Chapter 146 – Playing Dead Again.

The barbarians fanned out along the shore, some cautiously approaching the water’s edge, others scanning the surrounding trees for threats. They were a rugged group: tall, broad-shouldered, and built like granite statues, with weathered faces and hardened expressions that told stories of survival in the harsh mountain wilderness. One of the younger warriors, with his beard barely grown in, pointed at a strange armor stuck to a log.

“Looks like something got chewed up and spat out again.”

He said, kicking the remnants of a log with a strange-looking armor stuck to it. An older man with a gray beard and a heavy axe slung over his back knelt beside the strange armor’s frame. He prodded it with a thick, calloused finger and then started talking.

“Enchanted Steel. Can use it, but it’s mostly wrecked.”

‘They don’t seem to have noticed yet…’

As an ugly face leaned in to inspect his head, he tried to appear like nothing more than an ordinary helmet. He did have a monster core, but he had planned for that back in the soul forge. A layer of armor separated the core from the rest of the helmet, concealing it in case of close inspection. Unless a skilled craftsman took a closer look, it was unlikely anyone would notice something unusual. Fortunately, these barbarians did not seem particularly clever as they did not notice that they were holding a living armor.

The older barbarian grunted and stood, satisfied that the armor held no traps or lingering curses. He picked up Rusty’s helmet, turning it over, sniffing at the scorched metal and the faint green residue still clinging to its surface.

“Burn marks. Wyvern fire. This thing’s seen some trouble.”

Rusty remained perfectly still. His guides were not with him, as their light or mana could easily alert even these brutes. It was deeply uncomfortable to feel the man’s hands moving over his helmet. His fingers pressed against the hidden core compartment, and for a moment, Rusty considered activating one of his skills. He could summon a burst of darkness to try to disable them, or detonate his nearby chestplate. But from what he could see, neither option was ideal. These people appeared to outlevel him, and the moment he revealed his true nature, he would likely be dead within seconds.

“Just toss it.”

Another voice said from behind him.

“The log’s worth more than that scrap. That’s mountainheart wood, we don’t get many of those floatin’ downstream.”

The warrior with the helmet glanced at the shattered log. A large, splintered piece of it had pierced through Rusty’s torso like a spear. The wood shimmered faintly, threaded with veins of metallic bark and bits of glowing moss.

“This stuff’ll punch through steel if you shave it right, that pathetic armor stood no chance.”

Rusty wanted to protest at being called pathetic, or even worse, compared to a shattered piece of wood. He had come a long way, and his durability was on par with a D-rank item. But to these barbarians, he seemed unremarkable. They wore little armor themselves, so perhaps to them, a piece of wood that could be carved into arrows was more valuable than a chunk of bent steel.

“Armor’s hollow… No bones. No blood. This wasn’t worn by a man.”

His nonexistent metallic heart skipped a beat. The barbarian was not as ignorant as he had hoped. He had correctly identified Rusty’s body as one belonging to a monster. Rusty had been using his standard form, not the one that closely resembled human armor. Without internal organs, the inside of his body was completely bare: no skin, no blood, not even stray hairs that would normally get caught inside over time.

“Magic junk, then. Maybe a golem or a cursed suit. Either way, it’s dead now.”

Fortunately, they still believed he was just the remains of some monster, which was exactly what he had hoped for. As far as they were concerned, dead meant harmless. That also meant they would stop trying to pry him open. Even better, they seemed to be searching for other pieces of his body.

“I think I saw a gauntlet float over there. The rest might have drifted farther down!”

The older barbarian gave the helmet one last sniff, then tucked it under his arm like a foraged mushroom. This was one of the moments that Rusty was glad that he did not have a nose or sense of smell.

“Keep it for scrap. Maybe the witch doctor can melt it down or something?”

Rusty resisted the urge to sigh. Melt? Scrap? He was a powerful living armor monster that would put his mark on the world soon and these brutes thought that he was worth less than some tree bark. He wanted to activate his shadow magic at this very moment but needed to wait for a better opportunity to arise.

“Fan out, search the banks. If the rest of it’s out there, we’ll find it.”

The group dispersed, feet crunching over sand and roots. The one carrying Rusty trudged up the shore, muttering to himself. From this new angle, Rusty could see more: a crude camp nestled just beyond the treeline, with hide tents, drying racks strung with fish, and a fire pit still smoldering from the night before.

Suddenly, he sensed one of his body parts nearby. The barbarians were unknowingly doing him a favor by gathering them together without him lifting a finger. His SP was slowly recharging, but it was always more efficient to repair or make use of parts that were already deployed. With them close, he also had more potential explosives to trigger if he needed to cover his escape. However, just as he was beginning to enjoy the progress, his head was abruptly shoved into a canvas sack.

The barbarian slung the sack over his back and continued walking. From time to time, another of Rusty’s body parts was tossed into the sack. Things seemed to be going his way for the moment, so he decided to wait. Once his full body was recovered, he could reassemble and possibly make a run for it.

He still could transform into light and escape, just as he had done before, but the sun energy he needed would not stay while he was sealed inside the sack. Like during his encounter with the Orcs, he would need a few minutes of exposure to gather enough energy. For now, he had no choice but to bide his time and wait.

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The canvas sack wasn’t empty. It was filled with old scraps of leather and various bits of junk the barbarian had scavenged from the river. Rusty was being hauled around like trash, and he couldn’t protest. His scattered body parts knocked against each other with every step, but at least they were being returned to him.

Eventually, the roar of the waterfall faded, replaced by the sound of voices. He could hear cheerful chatter, even the laughter of children playing nearby. It was not the behavior he expected from people often described as savages. While their size was noticeably greater than that of regular humans, their actions felt surprisingly ordinary. Rusty began to wonder if there had been some mistake. These people didn’t seem like the bloodthirsty monsters he had been told about.

As he was trying to listen to these people the sack he was in was dropped down on the ground in a rather violent way. The jolt rattled Rusty’s helmet, and the rest of his collected pieces shifted loudly inside the sack. He remained still. He had gotten this far by being patient, and he wasn’t about to break cover now.

A moment later, the sack was dragged again, but this time across rough ground and then opened abruptly, flooding his helmet’s visor with daylight. He saw firelight flickering inside a wide tent and caught the smell of meat cooking over a nearby hearth. His “collector” grunted and dumped the entire sack onto a hide-strewn floor.

“Got more junk for the bone woman.”

The barbarian called out as he turned to leave. Footsteps shuffled closer, and a new voice spoke, one that sounded older and female.

“Let me see it.”