Chapter Seventeen: Overnight in the Crimson Wilderness

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  The poor worm was startled and immediately curled up into a ball, shrinking away from the red rock.

  Xia Ya quickened her pace and soon they had crossed over the rocks. The poor worm finally got a clear view of those earth spirits' appearance.

  In appearance, these guys are really not worthy of the intimidating reputation they have on the Wildfire Prairie. In fact, at first glance, the appearance of these earth spirits is somewhat comical.

  Their entire bodies were covered in green skin, like frogs in a pond after summer rain. They had pointed donkey ears and thick, large noses that looked like carrots stuck on their faces. These creatures had no hair or beards, with disproportionately large heads and skinny bodies, at least judging from their height of only about 130 cm. Their big heads and bodies seemed out of proportion. These little things cowered behind rocks, with mouths full of short, sharp rotten teeth, staring at Xia Ya and Kechou Chong with a strange and eerie gaze.

  What made the poor worm feel even fresher was that these goblins' arms were all very long, and when they hung down, they exceeded their knees.

  At first glance at these guys, you can hardly feel any fear for them - firstly they look very small, then they look poor and dirty.

  Yes, these dwarves are even more beggarly than beggars. The several guys hiding behind the rocks only have one wearing a relatively intact piece of clothing, which is just a broken sack (who knows where it was picked up from). The sack has three holes cut out for the head and two arms to stick out.

  And there was another guy holding a weapon, which was the hind leg bone of some large animal, with a sharp stone tied to the top of the bone for increased lethality. And this guy's body was also nailed together with some miscellaneous things into a set of "armor".

  Good heavens, what armor is this! Look at the materials that make up the armor: two pieces of broken copper plate, a pile of tree bark, several rotten wooden heads, and a thing like a rope net.

  The poor insect looked at them for a while and was somewhat skeptical: "Are these guys really goblins?"

  "Yes." Xia Ya nodded.

  "But they don't seem as terrifying as the legends say." The poor worm was puzzled.

  Xia Ya smiled: "There are also strong and weak distinctions among the earth spirits. What you see here are those who belong to no tribe, wandering about. The truly dangerous ones are those from the earth spirit tribes. Don't look down on individual earth spirits as being weak and timid, but if you were to encounter several hundred of them, and they've gone hungry for several days... then you'll know their ferocity."

  Indeed, after Xia Ya said that, the poor worm only realized that the eyes of these things were very similar to a group of wild dogs living in the wilderness, with a hint of shyness and fear, but also hiding a hint of ferocity and hostility.

  Xia Ya didn't pay attention to those few dirty guys following him, and continued to hurry forward in big strides. Only when the guys got a bit too close did Xia Ya stop, pick up stones, shout loudly while throwing them at the guys - every time this happened, the earth spirits would disperse in a hurry.

  When it got a bit darker, the poor worm found that the earth spirits who were following behind had disappeared.

  They found a huge skeleton in the wilderness, probably belonging to some kind of large animal, but whether it was a bison or a camel or something else, the poor bug couldn't tell.

  This huge white skeleton lay on the ground, with pairs of huge ribs arranged in a very uniform manner. What was astonishing was that there was not a single shred of animal flesh on the entire skeleton... It was clear that this was not the result of natural decay, but rather someone had completely stripped its flesh, and cleaned it up so thoroughly.

  As he drew closer, the poor worm saw a dense patch of tooth marks on the skeleton.

  "It's a ghoul, obviously only ghouls can do this, scraping the meat so clean." Xia Ya casually pulled out a bone and weighed it in her hand: "It seems that the time of death is no more than ten days, the bones are still hard, and the water has not been completely lost."

  "Why do I feel like you're familiar with this stuff?" Kaizero looked at Xia Ya suspiciously.

  Xia Ya didn't answer the question, but instead took out that bloodthirsty wolf's pelt and draped it over this beast skeleton, which happened to be a natural little tent.

  "We'll sleep here tonight." Xia Ya made a decision.

  Dinner was roasted wolf meat - the flesh of that bloodthirsty wolf and some others. Although the wolf meat was a bit sour and hard, and very tough to chew, Poor Bug endured it strongly.

