Chapter 281: Surviving in the Jungle 1

Chapter 281: Surviving in the Jungle 1

TL/Editor: raei

Schedule: 5/Week Mon-Fri

Illustrations: Posted in discord.

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The river was muddy, like something you'd see in an Amazon documentary.

The water was murkier because of creatures resembling water beetles frantically thrashing about.

Luckily, the river had a slow current and wasn't deep.Updated from n0velbIn.(c)o/m

As expected, walking into the river with armor reached just below my chin.

Mud splashed around my mouth and nose with each step, but a tank who could withstand being stabbed wasn't going to be fazed by a little water.

Ignoring the noisy screams, I steadily moved forward.

My heavy armor helped me ignore the slow current as I pushed through the giant water beetles and slipped under the shaking raft.

What the hell?!

Its floating! The raft is floating!

The voices of the barbarian warriors sounded surprised, likely because they couldn't see what was happening through the splashing water.

I lifted my arms suddenly.

Chunks of wood gnawed from the raft's edge drifted away, but the part where people stood remained intact.

The water beetles were weaker than expected, and despite the chaotic battle, the barbarians managed to protect the center of the raft with their spears.

Barbarians on the raft, hugging each other and shivering, stared blankly at their kin on the riverbank.

And below them, a man with water up his nose frowned.

Watching through the hologram screen almost made me laugh at the ridiculousness.

Roland? Are you okay?! Need help?

Yeah! Im fine! These things are weaker than wolves!

Grace's voice echoed across the now-quiet riverside.

Her voice was clear as the splashing slowly subsided.

The water beetles that bit me all died from reflective damage.

They must have been quite frustrated, biting my armor relentlessly like fresh meat in front of them.

But of course, those that couldn't even break through the rafts logs couldn't possibly damage my armor.

It ended with them floating away as if they were buoyed by a battery electrified the river.

Thanks to that, the water calmed down, and I strode out.

Roland! Bring one corpse with you!

-Se-ah that mouth of yours...

-Our hero Roland is gonna get dried off now by Han Se-ah with her water magic, right?

-So she's not a porter but a moving dry cleaner now? What do you call that thing you put suits in?

-Its a wardrobe, idiot, how do you not know that

[Chat deleted by mod]

Last time I was in the South, I had to bring a translator because the barbarian warriors didn't speak the language.

As I was thinking this, Gaspard naturally started his story.

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Raei Translations

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The first clue was the flower beetle in Han Se-ah's inventory.

It feeds on the sap of trees growing deep in the swamp and shouldn't be in the forest.

The second clue was the suspiciously shallow insect burrow where Han Se-ah had floundered.

Near the border of the jungle and the forest, the shallow and long burrows were odd; even Silban had never seen anything like it and muttered it was strange.

The third clue was the corpse in front of us, resembling a mix of a water beetle and a crayfish.

Gaspard, who insisted the riverbank was strange and whose occupation was a fisherman, said he had never seen such a creature before.

So, even the barbarians living in the jungle are seeing these insects popping up from somewhere for the first time now?

They couldnt have come from the deepest parts of the jungle, could they?

"We, know the deepest parts of the jungle. These creatures, weren't there before."

And the fourth reason Gaspard and his family ended up on the raft was because of the destruction of a site where medicinal herbs grew naturally, a place that should have been safe from giant insect attacks.

In a fantasy world like this, if suddenly giant and never-before-seen insects start appearing rampantly, there can only be one culprit.

If it were modern Earth, one might think a new species has been discovered or a quarantine has been breached by an invasive species... but here, it's a game world with Goddesses.

Just like suspecting Britain when something odd is recorded in history, in this world, you suspect black magic when something shady happens.

"Did some witch dabble in black magic? Towards creating chimeras."

That would make sense, wouldnt it?

A mage, a witch, or a black mage.

Or perhaps a combination of all three.

A witch specialized in summoning who, out of curiosity, dabbled in black magic to manipulate giant insects of the swamp.

Like suspecting electrical faults in an empty house fire, witches and black mages are the prime suspects when something strange happens here.

Considering the attacks alternating between the kingdom and barbarian warriors, its possible a black mage tampered with the witchs spells, and seeing how naturally they blend into the swamp and jungle, the witch might have dabbled in black magic.

Anyway, suspicion of black magic remains unchanged.

Though I dont feel any evil magic aura... they were certainly aggressive. Are they always this ferocious?

"No. The river is peaceful. There are no bugs in the river. If there were, you couldn't fish."

-Hey hairdresser, dry Roland and the others off and listen to the story.

-So, what was Irene trying to say, please?

-Looking at the state of the chat, it seems like being crazy is pretty normal?

-So this theme is about a Gigantamax insect invasion? Damn it Should I take a break from the stream for a while?

"Ah, I'll dry you off. This way Just a moment."

Reacting to the viewers' uproar, Han Se-ah finally snaps back to reality and uses water magic to gather the river water, making Gaspard and his family dry and fluffy.

Gaspard, who was fervently explaining about the suddenly destroyed natural safe zone, and the barbarian warrior sisters shivering behind him, all start looking back and forth between me and Han Se-ah with their eyes wide open, which is kind of funny.

It looks like the heros renown (as a walking dry cleaner) is beginning to spread in the South too.