They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World-Chapter 182: Corruption [1]
The mine shaft descended at a gentle angle, the main tunnel wide enough for three people to walk abreast comfortably.
Support beams appeared at regular intervals.
Our footsteps echoed in the confined space, the sound bouncing off stone walls.
Tessa stayed close behind me, one hand occasionally touching my back like she needed the physical reassurance that I was still there.
Scarlet moved ahead with confident steps.
We passed side tunnels, exploratory shafts that had been dug and then abandoned when they didn’t yield worthwhile deposits.
Some were marked with chalk notations indicating what had been found or why they’d been closed off.
My debug vision kept scanning, cataloging everything.
iron_ore: (not commercially viable)
silver_ore: DEPLETED
copper_traces: MINIMAL
limestone: ABUNDANT (structural only)
unknown_signature: GETTING_STRONGER
distance_to_source: ~150m
Whatever that unknown signature is, we’re getting closer to it.
After maybe twenty minutes of descent, the main shaft opened into a larger chamber, clearly a former work area.
Old equipment lay abandoned in corners. Tool racks stood empty. A few overturned ore carts suggested the evacuation had been hurried but orderly.
"This must be where the main vein was," I said, examining the walls with my debug vision.
The rock showed clear signs of extraction, pickaxe marks, blast points where they’d used controlled explosives to break up larger deposits.
But the silver vein itself was gone, mined out completely.
Tessa moved to one of the walls, placed her hand against the stone, and activated her Material Analysis.
That familiar soft glow surrounded her fingers.
Her eyes went distant for a few seconds, then she pulled back.
"Limestone, mostly. There are traces of silver, but nothing worth extracting." She moved to another section. "Same thing here. They really did mine it clean."
"So the survey is accurate," Scarlet said, looking around the chamber. "Nothing left worth."
"For the regular minerals, yes." I was still scanning with my debug vision, tracking that unknown signature. "But there’s something else here."
I pointed deeper into the chamber, where a smaller tunnel branched off.
"There. That tunnel. The signature is coming from down there."
Tessa and Scarlet both turned to look.
The tunnel was narrower than the main shaft, clearly a later exploratory dig. It didn’t have the same level of reinforcement, just minimal support beams, enough to keep it from immediate collapse but not intended for heavy traffic.
"Should we check it out?" Tessa asked, her voice carrying uncertainty.
"That’s what we’re being paid for," I said.
"I was hoping you’d say we should leave it alone and let someone else investigate."
"We could. But then we’d be leaving the job incomplete." I started toward the tunnel. "Stay close. If anything seems dangerous, we back out immediately."
The narrow tunnel forced us into single file.
I took the lead this time, Oathstorm drawn despite no immediate threat, the light orb held high.
The walls here were rougher, showing hasty excavation. This had been a speculative dig, probably one of the last attempts to find a new vein before the mine was closed.
My debug vision showed the unknown signature growing stronger with every step.
distance: 50m
mana_concentration: INCREASING
Then, the tunnel opened into a small natural cavern.
And there, in the center, was the source.
A crystal formation maybe three feet tall, growing up from the cavern floor like some kind of twisted geological tumor.
It pulsed with a faint internal light—sickly purple-green.
[CORRUPTED_MANA_CRYSTAL]
classification: DUNGEON_SEED
maturity_level: 23%
growth_rate: ACCELERATING
estimated_time_to_dungeon_emergence: 45-60_days
threat_level: MODERATE
Tessa gasped behind me.
"What is that?"
My eyes widened.
"The fuck—"
Before I could finish processing what I was seeing, Scarlet’s voice cut through the cavern.
"There’s more."
She hissed the words, her body going tense, head snapping toward the darker corners of the cave.
That’s when I heard it.
...Low growls
Coming from the shadows beyond my light orb’s reach.
I poured more mana into the orb immediately, expanding its radius.
The sudden illumination revealed our unwelcome guests.
Maybe seven of them. No, eight... Nine.
They looked like wolves at first glance, but wrong.
Their fur was matted and discolored with patches of that same sickly purple-green that pulsed from the crystal. Their eyes glowed with unnatural light. Mouths hung open showing too many teeth, saliva dripping in thick, viscous strands that sizzled when it hit the stone floor.
They moved with jerky, unnatural movements, like their bodies weren’t quite responding correctly to their brains.
"I’ve never seen these before," Scarlet said, her voice tight.
Her knives were already in her hands, stance ready. "What are they?"
I activated my debug vision, scanning rapidly.
[ENTITY_SCAN]
base_species: "cave_wolf"
corruption_status: SEVERE
mana_exposure: PROLONGED (dungeon_seed_influence)
level_range: 15-21
threat_level: HIGH
Corrupted beasts.
My jaw tightened.
