Written by -Silver crown
Ch-11 Strange Caravan
Jinn recalled his experience in his first dream and tried to mimic the same feeling. He attempted to zoom his vision to scout what was happening from a distance.
However, Jinn's vision didn't zoom but spun. He quickly stopped and took a deep breath to snap out of dizziness. He lean on the tree and rested for a while.
New ability found:= Spinning vision
Analyzing ability
Case on hold...
Ability list append : (Spinning vision)
Jinn moved slowly toward the direction where he saw something happening. He needed to investigate what was happening at a distance first.
As he expected, Jinn found a human settlement. However, when he arrived at the scene, the only thing he found was burning things and ashes.
Jinn deployed a battle analysis protocol and looked around the scene. From his observations, it seems that a fight between two-legged creatures happened here. He also found a pool of blood in the middle of the settlement.
Although some footprints became unclear, Jinn noticed this was a fight between big humanoid creatures.
On one side has normal characteristics with human footprints, hand prints, and traces. Jinn subbed them as side alpha.
On the other hand, another party subbed as gamma has sharp claw-like weapons or sharp objects attached to its arm. Maybe a weapon that could potentially puncture and rip others apart. Gamma has long triangular footprints with one shallow hole at the heel area.
According to the warmth of the trace, Jinn estimated the event happened four hours ago in earth time. Jinn carefully observed the clues to guess what happened here.
Jinn found out gamma attacked alpha's settlement and looted everything. There was a fierce battle between the two sides. A fire broke out at the battle.
After the fight ended, Gamma ate every carcass (both alpha and gamma) at the center like a ritual.
There was a trace of a survivor from the alpha side. The tracks indicated the survivor was moving in the southwest direction.
The lucky survivor was hidden inside a bush when the fight broke out.
Based on the size and warmness of the footprints, it belongs to this world's standard eight-year-old child. The survivor left approximately 3 hours ago from the scene.
Jinn decided to investigate the gamma party's footprints first which have magically disappeared in the middle of the settlement.
Traces were showing that the gamma party spawned near the settlement, slaughtered alpha members, and disappeared after creating a blood pool.
Jinn thought there might be a portal at the pool but he couldn't discern anything. Jinn speculated gamma party can fly or levitate.
Upon reaching his conclusions, Jinn headed toward the southwest where the alpha surviving person went.
After following the trail for some time, Jinn found the red sun in the sky was about to set. Because of his experience with the night eagle, Jinn decided to rest for the day.
Jinn scanned for a favorable location and placed his backpack. He snuggled inside his black silk backpack. Then using his psychic power, he wrapped it with spider silk. Preventing himself from insects biting and cool air at night.
Inside the cocoon, Jinn eats raw meat and leaves stored in his backpack as dinner. After dining he felt thirsty again. He swallowed saliva and tried to sleep to forget his thirst.
However, Jinn underestimated his thirst. He couldn't sleep the whole night. Even though he was awake, he couldn't travel at night because it was too dangerous.
Jinn started to hallucinate and started to feel nauseous. Throughout the whole night, he was eating leaves, fighting his thirst. When the astral sun shone through the horizon, Jinn passed out from dehydration. .......
A carriage drawn by giant black ants was driving through the wilderness. Behind that were five more carriages carrying human captives in cages. Some ferocious-looking men were escorting the caravan.
Some of these men are wielding bows and quivers, and some have pikes. They were walking along with giant ants. Three big ants with dye on their heads spread out from the caravan to scout around the route. After some time they come back to the caravan.
A scout checked the ants. Then, he saw something in the hands of a black ant with green pigment dyed on its head. It was carrying a black cocoon.
He called someone from the team to check what kind of thread it was. After knowing it was black spider silk, they overjoyed and stored it inside the goods-carrying carriage.
Although it is kind of rare. It wasn't surprising for them to find this kind of cocoon on the road. It's a male spider that failed to con a female with its gift and got eaten as result. This might be a fake gift package. A ribcage bone wrapped with spider silk.
The scout talked with the caravan leader and discuss what to do. After a short conversation with the leader, the scout and a few other men rode their ants and followed the ant with green dye.
They are going to hunt down the female spider.
Jinn regained consciousness from the slight shaking of the carriage. Jinn used his psychic sense of what happening around him. He found himself inside a carriage that stored some eatables and jars of water. The cart was covered by linen sheets to prevent goods from spoiling.
No one was watching what was happening inside the carriage. Jinn left the spider silk cocoon. Then wrapped it back so they wouldn't notice size changes. He created some space between the goods enough for his tiny body can hide.
Jinn drank and ate something that he deemed edible. The nutrient liquid he ate was a little better than raw meat but smells weird. He couldn't guess where they were heading nor what kind of caravan he was in.
The last thing Jinn wanted was, for these men to discover there was a little boy inside a cocoon.
The rest of the journey wasn't eventful. The caravan rested here and there. A few men put something they found from time to time but no one came inside to inspect things inside the cart where Jinn was hiding.
Along the way, Jinn sorts out multiple short-term plans to deploy after reaching a human settlement.
Jinn felt the shaking of the cart stop. Then, he heard some loud noises. Jinn poked a tiny hole in the covering sheet and peaked his surrounding. It was a little dark outside, he found some crews were making a campfire and preparing to cook.
They arranged carriages in a circular formation and released the captives outside. They bind the prisoner's legs and tied the end with cage bars. Some crewmen do their deeds in nature as background.
Jinn didn't know what they were doing but he hoped they finished it quickly and resume the trip. He needs to know the timeline so he could get out of the mess that going to happen in this land.
Jinn's sight shifted to the ants which were digging the soil as if their lives depend on it. They dug very quickly and jumped inside the holes they made.
Then they pulled back excavated soil and buried themselves leaving their head above the ground. A man wearing a strange accessory similar to an ant antenna started feeding when the ants finished burying themselves.
The cart Jinn where was hiding mostly stored goods and some valuables. However, there was a pot storing certain paste. The man wearing the antenna came to pick up that pot.
The man carried out the pot that Jinn sneakily ate when he woke up. That dude wearing an ant antenna scooped out a yellowish sticky paste with a wooden ladle.
He poured it into the ants' mouths. After he finished feeding, he refilled the pot with yellow powders, their leftover meals, wastes left from cooking, and some wild berries they picked up along the way.
He pulled out a wooden mallet and ordered some captives to pulverize them. After that, he filled the pot with water and put it inside the remaining campfire.
Jinn tried to recall which kind of tribesmen's caravan he was hitchhiking. Ever since he swallowed An Shi's totem source orb, he got some unfamiliar memory format. Jinn assumed that was a data transfer error.
That memory wasn't his so he couldn't sort it in the index. He knew in this jumbled-up memory, there must be something with people with ants. Yet, he couldn't sort out the exact information.
Jinn closed his eyes and focused on breathing in a particular output. He was using the focus procedure which toned down his conscious mind and put most of the calculation and analysis power.
Synchronizing both consciousness and unconscious brain, to sort out chaotic memory. It was a clever approach but he didn't consider the fact that he was just a baby. Jinn fell asleep before he even notices.