Game Overlord: Conqueror of Worlds

Chapter 38: Unexpected Discovery

It was late at night. After his conversation with Victor, Leon packed his belongings and returned to his temporary camp.

Before reaching his assigned tent, he noticed a figure standing in the shadows. Upon closer inspection, Leon realized it was one of the ten players who had come along with him.

The person was draped in a black cloak, with his body wrapped in linen underneath, making him look like a black-robed mummy.

He appeared tall but walked in a strange, hunched manner, as if in pain.

Leon remembered that when Lady Ember introduced him, she mentioned he practiced both poison magic and martial arts.

Upon seeing Leon, the figure nodded. "You're the one who practices shadow magic and martial arts, right? Can we talk?"

Leon glanced around and finally nodded, putting his belongings inside his tent before following the figure outside.

The two walked to a corner away from the campfire's light. The figure waved his hand, and Leon saw a cloud of green mist spreading out, covering an area of about three to five meters.

Each of the players had a way to prevent others from eavesdropping, and Leon found it a bit amusing. He thought to himself that after returning to school, he should also learn some of these little tricks, so he wouldn’t be looked down upon in situations like this.

After looking around, the figure lowered his voice and said, "You used a summoning technique today, right?"

Leon nodded, staring into the figure’s eyes, clearly not wanting to explain further.

The figure didn’t mind Leon's attitude and asked another question. "May I ask where the control core of the Seven Knights IV you summoned came from?"

This time, Leon hesitated for a moment. He didn’t see any harm in sharing, so he slowly said, "It appeared in the sandstorm. The control core fell from the sky."

"Fell from the sky? Then it must have been from the desert. Thanks, that's all I needed to know. I won’t disturb you any further." After speaking, the figure waved his hand, and the green mist was retracted.

Leon was a bit surprised by this but didn’t ask any further questions. After the figure left, he turned and prepared to return to his tent for some rest. He still needed to meditate later that night since he had made a new choice and needed to make up for lost time.

However, it seemed no one wanted to let Leon rest peacefully that night. After the poison magic-martial arts practitioner left, a wind-based player came over, followed by an earth-based player.

Like the poison practitioner, they each shielded the surroundings from prying eyes and asked the same question: where had Leon summoned the Seven Knights IV from?

Upon receiving their answers, their expressions visibly changed. The poison-based player seemed thoughtful, while the wind-based player’s eyes lit up with excitement. The earth-based player, on the other hand, appeared hesitant, as if unsure about something.

Leon couldn’t quite understand their reactions, but after pondering for a while, he eventually drifted off to sleep, unable to complete his cultivation for the night.

The next morning, Leon had breakfast at the base's center with Victor and the others. The meal consisted of sand scorpions and mud bugs, prepared in the style of Aurelia Pinehold.

The sand scorpions were wrapped in the amber-like secretion from the golden pine trees and roasted, giving them a light pinewood fragrance.

As for the mud bugs, they were wrapped in pine needles and roasted on stones beside the fire. Once the bugs were charred, the pine needles inside were pulled out and eaten.

Though wasteful, eating in this way made one feel as if their entire body was burning, allowing them to walk through the desert without losing too much energy.

During breakfast, Leon noticed that both Quinn Ashford and the other players who had approached him the night before acted as if nothing had happened, displaying no signs of the private conversations they had.

This only deepened Leon’s confusion about his team. He wasn’t impulsive, so after finishing his meal, he didn’t rush off to complete his daily tasks. Instead, he sat by the campfire, waiting for something.

Soon, a few players finished their meals and left the campfire, taking their gear with them. It seemed they were heading out to complete their daily tasks.

At that moment, Leon stood up and asked the resident preparing breakfast by the fire, "How much for the recipe?"

The resident thought for a moment before replying, "I’m not selling it."

Leon didn’t press the matter. He picked up his gear and headed out of the base to complete his daily task.

As he approached the base’s exit, Leon habitually pulled out his map to check his mission for the day. It was a habit of his to always see if there was anything he could complete along the way.

But this time, when he opened the map, he noticed a peculiar track.

Leon wasn’t sure what it meant, but he did know one thing: his summoning technique from yesterday had affected the environment outside the base.

After confirming the direction of this strange track, Leon changed his initial plan and decided to follow the trail while completing his daily mission.

As he worked on his tasks, Leon also looked around for food sources. It was then that he noticed something strange about the ground.

The ground, usually just yellow sand, now had a faint trace of negative energy.

This caught Leon's attention. He realized that not all the ground was affected, but some of the sand falling from the sky had mixed with the soil. This sand carried negative energy, slowly seeping into the surrounding earth.

Leon even found a few components that had been fully infused with negative energy in the sand. He was certain that in about four or five days, the negative energy and spirits buried deep within the earth would be awakened, causing weaker undead to appear in the area.

If left unchecked, in ten days or so, the strength of the undead would increase, and they might eventually destroy the nearby Aurelia Pinehold base.