Volume 1: Awakening Chapter 4: A World Where Human Life is Cheaper Than Chicken
I knew a long time ago that there are many people in this world. But what I didn't expect was that there are so many people in this world!
Before leaving the city, I was ready for a fierce battle. The battle with the hens showed an indisputable fact: our fighting ability is far from being "strong". When I thought that we were about to face a group of vicious dogs that were far more ferocious and violent than the hens, I couldn't help but feel a little timid.
But when I stood at the city gate and looked out, I found that my worries were completely unnecessary.
I don't know when, but the area outside the city has been occupied by all kinds of adventurers. They are from different races, have different faces, wield different weapons, but they are doing basically the same thing.
"Cluck, cluck, cluck..." Several excited chicken calls came from the foot of the city wall not far ahead, which frightened me so much that my hands trembled and I almost went crazy with chicken claws. I am ashamed to admit but have to admit that the painful experience of being besieged by a group of crazy hens has left a big psychological trauma on me, so that now even when I see a roasted chicken lying there quietly, I will have a terrible illusion of countless angry chicken claws madly flapping in front of my eyes.
But this time, the terrible perpetrators became the victims. The victims were not the unlucky ones like us, but the fearless hens. A very sturdy dwarf warrior brandished a sledgehammer and rushed into the group of terrible poultry with a roar. His short stature was instantly drowned by the feathers and the "clucking" hens. For a long time afterwards, we did not see his figure. We only saw a huge war hammer raised and dropped from time to time in the center of this horrible battle group, and then a blood flower bloomed.
If he were to fight alone, I bet this brave dwarf warrior would have fled in less than ten rounds. Although he was very brave, he was still inferior to this group of violent poultry. But behind him, a dwarf magician who was even shorter than him provided him with strong support. He was wearing a long robe - of course, it was only a "long" robe for him, one of my sleeves was much longer than that robe - holding a " long-handled hands, with a solemn expression and muttering something. A moment later, a ball of blazing fire burst out from his hands and burned a hen with its butt facing him into charcoal.
Just as I was amazed at their fierce fighting power, the air around them suddenly fluctuated, and then a dark figure suddenly flashed out from the void. She grabbed a hen's neck with her left hand, and the dagger in her right hand slashed across like lightning. Suddenly, a stream of blood shot out from the chicken's neck, and the soul of the hen that was killed suddenly turned into a white light and entered the murderer's body.
The massacre was committed by a female elf. The dagger in her hand and the insidious fighting skills told us her profession: a wanderer, a traveler walking in the dark, a murderer chasing money and freedom.
"Hey, don't mess around here, this is our spawning point." After dealing with the hens, the dwarf warrior shouted at the elven wanderer in an unfriendly manner. The dwarf mage followed closely behind his comrade, also staring at the wanderer with caution.
Facing this hostile expulsion, the elven female wanderer looked at the other party with a slanted eye and looked down on him with pride. She used her slender fingers to brush the long lavender hair on both sides of her cheeks and said in the noble and elegant tone unique to the elves:
"Nonsense! What the hell do you occupy this spot? What gives you the right to occupy it? If you shout at those chickens, will they fucking agree to you? I occupy this spot, get the hell out of here!"
This was my first experience of the so-called "elegance of the elves", which was so different from the legendary elves, and left me with an extremely deep impression. The scene of the tall and graceful female elf calling herself "Laozi" in a rough and hoarse voice also ruthlessly overturned my fragile worldview. I seemed to hear the sound of my eyeballs shattering, and felt that the world that had just become clear suddenly became fragmented and difficult to understand.
After a disagreement, the two sides immediately drew their swords and faced each other. The dwarf warrior raised his hammer and bravely rushed towards the elven wanderer in front of him. Behind him, the dwarf wizard also began to chant mysterious spells, and a ball of orchid light with a chilling aura flashed in his hands. One against two, the situation seemed to be very unfavorable to the elven female wanderer.
But just as the dwarf warrior was about to get close, the elf female wanderer suddenly waved her hand and threw out a handful of dazzling magic powder.
The flash came so suddenly that both her two opponents and the bystanders, Niu Baiwan and I, were completely unprepared and were caught in the flash. When we all closed our eyes due to the stimulation of the strong light, we heard the miserable cry of the dwarf warrior.
When we opened our eyes again, the dwarf warrior was already dead on the spot. A shocking blood streak crossed his throat, and sticky blood plasma was still gushing out. The dwarf mage saw that the situation was not good, and had already tumbled away, shouting in a mess as he fled: "You are a tasteless rookie shemale... You are level 5 and still guarding the chicken point at the city gate... If you have the ability, go guard the White Dragon Cave... If you have the guts, don't run away, wait for my big account to come, I will kill you and delete your account..." and so on. It was rare that his two short legs jumped so fast, and the female elf wanderer chased for a long time, but couldn't catch up.
