Chapter 17:
Samsara Fall Online: Isekai
VOLUME 1
- CHAPTER 13 -
WOLFKIN VILLAGE
“So, it wasn’t dead.”
I look at a pool of blood on the dirt street, supposedly where a dead dragon-tiger should be.
Vute Difivi: “Those cats are just like that!” – A big man with brown wolf ears slaps my back with brute force, pushing me a few steps forward and almost making me fall into the blood. – “They like deceiving. You said it was near the children, right? It probably was using them for you to get closer and bite ’ya.”
Vute Difivi, the wolfkin beside me, apparently was commanding an operation with other warriors of his village to cease the fire the dragon-tiger spread when it appeared here. The weaker people of the village were to stay in a fortified house until they had come back, but apparently, two nosy kids escaped from their vigilance.
“Ugh… Tsk, you sure? I didn’t know they were that smart.”
Vute Difivi: “Trust me, they are that evil.”
Thinking back now, that monster was delaying way too much when everything happened. But could it be? That mob was smart enough to use children as bait? What more do I need to expect from this game?
Willrus steps forward, kneading the dirt with his heavy weight.
Willrus: “I’m sorry I couldn’t kill it, I should have paid more attention. I’ll hunt it down right away.”
Vute Difivi: “No worry, you scared it. If it knows it won’t win, it won’t come back.”
Willrus: “Is that so, uh. I see. Either way, I will look around just as a precaution.”
Vute Difivi: “Do as you like, Hero. But I doubt it will be close by.”
Willrus marches forward, trying to follow the trails of blood going beyond the stone fences.
It appears that Willrus still doesn’t remember me. That’s good. The last thing I need is someone that strong as my enemy.
He didn’t change a bit, he’s still too methodical about things. The personification of a strategist leader, though he looks more tired than when I met him…
He isn’t realizing that this character is me? Or maybe he is the type of person who forgives easily. It has been a long time, so maybe he just erased it from his head. It’s not like I’m a remarkable person either… but even so…
The image of the swarm of Plagued attacking the fortress comes back to my mind.
There’s no way he would forgive it. There’s no way he forgot about it. He’s probably unsure if I’m really the guy he’s thinking of.
Willrus: “So, what’s your name?”
He asked me when it was already night.
“Ehm, it is… Strider.”
Willrus: “Ah, your nickname. You can call me Willrus. Nice to meet you.”
We nod to each other.
Still no signals of knowing who I am.
Good.
After a while, Vute, the big brown wolf person, invited me to dinner.
I refused, saying that I wasn’t hungry. Whatever Willrus pressed me to go.
Apparently, in this game world, we players don’t feel hungry nor do any other body necessities, like any of the nature calls. But the NPCs do. Willrus said that he didn’t explain this fact to them nor does he plan to, as he believes it would distance us from them.
Just imagine telling anyone that you don’t need to eat or poop, they instantly would think you’re a god.
But even so, it is still possible to eat and feel flavors. I did test it inside the dungeon when I ate some bread and drank health potions.
Perhaps it’s still possible to “go to the bathroom”, though I won’t force it and neither did Willrus.
If this is just like in the game, food items mainly serve to heal and replenish energy, but differently from potions, they can’t be used in combat. Though I don’t know what that means in this world, maybe I will puke it or a magic barrier will stop it from entering my mouth.
Either way, I seriously can’t imagine myself taking a steak dish out of my backpack to eat in the middle of a fight, so I won’t be testing that out any time soon. Besides, It heals way too little and is way slower than it is to drink a potion.
And also, healing recovers our clothes, but only for us players. Which by the way, the three claw cuts that were on my belly disappeared as if they never even happened in the first place, after I regenerated with time.
At dinner, we entered a huge building that first I thought was some kind of church by its curvy outside layout and a small tower with a bell on top, but there weren’t any benches nor a chancel within. The only thing I could see was a wide room with a huge T-shaped table where everyone in the village gathered. According to Vute, every meal needs to be there and with everyone else, no matter if it’s a big feast or a snack.
Even a centenarian wolf-lady was brought on her bed to dine.
It’s like a stricter family thing, but with the hundred and thirty-eight of your neighborhood.
Because we were guests of honor, we sat at the head of the T table. At its center and above where the two lines connect, there was the leader of the village, a black-haired wolfkin in his thirties with a big scar from forehead to chin on his stern face, his name is Benipe Nate.
Nate wasn’t liking that Willrus and I were dining with them, going especially against us sitting at the same side of the table as him, but after some words from an older wolfkin at his left, he finally calmed down.
That wolfkin is the elder and counselor of the village, a very ruggedly and grizzly old man with a kind and cracking voice. He’s Peje Hade.
