Chapter 56 Chapter 55 Gnawing on Fish Bones
The Troll Kingdom, as the name suggests, is the land of trolls, where the land and its inhabitants are trolls. Crossing the Troll Kingdom often requires immense courage and a bit of luck. However, to conduct business far to the distant Selis and bring back precious silk, one cannot avoid the Troll Kingdom.
Thus, the Troll Kingdom occupies an important chapter in the stories shared by everyone. Wealth and danger have become synonymous with the Troll Kingdom.
But during her passage through the Troll Kingdom, Jima did not feel either of these two connotations.
After ten days of a forced march, Jima had performed divination twice. The weather was calm, not even a crow was in sight. Were it not for the invisible magical winds she felt blowing fiercely beneath the sky, she would have thought she was living in a peaceful era.
In those ten days, they had encountered only about a hundred trolls blocking their way, all of whom were killed by her group and burnt to ashes, not much harder than dealing with a dog. The trolls were also exceedingly poor, the most valuable thing about them was a large, thick club, devoid of any oil to be extracted.
Jima had contemplated how to squeeze profit from the trolls. The trolls’ greatest asset was their regenerative ability; their bones and flesh could be sold to wizards for creating certain magical items. However, considering the logistics, time costs, and magical costs involved, Jima had to abandon this idea.
After all, they were in the middle of a war; she couldn’t run all the way to Marin City or some other strange place just to sell troll corpses.
Besides, do trolls even leave behind corpses?
Jima sat on a chair, watching as a severed troll hand gradually morphed into a small troll over the course of a quarter of an hour, beginning to take a humanoid shape. She picked up her “branch axe spear” and, with a move resembling a hoeing technique, smashed the brown-skinned small troll into a small pile of minced meat.
Blood was “squeezed” from the minced flesh, seeping into the cold ground.
“Jima!”
Jima stood up and turned her head to see George waving at her beside the “crematorium.”
“Coming!” Jima flapped her wings as she ran and soon reached George, asking, “Have we set out?”
“Yes.” George pointed to a map that was only of reference value: “Our next location might be the Icewind Valley. As for how far it is and the direction? We can only estimate. Can you divine the location of Icewind Valley?”
Jima lowered her head and looked at the map. The Icewind Valley on the map looked like an axe cleaving into the Noskar Mountains. In front of Icewind Valley, there were some human settlements known as the Ten Towns.
Jima said, “Icewind Valley is quite far north. These Ten Towns might have been assimilated into Noskar, likely filled with northern folks who worship the Four Gods.”
George said:
“Our primary task at the moment is to find a guide. Even if they are northern folks, we can trade with them; they are different from the demon tribe. I believe, since Icewind Valley is marked on the map by Lady Kisliv, it should indicate that they are likely normal humans.”
Jima nodded, indicating she understood. In peaceful times, northern folk usually moved south as mercenaries, and there were sometimes trade exchanges.
After Jima divined the direction of Icewind Valley, the four of them began to head towards its location.
…
…
Humans are the most adaptable civilized race.
In the cold north, at the foot of the Noskar Mountains, the land here is covered in white snow for more than half of the year; yet in such a desolate place, there are still human settlements.
Ten Towns, as the name suggests, refers to the fact that this area has ten small towns—though in the context of a prosperous and vast empire, they would barely be classified as towns.
Most of the ten towns are arranged around a large freshwater lake. The perpetual white snow of the Noskar Mountains supplies endless freshwater to the lake, as well as magic. The fish here are unique, known for being human-eaters, having few bones, and being quite plump.
Moreover, even the fish bones can be cooked and eaten; they crack when bitten, making them a favorite food among the children of Ten Towns. The flesh is typically reserved for the strongest members of the family, regardless of gender.
Dagji pressed firmly on his sister’s mouth, listening to the “crackling” sounds coming from the hall, and couldn’t help but remember the sound of him gnawing on the bones of the fish from the lake.
This “crackling” sound was the noise of several trolls breaking into their home, gnawing on the corpse of his and his sister’s mother.
“Crack, crack, crack.”
Amidst the panic, Dagji, who was curled up between the wooden house and the cold ground, listened to this sound. A strange thought lingered in his mind.
The sound of the trolls chewing on his mother’s bones was eerily similar to the sound of gnawing on fish bones.
He recalled his mother’s sound while gnawing on fish bones, which was different from his strong but foul-tempered father; his mother always secretly saved the best food for them to eat.
Why did the sounds seem so similar?
The image of his mother gnawing on fish bones gradually morphed into a troll in Dagji’s mind, with a wide mouth and a thick neck, exuding an awful smell when chewing on bones.
A thought popped into his small head: perhaps to the trolls, weak humans were like the fish in the lake, so the chewing sound was identical.
Initially, he was quite resistant to this idea, but being a child with a wild imagination, the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.
With just a spear bought from a distant merchant, one could easily pierce a fish the size of a large arm. Just as a troll could easily crush the heads of the strong warriors in the town with a sturdy club.
Trolls could break through the town’s wooden walls with brute force, even if all the townsfolk were mobilized to pour water on the wooden walls, it would freeze into a thick layer of ice.
Even the greatest warrior in the town, who could uproot a small tree and kill several trolls, would appear as weak as a goblin before even larger and stronger trolls.
Similar to the big fish in the lake, which occasionally could knock down a few people from a boat or eat a few children and slip free of the fishing nets, but ultimately could not escape the spear, ending up roasted on a bonfire.
As Dagji lost himself in thought,
Amidst the crackling sounds that permeated through the floor, there were occasional cries merging in, the cry of his mother, weakly uttering, “It hurts, it hurts.”
She had fainted but was awaken by the pain as she was being eaten.
The child Dagji emerged from the realm of his chaotic thoughts.
Fish do not cry, nor do they speak.
He lowered his head, tears falling from his dirty little face, landing on the frozen soil.
His sister had long been crying, the tears soaking his hand. Datum, feeling an impulse to release his grip, thought to let his sister cry and attract the trolls for them to die together. After all, they were bound to die anyway; there was no food on them, and even if the trolls didn’t find them, the cold would take their lives.
Perhaps it is humanity’s fate to be prey for the trolls.
Is there really anyone who can fight the trolls? They are so strong and resilient; even if their arms get severed, they can grow new ones. Arrows only make them howl; no matter how deep the wounds, they heal by the next day.
He had heard from distant merchants that the most powerful human in history was a man with a golden hammer, before whom neither trolls, dragons, greenskins, nor beastmen could withstand a single blow.
He had also heard that in recent years, a human killed a demon king with just one sword.
But that was just hearsay; he had never seen it for himself, these were likely just legends.
The child Dagji’s hands dropped weakly to the ground.
Yet he could no longer hear his sister’s cries.
He looked at his sister’s tear-soaked face; she lifted her hand to wipe the tears from his face and said, “Brother, don’t cry. It’s just us two left. We have to survive.”
The child Dagji decided he would try to escape at night.