"It seems..." After witnessing such a murder, Niu Baiwan tremblingly suggested to me, "...This place is too dangerous. Brother, let's go to another place."
"What are they doing?" This conflict that caused death came out of nowhere, and I couldn't understand it. But Niu Baiwan was a natural air traveler, and he had completed such a long journey before, so I thought he could answer my question.
"They are...stealing chickens..." Niu Baiwan replied.
"Robbing chickens?" I screamed in disbelief. "Just for these hens? She killed someone?"
"Hush, keep your voice down..." At this time, the elven female wanderer had returned angrily to the place where the hen was entrenched. It seemed that her pursuit had not succeeded. Looking at the shining dagger in her hand, Niu Baiwan showed a timidity that was completely inconsistent with his figure and name. While speaking, he pulled me away.
We walked all the way to a place where the female elf could definitely not hear our conversation, and then Niu Baiwan said to me cautiously:
"Don't mess with that guy. The two of us definitely can't beat that demon. Since he's standing at this monster spawning spot, let's try our luck somewhere else."
Niu Baiwan's attitude made me even more confused. I was just very surprised. Why did this beautiful elf with a rough voice like a man insist on improving her level so much that she even killed others cruelly for it? Although I understand that everyone wants to become stronger, is level everything? Look at those native merchants who stay in the city all day to sell goods. As long as I can remember, they have always maintained the status of level one or two, but in my opinion, they live a peaceful and beautiful life without any dissatisfaction.
But I am sure that this is a dangerous world, where even hens can kill you easily, and what is even scarier is that some people will not hesitate to kill you just for a few hens.
"Too much..." Niu Baiwan huddled up and crossed his arms, timidly glanced at the elf woman, and sighed. He shook his huge bull head, and the cowardly expression distorted his majestic face, making him look funny: "...human life is not as valuable as a chicken..."
This statement makes me agree deeply.
…
This scene is not just happening here. In places further away, those who love adventure and fighting are hunting prey with extreme enthusiasm. Whether it is fragile chickens, ducks, hares, bats or relatively powerful mountain cats, venomous snakes or wild dogs, they cannot escape the fate of being surrounded and annihilated. As soon as they show their heads, they are targeted by hunters who are several times their number, and then they are ravaged to death by fire, freezing, knife slashing, axe slashing, hammer smashing, arrow shooting... and so on. Even their death is not peaceful, often accompanied by regretful complaints such as "Let me cut it with a knife", "Unlucky, I didn't grab it again".
When I was a city gate guard, no matter how many people were given the task of hunting wild dogs, they would always complete the task. I always thought that there was a very large group of wild dogs lurking outside the city, and I was once worried that this group of huge and ferocious beasts would one day break through the city gate and bring disaster to the people in the city. But seeing the scene in front of me, I knew that my worry was completely unnecessary. Here, humans, elves, dwarves and other "intelligent races" showed a killing frenzy that was enough to make the most ferocious beasts ashamed. In comparison, why the group of wild dogs has not been killed to the point of extinction until now is a truly puzzling question.
We slowly went deeper into the woods, and the animals around us gradually changed from level three or four bobcats and wild dogs to level six or seven "violent wild dogs", "poisonous black snakes" and even more powerful beasts, and the number of hunters who came to hunt in the air gradually decreased.
We carefully avoided the beasts that were too ferocious for us, and in the process, Niu Baiwan had a rich harvest. He had a life profession as a "pharmacist". He collected a lot of herbs growing in the wild forests along the way, and made some potions that could restore a little vitality during the breaks. What made me a little jealous was that the process of collecting and making medicines could actually increase his soul power. When he made the 25th bottle of small life potion, a bright green light wrapped around his body, and he was upgraded just like that.
This made me deeply feel that it is very necessary to learn a life skill.
Just when we were struggling to find a suitable prey, a sturdy wild dog suddenly came into our sight. It was a brown beast, slightly stronger than the ordinary wild dogs we saw at first, but its fur was mottled and messy, and there were a few ugly bald spots, and it didn't look very energetic. Compared with the intimidating names such as "violent", "angry", and "hungry", the name of this wild dog was a bit metaphysical, neither majestic nor distinctive: just because it was bigger than other wild dogs, its name was "big wild dog".
This level 5 beast was definitely not something any one of us could handle alone, but if we joined forces we had a good chance. Because we were afraid of alerting the beasts nearby, Niu Baiwan and I quietly followed behind it until we came to a relatively open space.
"That's it." I drew out my sword, stared at the wild dog, and said to Niu Baiwan.
"Its level is too high, should we... look for something better to deal with it?" Niu Baiwan looked at the beast with concern. On his seemingly ferocious face, I couldn't find any trace of "courage".