Cave wolves that have been exposed to the dungeon seed’s mana for who knows how long.
That’s... bad.
"Listen carefully," I said quickly. "They’ve been exposed to whatever that crystal is putting out. Don’t let them bite or scratch you."
One of the wolves snarled, its body coiling like a spring ready to release.
"Get ready," I told Scarlet.
She grinned.
"Finally. Something to kill."
Then she charged.
I immediately activated combat edits, layering enhancements on her as she moved.
target: "Scarlet_Fang"
modifications: {
AGI: +40%
reaction_time: IMPROVED
weapon_sharpness: +60%
stamina_efficiency: +25%
}
duration: 10_minutes
MP_cost: 65
Scarlet’s speed increased noticeably, her knives blurring as she closed the distance to the nearest corrupted wolf.
"Tessa!" I didn’t take my eyes off the threats. "Stay behind me. If anything gets past us, run. Don’t fight, just run."
"Okay!" Her voice was high with fear but controlled. I heard her backing up, the scrape of her boots on stone, the sound of her drawing the small utility knife she carried.
The wolves didn’t wait for us to finish preparing.
Three of them lunged simultaneously, their corrupted bodies moving faster than natural wolves should.
Scarlet took the first one, her enhanced speed letting her sidestep its leap and open its throat with both knives in a scissoring motion.
Black blood sprayed, sizzling where it hit the ground.
The second wolf came at me.
I stood my ground, Oathstorm gripped in both hands, feeling the weight of it, the balance.
Time to find out what you can really do.
I channeled mana into the blade.
[OATHSTORM: STORM_AFFINITY_ACTIVATED]
Lightning began to crackle along Oathstorm’s dark blade, blue-white arcs that jumped and sparked, illuminating the cavern with stroboscopic flashes.
The wolf lunged, jaws wide, aiming for my throat.
I moved.
Faster than I’d before, the sword feeling lighter in my hands, my body responding with precision that felt superhuman.
The blade came around in a horizontal slash, meeting the wolf mid-leap.
The lightning-enhanced edge cut through corrupted flesh like it wasn’t there, severing both front legs, continuing through to take off the creature’s head in a single fluid motion.
The body hit the ground in pieces, twitching, black blood pooling.
I blinked.
Is this the battle memory enchantment? The sword learning how I fight and optimizing for it?
No time to analyze it.
Two more wolves were coming, one from each side, trying to flank me.
I spun, Oathstorm moving in a wide arc, the lightning crackling louder now as I poured more mana into it.
My blade caught the left wolf in the ribcage, lightning surging through the wound, cooking it from the inside.
It dropped, convulsing.
Right wolf tried to dodge, but it was too slow.
I adjusted mid-swing, the sword seemed to want to move that way, like it was guiding my hands, and opened it from shoulder to hip.
Another kill.
Scarlet had taken down two more, moving like a whirlwind, her enhanced speed making her nearly impossible for the corrupted wolves to track.
But she was breathing harder, black blood spattered across her clothes and face.
"These things don’t stay down!" she shouted, driving both knives into a wolf’s skull to make sure it was actually dead.
She was right, the ones she’d "killed" were still twitching, trying to move despite fatal wounds.
They don’t follow normal biological rules.
I moved toward the nearest twitching corpse and brought Oathstorm down in a clean strike, severing the head completely.
The lightning seemed to help, burning out whatever corruption kept the body animated.
It finally went still.
"Decapitate them!" I called to Scarlet. "It’s the only way to make sure!"
She cursed but adjusted her tactics, going for killing strikes to the head instead of just disabling wounds.
The remaining wolves seemed to realize they were losing and pulled back, circling at a distance, growls continuous and threatening.
I used the momentary respite to scan the cavern again with my debug vision.
Ceiling.
I looked up.
Two more corrupted wolves clung to the cavern ceiling like massive spiders, their claws embedded in the rock, bodies coiled and ready to drop.
"Above you!" I shouted.
Both dropped simultaneously, aiming for Scarlet while she was focused on the ground-level threats.
I moved without thinking.
Oathstorm came up in a vertical slash, catching the first falling wolf mid-descent and splitting it lengthwise.
The second one was going to land on Scarlet—
She rolled at the last second, my warning giving her just enough time to react, and the wolf hit the ground where she’d been standing.
Before it could recover, she was on it, both knives punching through its skull from above, her full body weight behind the strikes.
It went limp.
The remaining ground-level wolves chose that moment to attack all at once—a desperate final assault.
I met them head-on.
Oathstorm moved in patterns I’d drilled thousands of times, but enhanced now, optimized, the sword’s enchantments working in concert with my own abilities.
[UNORTHODOX FANG: 99% → 100%]
[MASTERY ACHIEVED]
[NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED!]
