Chapter 51: Hamster
A few hours earlier.
Bean Village.
“Little brother, little sister over there? Is this Bean Village?”
Aman and Mary, who were learning to identify herbs at the village entrance, heard a strange greeting.
Turning their heads, they saw an unfamiliar carriage parked beside the “Bean Village” road sign at the entrance of the village.
Two people jumped down from the carriage first.
The two in front, one dressed somewhat like Marco, also a fat man with a full beard and a big belly; the other was hunched over, clearly a young shop assistant.
The chubby middle-aged man waved at them and asked again with a smile, “Is this Bean Village? We are merchants from Amber Town. We heard there are very good goods here and wanted to come and take a look.”
As soon as Aman heard that they had come to the village to look at goods, his eyes lit up, and he hurriedly said, “Yes, yes, this is Bean Village—you, do you want to see the village chief?”
Mary, a year younger than Aman, was more wary than him and looked at the two suspiciously.
Wasn’t Amber Town very far from here? Why would they come all the way here to look at goods?
At this moment, another person jumped down from the carriage.
This person wore the dark blue uniform of the Ability-user Patrol and had a square face.
The square-faced man saluted Mary and Aman, “I am from the Amber Town Ability-user Patrol, temporarily acting as this merchant’s guard.”
Ah, so he was a member of the patrol.
Wasn’t that Dad’s former colleague?
Mary then broke into a smile, “Let us take you to see the village chief.”
*
The merchant from Amber Town chatted with the village chief for quite a while.
At first, the old village chief was somewhat wary of this “traveling merchant.”
But the other party’s expression was sincere, and his words showed him to be an honest merchant in every way. In addition, the ability-user beside him was also wearing the patrol’s uniform, so the old village chief’s doubts faded.
After hearing that “tofu doesn’t last long” and “all the honey is pre-ordered,” the merchant showed twelve thousand percent regret, repeatedly lamenting, “Then I’ll have to come early next year,” and constantly saying, “You’ll definitely have more goods next year,” “I feel refreshed just walking around this village,” “I’ll come find you again in the spring, there must be other good goods.”
The village chief didn’t say anything, but Aman, hearing this well-traveled merchant value Bean Village so much, couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear.
Seeing that no business could be discussed today, the merchant didn’t linger, got up, patted his clothes, and was about to leave.
Aman, who was a lively and active child, immediately said, “Let me see you out.” The village chief glanced at the esper waiting outside and let Aman go.
Coming out of the village chief’s house, the talkative merchant praised Bean Village in various ways again, while also complimenting Aman for being “clever and sensible, more mature than adults” and “particularly warm and hospitable,” making the child giggle non-stop and wanting to prove that he was indeed “clever and sensible, and understood everything.”
While they were talking, the merchant suddenly changed the subject, “Has your village hired any ‘pioneers’ for the wasteland?”
Mentioning this, Aman got excited.
He nodded vigorously, “Yes, yes, a very sharp older brother!”
Merchant: “Does he live in the village?”
Aman: “No, he lives in the wasteland.”
Merchant: “Really? A pioneer actually lives in the wasteland? That’s so dangerous, what if there’s a monster riot or something…”
Aman: “It’s true, I’m not lying! I’ll show you!”
With that, Aman trotted along, leading the merchant to the vicinity of the road sign at the edge of the village, pointing to the merchant from afar, “Look, that small house is the pioneer’s hut!”
“Our pioneer’s hut is as magical as the road sign. Monsters will definitely not run into the hut, just like they won’t run over to the road sign!”
The merchant and his shop assistant glanced over there as if they didn’t care much.
The shop assistant, who had been following the merchant with hunched shoulders all along, changed his expression slightly and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
The merchant knew what was up.
This person continued to ask Aman with a smile, “What about a large-scale riot? Can it also be defended against?”
Aman was stunned, and the light in his eyes dimmed a bit, “That… I don’t know.”
In fact, he knew a little.
The “road sign’s” defense against monsters had a limit.
His village back then had been almost razed to the ground in a very rare large-scale monster riot.
The merchant hurriedly said, “Oh dear, what nonsense am I talking about? Large-scale riots are a once-in-a-century event, there won’t be another one for decades. Little brother, take me to see the fields over there.”
After walking around the village for a while, the merchant asked some questions about who else was in the village and when the pioneer would return, before getting into the carriage and leaving.
Aman walked home happily, thinking that when Big Brother Chu Jiu came back, he must tell him:
Merchants from other towns have come to our village!
Grandpa said that the soy sauce that Big Brother Chu Jiu taught us to make will be ready by next summer.