  Because he didn't even have time to complain about the wolf meat being unpalatable, for the entire night, he sat by the bonfire gnawing on the wolf meat, yet distinctly felt that in the vast wilderness around him, there were countless pairs of eyes secretly staring at him, those covetous gazes filled with greed, hunger, ferocity and timidity.

  He even seemed to hear clearly the sound of gulping and grinding teeth coming from the dark wilderness, which made him feel a little creepy.

  "They... they're spying on us." The poor worm tried to remind this big, goofy-looking toad, who seemed to be completely oblivious.

  "I know." Xia Ya lay down on the bones, hugging his head, with his eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the fire: "One on the left, two on the right, one in front and one behind, and there are some movements far away..."

  Here is the translation:

  "Don't worry, they won't bother us for now. Goblins are very timid creatures, they're a type of group-bravery organism that must reach a certain number before they muster up the courage. The standard for goblins is that to take down two human warriors, they need more than twenty goblin warriors to gain an overwhelming victory. And as it happens, goblins aren't particularly intelligent, their judgment standards are ridiculously simple: anyone with a weapon is a warrior, and anyone without one is a civilian. Luckily, you're wearing leather armor and I'm holding an axe, so these guys think we're human warriors. So they'll definitely wait until they have more than twenty before launching an attack."

  "How is that possible." The poor worm was skeptical: "If it takes so long to deal with two human warriors, then why do I still hear that many merchant caravans are also attacked by the goblins?"

  "That's just a rumor." Xia Ya sneered, "In the Wildfire Plains, rumors are always the most popular thing. In fact, the Earth Elementals aren't as terrifying as you imagine... although they're also very unpleasant, at least they're not as frightening as the rumors say. Most of the stories about how terrifying the Earth Elementals are were made up by humans. Especially, from what I know, many of the scary legends about the Wildfire Plains were intentionally fabricated by some large merchant guilds. This way, everyone fears the dangers of the Wildfire Plains and no one dares to take this trade route except for them! Hmph..."

  "But... I've heard that these goblins will catch people, eat them, grind their bones into powder, weave their skin and hair into blankets, and even boil their fat into oil..." The poor wretch's teeth were chattering.

  "These might be true, anyway, to them, humans are aliens. And aren't we treating cows and sheep the same way? What's so special." Xia Ya yawned: "But the truth is, actually, goblins rarely attack human teams with arms. Many humans have died at the hands of goblins on Wildfire Prairie, but most of them were those who were reckless and had a lucky mentality, wanting to make a fortune, taking risks and carrying goods across Wildfire Prairie in small merchant teams. These merchant teams didn't have money to hire mercenaries for protection, so once they encountered goblins, they naturally only had bad luck."

  "But you said it would take a while for both of us..."

  "I'm talking about 'warriors', you dimwit." Shaya shook his head: "Goblins attacking human civilians is quite daring. But now in their eyes, we are human warriors! Get it? We're carrying weapons, they think we're those adventurer and mercenary groups. The goblins on the Wildfire Plains have been burned by many skilled human adventurers before, so they've learned to be cautious. If we weren't carrying weapons, they would have swarmed us already!"

  "But..."

  "Don't worry, this is just the edge of the goblin's territory, there are no large goblin tribes around here. It'll take a long time for them to gather twenty goblin warriors to deal with us. Those stray goblins don't dare to provoke us, you can sleep soundly... I know more about this place than you do, so rest assured, even if things get tough, I won't joke with my own life." Xia Ya turned over.

  The poor worm lay there for a while, and the frightening sounds brought by the cold wind on the vast wilderness still made her heart fearful. After enduring for a while, she finally couldn't help but say: "I... I can get closer to you, right? It's... uh, it's still a bit cold here."

  Xia Ya didn't say a word, but Keliang waited for a while and finally took the initiative to get closer, leaning against Xia Ya's side and lying down. The toad's body still had that earthy smell, but the warmth seemed to make Keliang feel at ease.

  Of course, more importantly, his perverted aesthetic makes it impossible for him to take advantage of the poor bug.

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