-swordsman power of this idiotic friend of his were included, their combat power was enough to dominate multiple bases!

Why act so cautiously then?

Because what truly made him wary were the various special potions sold by the mysterious wandering trader that shows up once a week!

Those extremely-high-value, grayed-out entries every week really spooked him! Especially that immortality potion he saw on the list earlier this morning… it turned his worldview upside down!

How was it possible for somebody to afford that this early on?! What a joke!

Even sacrificing everyone to that inhuman farmer’s wheat exploit can’t earn them enough to buy that!

Yet the truth hit hard. That godly potion got sold, and quite obviously, the buyer can’t be from their own base.

Then it could only be from the other base.

And that’s why he stayed so cautious and didn’t even dare rush out to raid that outpost!

Instead, he opt to send out a scout to test the water, and just as he expected, the oblivious sacrifice didn’t come back.

That confirmed things. There’s a big shot at the other base. Even if that big shot was out, there must be experts left to guard the base.

Otherwise, that Iruka’s enchanted iron sword was enough to turn most players into mincemeat.

Alas… the probe ended with that investment going down the drain. It was quite the pity, but since that investment only costed a single sacrifice to buy, it wasn’t a big deal.

The big deal was the unknown powerhouse that might have ideas about their base!

How to handle this? It’s a waste to send out more scouts and too risky to go together. What if they all capsize in the gutter?

His life in this isekai journey just began and he didn’t want to throw it away for nothing.

If only there was a way to take down that other base or break them up without having to lift a finger…

Once Sasuke’s train of thought reached this point, a sudden idea sparked a sinister smile on his face.

Right… it’s hard to crack a tough nut from the outside, but history has taught us that even a great empire could fall due to infighting!

And what better way to incite such chaos than the renowned beauty trap?

Anyhow, those playthings were starting to get boring. Since that enslaver back at the base has their lives under control, then they might as well send one or two over to stir things up!

“Heheh. Ken-kun, let’s head back. Time to prepare a great apology gift for that megane-kun’s team.”

Meanwhile, back outside...

Unaware that somebody had mistaken him to be some evildoer protagonist and was ready to send a beauty trap his way, the fisherman was happily fishing away over the tomb of the poor sacrifice.

Once a player dies, except bound items, everything else in the player’s inventory was up for grabs!

A fishing rod happens to have the ability to reel in dropped items…

Since that was the case…

After Yu Zhiye gave it a few minutes to ensure guaranteed suffocation, he started fishing for loot!

His hopes weren’t dashed because it wasn’t long before he fished out a soaked sword!

[Enchanted Iron Sword (Blue)]

Sharpness I

Looting II

One enhances attack damage, the other increases the quantity of drops and boosts the chance of rare loot!

“Cool, cool. Not bad at all! Even if I don’t use this, I can sell it to Jack for resources!”

Don’t underestimate the value of this basic sword. In the village, such a weapon costs at least 7 and up to 21 emeralds!

Of course, with only two enchantments, this secondhand good, with partially depleted durability, could only sit at the lower bounds in value.

Still, fetching 4 or 5 emeralds for it should be no issue!

Of course, that’s only if he’s willing to sell. Such a weapon was like a trump card, and he didn’t mind keeping it for self defense if those two can’t bring back anything good.

After putting the sword in his inventory, Yu Zhiye recast his fishing line and got ready to reel in the other two lines.

Like they say: good news came in pairs. Or in this case, triplets.

Meeting his expectations, there was a nibble on another line very soon and the bobber got swallowed whole by the quicksand, yet what happened next was something very unexpected...

This time, the fishing rod didn’t sit there peacefully...

Instead, the line went taut in an instant and the rod stabbed in the sand lurched forward as if it wanted to run away!!!

“Fack!” Yu Zhiye quickly sprung up and dived for the rod, barely catching it!

Immediately, he felt an intense tug that wanted to drag him into the quicksand!

His feet dug into the sand and set off a wave like a surfer, but that wasn’t enough to stop the momentum!

Stunned on her knees not far away, Chae Yoona reacted just as quick and hugged his waist from behind to barely anchor him in place!

“Oppa! What’s going on?!!”

“A big catch! That’s what!”