Maybe we can sell soy sauce to Amber Town by then!
Big Brother Chu Jiu will definitely be very happy!
*
What Aman didn’t expect was that this group of “merchants” didn’t really leave.
Relying on the esper accompanying them, they weren’t worried about the monsters along the way. Not far after leaving the village entrance, they found a hidden corner and waited for the sun to set.
Inside the carriage, the merchant took off the cushion that had been padding his belly and the fake sideburns stuck to his face, turning into a thin middle-aged man.
He touched his face, which was itchy from the long-applied beard, and said to the person dressed as a “shop assistant,” “Second brother, I saw your nose twitching just now. Did you smell something?”
These two had just stood on the side of the road sign, looking towards the “pioneer’s hut,” and had seen nothing but a dilapidated house standing alone.
The “shop assistant” stretched lazily, “You probably won’t believe it if I say it.”
“That place, the smell of that honey, oh man, it could make anyone drool.”
“I reckon, the honey hidden near that small broken house is probably more than two or three hundred jars!”
The fake merchant’s eyes lit up: Honey?! More than two or three hundred jars?!
He immediately said, “Then we’ll go get that honey tonight first, and then come back to bury the ‘box’.”
The fake shop assistant chuckled, “Okay, okay.”
The “patrol member” on the side took off his uniform, looking somewhat hesitant, “Didn’t the client tell us to just bury the box and leave, not to ’cause any extra trouble’?”
The fake merchant glared at him, “Third brother, it’s just something we can do easily, how is that ‘causing extra trouble’?”
“Think about it! That’s honey!”
“At 100 copper coins a jar, that’s at least twenty or thirty thousand copper coins!”
“We received a total of thirty thousand copper coins for this job, ten thousand for each of us three brothers.”
“If we get some honey back ourselves, and each gets an extra ten thousand, what’s wrong with that?”
“Ten thousand copper coins is enough to live it up in Sea Moon City for a long time!”
The third brother fell silent.
These three were not from Amber Town, nor were they merchants, nor was there any patrol member among them—the “third brother” did have some esper abilities and had been in the patrol, but he had been expelled long ago for bad behavior.
Now, these three relied on doing shady deals to make a living.
The “merchant plus ability-user” combination they used this time had worked repeatedly, conning deposits from several remote villages, succeeding every time.
Just this morning, they had taken a “big job,” and it was urgent.
The client had given them two wooden boxes, instructing them to bury the contents of the boxes separately near the “Bean Village” road sign on the outer edge of the village and near the pioneer’s hut in the wasteland.
The eldest of the three brothers didn’t agree immediately but instead asked indirectly what this was all for.
The client didn’t hide anything and directly told them that after taking out the contents of the boxes, they could counteract the effect of the road sign and also attract monsters.
Bean Village had offended some people they shouldn’t have, and now they needed to suffer a bit to learn a lesson.
After hearing this, the eldest brother said lazily, “Oh? There’s actually something that can release monsters…?”
“You’re kidding, if monsters get into the village, it’s just ‘letting them suffer a bit and learn a lesson’? In less than a night, there won’t be any living creatures left in this village. Do you want the dead to learn a lesson?”
The client smiled frankly, “What? You wouldn’t have a change of heart and dare not take the job, would you?”
The eldest brother picked up the coins the client had placed on the table and licked them, “That’s right, our conscience has been pricked.”
“So, we need more money.”
Night fell.
The three brothers, who had openly scouted the area in the afternoon, silently sneaked back to Bean Village and approached the road sign at the edge of the wasteland.
The three had already discussed it: the eldest brother was responsible for burying the box next to the road sign; the third brother was responsible for burying the box next to the wooden house; and the second brother would follow the scent to find the hidden honey and put all the honey into leather bags.
Once everything was done, the three brothers would leave quickly.
As for whether the village would be razed by monsters, they didn’t care.
If anyone in the village survived by chance, they would at most remember that “a fat merchant came from Amber Town that day,” and no one would think of the three brothers.
The three separated at the road sign.
The eldest brother found a place to dig a hole, and the second brother followed behind the third brother, running in small steps towards the pioneer’s hut.
These two had only run a few steps when they were so shocked that they almost cried out:
Why was this place completely different from what they saw in the afternoon?
When they looked this way in the afternoon, wasn’t there just a dilapidated wooden house from who knows how many years ago standing alone?
Now, by the moonlight, they could see very clearly: that wasn’t some dilapidated wooden house at all, it was clearly a brand-new small building with a fence, flower bushes, and a small courtyard!
Next to the small building, there were also strange pipes, dripping water this way from a large, turntable-like thing in the distance?
