Tap! Tap! Tap!
Märchen, with his head lowered, wound his way through the twisting trail, surrounded by vibrant, circular fields of flowers.
Though his body felt heavy and tired, he was determined to keep pushing himself ahead. It was incredible how much stamina he had, especially when he could raise his head and shout a word back between rugged breaths.
"D–Dogshit!!"
As he shouted, six colossal figures loomed behind him, their forms blurred by the mist in the distance. He wondered if he had been deliberately transported to this place by some external force, making him appear as an intruder in the eyes of those figures.
However, this thought felt irrelevant; what good was it to ponder his status when he was already being chased by the massive beings that could affect him simply by their presence?
As Märchen continued running, breathing heavily, he spotted a vast field filled with a diverse array of flowers covering the highlands, dancing gently in the pale mist.
He eventually ran on the field of flowers, inadvertently trampling down any blooms he stepped on. However, with each step he took, it was as though the flowers had effortlessly reverted themselves into their serene state where they remained untouched, flawlessly unharmed without even the slightest wrinkles.
Märchen squinted ahead, sighting something emerging in the mist. At the far end of this colorful meadow stood a lofty, majestic palace, as if he was stepping into a fantasy tale.
Its large steeples stood proudly and attractively, with numerous towers and structures asymmetrically arranged themselves in an ordered manner, seemingly constructed by giants.
As he gazed in wonder at the looming towering palace, he suddenly sensed a loud, soundless roar reverberating through the air, piercing its way toward the deepest part of his subconscious.
This causes his mind to explode with intense hallucinations and emotions, melting all his senses away as he tumbles to the ground.
As he propped himself up with both of his hands, he felt something rushing through his esophagus, and he irreversibly expelled all of the contents inside his stomach out from his mouth, dropping whatever it was into the flower-filled ground.
He opened his eyes, his gaze muddled and distorted by his disturbed mind. His gaze unconsciously drifted to his forearms, which seemed to be stained by a purplish-red or a purplish-blue hue.
"What… is happening—Gulped, Bwah!"
He vomited again, feeling every part of his body deteriorating. He felt that the strength in his arms was traitorously leaving him behind, falling to the ground as he barely hit his vomit on the flowers.
His lungs and trachea began to feel itchy as more purplish-red or blue hues emerged on his skin. His nose, eyes, and ears began to drip blood, his muscles becoming even weaker and stiffer, and his vision gradually decayed bit by bit, as though he was turning into a corpse.
Not… good…. I… will die…. Is this… some kind of… powerful curse from… those… giants? Curse…. Curse!
With a last-ditch effort, he stretched his left hand below and reached out one of his pockets on his harem pants. As he clutched something, he pulled the object out of his pocket.
It was an iron black sheet humanoid figurine, carved with mysterious tiny symbols that seemed to slowly change. Attached to the top of the figurine's head was a thin, bloody red needle that kept flowing with blood but never dripped, as though it had a life on its own, circulating its blood to exist.
Without hesitation, and with his full strength, he struggled to pierce his thumb into the needle before eventually succeeding to which the figurine responded by revealing vein-like roots on its flat body.
As the iron black figurine drank its blood, it suddenly shook violently, hueing its red vessels into an eerie, orange-blue color as multiple cracks emerged on its appearance.
After about a few seconds, light rushes through Märchen's eyes as he regains his vitality. He stood up immediately and noticed that the iron black figurine in his left hand had shattered and decayed into crumbles of black iron dust.
He also noticed that some parts of his skin were still in purplish shades of color, seemingly grateful that he was quick enough to react in that situation despite his thoughts being disorganized and slow.
Conscious of the urgency of the situation when he thought that, he made a swift decision to sprint toward the lofty palace, seeking refuge from the indistinct giants in the mist that were looming behind him.
Phew, if it weren't for that Sealed Object, then I would have turned into a rotting corpse by now. Sigh, how terrifying, they can easily kill me with just their cry, let alone their mere presence... He shook his head as he reminisced the details of the Sealed Object that he had gained from a vampire-like monster.
It is referred to and claimed by Märchen as "Mutated Doctor Figurine." It is a Sealed Object that can heal wounds and capture diseases when its needle pierces the user's skin. It also can capture any curses that may be affecting the user.
