Book 11: Chapter 36: Rescue (1)

After the night grew dark, the noisy troll village gradually became quiet.

Just as the trolls were returning to their simple stilt houses to rest, three pairs of eyes lit up in the bushes outside the village’s outer fence. One pair had a strange Yin-Yang Fish Pattern and a silver dial, clearly belonging to Qin Lun. The owners of the other two pairs were Mastashia and the rogue Lago.

These three worked well together in scouting. Qin Lun’s eyes were as sharp as an eagle’s. Mastashia had rich adventure experience. And the rogue Lago was responsible for disabling the warning traps near the troll village.

Perhaps because the trolls had enjoyed a peaceful life in the Troll Claw mountains for too long, their vigilance was very poor. Apart from a tall fence wall and two watchtowers at the village gate, the village had almost no other defenses.

As time passed, the troll sentries on the two watchtowers soon snored loudly and fell into a deep sleep.

In fact, after Qin Lun’s group left the cave nest of the Eight-Eyed Spider, it seemed their bad luck had washed away. They encountered no further troubles along the way. Although Iristin and the others had been captives of the trolls for nearly a month, the trolls had not cleared away the remaining traces of the battle in the valley. This allowed Mastashia to successfully follow the clues to this troll village.

“Before we rescue them, let me say this again. Compared to other large-sized Sapient Races, trolls might be the least vigilant among them. But they are extremely sensitive to the smell of blood, almost as much as sharks. So even if we run into trouble after entering the village, try not to spill blood,” Mastashia said in a low voice. “On cool nights like this, trolls sleep very deeply. Even if we shout loudly, it would only wake a limited number. But if blood is spilled, the entire village of trolls will be awakened.”

“Then what should we do? Knock them out?” Lago muttered with a look of discomfort on his face. “This job should be for the Leader. Doesn’t he know I’m a Rogue?”

“Rick is too slow. After the rescue, we need to escape quickly. It’s better for him to wait ahead with the others,” Qin Lun said with a wave of his hand.

Actually, compared to the rescue, they had a bigger problem to solve: how to escape from the Troll Claw after saving everyone. Mastashia had mentioned earlier that the Troll Claw had only two entrances. One was north of the Death Lands, and the other was the Winding River.

The entrance via the Winding River into the Troll Claw had three waterfalls with very high drops. One could enter but not exit this way, so Qin Lun and the others had no solution there. As for the Death Lands entrance, they could exit that way, but they would have to swim across the lake inhabited by the Ghostface Squid again.

The present situation was different from the past. When they passed through the lake before, the Ghostface Squid only saw them as prey. But now it was different. The giant sea creature had suffered a great loss at their hands. If it saw these enemies again, it would surely chase them to the death. Moreover, Qin Lun’s group only had one use of the ninth-tier fire magic—Meteor Fall.

Naturally, no one would attempt such a certainly fatal task again. However, an entrance is not always the same as an exit. In fact, there was another exit from the Troll Claw leading outside, also via the Winding River.

After the Winding River flowed into the Troll Claw, it reached the center of the mountain range, made a nearly ninety-degree turn, changed course to head north, and flowed out of the Troll Claw again.

Of course, this exit where the Winding River flowed out of the Troll Claw also had a waterfall. But compared to the western entrance, this waterfall’s drop was half as much, only about fifty or sixty meters.

A fifty or sixty meter waterfall drop is an insurmountable chasm for ordinary people. Falling from the top of the waterfall onto the water surface isn’t much different from falling onto hard rock.

Qin Lun and the others might not necessarily die after casting a Float spell. However, Sif in the team would absolutely die, with no chance of survival.

Fortunately, Qin Lun’s group had an ace card not yet in their possession: the Elven Druid Iristin, who could take the form of a giant eagle.

Therefore, rescuing Iristin now gave them more than half a chance of getting out of the Troll Claw. If they failed to rescue the Elven Druid, everyone might end up buried here with them.

Qin Lun and the others climbed over the tall wooden stake fence under the cover of night. The two watchtowers set up by the troll village at the entrance basically served no purpose.

“It really stinks!” As soon as they entered the troll village, a strong foul odor assaulted the three’s sense of smell, almost making them vomit.

The trolls did not have good hygiene habits. The village did not assign anyone specifically to clean up the waste and food scraps from daily life. Their food was mostly meat. The combination of this rotting smell and the stench of waste was simply indescribable. Perhaps this was the biggest challenge for their rescue mission tonight!

