e-booksonline Chapter 10 Since We're Here
Chapter 10 Since We're Here
"No, it's not iron, it's Frostfire Silver, a special alloy forged by the Gore people. The book even contains its forging method, but unfortunately, I lack the spirituality to forge it. Alas!"
David sighed regretfully as he spoke.
Zag had already eagerly turned the cover.
"This is Gory script! You'd be a fool to understand it! No wonder this Modo is so generous, letting you see such a precious book… Heh heh heh, of course! If you're willing to pray to the great Snowball, then the great Snowball will bestow upon you the ability to read this script!"
Zag ignored Snowball's words and stared in astonishment at the square characters carved on the leather inner pages.
He was initially trembling uncontrollably, looking ecstatic, but then seemed to fall into confusion. After flipping through a few pages, his face could no longer hide his disappointment.
After calming down, Zag realized that his reaction had been rather strange, so he explained vaguely, "I'm sorry, I've seen this script in some special commissions, but I don't understand the language myself. I was being rude."
"So that's how it is!"
David suddenly realized, then laughed and said, "This is Gory script! If I didn't have a version translated by my great-great-great-grandfather, I wouldn't understand what these pictorial things mean!"
The truth is, of course, not like that.
Zag lost his composure because the characters, known as Gore script, not only exhibit typical pictographic features, but also have many characters that are extremely similar to seal script Chinese characters!
However, Zag quickly recovered from his disappointment because, although these characters resembled Chinese characters, they were not Chinese characters. They were simply pictographs, thus sharing certain commonalities. For example, one character clearly resembling the character for "moon" was almost identical to the seal script version, except that its left and right orientations were reversed, making it closer to the modern Chinese character for "moon." Another character, likely representing some kind of wild animal, looked exactly like a horizontally turned seal script radical for "dog."
It was precisely because he saw several seemingly similar characters that Zag quickly came to his senses; the Gore script was clearly unrelated to Chinese characters. But this similarity still deeply moved him, stirring up longings deep within him, making Snowball and David's voices seem distant in his ears.
I have learned the [Gore Forging Technique].
Weapon Enchantment has been learned.
The Forging System is now available.
The Enchantment System is now available.
The notification box in his field of vision instantly woke Zag up.
But unlike when he read Flint's spellbook or the few pages of alchemy in Mrs. Weyland's Aphrodisiac Shop, Zag didn't just learn the basics and then stop reading. Instead, he kept turning the pages of the book with reluctance, trying to glean something from the unfamiliar yet familiar words.
Unfortunately, it wasn't true. Without the cheat system, he wouldn't have been able to see anything or understand the text, and would have had to give up.
Afterwards, Zag listened to David's complaints and grumbling for a long time until Lily finally finished altering Zag's clothes.
The sewing fee, plus the leather, came to 36 shillings, a price you couldn't find even with a kerosene lamp. Zag paid the money readily and expressed his gratitude.
By the time Zag returned to the sentry post with the snowball, it was nearly midnight.
"Ha-yum, with these, you'll be perfectly safe going to see that Motoro tomorrow!"
Perhaps because he was too tired, Snowball looked listless, and unusually, he didn't utter any unpleasant sarcastic remarks.
Zag was also very happy, as if he could already see 200 shillings beckoning to him.
So the next morning, while it was still barely light, Zag dragged the still-sleepy Snowball out of the sentry post and left a note on the door that read, "Temporary departure, will be back soon," just in case.
Although there was no strict attendance system in this era, and no one from the association would be so idle as to come and check whether the town's only sentry was slacking off, Zag still put up the note with a bit of guilt.
The town of Cabbage is not very big. If you walk west along the widest main road in town, you will see the old man's house.
Further west from the old man's house lies the red currant grove he mentioned, the place where his daughter went missing.
According to the old man, his daughter had recently been going to the woods every morning to pick red currants so she could make jam to supply the town's tavern. Sometimes, she would even take the extra to the town entrance to sell. This left a vague impression on Zag.
He did see a girl selling jam and sweetened red currant dried fruit when he went to buy his weekly necessities on Monday morning. She was young, maybe only fifteen or sixteen years old, with a pleasing apple-shaped face, and her eyes would curve into two small crescent moons when she smiled.
In fact, the old man was not "old" at all, not even forty years old, but years of heavy physical labor had made him age prematurely, making him look like he was in his sixties or seventies. Judging from his appearance, he was almost as old as David's father, who was over forty.
The redcurrant forest looked somewhat eerie in the early morning. The silhouettes of the bushes appeared and disappeared in the thick fog, and the damp air was filled with the smell of earth and decaying leaves, sometimes tinged with the sweet and sour aroma of redcurrants. But all of this was shrouded in the cool mist, accompanied by the occasional rustling sounds from the woods, which made Zag almost unleash a [Fireball] spell several times to bolster his courage.
He got a little lost after walking for a short while.
The fog was so thick that it completely obscured the surroundings. If it weren't for Snowball guiding him, Zag would have definitely gotten completely lost in this forest.
"Over there! I smell magical energy! And the scent of Mordo! It's faint, but I can smell it! No, wait... Oh no! There are too many magical creatures, at least two or three!"
Snowball was so frightened that its fur stood on end. It had just finished pointing out the way to Zag when it started to back down: "Why don't we go back? Even though they're all level 2 magical creatures, there are so many of them, it'll be hard to deal with... This money isn't easy to earn! Let the Interceptors handle it! Anyway, there are always some easier level 0 and level 1 events every week, we can intercept those..."
"Since we're already here, we should at least take a look, right?"
Zag was really unwilling to waste the 36 shillings he had just spent yesterday. Moreover, Snowball said it smelled "Modo". Even if it wasn't the client's daughter, it was still an innocent civilian. He was, after all, a Sentinel who knew magic and had decent muscles. He couldn't just give up before even seeing the monster and leave it to die, could he?
What if the "Modo" that Xueqiu mentioned is still alive?
Moreover, level 2 magical creatures are not much different from ordinary wild beasts, except that they are more ferocious. Since I have already learned the [Fireball] spell, if I really can't beat them, I can just bombard them with fireballs and run away with the other person. At least I can save the other person's life.
Therefore, Zag focused his attention and casually cast a [Fireball] spell on his hand.
"Flame, burning, destruction—"
With a few words uttered, Zag maintained his posture, ready to throw the fireball in his hand at any moment, and slowly moved forward in the direction the snowball was pointing.
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[Snowball's Science Mini-Drama]: The Anomaly Handling Association is a special organization directly managed by the Golden Palace Mage Research Institute and accountable to the Royal Court. The association has offices in various locations, known as Anomaly Handling Association offices, whose staff typically consists of an advisor from the Golden Palace Mage Research Institute and one or two official investigators dispatched by the association.
Any law-abiding citizen can register and be certified with the association; those who pass become anomaly investigators. To distinguish them from official investigators, these non-official investigators, who are not employed by the association, are usually called anomaly investigators or registered investigators, or in full, "Anomaly Handling Association Registered Investigator".
The association takes a 50% commission from the commissions accepted by the investigators, but the investigators can receive a certain amount of supplies from the association every week (worthless low-level alchemy potions and cheap bread) based on their rating, and enjoy free medical treatment services (basic injuries or simple contamination).