Chapter 110: Having a Language Barrier is Downright Troublesome
Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Erm... T-This is..." Looking at the cured dragon meat that Little Brother Zhang pulled out, Baiyi bit back the words that sprang to his tongue. Yeah, you can probably still call it meat jerky but will you look at the shining metallic sheen on it that reflects light? How is that possibly edible?
"I know, I know whit ye're aff tae say. A've actually given it a go whin I first git this," Little Brother Zhang said as he picked up the meat and smashed it forcefully on the rock wall--- a sharp jarring sound of metal friction filled the cave at once.
... W-Wait, is that sparks I see? Erm... Hello? I don't think this is safe for human consumption at all...
"A've decided tae forge this dried dragon bridie -- i mean, meat intae a dagger! Oh yes, a'm aff tae turn it tae become mah family heirloom 'n' pass it tae mah next of kin!" Waving the soon-to-be-dagger dried dragon meat in the air, Zhang Fah'n seemed to be very pleased with himself.
"O-Oh okay... As long as you're happy," Baiyi forced a smile.
When night fell upon them, all of the members of the rescue team slowly drifted off into deep sleep. As usual, Mia slept together with Tisdale, her arms holding on tight to the hammerhead shark doll, and a goat cub that was curled up beside her pillow. Baiyi, who was watching over the two of them with great affection, tucked them in before he tuned in to the Void to listen to the discussion among the Voidwalkers.
Some rough deductions were already gradually forming after such a long discussion. One of the most plausible reason that the Walkers agreed on was that the mysterious realm that the ancestors were in was different from a normal realm and perhaps due to the thin barrier of that realm, the ancestors could sense the real existence of the Walkers in the Void. As for the rest of the questions--- what their purpose was, or how exactly they managed to transmit their power to the realm of reality or even why they entered that peculiar realm in the first place--- none of the Voidwalkers could come up with a logical answer at all.
The fact that the ancestors insisted on having all the souls of the deceased Alpine Barbarians return to the realm was undeniably strange. Some of the Walkers thought that it was probably a method for them to evade the sanctions of the Law, while others said that they did that to accumulate more power and strength in the tribe. Anyway, as the opinions of the Walkers varied, no unanimous conclusion could be drawn at all. The only thing that all of them agreed on was that the ancestors were indeed very mysterious.
"If you have the opportunity, communicate with them more in the future," the Archmage addressed his disciple, "Let us just drop this topic for now. Oh yeah, that's right! How are you feeling now?"
Great! Baiyi exclaimed inwardly. Then, he broke off a bulging rock from the wall and crushed it into fine powder easily with both of his hands, as he let the fine powder flow out between his fingers to the ground, The barbarians have given me their words and with this immense power, rescuing Undine will be piece of cake. Still, I wonder how she's holding up now...
Undine, who was the main reason for everything that had happened, could be considered as somewhat lucky because so far, she had not been touched by anyone yet. It was a good thing that the tragic story of 'Musou Tensei Stella Knight 1' had not unfolded yet. Still, with the current situation that she was stuck in, if nobody came to rescue her, in a few days time, she could probably change her name to Hikaru Kusakabe 2.
At that moment, Undine was wearing a blue aristocratic evening dress that did not match her surrounding at all. The high slit skirt revealed a pair of beautiful legs that were wrapped in a layer of sexy black stockings. The perfect bare back did not show any signs that she had undergone strenuous training at all. It was thanks to the effects of the potions and drugs that she continuously took to maintain her vigor and youth. Her skin looked as delicate as a little girl's skin. She was still as beautiful as always, but the beauty was tightly bound by hemp ropes. It created a different kind of beauty and charm with her black silk gloved hands tightly bound behind her body.
She looked like an innocent goat cub that was about to be slaughtered. With her body suspended in the middle of a tipi, her white stilettos were barely able to touch the ground. Her head drooped low, while pale-blue hair lifelessly hung beside her face, revealing a fair swan-like slender neck.
--- and, beside her stood a barbarian girl with a rather special attire. The girl had a head of white short hair with a pair of burgundy eyes. Unlike Undine's fair and soft skin, hers was a glowing sexy bronze color. Her body was dressed in a translucent tulle jacket, and underneath the jacket were fabrics that only covered the vital parts of her body.
"You've been hung for so many days and wow, you're still as beautiful as when you first came," the barbarian girl suddenly exclaimed in the common language. She lifted up her hand and gently caressed Undine's private parts that were bound tightly by the rope, causing seductive whimpers to escape from Undine's mouth that was gagged by a piece of fabric.
"Do tell me, why are you so beautiful?" The barbarian girl asked as she took out the fabric that was used as a gag. With one hand, she lifted up Undine's chin and stared at the delicate face that remained beautiful despite the harsh torture that she went through in the last couple of weeks.
"Ptuiii!" Undine summoned all her might to spit on her face. But having been fed with only a peanut-sized meal and water everyday, she could not even gather enough energy--- or saliva in this case--- to spit on the girl standing in front of her.
"How cute!" The barbarian chuckled, a pleased look appeared on her face, "Let's hope that you will still be this feisty and proud when you're pinned under those warriors three days later. Perhaps then their anger would finally subside," As she said that, she released her hand without warning. Undine's neck that lost the support all of a sudden, drooped down low again with her hair draping like a curtain on her face.
