Chapter 965: Look at me, I am the-
[Is it safe to assume that you guys, didn’t bring the aformentioned ship’s wheel on ya?]
[No, because that would be a safety risk.]
[Of course.]
[It’s back at our village, if you can untie us, we can lead you there.]
[Oh…okay. Razorstella?]
[On it.]
Seeing how the Strange Bloods were now the opposite of a threat, Razorstella proceeded to cut the ropes holding them hostage with a quick flick of her wrist.
Once they were all freed, Chief Tusk directed his attention towards the Strange Blood warriors that started this whole encounter in the first place.
[Our village is this way, Kaijin Lord. Claw. Jaw. Can you to go on ahead to make preparations on the wheel?]
[At once, Chief Tusk.]
[Thank you. Oh! And prepare a stable space for our lord’s mount and pet!,] Chief Tusk tacked on before the duo left.
While that was happening, Zhen Liu directed his own group.
“Tiny, do you mind helping with dragging that floating wreck along with us? If not I can get Frosttusk and the others to-”
“Grunt.”
“Thank you, Tiny.”
Once Claw and Jaw had departed for the village, and the kaijin and attached the Strong Queen’s old ship to Tiny the Raijin Hippo, Chief Tusk began to lead the group onward to their home of Strange Blood village. It wasn’t a creative name, but it got the point across.
During this walk to Strange Blood Village, two conversations of note occurred.
First, Scale apologized for his behavior towards Alicia, Bellona and Matilda. Granted, it had to be translated by one of the kaijin.
[I’m sorry for the whole…hostage thing.]
“What did he say?”
“He said he’s sorry for taking you guys hostage,” Spring Brawler translated.
“Ah…apology accepted…mostly.”
“Really?”
“If they try anything again, we stab him in the eyes first.”
“Ah.”
Second, a conversation between Frosttusk and Hurricroak. More specifically, it was a retread of a conversation they had once when Hurricroak had her emotional breakdown. Only this time, Hurricroak noticed something was off about Frosttusk.
…
[Hey, Frosty…you feeling okay?]
[Hmm… I’m fine…why do you…ask?]
[Don’t lie to me you, big furry lumox. Just because you have a mean poker face, doesn’t mean I can’t hear your heart beat going funky. Well, whatever you have in that chest that constitutes as a heart for creatures like us.]
[My…heart?]
[It got a funky rhythm going on right now. Not like how someone sounds if they’re in love, more like…it sounds like the heartbeat of someone who’s remembering something distressing? No… who’s feeling nostalgic? Something along those lines.]
[Ah…]
[So…do you wanna talk about why your ticker is on such a rhythm, or should I guess? After all, it’s only fair we talk about you, since you talked to me last time about my own things.]
[That’s…fair…I guess…]
[Oh? So why are you feeling so nostalgic right now? Is that hunk of amber in your belt actually sourced from here?]
[No… it’s more…like…this situation…reminds me…of… another time…]
[Another time?]
[Back when…I was…,]
[Ah…so something that should be discussed later in private then.]
[Yeah…]
…Several minutes worth of walking later…
=To be fair, cultivators rarely think about such blinks in time.=
…
[Everyone! Our guests of honor have arrived!]
[Welcome Kaijin Lord Zhen Liu!,] a chorus of voices called out in unison.
“Huh…this is… surprisingly elaborate for a village.”
“Are you sure this is a village? It looks more like a castle” Alicia commented.
“No castle I’ve seen before,” Bellona added.
There are exactly two criteria, that determines whether or not a location can be considered a village.
First, a small population of about five hundred or so people. In this sense, Strange Bloods Village fulfilled this criteria.
Zhen Liu and his group could count up at least a hundred or so people greeting them right now, with several other people still milling about.
Once they had given their greeting, Chief Tusk had dismissed them to go back and do whatever it was they were doing. From what Zhen Liu and the others could sense, every single last one of them had kaijin blood in varying concentrations, and [Chaos].
