Chapter 64: Frogman Tribe

After they realized that they were surrounded, they all stopped and looked around warily.

They were all quite experienced in being surrounded as they had explored a lot in the Valley of the Tragic Dead, and the most monsters there were hordes upon hordes of skeletons and monsters that surrounded players within moments.

Of course, the situation right now was different. After all, revenants and undead monsters only acted on their instincts, and the surrounding was only because there were a lot of them. Now, the enemies were surrounding them with a plan and an objective.

As the perimeter of the circle of enemies closed in, they saw who exactly was attacking them.

These were creatures that were around 1.1~1.2 meters tall, and looked like large toads that stood on two feet. Their necks were nonexistent and their skin was damp and green or brown, with black stripes and patterns on their skin.

They wore clothes made from shells that covered their vitals, while they held easy weapons made from large conches attached to tips of wooden rods. From the way they were puffing their cheeks, it was easy to see that they weren’t happy at all.

“Why are you here, dry-skinned?!” A large frog with a necklace of shells shouted, and it seemed like he was the leader of the team. It spoke Shumonian (human common language) with a heavy accent. “Get out of here, the Warty Tidal Flat belongs to us, the wet-skinned!”

The ones that called themselves the sticky-skinned were naturally the frogman tribe that Vela wanted to meet.

For context, the name of ‘dry-skinned’ was a slightly derogatory term that frogmen called everyone other than their own tribe and aquatic tribes.

“Wow, they’re all yellow named, and don’t have HP bars…So are they friends, or enemies?” Gou Dan muttered softly.

“No idea, probably neutral?” Edward shrugged.

“We don’t want to fight with you, in fact, we’re here to help you!” Vela shouted out, and to increase her persuasiveness, she threw her bow and dagger on to the ground, and raised both arms in surrender. “We just want to talk with the leader of your tribe.”

After she said so, she looked at the others in the party, gesturing for them to throw down their weapons too.

With a sigh, Edward and the other members complied, placing their weapons down on the ground.

Different than the regular warriors and mages in this world, players could still use a majority of their abilities, just without the stat boosts given by the equipment.

But the frogmen didn’t know this, so seeing that the players had thrown their equipment down, their hostility decreased considerably.

“We don’t have anything to say to you dry-skinned people! Catch them all! Remember that the one that caught you was Croakatoa, the hero of the wet-skinned!”

That frogman sneered at Vela and the party and ordered his subordinates, puffing his cheeks in pride.

“Hey, that’s my T2 greatsword from the Valley of the Tragic Dead, don’t drag it on the ground! What if you break it…” Joe grumbled, but was ignored duly by the frogmen.

This weapon was way too heavy for them after all, so dragging it on the ground was all they could do.

Under the party’s cooperation, they were brought back to the frogman settlement with strips of kelp wrapped around their wrists.

As they were walking, Vela tried to communicate with the other frogmen, but they didn’t know how to speak Shumonian.

The village was built just by the tidal flat, and there weren’t a lot of houses built. Most of the houses were large, two-meter tall conches, while a small percentage of them were houses built from rocks and shells.

Even though it could be considered exotic, the beauty standards of the frogman tribe differed a lot from that of humans, and standing on the roads of the frogman village, the party couldn’t help feeling that it was extremely filthy…

Even if it were still low tide at the moment, the seawater still covered their ankles.

“This is my first time seeing frogman buildings…” Gou Dan looked around curiously.

“That goes for all of the human race, too. If there was a ranking of the most mysterious races in the world, frogmen would definitely rank in the top ten!” Vela whispered back to him.

Other than some sailors, humans didn’t have much interaction with frogmen.

Most of the time, frogmen would avoid humans and stayed in remote and isolated places, so it was hard to see them.

At the same time, frogmen didn’t have anything that warranted the attention of humans—Their flesh tastes gross, their organs don’t have any medicinal properties, and they didn’t have any valuable local products like pearls. The most valuable things they produced were probably the salted fish that were dried on their roofs…

And so after the war, the human civilization didn’t have much conflict with frogmen at all.

This was why Angora was curious why the Society of the Secret Eye got into trouble with the frogman tribe, and why the frogman tribe would rather fight with them instead of leaving the tidal flats…Also, he wanted to give the frogmen some help, so that the Society of the Secret Eye didn’t attack the unnamed town from the direction of the tidal flats.

“Here is where the village elder lives, tell him anything!” Croakatoa croaked and brought the party to the largest conch in the village.

“You said you don’t have anything to say to us, but you still brought us here anyway? You’re a good guy, Croakatoa!” Joe was a warrior and a straightforward person, so he laughed and praised the frogman.

“I just wanted to see, what you had to say!”

The inside of the conch was unexpectedly spacious, and the village elder was already waiting inside.

He had yellowish-orange skin that was different than every other frogman in the village, and his size was much larger too, with a bunch of gross-looking warts on his back.

“According to Croakatoa, you have something to tell me?” The frogman asked in fluent Shumonian. “I don’t think I would be able to help you…”

“Please don’t treat us as enemies, we’re here to help you!” Vela tried to put on a diplomatic front. “I believe you have been attacked by other humans recently…”

“Did you dry-skins do it?!” Vela hadn’t finished her sentence before Croakatoa jumped and shouted at her.

“Croakatoa, you go out first!” The village elder made Croakatoa retreat, before turning back to Vela. “I apologize for his rudeness, but I hope you understand. You dry-skinned all look the same, and it’s really hard to differentiate among you people…”

“Meanwhile, us the wet-skinned tribe have many different skin colors and patterns on our skin! Look at this chrysanthemum on my back…Ah, sorry elder, you know that I have always been proud of my cute little chrysanthemum.”

Croakatoa was bragging about his pattern, before realizing that everyone in the room was looking at him, and so he shrank into a corner.