Chương 65: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 65 - Interrogation (1)

Even so, sacrifices or not, some of the blondies were starting to reconsider. Cover the face, and wasn't it basically fine? Lights off, who can tell the difference between a person and a pig? Lust has a way of making fools brave. They were players. The monster's aura had rattled them for a moment, but once that faded, reality reasserted itself. You die in games. That's the whole point. You die, you respawn, you move on. With that realization, most of the blondies stopped thinking about running.

Instead, they shamelessly fixed their eyes on Bird Demon Leader Ji Taimei's headlights and exhaust pipes, slow grins spreading across their faces. Ji Taimei didn't mind. She didn't cover up. She just stood there, calm and unbothered, letting them look. What she couldn't figure out was why these humans had suddenly stopped being afraid. Normal human adventurers had exactly two reactions to monsters.

Either they came in hot, eyes hungry, mouths already running about looting and selling, ready to strip every last hair off a monster's body for crafting materials. Or they fell apart entirely, wailing for their mothers, and ran. She had never seen humans stand their ground like this. And this many of them, all at once.

"You're not afraid of us monsters?" Ji Taimei asked, genuinely curious.

"Afraid of you?" A blondie let out a contemptuous laugh.

"Why would we be afraid of you?" He'd already mentally made peace with dying heroically.

"You lot are nothing but monsters. We humans will trample this place flat sooner or later!"

"Exactly! You're just loot waiting to drop. Although you, harpy — you could make a decent pet."

"Yoshi! Yoshi! Matsuganko-kun has interesting taste." What the blondie actually said was "we players," of course. The System quietly swapped it to "we humans" the moment the words left his mouth. Trample what, exactly? Trample their potatoes? Was that something you could just say? Under the Black Dragon boss's patient instruction, the monsters had picked up a working knowledge of the Common Tongue of the Continent. Speaking it was another matter, but understanding it was enough.

And the word they knew best, the word burned deepest into their collective memory, was "potato." Anything they didn't catch, they filled in with "potato." WHOOSH, Wind tore through the forest. The sun blazed overhead, but a sudden gale swept through the trees, and the blondies felt the cold hit them all at once, right between the shoulder blades. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Every monster in the clearing had gone red-eyed.

Even the Blackwater Python coiled around a Gnoll's arm was glowing.

"Capture humans, plant potatoes!" One monster threw its head back and howled.

"CAPTURE HUMANS, PLANT POTATOES!!" The rest exploded.

"Wh — what's happening?!" The blondies stared at the suddenly feral horde, completely lost. Had the monsters actually understood what they said? They didn't get long to wonder. RUMBLE! Mountain Shake and Earth Move. Thousands of Blaze Rabbits crested the treeline in a single wave and crashed down on the Sakura Island players like a flood. What followed was chaos, nose-picking, eye-poking, kidney shots, and the legendary martial technique known as the Dragon Claw Hand for Grabbing Bears.

But what the brotherly rabbits really excelled at, the move they'd drilled to perfection, was the big slap. The sound of it was almost musical. SMACK. SMACK. SMACK SMACK SMACK. When the Blaze Rabbits finally pulled back, the blondie players of Sakura Island were scattered across the ground, faces swollen, eyes blackened, out cold. No pain sensation. But unconscious is unconscious.

"Tie them up!" Grey Wolf's voice cut through the aftermath. The Blaze Rabbits reached into the bamboo baskets on their backs and pulled out bundles of vine. Working with practiced efficiency, exactly as the Black Dragon boss had taught them, they trussed every last Sakura Island player into a tight, proper turtle shell bind. Once the last knot was secured, Grey Wolf raised his voice again.

"Withdraw!" The monsters obeyed immediately. Chests puffed, chins high, they marched back with the absolute conviction of those who owe nothing to anyone. The Sakura Island players dragged behind them like dead weight, bumping along the ground as the horde returned to the dragon's lair in high spirits. The same scene played out across every stretch of jungle where harpies had been used as bait, though nowhere quite as productive as here.... Time passed. Yamamoto Nanjiro didn't know how much.

His consciousness surfaced slowly. He cracked his eyes open. Darkness. Rough, uneven rock walls. Cold ground pressing up through his skin. The sound of things moving nearby, heavy, unhurried things. And a smell. Yamamoto Nanjiro gagged. He genuinely could not comprehend how anything in the world could smell like this. It was like someone had taken stench and distilled it down to its purest, most essential form.

The same process that turned flowers into perfume, applied to something that had never been anywhere near a flower.

"Oh, you're awake?" A ring of Kobold faces crowded into his field of vision. Big. Jagged. Grinning.

"Wh, where am I? What are you —""This is the lair of our great master!" Polikli announced it in mangled Common Tongue of the Continent, beaming with pride.

"To be captured by our great master is an honor. You should be grateful, prey!"

"Bakayarou! Damn monsters!" Yamamoto Nanjiro tried to move. He couldn't. He was tied, stripped completely bare and bound spread-eagle to a rough wooden frame, a wooden bucket positioned carefully beneath him.

"Hehehe..." Polikli's grin stretched wider. He turned to Banana Wolf and Melon Wolf, who were laying out supplies nearby.

"Don't feed him yet."

"I'll go tell the master!" Banana Wolf and Melon Wolf, both with cloth strips jammed firmly into their nostrils, gave Yamamoto Nanjiro a brief, pitying glance, then nodded. Polikli was back shortly, and this time, he had the Black Dragon with him. Su Nian had left Anna at the door. It was the smell. He didn't want it anywhere near her, so the entrance to the chamber was as far as she was allowed. That was Anna's final concession.

Under normal circumstances, she didn't believe in distances greater than arm's length from Su Nian.

"Master," Polikli said, flattening himself to the ground with his tail wagging furiously, "this human just woke up. The others haven't yet. Those rabbits hit too hard, two of them are already dead. The rest..." He hesitated.

"We didn't dare try to beat the rest of them awake." He had already received the second drop of the Black Dragon's heart's blood as his reward. He was practically vibrating.

"Mm. Good work." Su Nian dipped his dragon head in acknowledgment and crossed to Yamamoto Nanjiro's side. He looked him over, top to bottom, unhurried, and a panel floated into view. [Yamamoto Nanjiro, Level 7 (Tier 1), Trash] [Identity: Bull Head Society President] [Others omitted]"A guild president, no less." Su Nian's smile turned sharp.

"Let's hope your mouth is as tough as your title, hehehe..." He glanced back at Banana Wolf.

"Go get the Jet Grass." ➤ Next: Interrogation (2) — Words Unspoken