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Time was ticking away, but the dust in the forest never settled due to the absence of wind.

“Damn it, Lucas, were you not watching where you were going?” a voice complained in annoyance.

A breeze came out of nowhere and dispersed the dust, revealing Diana’s filthy but still pretty face. She was glaring daggers at Lucas, who looked like he got accused for something he didn’t do.

“I swear in the name of goddess, this is not my fault! Who would have known that the Golden Demon would be so despicable as to resort to using such a trap.”

Lucas put on a bitter face, feeling so wronged. He already warned this group that he was extremely unlucky, yet they insisted on having him join, and now they were blaming him.

On his travels, aside from the time he traveled with the saintess, he was always the one setting off traps. Needlessly to say, if the saintess tagged along… The traps would find them without them looking for one.

One of the massive ones that he experienced on his travels with the saintess in particular left a very deep impression on him.

“Your carelessness is to be blamed!”

Shooting Lucas one last angry glance, Diana put her magic wand away and the magic barrier around everyone disappeared too.

The others were looking at Diana thankfully. If she hadn’t reacted quickly and put up a magical barrier, someone would have inevitably gotten injured even if there were no deaths.

“Looks like we have to proceed even more cautiously. Golden Demon Htilil was more cunning than we imagined.”

Durance checked their surroundings with a frown.

The breeze that Diana summoned had cleared away the dust from the forest and rustled the leaves. The explosion’s shockwave had blown over trees within a radius tens of meters from it.

The immediate area they were in had been razed to the ground. The explosion wasn’t powerful, but it was extremely precise. It was almost like it wasn’t set up to kill a large crowd, but for a fixed point on a large-sized enemy.

And the pit from before was commonly used by hunters, save for the spikes at the bottom of it were a lot closer. Fortunately, Rosdell was slightly bigger than an average person. Otherwise, he would have been done for.

Given the thickness of those spikes, they didn’t seem like they were intended for some large creature rather than human.

Did that mean… Golden Htilil had set them up to guard against other enemies? For some reason, it made Durance think of the giant skeleton they had encountered before…

Shaking his head, he quickly denied his conjecture.

Hm, impossible. What could the spikes at the bottom of those pits do to those skeletons? If ten fell in, probably not even one would be killed. At most, it would just break a few of their bones.

The Golden Demon wouldn’t use this kind of useless trap against those skeletons unless she had a few screws loose. The effort was simply far greater than the gain. She would have gotten better results if she replaced those spikes with a few explosion scrolls.

“Let’s go… The Golden Demon may be on her way after all this commotion. We should be prepared to fight at any time…”
“Right.”

Everyone nodded, then took out their weapons and stayed vigilant. Choobchoob also took out a longsword from her storage ring. After triggering such a huge explosion, there was no longer any use in hiding their presence. She might as well switch her stance and be ready to clash with the enemy.

“Hm? Strange, my back is really itchy.”

Rosdell suddenly felt an unbearable itch on his back and wanted to relieve it so badly. Unfortunately due to his physical build, he had difficulty reaching a section of his back. This made him feel so restless that he could hardly stand right on his feet.

“Probably the bugs here… You’re a martial warrior trained in battle qi, and you can’t even stand something like this? I’m starting to wonder if all those muscles on you are just for show.”

Durance shot him a look and commented indifferently. For once, Rosdell didn’t retaliate after being ridiculed. He was simply too bothered by the itch on his back.

And it wasn’t an ordinary itch. He could almost feel something squirming on his skin on his back. It was itchy but at the same time, it also made his hair stand on its end.

“Hey, help me take a quick look. I can’t stand it anymore!”

Rosdell urged Lucas, who quickly came over and didn’t even seem bothered by his rudeness. As soon as he took a look, his eyes widened visibly on his tanned face.

“S̲h̲i̲t̲… Goddess. Bro Rosdell, have you been drinking from a cesspool and consuming raw meat all these years?”

“What do you mean?” Rosdell frowned. A bad feeling rose in him after hearing Lucas’ disgusting metaphor.

“The middle back is full of wriggling maggots, the damn disgusting type…”

Lucas backed off several meters while saying that, and looked at Rosdell like he was some sort of parasite host.

“Maggots?!”

Rosedell was stunned for a moment, then also something wriggling incessantly with his hand. He immediately paled.

“Quick, get those things off me! Hurry!”

“I refuse! Only the Goddess knows how much I’m terrified of worms! Even the cockroach back home would have me screaming!” Lucas suddenly acted like a sissy and escaped.