Not far from the small building, there was also a building like a barn—the second brother’s nose twitched, and he whispered to the third brother that the barn was filled with the smell of grain!
The more the two looked around, the more their eyes blurred and their heads spun, not understanding why crossing just a road sign would lead to such a big difference in what they saw.
But they didn’t have time to think about it carefully now.
Following the eldest brother’s instructions, the two began to work separately.
Behind the small building.
The third brother circled around and casually found a place to dig.
The box itself wasn’t big, and the dark, stone-like thing to be buried inside was even smaller.
In less than two minutes, a shallow pit appeared in the ground.
He was about to open the box when he heard a slight noise nearby.
Could it be a monster?
It’s okay, I’m an esper after all. If a monster or two comes, I can still…
“Bang!”
Something flew towards his face and hit the bridge of his nose squarely. He immediately saw stars, and blood gushed out of his nostrils.
What the hell hit me?!
The third brother covered his nose and glanced to the side—
A carrot?!
A carrot flew over and hit me?
He squinted and looked forward again:
That was, that was…
A rabbit?!
*
Beside the bee farm.
Relying on his almost supernatural sense of smell, the second brother quickly found a strange building.
“These broken boxes are too weird… all hexagonal, and they’re all piled together, it’s creepy to look at,” the second brother muttered softly, staring at the giant wooden boxes in the bee farm.
He shook his head and didn’t look again. His nose twitched again, accurately locating the large wooden barrel containing honey.
The smell beside this wooden barrel was so sweet it almost made him drunk.
He took two deep breaths and pushed open the large lid on top of the barrel—
Whoa!
It was really a full barrel!
Golden and bright, translucent honey that gleamed!
This could all be exchanged for shiny gold coins!
He couldn’t help humming a little tune, found a leather pouch, and prepared to scoop honey into it with a wooden spoon.
However, before he could even touch the wooden spoon, he felt a gust of wind beside his ear, and then something slammed into his face, knocking him off balance and onto the ground!
Before he could get up, that thing landed beside his head with a “clang,” followed by a flurry of punches like a storm!
The second brother’s face instantly turned into a pig’s head.
He cried out in agony, rolling back and forth on the ground trying to dodge, completely unaware of what was beating him!
He only knew that the thing kept raining down fists or hooves while constantly making “clang clang clang clang” sounds!
*
Beside the road sign.
“What in the world is this thing?”
The eldest brother muttered to himself.
Just now, he had pried open the box and was about to pour out the black stone inside when he found that the “stone” had grown legs and jumped out of the box, burrowing into the soil with a whoosh.
To be honest, this scene made his back feel a little cold.
The object in this box… felt sinister.
There had always been rumors about “something being able to counteract the power of the road sign.”
He hadn’t expected to see it for real this time.
Sinister was sinister, but he was just doing his job for money anyway. He muttered this to himself, and that slight discomfort immediately vanished.
The person who placed the order said that it would take about ten minutes to half an hour for this thing to take effect.
Wait a minute, why not find a place with his brothers to watch and see what level the attracted monsters were?
If they really encountered a large-scale monster riot, that would be a once-in-a-century spectacle, just thinking about it was exciting!
If things didn’t look right, they could just get in the carriage and run.
Anyway, the road signs in Emerald Town and Amber Town were still there, and monsters couldn’t get in.
Sigh, let me think about which casino to go to after getting the money this time…
The eldest brother sat under the road sign and thought for a long time until a gust of cold wind blew past, and he finally realized something was wrong: why hadn’t those two returned yet?
This was taking too long!
He stood up suspiciously, then crouched down and walked a few steps towards the pioneer’s hut, making “shush shush” sounds, the unique code they used.
Why… wasn’t there any response?
Cold sweat began to break out on his forehead.
Just as he was about to go further in, “snap!” a whip struck him in the face!
The whip lashed out with extreme force, causing one of his eyeballs to burst directly, and his nose bridge snapped in the middle.
“Ahhh… mmm!” He cried out instinctively, but something wrapped around his mouth layer by layer, quickly silencing him!
He struggled, his remaining eye filled with terror as he looked upwards—
That was, that was, a flying tree?!
*
“Glugluglu, glugluglu, all tied up!” Glugluglu circled in the air, surveying its achievements.
“HooL hooL hooL We won’t let those bad guys who want to steal honey succeed hoohoohoo!”
Hoohoo Rabbit stood with its hands on its hips, glaring at the human-shaped objects wrapped in tree roots on the ground.
“Clang clang clang I’ll go check on the bees, I hope the bees weren’t scared.” Kakaba said gently.