"Or maybe we can go to the city gate again and take a look. Maybe we can find two lone... hens?" he suggested hesitantly.
"Don't mention 'hen' to me again!" His suggestion reminded me of the flying chicken feathers. I resisted the goosebumps (why goosebumps?), put on my most serious expression, and solemnly rejected his suggestion word by word.
"Then anything else will do, like a rooster? A chicken? A rooster?" he kept on talking.
"Can't you have something else in your head besides chicken?"
"But there are no other low-level beasts near the city gate except chickens..." He defended confidently, "...I just want to take a safer approach."
I glanced at him with contempt, and his cheeks turned red, and he shrugged his shoulders unnaturally:
"Okay, okay, just pretend I didn't say anything. I'll do whatever you say! But don't blame me for not telling you..." He hesitated for a moment, then said, "...My premonition tells me that this is very dangerous."
After formulating a simple tactic, I drew my sword, shouted, and rushed forward. My appearance immediately attracted the attention of the big wild dog. It crouched forward, grinned, showing its sharp white teeth, stared at me intently, and made a series of deep sounds in its throat. When I was less than five steps away from it, it immediately jumped up and rushed straight to my face.
The wild dog's violent explosive power caught me off guard. In a hurry, I could only try my best to turn my body to the left to avoid its claws, while turning my sword back to chop its back.
As I dodged, my right shoulder suddenly felt cold, then suddenly a stream of heat surged through it, and the burning pain immediately spread to my right hand. I knew I was seriously injured, and this blow almost reduced a quarter of my vitality. On the other hand, my opponent's head only had a small flower of blood blooming, and the word "-9" floated.
I didn't dare to hesitate and immediately took out the life potion I had prepared and drank it in big gulps, preparing for the next wave of attacks from wild dogs.
The beast was faster than I thought. Just as I was ready to defend myself, its sharp white teeth had already pounced in front of me. I crossed my sword to block its mouth and pushed it aside. Unexpectedly, this desperate attack triggered my "block" skill , which consumed ten points of my fighting spirit and reduced the wild dog's vitality by fifteen points. However, my chest was not able to avoid the attack of its sharp claws and was injured again.
Just as the beast was about to launch a third attack on me, a huge weapon wrapped in a strong wind hit it in the waist. It screamed in pain and rolled to the side. Only then did it realize that there was a tall figure behind it.
That figure could certainly be no one else but my only comrade-in-arms, the minotaur warrior with an exaggerated name, Niu Baiwan.
Although I succeeded in inflicting heavy damage to the enemy, I felt that my comrade was far from ready for battle - his face was a little blue, he looked very nervous, the corners of his eyes twitched involuntarily, and even his legs seemed to be trembling slightly.
Before he could come to his senses, the wild dog that had been ambushed pounced on him again. He screamed in panic and quickly hid his sturdy body behind a tree trunk, but accidentally exposed a section of his cow's tail. Of course, the big wild dog would not let go of this perfect target, and bit it hard, tearing and chewing it.
"Ah..." I really couldn't imagine that such a sharp and shrill voice could come from such a strong and heroic body. His tragic tenor made people's scalp tingle, like a rooster with a cut throat, or a boar being castrated.
He screamed and danced in circles, two lines of hot tears flowing out, fully expressing his unstoppable pain. His movements were wild and twisted, with a surging and primitive passion. If it weren't for the painful white foam at the corners of his mouth, I would almost think he was dancing a totem dance about the Tauren national culture.
While he turned around, I kicked the wild dog away in time, freeing my minotaur friend from this great pain. He immediately squatted on the ground without any warrior demeanor, stroking his tail with both hands desperately, and wailing loudly with a crying voice:
"…I finally know what it feels like to be 'too big to be dropped'!"
"What are you doing? Why are you dodging?" I faced the wild dog's counterattack again and asked loudly to Niu Baiwan with both anger and amusement.
"This is the first time I fight such a high-level beast..." At this time, although Niu Baiwan had stood up, the impact of the severe injury to his tail was still not healed. He limped over and defended himself confidently: "...and it's so fierce, it's normal to be nervous. Do you think you can control it with a mouse? No matter what kind of monster it is, two clicks will be enough?"
After saying these inexplicable words, he turned his head to look at his injured tail and continued to mutter: "Besides, I have never grown this thing before. Who knew it was still exposed!"
After saying that, Niu Baiwan joined the battle again.
Never grown it? What does that mean? I glanced at the limb on his body that I didn't have. Isn't that an organ that minotaurs are born with? I wondered in amazement, but the wild dog's next attack left me no time to think about this question.
