“Hoo, to be honest, I don’t really like bathing in places like this,” Leticia said softly as she walked on the pebbled path with her bare feet, sticking a wooden stick into the ground.
To prevent any strange things from peeping while she was bathing, she decided to place an invisibility array there before washing.
The range didn’t need to be large, nor the effect very strong; even for Leticia now, it wasn’t a significant burden.
“I don’t think you need to be so cautious…” Bailei stood beside Leticia, holding her sword with anticipation. “Didn’t you call that little girl named Yin Ya over? With her guarding the perimeter, there won’t be any problems, right?”
Several hours had passed since dinner. Leticia and Bailei first tidied up everything in the tent and even dealt with things in the artifact space. After sweating from doing these chores, they headed to the temple to find Miss Yin Ya.
Coincidentally, Yin Ya had just finished her day’s work and was heading home for dinner. She encountered Leticia and Bailei on the way, and then she was pulled over by the two giggling girls.
There was indeed a river not far from the tribe. Although the water quality wasn’t great, it was definitely sufficient for simple cleaning.
The only issue to be wary of might be the wild beastmen who could appear at any moment and disturb the girls’ good mood.
However, with a few cans of preserved food as payment, Yin Ya shyly accepted the task of guarding. With her there, it was highly likely to avoid such awkward situations.
She couldn’t really understand Leticia’s girlish sentiments. As a standard beastwoman, her personality was incredibly bold, to an almost unbelievable degree.
In her opinion, the difference between male and female beastmen might only be in their physical structure.
Of course, Yin Ya was a mutated beastwoman, more similar to humans than ordinary beastmen. This meant that she was actually one of the more shy beastwomen. At least she only dared to undress and bathe in front of other female beastmen.
As for the female beastmen who were more like wild beasts, they were much bolder. After all, even if they took off their clothes… well, they would still look like humanoid wild beasts.
“Amazing magic, if only I could learn it too,” Yin Ya sighed softly as she looked in the direction of Leticia and Bailei.
From her perspective, she couldn’t see anyone there at all, but she knew for sure that there were two girls in that spot.
The fact that she couldn’t see them now must be due to the magic.
Rustle… A faint sound drifted with the wind, and a pungent odor was accurately captured by Yin Ya. Her eyes slowly narrowed. Could it be such a coincidence?
…”Hey, can you move your eyes away? Do you know you look like a pervert?” Leticia asked, glaring at Bailei while wiping her body with a white towel.
Ever since they arrived, the white-haired girl’s eyes had never left her body. That scorching gaze made Leticia feel embarrassed and annoyed.
Was she that good-looking? Didn’t she know what “do not look at what is improper” meant!
This was such shameful play. Leticia really wanted to slap herself for being so foolish. Why bring Bailei out? Wasn’t she just digging her own grave?
Just thinking about it, bathing in front of this person was like delivering oneself to the door!
“I’m protecting your safety. See this sword? With it, no one can harm you,” Bailei shamelessly declared that she was doing her job. “If you feel like you’re at a disadvantage, I can come down and join you.”
I look at you, and as compensation, you look at me. See, how fair is that?
“You’re not dirty, so why come down? This place isn’t that big.” Leticia unhesitatingly refused Bailei’s request to bathe together. she had no choice but to bathe under these conditions; this was called being forced.
Wiping her slightly long hair with a damp towel, Leticia suddenly felt that having long hair was somewhat inconvenient. It was fine when magic helped with it, but now with her magic depleted, managing this long hair was quite troublesome.
“Is there something going on outside?” At this moment, Bailei suddenly turned her head to look outside. Did she hear Yin Ya’s voice?
Judging by the emotion in the voice, Yin Ya should be very angry right now. Did something malicious happen?
Thinking of this, Bailei made a decision. “I’ll go take a look.”
“Alright, I’ll be done soon anyway,” Leticia nodded. She had already cleaned most of her body and felt much refreshed, which improved her mood. “If you can’t make up your mind, wait for me to come over.”
“I know, just leave it to me,” Bailei waved her hand, indicating that she wasn’t some ignorant little white flower.
As she watched Bailei walk out of the invisibility magic’s effect range, Leticia’s eyelids twitched.
The left eye jumping meant wealth, the right eye jumping meant disaster. What did both eyes jumping together mean? Disaster and wealth at the same time?
“How strange, this feeling is too weird.” Leticia instinctively wanted to call Bailei back, but an urge surged within her, causing her to swallow the call.
Her intuition told her that what was about to happen would not be a bad thing for her; she might even gain a lot from it.
So, should she wait and see?
Leticia pondered as she walked ashore and dried her body.
Then, she couldn’t think anymore, because a fierce sword energy erupted not far away, and a galaxy fell obliquely from the sky, targeting the area where Yin Ya was guarding.
They’re making a move already? What on earth happened?
Leticia subconsciously quickened her actions. She had clearly warned Bailei not to act rashly. What had happened that made Bailei disregard her suggestion and act so boldly?
With Bailei’s strength, such an attack would surely turn the target into ashes!
Anxiously putting on her pajamas and shoes, and after confirming her attire was in order, Leticia quickly followed in the direction Bailei had left.
…
Now, let’s turn the clock back a bit and see what happened during this time that caused the typically good-tempered Miss Bai to act this way.
Yin Ya immediately became vigilant upon noticing other beastmen approaching. This small river did not belong exclusively to their tribe. There were several other tribes living by this river.
Each tribe had water rights to a certain stretch of the river, but occasionally some beastmen would cross the boundary to fetch water from other tribes’ territories.