However, Kakaba hadn’t walked far when its four paws suddenly stopped, and it pressed its ears to the ground.
Hoohoo Rabbit was stunned for a moment, and its two long ears also perked up.
Glugluglu’s expression changed, and it flew higher.
The forest, which usually had more or less the roars and noises of monsters, was now silent in the moonlight, without a single sound.
However, the three little ones all knew what the sudden silence meant.
Dark clouds blocked the moon.
A rustling sound began to come from the depths of the forest, as if ten thousand ants were crawling out of the ground at the same time.
Immediately afterwards, the rustling sound grew louder and louder, gradually turning into a rumbling sound, like countless beasts trampling the ground.
Finally, the trees shook, the air vibrated, and a boundless black shadow surged towards the small building like a mudslide!
*
Outside Sea Moon City.
“Giddy up! Giddy up!”
Reg whipped the horses, driving towards Emerald Town at top speed.
From the moment he detected the abnormal state of the spirit beasts, Chu Jiu didn’t delay at all. He briefly told Douglas and Reg, “Something’s wrong in Bean Village.”
The two didn’t bother to ask any questions. They picked up the dwarf beastman, carried Chu Jiu onto the carriage, and rushed back with all their might.
Chu Jiu sat in the carriage, his forehead covered in fine beads of sweat.
In the past quarter of an hour, the spirit beasts’ state had briefly changed from “black face angry” to “pouting unhappy,” and then to “abnormally tense.”
At the same time, the system began to continuously pop up new prompts:
[Detecting that monsters will enter the Pioneer’s Hut area, please decide whether to allow them to enter]
[Detecting that highly aggressive monsters are about to enter the Pioneer’s Hut area, please decide whether to allow them to enter]
[Detecting that a group of highly aggressive monsters is about to enter the Pioneer’s Hut area, please decide whether to allow them to enter]
What on earth was going on?!
Chu Jiu slapped his forehead hard and quickly asked Douglas under what circumstances highly aggressive monsters would continuously try to pour into a certain area.
Douglas replied, “A monster riot.”
Ordinary monster riots could be defended against by village-level road signs.
But it wouldn’t work for a rare “large-scale monster riot.”
A “large-scale monster riot” was when highly aggressive monsters in the surrounding area collectively “stepped out of line.” Although the duration was very short, the extent of the damage was extremely terrifying.
However, this level of riot happened only once in a hundred years. The last one had only been a few years ago, and now…
Speaking of this, Douglas suddenly realized something, and his face changed drastically, “Eileen! Mary!”
This usually very composed middle-aged man pressed Chu Jiu’s shoulder tightly, “What did you sense?!”
Chu Jiu’s heart pounded wildly, and he said with difficulty, “I can… I can sense… many monsters… about to rush into the Pioneer’s Hut area.”
But these monsters might not necessarily rush towards Bean Village.
Chu Jiu prayed so.
However, the next second, a new prompt appeared:
[Emergency alert from “Honor Region—Bean Village”: Monsters have reached the edge of the village!]
Chu Jiu’s face instantly turned deathly pale.
What to do? What to do?
If he were in Bean Village, various props should be able to block the monsters, and he could also organize everyone to set traps—
But he was thousands of miles away, unable to do anything!
[Emergency alert from “Honor Region—Bean Village”: Monsters have already broken through the edge of the village!]
The road sign had been breached!
Bean Village! Monsters had broken into Bean Village!
I have to do something!
I must do something!
I can’t let these monsters destroy this village and hurt the people there!
Chu Jiu’s eyes turned blood red.
His heart was beating so fast it felt like it would burst out of his chest.
His head began to ache violently.
After a sharp pain as if iron nails were being hammered into his brain, a golden light suddenly flashed before Chu Jiu’s eyes—
It was actually the little golden hamster!
The little hamster, who had come unsummoned, fluttered its wings and “squeaked” at Chu Jiu.
This time Chu Jiu completely understood.
The little hamster said:
[My movement is not restricted by space, I can arbitrarily mobilize items in the backpack, but this requires a large amount of Spirit Power]
[Remember to find me and let me return before the Spirit Power is exhausted, otherwise we will all die]
[There is no time to think, this is our only way, now give me the dominant consciousness]
After the little hamster finished speaking, Chu Jiu only felt a constant buzzing in his ears, his vision gradually blurring, and his limbs quickly stiffening as if they were no longer under his control.
In less than a few seconds, only his eyelids and lips could barely move.
Gathering his last bit of consciousness, he moved his lips and squeezed out a few blurry words: “I will… save everyone…”
With that, his eyes closed, and his whole body fell heavily backward.
I hope everyone is alright