Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 317: Malice

Our group spent several minutes backtracking, before we met up with my clone. During that time, I had my clone cycle between soul sight and regular vision. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t find any enemies or traps in the area. Based on what I knew about the Market, there was no way the inner district didn't have a defender or ten. Since I couldn’t find the danger, that meant it had yet to reveal itself.

Once we got there, I scanned the area with my real body’s vision as well. It didn’t help. No matter which body I used, I couldn't find the threat in the area.

I sighed, and then sent the clone back into the distorted area. Once again, I saw a bunch of skyscrapers and massive buildings appear in front of me. I ignored them. They were too far away to matter right now. Instead, I focused on what was right in front of my clone.

Our group set ourselves up right at the edge of the spatial fair, giving us an easy retreat. It also let us observe my clone as it moved, so that we would at least know what killed it if it died.

As my clone moved further into the spatial fair, I started to notice that the area was very... quiet. In the Market, there wasn’t much sound, but there was usually still a little bit of noise, and it had become more obvious as my [Perception] grew higher. The shuffling of skeletons in the distance and the distant hum of electronics were the norm.

And yet, in the spatial fair, these sounds had disappeared. It was as if someone had hit a giant mute button in the middle of the area. I frowned. What was the reason for this silence? Were things destroyed if they made sound? If that was the case, the monsters here might hunt by sound. That was valuable information.

<I think something in here hunts by sound. Make sure to use the communication bracelets. We don’t want to get caught up in whatever kills the clone,> I said.

<Got it,> said Sallia, followed by Anise and Felix a moment later.

My clone continued forward, and the odd silence continued to settle around my clone like a heavy, suffocating blanket. After another minute, I started to feel like the silence was growing... suffocating. Something was starting to feel wrong.

<Take a few more steps back. I'm getting a bad feeling,> I said. As a group, we retreated a few steps, putting ourselves outside of the range of the spatial fair. We lost sight of my clone... but we also moved away from any hostile monsters. We might get less data from my clone dying, but that was much better than one of my friends dying.

My clone froze, while I frowned. The feeling of creeping anxiety continued to get worse, but after a few seconds, I realized it was targeting my clone. My real body didn't feel safe, but I didn't have the same suffocating feeling of dread.

<How is it that there's no sound at all in the spatial fair?> asked Felix, after a few more moments. <I would still expect there to be some shuffling sounds from the occasional skeleton wandering in. The total lack of sound is a bit odd. If you think it's safe, could you try making a bit of sound, and see what happens?>

I focused on my clone again, and used a portal to teleport a loose piece of rubble a few inches upwards. The chunk of rubble fell soundlessly upon the road. I realized that I was wrong.

It wasn't that 'anything making noise is killed.' Instead, it was as if there was some sort of spell, dampening or outright silencing the spatial fair.

<I teleported a piece of rubble up, and it made no sound when it hit the ground,> I said.

<Is it some sort of sound-dampening enchantment?> asked Felix. <Can you see anything?>

I scanned my clone’s surroundings with essence, before I shook my head. <I don’t detect any unusual essence in my clone’s surroundings. It's either hidden, or not accomplished using essence.>

<Hmm… maybe it’s something to do with the acoustics of the area?> said Felix. <Normally, that kind of sound-suppression would be impossible. However, I have no idea how 'eldritch' things work. With enough geometry manipulation, maybe you can silence an area perfectly.>

<Maybe,> I said. I started scanning the area with my clone's eyes, to see if I could get a better grasp on how the world was bent in this area. Then, I froze.

Something was watching my clone. I couldn't see it, but I could feel cold, ancient eyes, staring at my clone like a snake watching a mouse. My clone whirled around, using its soul sight to scan its surroundings… but there was nothing. Not a single soul or speck of essence was present in its surroundings. And yet, I was sure that my clone was being watched. It felt like my clone had crossed some sort of invisible threshold. Like a fly setting foot in a spider’s web.

The feeling of creeping dread started to grow more suffocating. At the same time, my clone's vision of its surroundings started to fade into nothing. It was as if it was being dragged into endless darkness. A moment later, it felt as if the silence itself was reaching towards my clone, like a grasping pair of hands.

Then, like a candle in the wind, my clone was snuffed out. I felt a horrible sense of loss, as my clone died… and more than that, I felt a deep terror.

Before my clone died, I had swapped to my soul sight. However, I still hadn’t seen a thing. My clone hadn’t run out of essence and soul energy - there was still a minute or so left before that happened. Instead, it died for no reason at all. No sign of another nearby soul, no sign of an attack. Somehow, it had just died, without any rhyme or reason behind it.

