touchnovel Chapter 31 Hakimi's Difficulty in the Battle
Chapter 31 Hakimi's Difficulty in the Battle
The moment Chu Sheng felt a heat rising in his chest, his first reaction was guilt.
He quickly scanned the situation inside the carriage. Arthur was driving, his ahoge (cowlick) swaying slightly in the wind. Silverleaf's pointed ears drooped, and he was curled up in a ball. Ella was lying on the side of the cart outside, her face buried in the oilcloth, making satisfied humming sounds.
Great, nobody noticed.
Chu Sheng quietly reached into his chest; the strategy manual was already beginning to show its tender tips, and the temperature was a bit higher than usual.
He pulled out the manual, and the pages turned on their own without any wind, eventually stopping at the B section.
"Rank B 002 [Catman], Demi-human, collected, progress 100%"
"Strategy Reward: B-rank skill [Hakimi is hard to kill], when entering combat, your agility is greatly increased, making it difficult for the enemy to lock onto you."
"Hmm..." Chu Sheng closed the handbook and put it in his pocket.
The significant increase in agility is not hard to understand. Audrey, with only a first-tier rank, was able to dodge the attacks of the sixth-tier Flesh Flower, thanks to the cat-human's agility talent.
However, the "when entering combat state" aspect is worth considering.
Does this "combat state" mean the battle has already begun, or does it mean that one has the will to fight?
I'm not sure, I'll have to try.
Chu Sheng's gaze involuntarily drifted to Arthur's back in front of the car, silently thinking, "Let's have a fight."
As if sensing something, Arthur's ahoge (cowlick) stood up abruptly.
She turned her head, her pretty brows furrowing slightly: "What are you looking at?"
"It's nothing," Chu Sheng said with a bright smile. "I just feel like you're a little different today."
Arthur turned around: "Stop talking nonsense!"
[Hakimi is hard to kill] No response. It seems that just having the will to fight isn't enough; we have to actually start fighting to be considered in combat mode.
"Chu Sheng!"
Ella's voice came from outside the car window, interrupting his thoughts.
She finally pulled her head out of the oilcloth, a small piece of roasted fish skin still stuck to the corner of her mouth, her tail swaying idly behind her.
"I'm hungry!"
Chu Sheng glanced at the fully loaded cart: "Didn't you just smell the grilled fish?"
"I smelled it, but I didn't eat it," Ella said matter-of-factly. "Smelling and eating are two different things!"
"Then eat it. Wasn't it Audrey who gave it to you?"
"But..." Ella's voice suddenly trailed off, her eyes darting around, "But it was a gift from Audrey, and it'll be gone once it's eaten."
Chu Sheng paused for a moment, then smiled.
"Eat up." He reached out the car window and patted Ella's head. "After you finish eating, I'll write her a letter and ask her to send another truckload."
Ella's eyes lit up instantly: "Really?!"
"Really, you're a benefactor to the cats now. She'll send you ten truckloads of grilled fish, let alone just one."
Without a word, Ella turned and lunged at the cart. She ripped off the tarpaulin, revealing neatly stacked roasted sea fish underneath.
Each grilled sea fish was as long as her forearm, its skin grilled to a golden brown and crispy, sprinkled with a layer of golden spices that glistened in the sunlight.
Ella picked up a piece and opened her blood-red maw.
"Click."
The fish head is gone.
"Click-clack".
Half the fish is gone.
"Click-clack-click-clack".
Only a clean fish bone remained of the entire fish, which Ella held in her hand.
Yinye stared in disbelief at the scene: "You...you're not going to spit out any thorns?"
Ella turned her head, looking bewildered: "What thorn?"
"Fish bones! Fish bones!"
"That one." Ella looked down at the fish bone in her hand, then popped it into her mouth, crunched it down, and swallowed it. "It's delicious."
Arthur's voice came from the front of the car: "The canines have much stronger teeth and digestive abilities than humans and grey elves. Fish bones are to them what nuts are to us."
Chu Sheng took a grilled fish from Ella and took a bite. The fish was firm yet tender, with a salty and fresh flavor and a hint of sweetness, probably from honey or the juice of some southern fruit.
He took a couple of bites, then suddenly remembered something.
"Silverleaf, you said before that you lived in the Gray Zone of the Sacred Tree Forest, right?"