Generally speaking, as long as they didn’t meet face-to-face, everyone would turn a blind eye to such things. It wasn’t a big deal; a little water wouldn’t be missed, as there was so much water in the river.
“Roar, new little guy, what are you doing here?” Three beastmen exuding the smell of blood walked out from not far away. Their simple animal skin outerwears had obvious bloodstains, and there was dark red liquid on their faces, indicating they had just finished hunting and were returning.
“I should be asking you that. This isn’t your tribe’s territory, is it?” But Yin Ya wasn’t easily intimidated. Although these beastmen looked scary, she had seen such scenes countless times in her life.
What’s so scary about having blood on their faces and bodies? Yin Ya, who could fight wild beasts with her bare hands, would be afraid of these things?
Don’t think that the administrative staff of the beastman race are all weaklings!
“Hmph, before this, we came here whenever we wanted. You outsiders occupied this place and now want to drive us away.” The leading Minotaur snorted, clearly displeased with the arrival of Yin Ya’s tribe.
“Then you should go explain your dissatisfaction to your tribal chief, not spew nonsense at me here.” Yin Ya couldn’t be bothered to give these three big guys any face. What was her status, and what was the status of these three beastmen? Arguing with them was beneath her.
“If I hadn’t seen it, it would be one thing, but since I have, why don’t you get lost? Do you really intend to break the alliance between our tribes?”
“Little girl, you haven’t even grown all your fur, yet you have such a big mouth. No one else is here. If you disappear here, no one will find you.” The Minotaur’s eyes turned slightly red, seemingly angered by Yin Ya’s words. He threw the prey he carried on his shoulder to the ground and said coldly, “I want to use the water source, and what can you do about it?”
Why is this Minotaur’s prey so small and thin? Yin Ya looked suspiciously at the carcass the Minotaur had thrown on the ground. This carcass was different from the carcasses of most wild beasts she had seen; it was more like a mutated beastman like herself.
Cannibalism?
Were these beastmen chasing down a traitor?
Never mind, that’s not important. Yin Ya shook her head and looked up at the chest-crossed, fierce-looking Minotaur. “Then you’d better be prepared. I’ll tell you the truth: there are two existences by the water source now that you can’t afford to offend. If you insist on barging through, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be left with an intact corpse.”
“Heh, such a big mouth. I’d like to see who it is that we can’t afford to offend!” The Minotaur couldn’t stand being threatened. In an instant, his blood rushed to his head, and he shoved Yin Ya, who was blocking him, heavily aside, and made to walk towards the river.
Hmph, there’s no one there at all. This little girl is clearly lying! The Minotaur snorted disdainfully, glancing sideways at Yin Ya, who had been pushed to the ground, and his contempt for this seemingly weak mutated beastwoman grew even greater.
Among the beastmen, strength determined one’s status. The stronger and more powerful a beastman was, the higher their status. As for skinny beastmen like Yin Ya, who were more like humans, their status was generally low.
It was rare for Yin Ya to become an heir to the high priest through her own wisdom. Most of the time, mutated beastmen like her could only live under discrimination from other beastmen. If they were unlucky, they might be captured by higher-status beastmen as slaves and toyed to death while walking on the street.
Don’t doubt the brutality of those beastmen; the survival rate of captured unfortunate beastmen was almost zero.
Damn it, Yin Ya naturally saw the contempt in the Minotaur’s eyes. She clenched her fists tightly, but she knew she couldn’t do anything now. This Minotaur was a powerful warrior from a large nearby tribe, and she had no chance of winning in a direct conflict with him.
The difference in physique and combat power was too great.
Hoo… A wisp of clear wind blew from somewhere, dispersing the indignation swirling in Yin Ya’s heart. She looked up at the direction of the river in surprise. The white-haired lady had appeared there at some point.
The moment the white-haired girl appeared, the dim starry sky instantly became bright. The countless stars seemed to be inspired, and their brilliant starlight momentarily overpowered the bright moonlight, becoming the master of this world.
The girl held an unsheathed long sword in her arms, her beautiful red eyes staring emotionlessly at the corpse that the Minotaur had thrown on the ground.
It took a considerable amount of time to identify the corpse. When she withdrew her gaze, Yin Ya could already sense an extremely oppressive atmosphere brewing.
Like the calm before a storm, the white-haired girl slowly spoke, “That’s… a human?”
Although Yin Ya couldn’t understand any of the words the white-haired girl spoke, she understood the meaning behind them and heard the world-shattering rage contained within.
“That’s a slave…” The Minotaur retorted stiffly and disdainfully, “You and he are of the same race, so whose slave are you?”
Tsk, I don’t understand. Holding the slightly trembling long sword, Bailei took a deep breath. The drawback of not being able to communicate was evident at this moment. She wanted to ask more questions but couldn’t understand the language spoken by these beastmen.
It was annoying. Seeing the corpse of her own kind thrown on the ground like this was already annoying enough, and now being looked at by this Minotaur with such disrespectful eyes, Bailei was about to lose control of the sword in her arms.
However, the Minotaur seemed completely unaware of the impending crisis. Seeing Bailei standing there blankly, he thought the girl was scared by him. For some unknown reason, he even reached out his hand and went for Bailei’s neck, saying, “Let your master come see me, you rude slave!”
Immediately after, he saw an extremely beautiful long sword fly out of the girl’s arms, and at the same time, a brilliant beam of starlight fell from the sky.
Clang… The crisp sword cry became the last sound he heard in his life.