However, there is no guarantee that it will comply with the user's wishes during this process. At times, it may erase some of the user's memories or even alter some of their genetic traits.
Additionally, the figurine can affect its surroundings by absorbing nearby life sources, causing nearby beings to feel increasingly fatigued the longer they remain in proximity to it.
With this second-hand information, Märchen has to frequently hunt monsters and animals during his free time to feed the Mutated Doctor Figurine weekly. He also needs to limit its usage to prevent the negative side effects from arising unexpectedly.
…
Rumble! Rumble!
The ground shook subtly with each large vibration, sending down signals of the impending end of the land, rotting and putrifying everything "They" have walked on.
However, each time "Its" steps putrify the ground, the land reformed itself into the same ground before it was trodden over by "Them".
Likewise, the circular fields of flowers were near "Their" influences, putrifying the flowers at first before growing back to their original state where they hadn't been in "Their" influence.
This magical process is repeated multiple times. It was as though this place was the symbol of eternal life—where everything returns to the ground and emerges anew, with endless vitality as they sprouted.
…
"Hah, hah, hah…"
With his knees bent as well as his hands on each of them, Märchen took the opportunity to rest and gasp for air, his wiry hair ruffled chaotically with his back cold.
With his half-lidding eyes, he raised his head, studying the outward appearance of the castle. At close, the palace was even more grand than what he had seen in the distance.
This seemingly 7th-story palace was paved in white cement, paired with cyan wainscotting below, etched with large, intricate flowing details of design.
Each tower, structure, and steeple was joisted together with said hue and carved in said pattern. He notices that the middle and the biggest steeple is a giant clock tower. He couldn't see where the arms of the clock were pointing, but he could grasp that it was near or almost at 12.
It has 20-meter floor-to-ceiling windows that travel across all floors and structures, each intervaled with a 5-meter gap. Switching his gaze to the far left, he saw a large patio paved in white-cyan-marbled stone with stairs to hold itself from below.
Only then did he rush there unhesitantly, his body fatigued and heavy from all the traveling. Desperate, he climbed the stairs step by step as he saw a pair of large, iron cyan-colored doors resting at the front of the castle, mottled yet immovable.
Guarding the door were two, 5-meter golem-like knights, boasting heavy, dark-orange armor with multiple bluish-green mottles dotted sporadically across the surface, as well as two different weapons: a broad sword and an exaggeratedly long lance.
Märchen walked towards the door and saw that the two doors were carved with 6 different symbols, separated in 3 for each door. Mysterious and alien it might be, it was as though they came from an unknown civilization in the cosmos.
Regardless, does Märchen care? He has no time to include the significance of the 6 different symbols in his mind right now. Currently, he only has one important goal in mind—to find a way to breach the castle.
This was the biggest problem of all. He doesn't know how to open this exaggerated front door or a way to break in.
With his physique and astounding endurance, he could even try to climb up using the slight bumps on the wall and break the windows using whatever resources he had. However, considering those giants' "cry", it might only aid him in his subtle desire to die indirectly, with a pinch of humiliation and satirical pain.
Furthermore, he doesn't know the structure of the glass pane nor what enhancement it has.
After all, this is a castle that would be expected to have powerful magical properties that even the strongest genuine mage couldn't break into. Compared to them, he was just a wild, non-magical knight—an illiterate and weak being.
If he were to sprint around the castle to find a misshapen structure that he could use to get inside, it was unlikely that he could survive amidst those giant's pursuit.
It also consumes too much time and there was no guarantee that there would be any mishaps or holes that he could use to get inside.
As he felt that all options were hopeless, multiple sudden soundless roars echoed towards him. Almost immediately after that, he puked a good amount of blood, mixed with his colorless, hydrochloric acid, as blood began to drip through gaps in his eyes, nose, and ears.
His legs gave up and fell, his hands on the ground as he stared above, his vision hued with a dark red shade and an addition of blurriness.
He desperately tried to breathe properly, but the itchiness and the contraction of his trachea and lungs had prevented him from doing so.
As if all hope had disappeared, the knights guarding the front door suddenly glowed two, bright deep orange dots from the gaps of their visors, almost as if they had been brought to life by the soundless cries and roars of those indistinct figures.