Yinye was taking small bites of a small grilled fish when she heard this, so she looked up and said, "Mm."
"What specialties does the Gray Area have besides dried meat?"
"Specialties of the Gray Domain?" Silverleaf thought for a moment, a hint of pride in her voice. "There are so many! Stardew berries, moonfruit, silverleaf tea, resin amber, gray elf silk..."
"Wait a minute," Chu Sheng interrupted her. "Silver Leaf Tea? The same as your name?"
Silverleaf's pointed ears turned slightly red: "It's because my name is the same as Tea's. We gray elves have a tradition: on the day a child is born, the parents will randomly scatter a handful of tree seeds on the ground. The first tree to sprout is the child's 'tree of destiny,' and the child will be named after that tree."
"So your name is Silver Leaf because your life tree is a Silver Leaf Tea Tree?" Chu Sheng was quite surprised. "Then what if your parents accidentally planted a Duck Dung Fragrance Tea Tree..."
"Hmm." Silver Leaf's voice softened. "When I left home, that tree had already grown as tall as the second floor of the treehouse. Every spring it would sprout silvery new buds, which, when dried, could be used to make tea. The tea soup was light gray and had a faint chestnut aroma."
The carriage fell silent.
Ella stopped eating the fish, half a grilled fish still dangling from her lips. She didn't quite understand what Silverleaf was saying, what "tree of people" was all about, but she could tell that Silverleaf was sad.
She thought for a moment, then handed over the half-eaten grilled fish she was eating: "Eat the fish, and you won't be sad anymore."
Silver Leaf stared silently at the half-eaten grilled fish, glistening with Ella's saliva.
"Thank you, but no need."
"It's really delicious!"
"Really, you don't need to!"
The carriage continued south.
into the night.
Arthur stopped the carriage on the leeward side of a low hill. All around were vast meadows, the waist-high grasses bending in the evening breeze like green waves. A bright, full moon hung in the distance, outlining the green waves with silvery edges.
Chu Sheng was in charge of starting the fire, Yin Ye was in charge of finding dry grass to make the bed, and Ella was in charge of not causing any trouble.
Ella was actually assigned to gather firewood, but among what she gathered were three radishes still covered in mud, a half-eaten wild fruit, and a live frog that she brought back with her in her mouth.
When the frog jumped out of her mouth, Silver Leaf's scream startled the Pegasus.
In the end, Arthur took his greatsword and went to the nearby grove to cut a bundle of dry branches.
After the campfire was lit, the four of them sat around it. Ella volunteered to grill the fish, but ended up grilling two fish into charcoal. The fish were blackened, made a clanging sound when tapped, and could leave a dent if hit on the ground.
"Is this grilled fish?" Yinye, his mouth full of soot, held up the black, stick-like object and roared, "This is harder than my teeth!"
Ella curled up into a ball, looking dejected: "The fire was too big..."
In the end, Chu Sheng took over the job of grilling fish.
After finishing the grilled fish, Silverleaf took out her lute and played a little tune by a grey elf. The music was light and melodious, like a spring stream flowing through the cracks in the pebbles.
Ella lay on the ground, her tail swaying rhythmically.
Chu Sheng lay on the newly laid haystack, his hands behind his head, gazing at the starry sky above. The starry sky stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, forming a magnificent Milky Way that ran through the heavens.
He recalled going back to the countryside for the Lunar New Year when he was a child, and climbing onto the roof with his sister at night to look at the stars.
The older sister said that every star is a person who died and became. Chu Sheng asked, "Then which star is Mom?"
My older sister pointed to the brightest star and said, "That one. When that star twinkles, it's like Mom is saying hello to us."
Later, when he grew up, he learned that stars weren't transformed from people, and his mother wasn't the brightest star. But every time he saw a sky full of stars, he would still subconsciously look for the brightest one.
"Chu Sheng."
Arthur's voice came from the side.
Chu Sheng turned his head away, and Arthur, who had opened her eyes at some point, was looking at him with her head turned to the side. The light from the campfire shone on her profile, turning her long platinum blonde hair a reddish-gold color.
"Um?"
Why were you staring at me in the car today?
"Because you changed your clothes, and you look quite nice."
"Really? Why did I feel like you wanted to hit me?"