The bard fantasized again.

Chapter 184 We Have No Enemies (5k8k)

The rustling sounds were some distance apart, but perhaps it was the enhancement of his alertness that made Tang Qi extremely perceptive in the face of potential danger.

This made him realize that the commotion was not the sound of the wild beasts following him, wandering around unconsciously.

It originates from an existence that 'Tang Qi failed to perceive'.

So he shoved the bull aside and turned his gaze to the darkness in the distance:
"who?"

Everyone turned around, but couldn't see anything.

But those lurking in the darkness realized they could no longer remain hidden and could only hastily surrender:

"No, don't do that! It's me! It's me!"

The voice was indeed somewhat familiar, but the other party clearly didn't intend to keep Tang Qi guessing for long. The moment he stepped out of the darkness, the first thing that caught Tang Qi's eye was his flying squirrel-like coat.

Red Scarf Gang.

The moment the other party removed their mask, jet-black fur and emerald green beast eyes were revealed to Tang Qi.

He recognized his name at a glance:
"Two camel legs?"

"It's Black Panther, Black Panther!"

The black panther raised its paw.

This name is actually quite common among the spotted cat people—

Their parents name their cubs after the first thing they see when they are born.

But since he was a nobody in Longjin City, this name was obviously not convincing enough.

In order to buy it time, Tang Qi did not strike a vital spot when he slashed. A knife wound of that severity could be healed in a short time with the help of a healing potion.

Now, seeing Tang Qi about to draw his scimitar, Black Panther waved his hands repeatedly:
"Wait, I didn't mean to hurt you—I couldn't hurt you all by myself. I just want to live!"

"When did you start following me around?"

"A long time ago, probably the moment you left the fifth floor... you know, the higher-ups ordered us to capture you, so they assigned a lot of people to lie in ambush at various exits on the fifth floor."

But darkness suddenly spread, and we had no choice but to stay put and wait for rescue.

As a result, I was suddenly attacked while waiting, but luckily I managed to dig a hole with my claws and escaped death.

I had resigned myself to death, surviving for two days on the food I had, when suddenly a beam of light shone on me—

We have a grudge against each other, so I dare not approach you. I can only secretly follow you from behind.

These gang members, who are former wanderers, seem to be better at stealth than fighting.

This made Black Panther scratch his head and wipe the blood from his mouth.
"Damn it, if I had known you would find out, I would have caught the mouse later."

With a bunch of mice following you, I guess I'm getting a buffet.

Tang Qi twirled his wrist, brandishing the blade: "Since you know we have a grudge, you should have considered what the consequences would be if you were discovered?"

"Hey, I overheard your conversation earlier. You're eager to get to the surface, right? That's why you wanted to use the second or third level of cliffs to enter the bunker."

I know a shorter route, on the fourth floor of the Sunrise Tower, where there's a portal that's a shortcut for the Red Scarf Gang to release monsters—you saw those yaks in the bunker.

I know how to open that tower; we can go directly through the portal from there and quickly reach the bunker entrance.

"Let me lead the way, please come in, brother!"

Even when death is imminent, no one will care whether this is a betrayal of the gang.

Tang Qi realized that, due to time constraints, he really had to spare Black Panther's life.

Moreover, the feud between them was actually negligible.

He even realized that simply following him didn't seem to constitute a deal at all.

He couldn't stop these refugees who were instinctively seeking a source of light.

Thinking of this, he pushed the package offered by the human laborer back and turned to look at the bull:
“You’re just following me, so I have no reason to expel you. Of course, that also means I won’t guarantee your safety. So this isn’t a deal.”

The bull breathed a sigh of relief.

Each adventurer has a different style of doing things.

If you run into some people with no moral bottom line, they might take advantage of your misfortune, loot your gear, and then throw it at the front of the group to scout ahead.

"Thank you very much," said the bull sincerely.

Tang Qi had no intention of lingering any longer; he only wanted to reach the [Tower of Sunrise] before the end of the day—it was located halfway in their direction of travel, and Tang Qi didn't even need to change direction in the forest.

