Coming out into a large, cavernous room, Marcus could immediately smell the salty smell of the ocean water that submerged part of the area. Looking around Marcus saw patches of glowing crystals that faintly illuminated the room giving it a mystical feeling.
'Okay now I need to locate where the bubbling crabs are and kill seven of them, and then even though I do not have any other requests to complete I think I will explore around a bit.'
Heading over towards the submerged part of the room, Marcus noticed that there were a few other parties of adventures fighting different magical beasts and monsters. Giving them a wide berth so as not to come off as a threat Marcus made his way deeper into the massive room.
'There they are.'
Having spotted a group of his quarry clattering around the corpse of some monster, Marcus rushed towards them brandishing his scythe. The five three-foot-tall crabs alerted to the approach of a hostile entity turned around and started posturing with their claws. However, Marcus kept approaching and with their attempt at intimidation failing the crabs unleashed their signature ability and shot numerous bubbles towards Marcus. Knowing that the bubbles were nothing like the kind he blew on Earth, Marcus took evasive action dodging each of the bubbles. Unfortunately, the barrage of bubbles got a bit intense and still not fully accustomed to his new strength one managed to strike him on the right leg. When the bubble popped Marcus felt a searing pain as the area began sizzling as acid started to eat away at his physical form.
'Shit, I need to be more careful, while one of these bubbles barely does any damage, I do not really enjoy pain and it is embarrassing to take damage from something ten levels lower than me.'
Deciding to give up on trying to dodge Marcus cast iron threads and used them to pop all of the bubbles before they reached him. Soon the crabs had exhausted all of their acid and had to stop firing off bubbles and in a rage charged towards Marcus.
'These crabs are pretty dumb, the only thing threatening about them are their acid bubbles, but I guess I can try out some of my new abilities on them.'
Marcus then summoned his dark purple spectral arm which was noticeably smaller and had lost its fiendish appearance from when he used it against Ander. Marcus then sent it flying towards one of the crabs and when the arm arrived, it formed a fist and punched the crab making cracks in its shell and sending it sprawling backwards. The other four crabs uncaring for their comrade, continued their charge claws snapping. Marcus readied his scythe and took a big swing empowering his scythe with his powerful slash skill. He felt a huge amount of his mana coalesce into the scythe and he cleaved through all of the crabs turning them into chunks of viscera.
'Oops that was a lot more powerful than I though it would be, I doubt that I will be able to use these four towards the request.'
Having completely ruined the bodies of four of the bubbling crabs Marcus approached the one he had injured earlier and with a swift stab to the head it collapsed. Marcus stored its relatively intact body into his item box and then searched around for the cores of the other four he had killed.
'I was only able to find two of their cores, but I guess that is to be expected since I blasted them to pieces. On the bright side I did collect some of their legs and while I have no need to eat, some delicious crab legs sounds pretty good.'
Pulling out a pot Marcus filled it with water and placed his floating lantern under the pot since trying to light a normal fire in the damp room would be nearly impossible. After around ten minutes he had finally managed to get the pot boiling and he threw in the crab legs. While he had to protect his prize from a few interested monsters and beasts Marcus persevered intent on enjoying his meal. Once the crab legs had thoroughly cooked and began letting off a delicious aroma Marcus removed them and waited a few moments for them to cool off. He then picked them up and cracked them open using his iron skin spell to reinforce his hands.
'Ah, that was satisfying, fresh crab legs are on a complete different level from the frozen ones I had a couple of times on Earth. Now I probably spent way too long cooking up these legs, so it is time to locate a few more crabs to complete my request.'
Searching around for the six remaining crabs he needed Marcus ran into a group of people he recognized. Walking towards him was the party of iron adventure he had traveled to Loursend with Wild Wind. As he was about to go up and talk to them, he realized that he was no longer in Irene's body, and they would not recognize him. Deciding against contacting them Marcus simply walked past while giving a friendly smile. The group gave few polite nods before their expressions turned angry and Bryce shouted out to Marcus, "Hey you there, hold up."
Quite surprised by the sudden hostility in Bryce's voice Marcus wondered if he had misjudged their character and they were actually the type of adventures that bullied and stole from the weak. However, he soon figured this was not the case as Bryce started interrogating Marcus.
"Hello there, that is a nice scythe you have, where per chance did you come across something like that. A friend of ours uses a scythe that looks really similar, so we were just wondering."
Realizing what was going on Marcus internally started to panic a bit.
'Shit they totally think that I stole this weapon from Irene. The problem is that was me all along, but how do I get them off my back without a fight or exposing myself. I guess I will have to try the old they must have a similar item ruse and hope that works.'
"Oh, this scythe I had it made a few years ago by a weaponsmith here in Loursend, he said he had made a similar one in the past so maybe that is the weapon your friend has. So, while it has been nice talking to you, if you do not mind, I have a request to complete and need to be on my way."
However, when he tuned around to go away Marcus found himself surrounded on all sides by the members of wild wind.
"Did you think we would fall for such an obvious lie, what did you do to Irene, that is definitely her scythe and there is no way she would have given it up willingly."
As all of the members of wild wind stared angrily at Marcus, his head was spinning trying to come up with a solution to his current problem.. Unfortunately, his long silence served only to further anger Bryce and his party, and the group began attacking Marcus intent on avenging their friend.