After registering his name for the crewmen of the Leviathan Mariner, Rosacer stepped outside the warehouse. He tried to start conversations but was turned down by most, as they were too tired to waste energy on him. The few who did engage wanted to charge him in pills.
He checked his vials—there were ten of them. He had only managed to acquire eleven pills, and one he had already eaten.
According to the system, these pills were made from the same red mushroom he had been given by the Rosacer. [1]
The System read them as:
The Red Goliath Mushroom
He kept thinking back to the pouch he'd given Elizabeth, though he couldn't quite say why.
Suddenly, someone called out from behind, "Rosacer!"
He turned to see Neb, with Josan standing beside him. Next to Josan's sharp and expensive suit, even Neb looked cheap.
Rosacer adjusted his own suit and shifted his expression to a more polite tone as he replied.
"Have you met Josan here?" he asked, pointing toward the handsome man with sharp features.
"We are already acquainted, Neb," Josan said, his demeanor as strong as ever.
Neb, his face pale, finally spoke in a grim tone.
"I will cut to the chase. We are planning something big, and we are recruiting people. But today, we fell short. Someone from our side has gone missing."
He paused, then added quietly, "If you are free and interested, you can meet us at Cornwall Street, House Number Ten. We will have a small dinner."
"I'll join for dinner," said Rosacer.
'Was that too desperate? Well, at least I got an opportunity. But I should be careful—they do seem a bit shady.'
Rosacer did thought for a second that the men in black, agents of the dream god, weren't the kind of people he should keep company with. For one, there was the nightmare god, who was openly hostile toward them. Another reason was his black clothing, stolen from a corpse. Since black clothes were rare, it could only mean one thing—he had taken them from one of those agents. Maybe they wanted to interrogate him for that.
'Their intentions, however, remained well hidden,' Rosacer mused.
'I could always turn into a rat to escape, and if the assassins wanted to, they could've already killed me or capture me.'
After some small talk, Neb and Josan parted ways with Rosacer. He was now free, and the night was still ahead. In the mist city, night was marked by a heavy mist, while lighter mist signaled the day.
He decided to learn more about Rosacer, certain that he must have once lived in the inner city.
'That rusty armor... I doubt many others would be wearing something like that,' he thought.
He set out to look for a blacksmith or any armor shop in the southern sector.
As he wandered through the mist-filled streets, he noticed many people with deformed bodies—some with enlarged organs, others shrunken beyond normal. He never encountered anyone with an expression other than despair. Some of the buildings were yellow, though most had turned black.
Curious about the yellow tint, he asked the system, which explained it wasn't really a color but a kind of fungus.
The fungus was called "Plagueborn Offspring."
[Born from the raw mind before knowledge ever took shape, it shifts and adapts its form to match its surroundings.]
The fungus turned out to be yellow because of the mist. While this wasn't groundbreaking news, it was enough to catch Rosacer's interest. He climbed up to one of the buildings, leapt onto a window, and broke inside.
The walls were streaked with fungus.
He glanced toward the area where it was most prevalent—the kitchen. Moving slowly, he approached, his eyes scanning every corner. One hand was tucked inside his coat, fingers wrapped around his firearm, ready to draw if anyone made a move.
Thankfully, no one did. He stepped right up to the wall and stood before it.
'This is a devil's art.'
His eyes flickered with imagination as he saw different creature happy running inside it. he went closer to it to gather the yellow fungus and stored it in his inventory.
'The Yellow Wallpaper...huh?' he mused
If he could separate the mist's consciousness from the fungus, he might obtain the 'plagueborn offspring' and perhaps use the isolated mist consciousness to connect to the dream world without falling asleep.
The most dangerous thing in the mist city was sleep, and if he could avoid it, he'd be much safer. After extracting and storing, he exited the building and landed on the pavement with a thud. He glanced around; no one had seen him. Brushing off his coat, yellow spores scattered onto the street. Then he stepped into the mist ahead, disappearing within it.
Buck Super Amour Shop,Crescitlok (The City of Brewing).
"This armor is from the northern sector," the blacksmith said, pointing toward a crest. "See this? This is the armor of Ackermans."
The crest was composed of three concentric circles with a triangle beneath them, resembling a child's attempt at drawing a tree.
The blacksmith was a young man, one hand enlarged into a massive fist and the other shriveled into a tree branch. The strangest thing of all was that he held the hammer with the branch arm.
He glanced at Rosacer, his brown eyes full of youthful fire, his soot-covered hair holding strong against the furnace's heat.
In a deep voice, he said, "The ruler of the Northern sector is obsessed with them; he won't let any other sector have this kind of armor."
"Why?" Rosacer asked, his voice filled with curiosity and outrage at the unjust act of the Northern ruler.
With a solemn tone, the blacksmith replied, his voice low and tinged with compassion. "It's just obsession. Some say he shares blood with them, but who knows? One thing's certain—he admires them, and that admiration has turned into an obsession to possess everything Ackerman once had."
He scoffed. "I heard from some unfortunate traveler who got lost and somehow ended up in the mist city that Ackerman now barely has any presence outside."
"If that's true, then… how will Gordon feel when he sees his admiration crumble upon seeing them in person? Though I doubt the new venture ship will succeed."
Rosacer chatted more with the Blacksmith about the Ackerman and the folks selling armor in the northern sector. From what he could gather, the Real Rosacer had once been a resident and close to Gordon, since only Gordon's fighters were allowed to wear the armor. Not just anyone in the Northern sector could even purchase it.
[1] Rosacer is the knight who told Aaron about the inner city and encouraged him to get stronger by venturing inside. Later, Aaron adopted his name.