He wasn’t lying either. Every time he saw a cockroach back home, he’d scream and run to his neigbor, who was a lady knight.

“Cockroaches are so scary~ Please calm me down…” That was what he’d say before he sexually harrassed the lady knight shamelessly…

Due to his special status and his sexual harrassments, not many dared to retaliate. The Pope couldn’t do anything about it either. This was also the reason why his neighbors kept moving out…

While he successfully provided continuous support to a local high-quality cockroach store in Aeria city.

The veins on Rosdell’s temple throbbed, but at the same time… a pea-sized sweat rolled down his forehead. He was even trembling slightly.

The scene drew an amused smile on Diana’s face… Rosdell could definitely shake them off with battle qi, but he reduced himself into a helpless child desperately searching for help.

Don’t tell me this big guy… is actually afraid of worms… Hoho… If she offered this and the photos Lucas got when he peed his pants as a bundle to Rosdell’s enemy, she’ll probably make a lot of money out of them.

Diana secretly took out her spectrum stone again and exchanged a knowing look with Lucas. Once again, both of them reached a consensus…

……

“Bro Rosdell… these are boneworms. They’re usually harmless to living people.”

As someone who grew up in the tropical rainforest of the South Federation, Choobchoob wasn’t afraid of these so she came over to help out.

“R-Really?” Rosdell breathed a sigh of relief, but was still pale.

“Yup.”

While assuring Rosdell, Choobchoob scraped off those maggot-like boneworms with the back of her sword.

“They only feed on bones and never on flesh or blood… So don’t worry, you’ll be fine. But this is strange…”

She looked at the squirming boneworms on the ground in confusion. “They should be totally harmless when not in contact with bone, but why is your skin itching?”

“The boneworm may not be able to, but this can…”

Durance walked up to Rosedell’s back at some point, and dabbed his finger on his back.

“W…What are you doing…?”

Rosdell jumped away reflexively and looked at Durance in alarm. He could feel his hair standing on its end from being touched by another man. The feeling was no different than having some sort of stick placed at the entrance of his a̲s̲s̲.

Ignoring Rosdell, Durance showed his finger to Diana.

“You should know what this is, President Diana.”

“Yes, this is a spell aiming powder. A very common magic ingredient… Since it contains the toxin of colorful caterpillars, it can cause skin itching symptoms.”

“But what is it for?” Lucas asked like a curious baby.

“Idiot. You should already know from its name. To aim a magic spell, of course.”

“Oh… Which kind of magic spell then?”

“Those that are powerful but with very low accuracy. Since it is hard to have both of the best worlds when it comes to magic spells, some mages came up with a solution and that is to rely on external help to increase accuracy. But in actual combat, hitting enemies with these spell aiming powder is a lot harder than using the spell directly. After all, no enemies would be stupid enough to just stand there and let you sprinkle this on their face. So, this thing ended up becoming one of the top ten worst magical inventions.”

Diana stroked her chin and continued, “But… I’ve heard of hunters who use it in traps to hunt beasts and it works quite well.”

Hmm? Trap?

Diana scratched her head. Come to think of it… How did this spell aiming powder get on Rosdells’ back…?

“…..”

The atmosphere turned strangely quiet all of a sudden.

After a few seconds of silence, everyone tacitly pulled at least ten meters away from Rosdell.

“Hey, hey, what are you all doing?” Rosdell’s face twitched.

“Rosdell, I will remember you as an old enemy of mine…” Durance suddenly bowed deeply to him.

“Huh?”

“Senior Rosdell, you will always live in my heart. So don’t be afraid when you are on the road…” Diana covered her mouth. Although there were no tears, she was overflowing with sadness. My fifty percent… That’s a goodbye to my three-piece magic wands set…

“What?”

“Umm… I don’t even know what to say… So I’ll just keep smiling…” Choobchoob smiled shyly.

“……”

“Oh, my dear brother Rosdell, rest in peace, you will surely be missed…”

Only Lucas was really crying. At least Diana made a fortune before Rosdell departed, he didn’t even make a single coin…

Lucas could only feel sorry for himself that he risked his life for that candid photo.

“YOU!”

Rosdell wasn’t stupid so he knew what exactly was going on. He trembled with anger, but couldn’t do anything about it.

All of a sudden, he seemed to have recalled something and sneered at Lucas.

“My brother, do not forget… I wasn’t the only one who got caught by a trap!”

“Haha, it seems like you are blinded by your anger. I merely tripped a thread. Would that Golden Demon Htilil go through the trouble of smearing such a thin thread with spell aiming powder?”