As for the second criteria that marked a village, a technology basis that leaned heavily on a rural lifestyle, with multiple small living spaces.
This was not the case in the slightest.
Instead, like something from Zhen Liu’s old world, Strange Bloods Village was…an entire ass apartment building, albeit, one that was heavily modified to make use of aether and [Chaos] abilities in lieu of electricity, as well as several external decorations that allowed the building to remain hidden within the depths of the Endless Swamplands.
Seeing the shock on the faces of his guests, Chief Tusk explained what the deal was with Strange Blood Village. The kaijin, of course, translated for the girls.
“We really have to learn the language.”
“Agreed…wait, can’t you read minds?”
“It doesn’t work on these guys for some reason.”
“Huh…”
[For a long while, our village used to be pretty standard in comparison to other tribes in the Endless Swamplands. Platform supported huts, fish farms, the works,] Chief Tusk explained. [But then, about two hundred or so years ago, this building just sort of…appeared.]
“Appeared?”
[Well…a rip in the sky appeared right above where our old village center was and this building fell on top of it like a Vampire Koala. Thankfully nobody died, but Shell’s predecessor had a hell of a headache from the several tons of stones dropped on his head.]
[My fellow successors and I still feel that pain in our joints to this day!,] the Strange Blood woman named Shell said in a weirdly chipper tone of voice.
[After that initial shock though, we ended up exploring the place and found it to be empty and structured as if ten of our old shacks were lined up and stacked up on each other. We also found these relics that were made of glass, metal and this weird brittle substance. None of them worked so we salvaged what we could, we also found these weird plans which we used to make those windmills and fields on the roofs and…here we are.]
“Huh…”
Zhen Liu had a vague idea that this apartment building manifested due to the sheer amount of people with [Chaos] in their veins living in the same area, but that was something only Logos and Pathos could explain.
Additionally, while Zhen Liu would’ve loved to know which version of Earth this particular apartment building was sourced from, especially given the windmill made from what appeared to be license plates that had managed to maintain their integrity for two hundred years, but that could be explored later. Right now, there was a ship’s wheel he needed to claim.
[Alright, impressive village aside…]
[Thank you for the compliment.]
[Ain’t no thang, but is it safe to assume that the aforementioned ship’s wheel to the Storm Queen’s Galleon is somewhere in here.]
[Oh yes!,] Chief Tusk nodded. [Claw and Jaw should be undoing the explosive defense arrays as we speak.]
“The what now?”
[They should be done by the time we get there, so we have some time for me to provide a small tour of our home. We hope you like what we’ve done with the place.]
[Uh huh…]
True to his word, Chief Tusk gave a very brief tour to Zhen Liu and company as they added their way to the wheel’s resting place.
In the tour, Chief Tusk introduced how they managed to turn a strange pit(a pool) into a functional fish farm, patches of pointless plants (decorative garden) into bountiful groves and how they fixed up these metal hollow pillars(elevators) into a pulley system powered by the windmills on the roofs.
Every fiber in Zhen Liu’s being wanted to make some form of a reference to a certain videogame he played that involved a nuclear wasteland, but he knew better than to introduce more cultural contamination into a world that seemed to have multiple flavors of it at this point.
He was, however pushed to his tipping point, when he saw where the “sacred resting place” was.
‘Captain Ike’s Naval Models? Seriously?’
To the credit of the Strange Bloods though, they had converted the storefront into a proper defensive vault room…if the pile of broken and burnt bones piled to the sides were any indication.
Regardless, by the time Chief Tusk, Zhen Liu and the others had arrived to the place, Jaw and Claw were just about done with disabling the defensive array on the storefront’s door. Once they were done, the two Strange Blood warriors proceeded to flank the storefront like guardsmen to a gate.
[We’re all done here, Chief Tusk.]
[The galleon’s wheel is all yours, Kaijin Lord Zhen Liu.]
[Excellent.]
Using a bit of aether, Chief Tusk opened the door and set off a bell that was still somehow pristine sounding after all this time.
The moment he did though, a wave of energy came flooding out.