"Speaking of, you've never been caressed by a man before, have you?" The barbarian girl continued to take liberties on Undine, she even reached out a hand to squeeze that pair of lovely mounds that were rising up and down with every breath that Undine took.
"Kyaaa!" Letting out another faint seductive whimper, Undine's face was flushed with a lovely shade of crimson red. A part of her wanted to argue that she had been touched by a man before--- erm, the episode when she was grabbed by that jerk Sven the Rogue Knight counted, right?--- but there really was no energy left in her body for her to even conceive a one word reply. Even supposing she had the energy to retort back, it was likely that she would not have the mood to do so either.
The prolonged imprisonment had left her heart numb and dead--- to the point that she had almost forgotten how remorse felt like. In any case, she wanted to laugh at herself as she remembered how she brushed off Tisdale's warning and how she even bragged about the fact that she was going to capture the King of the barbarians back. As it turned out, the Barbarian King was a beautiful girl who was on par with her but instead of being the one who captured the king back to Arfin City, she was the one who was captured by that girl instead.
To be honest, up till then, Undine still had no idea how all of it happened. That day, the messenger that she sent in advance had told her that the Barbarian King had accepted her gift of tribute and agreed to meet her in her own large tent. For a moment, because of the great news, she had let her guard down and dressed up nicely as if she was going to attend an aristocratic ball. She did not even bring her weapon with her as she presented herself in front of the King alone, her high heels were the sharpest item on her body.
At first, the meeting between the two of them when smoothly with both parties talking and joking happily with each other. Seeing that an agreement was soon going to be established and her plan was about to come to fruition, a task that nobody had accomplish before, she was filled with joy that she would finally be able to save her family's name. Who knew, without any warning, a chaos suddenly erupted outside of the tipi--- a dispute had formed between the caravan of travellers and the barbarians that were keeping guards outside, resulting in a huge commotion and a battle as they began slaughter each other.
Just like that, the great atmosphere between both parties collapsed all at once. The caravan of travellers were heavily surrounded by the barbarian cavalry, the black Soul Armature was personally dismantled by the barbarian king, Undine was arrested and other than the few who managed to wriggle their way out of peril, the entire party was completely captured by the enemies... The captured merchants and mercenaries were either slaughtered or had their hand paralyzed to be turned into the barbarians' slaves, while Undine was the only one who was hung up in the tipi, helplessly waiting for her fate of becoming a sex doll as the days went by.
She still had not figured out how exactly did the seemingly peaceful deal had escalated into that situation in just a blink of an eye. Before she made her way to meet the King, she had specially reminded them not to get into any dispute with the Steppe Barbarians, but who knew that the whole situation would turn out like that. At first, when they first got caught, she had righteously pointed her fingers at them for going against their words but the other party was adamant that she was the one who was being treacherous and that she wanted to use the opportunity to ambush the barbarians.
In truth, what happened was like this: Even though the Steppe Barbarian was no doubt a sinister and greedy tribe, but their current king had foresight and knew that the trade route would contribute to their clan's development. Therefore, before the meeting took place, she had already suppressed the voices of those who opposed the cooperation plan and was prepared to accept the Dole family's request and assist them in establishing the commercial route.
At the last crucial stage, she made a huge mistake in picking a clan who had been verbal about their objection from the very beginning to take charge of the whole deal. That time, the head of the clan, Khan, sent his only son, who was arrogant and did not understand a word of the common language to deal with the caravan of travellers. As for the caravans' side, the person who was responsible for the negotiations was the only brother of the mercenary head. Owing to the fact that he did not speak a word of the barbarians' language at all, the whole exchange between the two of them relied on the Dole family's translator.
Who would have ever thought that the translator was a second-rate translator who translated a few key words wrongly during the negotiations. At first, both parties were still calm but the moment the mercenary's greeting was translated from "How is your family doing?" to "I wanna sleep with your mother", the dispute between them escalated to the point of no return.
On the spur of the moment, the Khan's son took out his dagger and stabbed the head mercenary's brother. The head mercenary became so enraged that under the heat of his rage, all warnings from Undine flew out of his head as he took out his sword and sliced the Khan's son into two. That was how the situation turned for the worse. No matter how much the Barbarian King was interested in the commercial route, she could no longer suppress the objections from the other clans. It was all she could do to use Undine as a price to quell their anger.
Just like that, the countless years of preparations by the Dole family, Undine's painstaking efforts, the magnificent feat of building a commercial route connecting both North and South, all fell apart because of a second-rate translator. What was even more hateful was that person who was the cause of the disaster was already trampled to death in the beginning of the dispute, now that the three parties that were the catalyst was dead, the truth would forever be buried.
Perhaps, the only fortunate thing was the fact that Undine did not know, and would never know, that it was because of that tiny oversight that had caused the whole project to fall apart, or else, she would have a hard time forgiving herself.
At that moment, Undine was in a state of complete despair. All of the elites from the family was here, and they were mostly dead, nobody would come to save her now. Still, from the conversation with Barbarian King just now, she could not help but be reminded of that stinky skinny rogue who had taken advantage of her before.
That bastard! Sigh! How good would it be if he'd come with me in the first place... Undine, whose thoughts had now been completely disturbed, sighed bitterly.