"Jihan-nim! here!"
Hearing the voice Jihan immediately ran towards the voice. He then took the monster corpse and loaded it on the cart. Then he started dragging it while running towards the village area.
"Huu."
Wiping his sweat off Jihan looked around at the people who were unloading the monster corpse. Everyone was sweating hard which made Jihan kind of nauseated. Turning away from there Jihan walked back towards the waiting area taking a small break along the way.
It has been two days since he obtained that stupid item called 'Unruly rope' in the hopes of getting whatever was in the dragon's body. But of course his luck worked in weird ways. The 'unruly' word seemed to have quite effectively watered down his plans.
From his knowledge he knew you could provide life to any inanimate object by combining it with seed of life. He had completely forgotten that with life came a thing's ego, and he had not known he would get such an....unruly one.
Jihan no matter what couldn't tame this one, it seemed to be discontent with something about Jihan and made no effort to hide his disgust to his own creator.
"Haaa."
Jihan had no choice but to let it do whatever it wanted, thankfully it seemed to not leave Jihan's side even though he had no intention to listen to him he strayed around him for some reason.
Once the tribal leader knew that he had no other way to solve her problem, the tribal leader had smiled in a way that gave Jihan chills and decided another way of barter. It was to help around the village until she was satisfied then she could take him towards his desired location. There was not much he could do in a village filled with superhumans, but thanks to his excessive stamina he was especially well suited for transporting things, in an area where carts were primary means of transportation.
To be honest he had no other option. He had extensively researched the store to find something, while the monkey faced messenger ate his brain out by talking about all kinds of things, but nothing seemed to be helpful. He had considered buying another rope, but he currently decided to wait, just maybe the tribal leader will show him some kindness if he worked diligently.
Currently it's been in total a 5 days according to his understanding, he still had 4 more days, Jihan decided to wait till tonight, then he would just buy a tip from the messenger himself. The 'tip' system was a very convenient way of gaining information for any quest, of course you had to pay an enormous amount of star points.
In fact Jihan would had done it already but he knew knowing the location was not much help since could not have killed these ferocious monsters on the way to the island himself, and let's not forget whatever awaited him in the island, thus he needed the help of the tribe very much.
In fact he had no info on what was contained in the island, as very common in romance tropes, all he knew was that on the way Kim Hyesung desperately burned away all the monsters with his dragon and paved his way towards the island while his thoughts were 'filled' with Seo Jinha, the protagonist. And then the scene jumped to where had plucked of the apple and closed his eyes while embracing it thinking,
"Jinha-ssi, I will be home soon."
With a soft smile on his bloodied face.
"Jihan-nim!"
Hearing a shout, Jihan broke out from his thoughts and walked to Shiru who was passive aggressively waving him over with a panicked look in his eyes, making Jihan slightly worried.
"Did something happen?"
"T-that! your rop- the rope-nim seemed to have disappeared!"
Shiru felt weird when he saw Jihan sigh at his words.
"I am leaving, I still have work to do."
He said as he worked towards his cart.
"And don't worry about that rope, let it go where it wants."
Shiru seemed flabbergasted at his words but then sighed as he watched Jihan chewing on what seemed like green seeds all the time and working hard. To be honest he had been watching Jihan nowadays, he seemed to have what seemed to be a stone to clean himself and his belongings that he used everyday before sleeping. Since the last five days, Jihan seemed to have mixed up with the people of tribe despite his knowledge.
Be it waking up in the morning and helping them in the preparation of food by cleaning the meat even though it seemed to make him queasy enough for everyone to notice, he even wore what seemed like covering on his hands. Later he worked hard with the manual work, done with his work he would wash his hands and feet then helped in the serving of lunch, after that he played around with the kids and told them various stories about faraway countries and non-existing princes or drive the girls around in his cart wherever they asked, who seemed to have been enchanted by him since he stood out like a crane among the burly skin tanned men in their surroundings. Then he ate dinner and washed the utensils used while chewing on those green seeds later he cleansed himself and his clothes with that stone by breaking it and went to sleep inside that bag.
At first everyone thought that maybe he was trying to get close with their tribe women, thus the men were especially on guard against him, but soon watching that small, thin body with delicate white skin working off all the time without talking to anyone in a daze with a flimsy diet and living mostly on those green seeds like things, everyone suddenly pitied him.
"Aish how could such a young healthy and strong person be so deep in thought all the time, not to mention he has money too! he could get whatever girl he wants! Something must have happened to him."
"Did his friends betray him? Did someone use him and threw him away like a napkin?"
"Ah tribal leader- nim please help that poor boy, he is so pitiful, he does not even ask for more food!"
"I know right? he talks to no one, obviously he is a pampered young master have you seen the way he wears covering his hands all the time to handle everything?"
"This is not fair! We should help him!"
Oblivious to Jihan, the entire tribe was earnestly asking the tribal leader to help the poor-depressed 'him'. Chewing on saunf Jihan nodded politely towards the group of girls who waved at him shyly as he devised what he should do with a dazed expression on his face.
