CHAPTER 15 THE TAVERN

Scene 1:

The land was burning under the sunlight. We had searched for like half a day. So, I guessed it was by mid-noon now, which explained how the ground under our feet felt like a burning pan and we were all just some fresh eggs waiting for being smashed and fried.

Aezo took a deep sigh and groaned: “Oh, f#k that! I just don’t understand why we end up here?”

I smirked at him and questioned back: “Are you f#king kidding me, Aezo? If you had never told your little girlfriend about my shop, we would have been just all fine now.”

“Well…I…” He tried to argue but only found himself like a dumb with a big mouth wide open.

“So how far is it?” Pinks asked Qiushui as an option to mute the argue.

Qiushui was a bit ahead of us, leading the way. She had always been so quiet and not involved in any talk except for reading my mind, which was quite annoying before and now became a tolerable pain of mine, in an unnameable way even to my surprise.

For a moment I thought she wouldn’t respond. But she actually did. Qiushui slowed down until she was completely still, and looked around in anticipation.

“We’re close.” She simply answered.

“So how close exactly are we? You know we’ve been around for like half a day. We’re sweaty and exhausted, and the water contained in our body will be entirely drained off if we can’t get there in an hour.” Pinks addressed.

That was true. Even though I could endure the burning sunlight and extremely unfriendly environment, so did Qiushui, the two kids would not make it through because they were just mortals and transmigrated here only 20 hours ago, not even a full day.

“Man, I’m done!” Aezo groaned as he suddenly stopped to kneel down, but only found the ground too hot to lie himself. So he jumped up with an instant scream. “Ouch! What the hell?!”

We all stopped and looked at him as if he were the image of our inner voice which spoke out every single word we were just gonna say.

“Hold on.” I muttered before I could make fun of Aezo, because I just sensed some change in the blow of wind. To be more specific, I found an unusual flow of air which indicated that someone was nearby, and there could be a dozen of it, approaching.

Qiushui sensed it too, while partially due to the effect that our minds were linked, so she read what I felt in my mind and then she found some new clue by herself.

“Yeah, we get some company. There’re…eight of them, each has a tank of water equipped.” Qiushui added.

Aezo got nervous and asked immediately: “Wha…what are they?”

“I think they are human, because no beast will hang around in daytime under such a big fireball.” I said.

“And they’re equipped with water supply, no animal would ever act like that.” Pinks added.

As we all noticed a potential danger approaching, soon we formed in a defensive way to keep close to each other, and back to back.

“Where are they?” Pinks asked in a hurry.

Qiushui started searching with her sense of waterflow and said: “They’re over there, faster than I thought. I suppose we’re gonna face them very soon.”

Aezo was scared of her words and became so tense. He looked around like a groundhog on guard. “Then what we gonna do? Why don’t we just run?!”

“Because they have something we just need.” I simply said and gave him a glance with smile, while enjoyed the frightened look on his dumb face.

Qiushui smiled too. She even added a comment in my mind: “Leave it to me, this time. You take care of the kids.”

“Do I look like a babysitter?” I made it sound because I didn’t know how to speak to her in star whispers, which was a very unique ability possessed by starseers only.

“What babysitter?” Aezo asked and looked confused because he thought I were talking to him.

“Never mind.” I simply said and looked over. About some hundred feet away, there was a mountain hill where a few figures emerged on the top and quickly moved downhill.

“They’re coming!” Aezo reminded.

“Shut up.” I warned him as I watched those figures getting closer with more details shown up.

They were very human but covered by dark cowls made from some rough fabric, and they mounted some beasts that looked quite unfriendly.

As Qiushui said, they moved really fast. Not a minute past from when we initially found them on the hill, to now they were almost here, right in front of us.

That was when I had a chance to look at their “horses”. The beasts were like horse, but dark skin, less furry, with four far stronger legs stepped on even bigger hooves, which allowed the creature to walk on soft earth without being trapped by sands. Moreover, the rear legs were shorter than front ones which enabled it to climb up on hills in a more steady and comfortable pose.

But the most remarkable thing about this creature was the unique horn growing on its forehead, which looked very different from unicorn’s, because it was more curved, like a blade of machete, and it was very edged on the outward part.

I didn’t know the exact name of this creature, but people lived in Rouland just called it “charger”, and it was fed on meat.

The blow of dust became quite annoying when the chargers came to a sudden stop and like horses, they rose to extend their front legs, which was very aggressive and kind of frightful.

Aezo and Pinks had to cover their faces and hide behind us, while Qiushui and I simply stood still without any further action, though I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and that was just because I tried to hold back my anger.

“Hey, what you guys doing here?” The bastard who made his charger rise asked, in a quite arrogant voice.