<My clone died,> I said. < I have no idea how. There was nothing nearby, and no sign of a magical attack.>

Felix frowned. <That’s unnerving. Did you have any sort of unusual sensations beforehand, t least?>

I frowned. <I suppose so. It felt like a blanket of silence wrapped around my clone. Then, it felt like the clone lost sight of its surroundings. Everything grew darker and darker. I felt like something was watching me. Then, the clone was dead.>

Anise glanced warily at the spatial fair street, before she grabbed my hand and pulled me a little further back. <Let’s stay away from it, in case whatever killed your clone tracks us down and attacks us.>

I nodded, and our group moved a few streets away. After we walked, I shared all of the memories I had of my clone moving around. The others ran through my memories, before we spent a few minutes in silence, digesting the events that led to my clone’s death.

<I… don’t know what to make of that,> said Sallia, after a few minutes. <It almost seems like silence itself is what killed the clone?>

Felix’s eyes lit up.

<That might actually be the case. Do you remember the living universe from a few worlds ago?> asked Felix. <I’m kind of reminded of that thing. This is far less powerful, but at least on a conceptual level, they might be similar. You said that you had a hard time making sound in the fair, right? So maybe 'silence' is the first problem we need to solve.> Felix shrugged, and grinned. <I could be wrong, of course. But it's something we can try. With Miria's clones, we don't have to worry that much about the lives of our scouts.> Then, Felix frowned. <We should move further away while testing, though. Whatever monster killed Miria's clone by looking at it, we need to thoroughly understand it before messing with it.>

I thought about Felix’s words for several seconds, before I finally nodded. Perhaps there was some sort of creature that hunted down things that were 'silent?' It had felt kind of like my clone was being dragged to another layer of reality before it died... so maybe being silent caused one to fall into that layer of reality. There, the hunter would instantly kill the new prey... or something like that.

<The problem is how to survive long enough to explore further, then,> said Sallia. <We can’t leave without at least finding a shop or two, even if they’re near the outskirts of the spatial fair. Otherwise, it would be too much of a waste of time and growth opportunities. Miria, do you think the silence is impossible to fix? You said that the piece of rubble you dropped didn't make a sound. Is there a way around that issue?>

<I’m not sure, but we can run some tests and see what happens,> I said. The entire purpose of grabbing the clone skill was to have disposable scouts and test subjects.

My clones didn’t have vocal chords, so they couldn’t speak. Thus, we decided to go find some sort of instrument. If that didn't work, I would try using shaping to 'force' sounds to exist, and see if that helped. We moved away from the inner district, and spent a few hours searching our surroundings. It didn't take long before we found an instrument shop. There weren't any monsters inside, so we didn't have a problem stealing some instruments. I didn't recognize any of them, but that didn't matter. I grabbed something that looked kind of like a 20-stringed banjo with twelve flower petals attached to it and gave it a strum. It sounded awful, but it was loud. It was perfect for our purposes.

After acquiring our instruments, we also made sure to check the store for Acheivement. We found 42 Achievement in the cash register, before dividing it 4 ways, giving us 10.5 each. This brought me to 12,703.85 total. After that, we returned to the spatial fair and worked on our magic systems until my soul finished recovering. Then, it was time to send the next clone in.

This time, my clone brought along the stringed instrument, while our group backed away from the area again. My clone started moving into the inner district again, this time playing its instrument as it walked. I grinned.

The sound of the instrument was very, very faint. Through my clone's ears, I could only hear it if I focused. But even though sound was dampened in the spatial fair, I could still make sound. It was possible to test whether silence itself was lethal here.

My clone kept moving forward. Soon, it reached the point where my previous clone had died. I hesitated for a few seconds, then nodded to myself. I didn't feel the same creeping dread I had felt last time. My clone hadn't died, either. It seemed fine.

It seemed like our first guess was correct. Anything that wasn’t wrapped in noise would die while within the spatial festival. We could work with that.

Though I had to say, whatever had destroyed the Market and made it very difficult for new Market survivors to crop up. I suspected that most groups would try to be quiet when they saw an area like the spatial fair. After all, monsters hunting by sound instead of sight wasn't a very novel idea. In this case, any group that tried that would be walking into a deathtrap. If a group didn't have a cloning ability, such as {Eldritch Soul}, trying to figure this out would be nearly impossible.

And then, my smile faded. I saw a bright soul zip towards my clone at speeds that I could barely process. Before I could even finish taking a look at it, something beheaded my clone. I caught a brief glimpse of blind, sightless eyes, attached to a glowing silver spider. It glared at my clone's head as it sailed through the air, before my clone turned back into ordinary water. I lost sight of the area.

I finally realized what the trap of this area was.

If you were silent, then the strange creature in another layer of reality would drag you into its turf and kill you. If you made noise, a blind silver spider would hunt you down and kill you. There was no 'correct' way to move through this area. It was designed to lure in new transmigrators and kill them. Whoever had designed this trap didn't intend for anyone to survive an attempt at exploring it. The outer districts of the Market were dangerous, but at least most monsters had weaknesses we could exploit. Here, I could fully sense the malice of whoever had destroyed the Market. They didn't want anyone to get the resources from the inner districts. They wanted us dead, and they had set up this area to make it happen.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.