...........................
At night Jihan cleaned himself and his belongings and packed his bag properly. It would have been convenient to have a inventory, right now his inventory could only store items brought from the messenger. Once done sorting everything Jihan sat down on the straw bed picking out his diary and pen and writing the items needed to atleast keep him safe and give him a fighting chance against whatever was in the island.
"Jihan nim! We found your friend!"
Startled by Biru's thundering voice Jihan put down his pen and diary and walked put of his hut, what he saw outside came as a surprise to Jihan too. Biru was standing proudly with his arms across his chest while next to him stood a little boy with his head down with gloves bigger than his hand covering it loosely.
"You are... that boy?"
It was the boy in the metro that had borrowed his gloves right after which Jihan had jumped of the metro. Listening a familiar voice the boy looked up and suddenly he burst into tears.
It was then Jihan noticed the shit coloured rope that had bound him tightly while wiggling happily.
'What's up with this unruly bastard?'
...........................
After calming the little boy who was now sleeping in Jihan's sleeping bag after of course cleaning himself with the cleansing stone that Jihan handed him, he was sleeping tightly, while the rope was wiggling around it but didn't dare get too close seeing Jihan glaring at it.
From what he gathered of all this was that the people on the metro seemed to have succeeded by tightly binding pieces of clothes collectively also using what the clothes on dead bodies, though the rope broke in the process of it. It was an obvious outcome after all, even a proper rope couldn't have supported for such long time. This little boy was lucky enough to have already climbed down.
Thus some people decided to just stay on the metro itself, but a sudden alarm had rung out looking up all people on the metro were thrown out like insects. Screaming soon they were crushed to death on the ground like bugs. After which the messenger monkey had appeared and smiled coldly watching the dead bodies still twitching, their eyes filled with unwilling tears, suddenly had given a broad grin.
'Hehe, people with no motivation are my favourite! Na-ahem Its my pleasure to fulfil their wish to die hahaha.'
Filled with shivers the group of around 70 surviving people had moved in the direction of main quest with the help of someone that bought the map.
"tsk"
Jihan sighed inwardly. In fact before they went to the main quest area, where they would be under the eyes of constellations, right now there lives were solely in the messengers hands. After all, who would speak up for them. That's why reaching the main quest area was very important even aside from the quest, since a constellation that likes you might protest if you are being killed unfairly without a fighting chance.
Jihan chewed on saunf as he then turned towards Biru.
"How did you find him?"
"Hmm? Ah the humans handed him over."
"..Handed him over?"
Biru seemed confused too, as he scratched his head.
"Well, they begged to not kill them then pushed this boy over and ran away."
"Haha"
It seems they were not even attempting to try kill monsters, in fact Jihan could not blame them for thinking this way, after all they did not even have suitable weapons, no experience, etc. Thus they resorted to handing over a person every time they met a monster.
It was kind of disgusting per say but not everyone had read the novel and had their pockets filled to the brim, so much that they could buy a map that would map out the best possible route for them.
To be honest Jihan had not expected to be caught up in this situation either, from his knowledge he had planned to awaken his sword's attribute here with the help of Kawahiva tribe. Actually the sword representing the north was actually a artifact which was originally a wooden sword, but it could not be awakened till the end by Kim Hyesung.
Of course he didn't need to either, he already had many swords that were level surpassing this one.
As a fanatic of the novel Jihan researched extensively about this sword, from what he got this sword seemed to exist in a musuem in Great Britain and had what seemed to inscription inscribed on it in 'Old Norse.'
What written on it was the names of Greek Gods and Goddesses.
That meant that the blood of North wouldn't awaken it. It's the blood of Nor's bloodline that would awaken it. Later on his research on folklores related to it Jihan had found another folklore closely related to the Kawahiva tribe people.
It said that the greek god of the wild, namely Pan, once had been fascinated by the wife of a Norse Cheiftain, he had kidnapped and impregnated her and later when bored of her he had sent her back to the cheiftain. The cheiftain who loved his wife dearly could not accept seeing her being disrespected, thus he and his loyal followers that wanted to follow him went far away but they were heavily ostracised everywhere, feeling guilty for what he did The God decided to give them a place deep in forest and taught them the way of the wild and protected them like a guardian angel and gave them all their blessings.
Reading this story, Jihan had felt like vomiting at the greek god's stark hypocrisy, but from what he gathered he was sure that the tribe was the Kawahiva tribe in this forest, they were very welcoming to outsiders and they had the blood of Greek and Norse, they were his best shot at awakening this sword.
But of course Jihan was caught while he was walking towards it.
"Huu, alright I understand. Everyone thank you so much."
Jihan said that while showing a bright smile making the air lighten up. The villagers felt relieved to see the boy smiling brightly after so many days and planned to have a feast tonight.
Oblivious to their thoughts Jihan looked at the boy sleeping deeply and the shit coloured rope that was wiggling around it. Suddenly an idea struck his mind as his eyes widened.
'This might actually work!'