So far, everything has been going in the direction I expected. Because I am wearing armor, my defense is higher than that of Niu Baiwan, so I attract the attention of the wild dog and bear its initial fierce attack; while the minotaur warrior who is one level higher than me and has much better attack power than me waits for an opportunity to launch a surprise attack from behind and inflict heavy damage on the prey. Another advantage of doing this is that it leaves the wild dog no time to dodge, thus greatly improving Niu Baiwan's originally pitifully low hit rate.
At this time, the life potion I just drank started to take effect. I could feel my vitality gradually recovering, the wounds on my body healed quickly, and the pain was greatly reduced.
The wild dog, which had lost half of its vitality, growled anxiously. It was trapped between me and Niu Baiwan. Whenever it attacked, the person it attacked would defend with all his strength, while the other attacked from behind. When it changed direction and changed its target, the one who was originally defending would switch from defense to offense, continuing to weaken its vitality. Soon, only a thin layer of vitality was left on the wild dog's head.
Just as we were about to kill our first prey, something strange happened.
Originally, we chose a relatively open clearing in the forest as our battlefield because we were worried about disturbing the wild animals nearby. Here, even the nearest wild animal was thirty steps away, so we didn't have to worry about our hunting attracting other wild animals.
But suddenly, I found that we were surrounded by three level 6 "angry mountain cats". They came without any sign and immediately surrounded us. In a hasty glance, I vaguely saw their figures that seemed to appear out of thin air, which made me wonder: Could it be that even among the wild animals that lack intelligence, there are many "space travelers" who can break free from the shackles of time and space?
These three mountain cats probably just completed a journey through time and space, and they are not yet accustomed to the world we live in. Their existence is not very stable, their bodies are still vaguely transparent, not completely solidified, and they did not attack us immediately. This gave us a chance to escape.
"Hurry up!" I kicked the big wild dog to the side, pulled Niu Baiwan up and ran back. My Minotaur friend also noticed the crisis, looked at the dying wild dog with regret, and ran away behind me. While running away, I did not forget to drink a bottle of life potion first to replenish my vitality, which had been reduced by one third.
Soon, the disturbed "angry mountain cats" and the big wild dog chased after us. I don't know why the mountain cats were so "angry", but it was obvious that they were going to pour out their anger on us. They chased us so closely that I seemed to be able to feel their murderous breath on my spine.
I had just run less than 20 steps when I heard Niu Baiwan scream in pain. I was worried about his safety, so I looked back at him. I slowed down a little, and immediately felt a sharp pain on my back. Then I heard the wet sound of the mountain cat's claws tearing through flesh. I rolled on the ground, holding the long sword and sweeping it horizontally. Unexpectedly, the mountain cat's agility was far beyond my expectations. It suddenly jumped high on the spot and evaded my counterattack by brushing against the edge of my sword.
At this time, I saw that Niu Baiwan was in danger.
Perhaps because of his huge size, he attracted the attention of two mountain cats and a wild dog, and now he was surrounded by three beasts. I saw the life bar on his head shortening rapidly, and it was reduced to half in an instant. If it weren't for the fact that the physique of the minotaur is much stronger than other intelligent races, his current situation would be even more dangerous. Even so, he couldn't hold on for much longer.
At the critical moment, the minotaur used his life-saving trick. He stamped his hooves violently, splashing a layer of strong shock waves on the ground, shaking the mountain cat and wild dog to the ground. He took the opportunity to escape and stumbled towards me. While running away, he also reached into his backpack very smoothly, picked up four bottles of life potions with five fingers, and poured them all into his mouth with a "gulp" sound, then frowned and burped loudly, and a stream of light yellow wet air spurted out of his mouth.
"Ugh, this is disgusting, this thing smells like slop! Can't those idiot programmers set it to taste like Pepsi?" As he complained loudly, his life bar recovered at an astonishing speed.
Before long, my armor was scratched into a vest by the beasts, and Niu Baiwan's butt had already been bitten. Although we prepared a lot of life potions, we can't rely on them alone for long - not to mention that the taste of this thing is really unacceptable. I suspect that if this continues, even if I am not bitten to death by the beasts, I will be poisoned to death by these potions.
Just when we were at our wit's end, suddenly, a sharp cold wind brushed my cheek and broke through the air until it was blocked by the tree trunk behind me, leaving a trace of dangerous metallic smell at the tip of my nose. It was an ordinary feather arrow, the arrowhead had been deeply embedded in the tree trunk, and the tail of the arrow was still trembling slightly, making a heart-pounding after-sound.
Following the direction of the arrow, I saw a tall figure. He held a longbow in his left hand, and gently climbed the branch beside him with his right hand. His right foot was on a stone, revealing an elegant and calm temperament. The sun shone from behind him, casting his long shadow on the ground. The breeze blew his long hair, revealing a pair of pointed ears that belonged only to elves.
"Hey..." The elf man standing alone in the sunset said to us in a slightly hoarse but attractive voice, "...Do you need help?"