Of course, this doesn’t mean the trolls themselves could tolerate the ever-increasing garbage and waste in the village for long periods. As a race with human-like intelligence, for the health of their young and the weak, they sometimes had to clean these filth.

However, most trolls were very lazy. Their method of improving their living environment, in the eyes of humans and elves, was simply insane to the extreme.

The cleaning of the troll village was not actually done by the trolls themselves. It was less about cleaning and more about letting nature take its course. Whenever the garbage and filth in the village became too much to bear, the trolls would move.

Of course, this didn’t mean moving the village far away. They followed the principle of moving nearby. The mountains where the trolls lived rarely had large, flat open spaces. Plus, given their large size, they naturally couldn’t find suitable living places anytime.

Besides, moving the entire village once was also a huge amount of work. Lazy trolls wouldn’t like that. So, they adopted a method they considered clever.

When the trolls needed to change locations, they moved the useful things in the village to the other side of the fence wall. Then they just enclosed the other three sides, turning it into another village.

Therefore, the structure of troll villages was often like a “field” character pattern. Whenever one “grid” of the “field” became unusable, they would switch to another grid. They didn’t need to move much, mainly the stilt houses they lived in and some stored magical beast pelts.

The reason the trolls made the stilt houses that way was partly to guard against poisonous insects, and partly for easy relocation. Trolls certainly didn’t lack strength. Four or five trolls could carry a stilt house on their shoulders to change locations. It wasn’t far anyway, right?

Besides the garbage and waste, which weren’t taken to the new dwelling, another thing the trolls couldn’t move was the semi-permanent roasting racks. However, these would still be useful when they moved back later, so it didn’t matter.

After the trolls moved next door, the troll shaman would pour a sticky liquid, similar to yeast, all over the old village. This substance would attract all kinds of scavenging creatures to come and clear away all the garbage and scraps for free for the troll tribe.

In fact, once these garbage scraps were cleared away, the land would quickly become overgrown with various kinds of shrubby plants. The land was just too fertile.

When the trolls moved back again, they would use some simple tools to till the shrubbery here. On one hand, it cleared the bushes and weeds; on the other hand, they could gain some extra harvest, like ripe shrub roots and fruits, etc.

This was also a way for the trolls to improve their diet. They were omnivorous creatures. Their staple was meat, but they didn’t refuse eating some vegetarian food occasionally. Especially during large feasts, a small amount of plant fruits for seasoning were essential.

“Iristin, look! It seems outsiders have sneaked into the troll camp.” A soft call came out of the darkness. Idria was the first to notice the stealthily climbing Lago.

“What?” Iristin, who was resting with her eyes closed, opened her eyes in surprise. Her silver-glowing pupils looked down below the cage.

“It’s Firal! Firal has come to rescue us!” At this sight, the Elven Druid’s whole body shook. She stared in disbelief with her beautiful eyes, which slowly welled up with tears. “I knew it… I knew he wouldn’t abandon me…”

“Firal?” Hearing Iristin’s slightly choked voice, the Female Knight of Loviatar was momentarily stunned, then said scornfully, “Tch, that guy hid for no reason all this time. Is he just showing up now to play the prince?… Huh? It really seems to be him?”

Under the bright moonlight, even without the Night Vision Ability of an elf, Idria could still see the Moon Elf’s striking silver hair. Perhaps sensing the gazes from the two beauties above him, Qin Lun looked up, grinning silently. His flawless white teeth gleamed under the moonlight.

Amid the faint chirping of insects, Lago nimbly climbed up the pole where the trolls had hung a row of bamboo cages horizontally. Calling it a flagpole was a stretch; for a human-sized Rogue, it was more like a big tree. It still had the uncleaned stubs of branches, making it very easy to climb.

The simple bindings at the openings of the bamboo cages were no challenge for the agile Rogue either. In fact, these measures to prevent prisoner escapes were basically useless. After resting and recovering in the troll camp for so long, both Iristin and Idria had the ability to escape.

It wasn’t so much the bamboo cages that trapped them, but rather their weakened state from unrecovered serious injuries that prevented them from fleeing. Also, escaping the troll camp was simple, but with their physical strength, escaping the Troll Claw afterwards would be extremely difficult.

Besides, there was also an ordinary old man, Mason, among them. Iristin and Idria had indeed planned to leave. However, it wasn’t for the sake of escape; they simply didn’t want to be eaten by the trolls.

The trolls made the prisoner cages so simple partly because they were lazy by nature, and partly due to the special geographical environment of the Troll Claw. They considered the captives’ escape attempts as exercise to aid digestion.