Long story short, I was given the task of searching everywhere I could think of for the Alchemist's notes on how they were planning on making a cure. Emphasis on the places circled on the map most likely to have the cure.
And there was a lot of reading required to find things that were relatively important.
The good news was that thanks to the map that I had received from Ella a couple months ago I had discovered that there was little to discover in places I had previously been to save the place leading up to the Lighthouse.
The bad news was that the island was extremely big and had several dozens of areas I had never been to before.
'Now why is there another set of even older and horrible smelling sewers underneath the green waters?'
Grimacing and waving at my face, flames swiftly consumed my head providing some respite to the yellow haze covering the area.
'God it feels like I can taste it.'
Opening the very convoluted but very intuitive paper map with several dozens of folds that opened up to layer after layer of the island, I compared it to the map I had gained in the system and confirmed that this was the place to be.
Although the system could copy every bit of information from maps given to me by others, it for some reason was unable to mimic the markings and annotations made by others of the details surrounding the area hence the comparison.
It helped when there wasn't any goal of the like, but it didn't help when I needed all the help I could get when impending doom was getting closer every day.
'The Timeline is kinda tight.'
Comparing the paper map and the system map a few more times to confirm that I was where I needed to be, I folded the map right back up before shoving it straight into the inventory.
It was more durable than the average sheet of paper, but no use tempting fate right?
'Especially since these particular breed of undead like to spew their guts everywhere.'
Watching another one of the zombies fall down dead with a burning arrow to the skull, a yellow explosion of an unknown liquid poured out like someone had just struck spring water.
Looking at the fountain that stopped soon after it had appeared and comparing it to the yellow sewer canals that was on my right, they both had the same liquid putty texture to it.
Rather unappetizing.
'But I don't think I could eat normally anyways.'
It's been roughly 7 days since I last remembered to eat and there were absolutely no problems with my physical wellbeing.
Funnily enough, that was coincidentally the number of days since I had last slept.
'...' Arrow slipping off the bow as I fell deep into thought of how inhuman I had become since coming to this island, a festering zombie who had decided now was the best time to attack hurled onto the ground.
Wanting to murder me via disgust was certainly an approach I hadn't seen before as a large worm wriggled out of its elongated mouth.
The worm wriggling unnecessarily certainly didn't help things.
'Incineration for the both of you.'
Tapping into my mana reserves and running them through my hands, the green zombie and worm both turned black in that same instant as more and more heads turned to the source of the noise.
'And that's why I don't use this that much.'
It attracts an unnecessary amount of attention.
Grimacing at the numerous collection of gross undead, flames manifested around mu shoulders as blocks of wood manifested arrows for me to grab.
'I guess I'm now playing one of those arcade shooter games.'
Fondly recalling those things that led to chaos amongst the friend group once a new high score was achieved in the small town, I raised my arms and tensed my shoulders.
'But before i get lost in nostalgia, I should probably clean up the filth in front of me.'
Wood, Flame, Ash and Bile flew through the air.
---
'Well you certainly died funny.'
Incinerating the last bits of undead gunk on my legs, I glanced at the strange looking dead while making a mental note to scrub my legs with whatever water I could get my hands on.
Anything would be a lot cleaner than this stagnant dead water.
'Well not that'
Glancing at the green goo that had trailed from the strange looking dead... thing who's gender couldn't be confirmed due to how bloated it was, a tentacle sprouted out of their body as if they had started to mutate before death.
But following the green goo trail that was eye catching even through the yellow sewer water, it led to a small hole in the wall right next to a small room similar to the one I had found in the Toxic Sewers.
Throwing the green goo trail to the back of my mind, I hopped right over the canal of yellow water, burning the zombie that had popped its head out and entered the room.
'This seems promising.'
Seeing a bookshelf of 5 relatively untouched books and what seemed like a lab besides it, I paid my respects to a corpse that showed no signs of infection and opened the first book.
---
'...Well that certainly bodes well'
Closing the final book, I threw it into the yellow canal besides me before spiking a disgusting worm that tried sneaking up to take a chunk out of my ankle.
But besides that, of the five books I had retrieved from that small lab set up, only one was useful as the others ones seemed to have been there even before the Alchemist set up camp here.
And just like the books in that Castaing office I had first found depicting something about religion, they were a mix of fantasy and medieval clickbait.
'Although it's probably modern clickbait and modern fantasy here... Welp, food for thought.' Shrugging my shoulders, I doubled back to the one book that had been useful.
Being a red hard cover with a small leather binding albeit the red had become yellow in some places, it seemed that the Alchemist when he was still around used the Sewers as a base of operations for some experiments.
Or at least until he couldn't continue experimenting on the fungi in this place when it became filled to the brim with as much undead as there was today.
And talking about doubling back, the green trail was back.
And this time, it had a broken out of cocoon next to it.
And another lab looking room.
And one hell of a big hole.
'...I'm getting deja vu.'
---
'Now I really am getting deja vu.'
Throwing away the last of the seven books after deciding they were useless modern clickbait titles again save a mostly destroyed experiments log that depicted the effect of fungal treatments with varying levels of success.
I came across a number of crates surrounding an even larger cocoon.
One that had broke apart at that.
'And although I don't know why these crates are here, it seemed that whatever is making this green goo trail grew... Or evolved... Or even mutated...'
Glancing conflictedly at the giant cocoon that may have been the product of both the malaise and the yellow sewage, I looked around me as numerous undead poked their heads out from in between the crates.
'Well at least I know who moved those crates here... Why do they have tentacles?'
Blinking in subtle surprise at the sight of the undead bearing tentacles on their appendages instead of the normal arm and finger combo, it felt as if they were foreshadowing something.
But nevertheless, undead are undead, and I'll be making them deader than dead.
Raising my hands as the mana in my veins was used to supply the growing number of flames, they devoured the crates surrounding the broken cocoon.
'In any case, I've got a bad feeling about all of this.'
---
"...You have got to be kidding me."
Rubbing my forehead as I read the final book after throwing away the previous three, I glanced at the giant red markings on the side of a giant hole in the wall with green goo leading into it and compared it to the words in the book.
I have hit a wall in my research as of late... Until I heard the Guards talk of a monster...
Make sure you don't miss your guard duty outside the MONSTER's room
It's a strange thing indeed, but thanks to the Iron Guards chaining it up, I have been able to extrapolate important research data from it in peace.
It wasn't easy to chain up. Wouldn't like to do it all over again!
It's difficult to continue moving back and forth between here and my labs, from now on, I'll be conducting on site research.
'Then something went wrong yada yada, and now I have to go into that room to understand whatever the hell had happened.'
To say I was mildly frustrated would be an understatement.
That frustration however was slightly abated by the fact that if they were as big as the three story tall and wide hole made them out to be, I could land a blow without even trying.
'Of course there's the problem that it also has tentacles that can snake through the chains and attack me just as easily.'
There however was a chance that the Iron Guards did a better job than I had thought and all I needed to do was get in and access the alchemists notes from there.
But of course it wasn't that easy.
It never is.
+++
So sorry for the extremely late chapter upload.
Just received my test results and have decided it's about time to stop procrastinating and just start antiprocrastinating.
I got a U grade.
Didn't even know those existed but here we are and the past is the past
At the least y'all will know why I haven't been uploading
Tree