He looked nothing better than a tomb robber, and his fellows were all like some gangsters according to the armed outfit.

I didn’t make any reply and instead, I turned to look at Qiushui, because she asked me to leave it to her. So, I would like to see how she was gonna deal with those bastards.

“Yooo…who’s that chick? Where you from, babe?” The robber bended over to have a close look at Qiushui, making himself sound really nasty.

“And there’s a little one.” One of his men found Pinks and drove his charger to her immediately.

But before the charger could barely move its legs, the water tank hung over on its back suddenly blew up, which totally freaked out both the charger and rider.

Startled by the blast, the creature jumped with its front legs rising, which caused the guy to fall off, and hurt himself on back.

“AHHH!!!” He screamed in pain. But the others could do nothing to help but to find all water previously contained in the tank was now cumulated in the air instead of splashing and soon formed an orb flying over to Qiushui.

Qiushui extended her left hand to take the orb and keep it being suspended in air, while the rest of gang were totally shocked with eyes wide open.

“Does anyone feel thirsty?” Qiushui asked as she drew all the other seven tanks away from the chargers, which seemed like telekinesis but in fact was the water inside driven by her and forced the tanks to move toward her.

Those bastards simply watched all the water supply being taken away before they could take any action as their mind went totally blank.

Until all the tanks fell into Qiushui’s hand, she sent two directly to Aezo and Pinks. The two kids had been thirsty enough to drink up a hogshead.

That was when the gangsters suddenly became alive once again and quickly took out their blades to attack!

“You stop! Get me those tanks back!” The robber yelled as he drove the charger to strike.

But Qiushui was ready to take the action ahead of anyone, even faster than I did.

I watched her clenching her fist immediately, which caused the cumulated orb of water to spread out and splash like a few shots of arrow, hitting the gangsters all at once!

They could barely hold a defense when the arrows shot to them at such a close range and in a very tense moment.

BOOM! Like the tubes in bathroom suddenly burst and sent a fountain of water spurting forth, all the water arrows hit the gangsters right in their faces, causing them to fall off.

But it was not over yet. The chargers, like I mentioned previously, were fed on meat, which meant they were far more aggressive and ferocious than general horses. Even though the riders fell, those beasts would not stop until their target was struck down by the edged horn growing on forehead.

But meanwhile, Qiushui blew up all the rest of tanks by her right hand and cast all the water around us to form a heavy wall at the front to stop the beasts.

Just when those chargers jumped to break through the wall of water, Qiushui extended her right hand to push the wall forward, like a powerful sea wave, which flooded the beasts immediately and knocked them back.

“Wooow…” Aezo sounded so amazed by her tricks, so did Pinks.

I had to say that I had underestimated the capacity of Qiushui ever since I won the fight in my shop. Now I kind of felt lucky to have her on my side instead of being as a foe.

But my face turned solemn when I found Qiushui was actually looking at me in the anticipation that I would say something to please her, and instead I said with negative: “You know you’ve wasted a lot water.”

“At least the kids are fresh once again.” She replied.

I took my eyes off her and refused to carry on this trash talk. Then I walked to the gangsters lying on ground and took out the soft blade gained from the snakemen.

I infused some power of elemental thunder into metal to make the whip-like blade straight and hard, and then I pointed the sword at the robber who seemed to be the head of gang.

“May I ask you a couple of questions, jackass?” I said without showing any kindness.

He was drenched a lot on his face while still coughing to try to take a breath.

“Better answer my questions before I lie the blade on your neck.” I warned him in an impatient voice.

“Wha…what you want?” He quickly responded.

“Where is the nearest town and how far is it?” I asked.

“It’s Eleville, not far from here, just about two les away to northwest.” He answered in a hurry.

Li was a unit for measuring distance, quite often to be used in immortal world, and the plural was les. One li was equal to 500 meters.

But I had no idea which direction was northwest. Anyway, I continued: “Is there any place I can have a drink in the town?”

“You mean a tavern? Yeah, yeah, th…there are a few…serve you some really good beer to drink.”

I thought for a second and then said: “Fine. Listen, I want you to take me and my friends to Eleville and find a tavern with good beer as you just mentioned. And I want you to buy it. You get a lot money, right?”

The robber hesitated for a moment and muttered: “Well…I…I…just…”

But I interrupted him in mid-sentence with my blade reaching his throat and said: “Think about it before I take away every single penny in your pockets. You and your gang are not matched with me and my friends.”

He became dumb for a few seconds before he could resume his voice, until he had a focus on the blade which was close enough to kill him in a swift blow. Then he said in shiver: “O…Ok…I…I will.”

Finally, we had a deal. So, I showed him a wicked smile and said: “Cool. Now, let’s move. I can’t wait to have a fresh beer shower!”

(To be continued…)