Translator: Exodus Tales
Editor: Exodus Tales
Several days later.
In the morning, when the light was still hazy, the entire tribe got up and gathered outside the cave.
The crowd had divided into two groups in the clearing.
The smaller group consisted of only ten-some people. Besides Ye Xi, it was made up entirely of muscular Warriors, paint on their faces and weapons at their waist. Each of them was carrying a beast hide bundle on his back that was almost the same size as they were.
The larger group was constantly telling them to stay safe on their journey.
The trade delegation to the Blackpond was heading out and saying its farewells to the tribe.
“Have you wrapped the salt well? Don’t spill any on the road,” Courage ordered Big River, his beard unkempt and his eyes bloodshot. They had spent the last two days refining salt, night and day without rest, to get ready for the trade fair.
Big River felt the beast hide bundle on his back. “Relax. It won’t leak.”
The chief whispered to the leader of the team, Calm Bulrush, “You have to keep Ye Xi safe. Your most important mission is not to trade for things, but to protect Ye Xi.”
Calm Bulrush solemnly promised, “Relax. I guarantee that I will bring him back in one piece.”
After saying its farewells, the team set out.
Ten-some steely Totem Warriors with their large bundles formed a perimeter, with the thin, fair-skinned, and empty-handed Ye Xi in the middle.
The Warriors moved quickly, as did Ye Xi, the corners of his black snakeskin clothes flapping in the wind.
Pheasant Eye had finished the clothes right before the team was about to set out, and Ye Xi had been delighted to receive them. Pheasant Eye’s sewing skills were much better than he had expected. Even without measurements, she had managed to make the clothes very close-fitting.
The skin chosen to make the clothes had been of the best quality. It was black and streaked with dark patterns. Ye Xi’s white skin was an excellent match for the black, and when he put the clothes on, many girls in the tribe began to sneak glances at him.
The road to the Blackpond Tribe was not as well-traveled as the routes used for hunting and fruit-picking, and there were likely to be many unknown dangers. Once they started to reach unfamiliar ground, the Warriors slowed.
Calm Bulrush raised his hand and ordered the group, “Wait. There’s something strange up ahead.”
Ye Xi paused.
In front of them was a large clearing, and there were many large herbivores eating grass. From a distance, white and slender objects similar to willow catkins drifted through the air.
Ye Xi focused and discovered that they were… dandelion seeds?
What did Calm Bulrush think was strange?
Ye Xi focused on his surroundings and found two sabertooth tigers hungrily eying the herbivores, but with so many Warriors, did they really need to be afraid?
The dandelion seeds slowly drifted through the air, gradually getting closer and closer to the creatures.
A small dandelion seed softly landed on the back of a powerful longhorned rhino. This rhino had thick and coarse skin, so it failed to notice the seed and continued to chew on grass.
All was peaceful, beautiful.
More and more dandelion seeds landed on the creatures, including the two sabertooth tigers and one Diplodocus. There were several seeds on each creature.
Suddenly!
All of these creatures collapsed to the ground and began to howl in pain.
The youngest of the Warriors, Big River, felt a chill run down his spine when he saw this. “What’s going on? Were they injured?” he muttered.
Ye Xi gasped. He was the only one who had noticed that the dandelions on the bodies of those creatures had bizarrely disappeared.
The Warriors had not noticed because more dandelion seeds were continuing to drift onto the creatures, hiding the fact that the initial ones had disappeared.
A longhorned rhino squealed, its voice carrying so much pain that not even the Warriors could stand it.
The rhino rolled around on the ground, and a large boil began to swell on its back. There seemed to be something struggling under the skin.
The rhino’s skin was incredibly thick, but whatever monster was under it was pushing up against it so hard that it seemed transparent.
“What is that?!” Big River blurted out.
Ye Xi felt his heart tremble. The oddity and danger of the jungle were far more dangerous than he had imagined.
Splack! The skin broke open, and a red dandelion flower burst out from the rhino’s back, a sprout breaking through the earth. In just a few seconds, the flower had completely bloomed!
The longhorn rhino gave one last shriek before dropping to the ground, its eyes rolling over in death.
As if this was some sort of signal, the other creatures in the clearing began to howl and shriek as massive, bloody dandelions burst out of their backs.
It was like a field of flowers had suddenly appeared, beautiful dandelions swaying in the wind, gorgeous and peaceful. If one had not seen it for themselves, they would have never believed that the soil for these flowers was living creatures.
Little dandelion seeds continued to drift into the distance. They seemed small and harmless, but even massive dinosaurs and terrifying sabertooth tigers could fall to them.
Ye Xi turned to Calm Bulrush.
Calm Bulrush was staring at those giant dandelions, his brows furrowed as he muttered, “Why is this stuff appearing here?”
Ye Xi: “It shouldn’t be appearing here?”
“Yes, it should be appearing at the other end of the Blackspine Mountains.”
Calm Bulrush looked around and saw that the Warriors were all rather frightened, so he comforted them, “We don’t need to be afraid of them. This sort of thing is afraid of fire. As long as we light torches, they won’t dare to approach. Moreover, they drift very slowly. Once we get running, they will never be able to catch up.”
Ye Xi looked at one of the one-meter-span dandelions and clicked his tongue. “Such a large dandelion will produce many seeds. As long as they continue to spread, how could they not dominate the jungle?”
Calm Bulrush laughed. “Don’t just see how they dominate these creatures. They have their own bane: insects. Any small insect will treat them as food.”
If that was so, there was nothing to fear from these dandelions. The Warriors regained their courage.
Calm Bulrush took out some flint from his bundle, then he cut off a branch, wrapped it in hide, and made a torch. “These things are disgusting, so I’ll go and burn them.”
Saying this, he raised the torch and began to move toward that eerie clearing. The dandelion seeds still drifting in the wind shriveled up the moment they got within one meter of the torch and dropped from the air.
Ye Xi quietly remarked, These things really are afraid of fire.
Calm Bulrush approached a blood dandelion with a torch. The moment the fire touched that massive and fuzzy dandelion, the dandelion shrank into a shriveled yellow ball the size of a fingernail.
Calm Bulrush destroyed all the other dandelions growing from the dead animals, then waved to the rest of the group. “Let’s go!”
On their journey, the various hidden dangers in the jungle opened Ye Xi’s eyes once more.
As he made his way through the jungle, he would ask a Warrior whenever he saw a plant or bug he didn’t recognize, greedily absorbing knowledge of the jungle.
Though he had understood some of the creatures of the jungle from the members of the tribe, learning through word of mouth was different from experiencing it for oneself. As he traversed the jungle, this knowledge was deeply carved into his brain and became part of his own knowledge.
They moved very quickly, barely resting.
While the Blackpond Tribe was, just like the Mud Mountain Tribe, also a part of the Blackspine Mountains, it was about five or six days of nonstop travel away.
Spending the night in the jungle was unavoidable.
On the first night, they were fortunate enough to find the den of a cave lion. They killed the cave lion, had it for dinner, and spent the night in its cave. On the second night, they found the hole of a massive insect. After great effort, they managed to kill its giant resident and spent the night in its sticky den.