Now on the leader’s right side, there was a tall and beautiful wolfkin woman with some white spots on her long blue straight hair, her wolf ears being pointier and sharper than the others. She’s Dutak Ave, the leader’s wife.
To the wife’s side, there’s a fourteen-year-old girl with pink colored hair who was always playing with her food, named Dirufe Tawici, and an eighteen-year-old young man, Pilaj Apaw, with a resembling “dark puberty” expression and clothes. Both of them are children of the leader Nate and Dutak Ave.
Pilaj was very similar to his father, black-haired but with a sleepy-serious face instead of a stern one, but all his physical traces matched. However, the pink-haired girl, Dirufe, has nothing of him. She does have some familiarities with her mother though, as in her straight hair and sharp eyes and ears.
Perhaps she’s the fruit of adultery?
But after looking at all the others in the village, there wasn’t anyone near pink hair.
There were a bunch of wolfkin types within that village: like the ones with black hair that had smaller ears just like the leader; others with brown or lighter hairs; some had tanned skin while others were pale like vampires, just like the two kids I first found coming here, which now I see them happily playing around with their parents as nothing had happened.
Though I do believe there are black-skinned wolfkins, there weren’t any in this village. Neither did one of the legendary types, like the ones with their hair colored golden, red, purple, or those bizarre “constellation” styles.
The table was almost full, the wolfkin bumped into each other just to take a fowl off the table, which, by the way, happened every second. The only spaced place was the top head of the enormous T-table, where the elder and the leader’s family dined, together with me and Willrus at the elder’s side. It was almost unfair the amount of space we had compared to the ones in front of us, not that I’m complaining though.
Now, if you think that you had already forgotten the name of everyone I said just now, well, then that makes two of us. The elder and the leader’s wife kept introducing me name after name with the gossip of who each person was or did, not only from these main five I presented, but anyone who dared to be in sight, which may I remember you, was the entire village.
There were love stories, rivalries, good hunters, artists, some that were close to somebody that died, over-religious, scammy, funny, jealous, ex-criminals, ex-knights, orphans, ex-orphans, ones sending money to their families from far away, others rebuilding their honor, some sharpening their skills, and any other backstory you could imagine.
To summarize, the majority of the adults of the village know how to fight or hunt, but each one of them has a specialization or a hobby they do in their free time.
Besides all of that, their names are complete gibberish, there were ones that I wouldn’t know how to begin to write or even which letter their names began with. And thus, at the end of it, I had even forgotten the elder’s name and the wife’s, which were heartfully talking to me this entire time.
Ah, an important fact for later: Vute has a crush on some wolf girl and is shy about it, but I also forgot her name and appearance entirely. Dammit, I won’t be able to have my vengeance for his back slap from earlier, but I can still pretend I know who it is.
Oh, and the fact that now I’m talking to you, directly, is to quantify the madness that place was and how I, a full-fledged anti-social being, was not well after such dinner. I’m currently insane and now I’m treating this like I’m some webnovelist to describe my day. And I don’t even read novels! or books in general. That’s the extent of my mind trying to drift away from this reality.
Anyway, I didn’t feel that miserable. Even though it was hard to listen to my own thoughts and it was really difficult to bite through those oversized meats, everyone looked happy and treated me like I was part of their family or something, like we had met a long time already.
It was extremely uncomfortable, but nothing regrettable happened nor any problems were created. Unlike real life.
But again… I prefer to never do that again.
Yeah, nope, I’d prefer telling them that I’m a god that doesn’t need to eat or poop.
After dinner, Vute showed us where we Heroes could sleep, at the -[Unfinished Inn]-, the first floor had no furniture in its hall nor paint on its walls. And the stairs to the unfinished second floor were covered by a straw roof to protect against the rain, but as it is now, it will flood if it rains too much regardless.
It was that or we could sleep on the storage straw houses that were outside the -[Unfinished Great Stone Wall]-, the same type that the dragon-tiger destroyed and broke as if it was paper. So I accepted sleeping in the inn.
From what he and Willrus told me, this village is one of the closest to the Plagued territory, so the kingdom is paying for stronger species to build villages and protect this area.
That’s why a bunch of different types of wolfkins live here, they are from poor families all around the kingdom, the majority being refugees of the major Plague invasions that happened in the past.
Vute says there were a few other beastkins in the village, but they left or died. The only strong enough to survive this far are the wolfkins, being also the only ones who are motivated enough to reconquer their territory. There’s something about protecting their God’s grave that is deeper in the Plagued territory, but I didn’t care to ask for any details.
After Vute showed us our rooms and left, I finally had some time to speak with Willrus alone.
We talked about the real problematic things.
How we arrived. Why all of this is happening. And what to do next.
But of course, there wasn’t a clear answer to any of them, and we ended up not reaching anywhere.
After that, we slept.
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