However, as he quickened his pace, he realized that there were far more adventurers on the fourth floor than he had imagined.

Aside from the Bull Gang, other scattered adventurers met over the course of several hours, guided by the light source.

They were not familiar with Tang Qi, but most of the more experienced adventurers knew him.

Among wild animals, the spontaneous protection of 'light sources' also makes people feel safe.

With nothing better to do, the bull decided to take on the role of introducer:
"This is a group of adventurers."

"So they're in the same line of work. What's their team name? It'll probably be on everyone's lips after they leave the dungeon, right?"

“What I mean is, the team name is ‘A Group of Adventurers.’ That gentleman is Donkey Weinberg, a bard.”

"Bards? Those guys who play instruments and sing?"

Although the bards generally do not go to the Lords' Alliance.

However, there are certainly some poets in this region who have a master-apprentice relationship.

Compared to formally trained poet academies, they can be considered wild.

Among them were many highly skilled musical writers who founded the Bards' Guild—although it is rumored that the founders included students of the Bards' Song, and people have always suspected that he was a spy for the Terran Empire.

However, from the adventurer's perspective, most poets do indeed only exist in three places: balls, taverns, and brothels.

As for those who are even worse off, they are mostly street performers in the back area.

The Golden Oak Tree's songs have encroached on the bards' living space, causing Tang Qi to not even encounter any fellow bards during his time in the city.

"So he should just be an adventurer who is familiar with musical instruments, rather than a bard, right?"

etc--

Why are there so many dead bodies?

A surprised exclamation broke the steady progress.

Tang Qi also noticed that as they gradually moved towards the tower, the scattered zombies began to appear in groups of three or five.

In the dungeon, there are always more corpses than living people.

Not to mention the carcasses of wild animals.

When the surrounding wild beasts are unable to withstand the attack of hordes of undead and perish on the spot, their corpses become nutrients for the spores, thus prompting the birth of new undead.

This caused the originally impressive procession to immediately show signs of collapse—

"Mr. Tang Qi, we have been attacked!"

"Protect those two human boys! They're incapable of fighting, and if they die, they'll become zombies and cause us trouble!"

"Help! Help! Damn it, that was close! What kind of dead rat suddenly jumps up at you?!"

The advance was blocked. The sounds of clashing weapons and the howls of wild beasts grew louder and louder, mixed with the sharp, discordant roars of mushrooms, forcing Tang Qi to listen to what sounded like a jarring march.

He looked around and noticed that the mushrooms around him were gradually becoming denser—

"careful!"

[Alert] Suddenly, a sound rang out, and Tang Qi hurriedly dove to his side, rolled, and drew his sword. But when he looked up, he saw Chen Xi wielding a broken sword and charging towards him.

Shattered Stone hurriedly raised its tower shield to defend itself, but its weak muscles were ineffective, and it was blasted into the darkness by Dawn during the impact.

He fell to the ground and couldn't help but curse:
"Is this guy being controlled by someone? He's like a 'friendless orc,' attacking anyone he sees!"

"I can't control my body!" Chenxi warned Tang Qi in her mind.

Tang Qi recalled a similar experience he had had in the cellar and immediately realized:

"It must have been that while it was near a large number of spores, they forcibly infested the corpse—"

The spores residing on your wrist are extremely rare, causing them to be immediately assimilated by other spores the moment the neural network is connected.

"What should I do? Like before in the cellar, listen to your singing while I communicate with them?"

"No, no—these spores are in a state of extreme anger. If I were to echo them, they would probably think I'm cheering them on!"

Tang Qi immediately rejected the idea.
"Stay calm! Only by calming them down can we have a chance to communicate!"

Seeing Chenxi forcibly controlling his body—his figure became swaying, his whole body trembled uncontrollably, and he wanted to swing the broken sword in his hand, but restrained himself and pulled it back.

The rubble quickly scrambled to its feet and stood guard in front of Tang Qi:
"Didn't you say there were tons of spores around us—how could you possibly calm them down?! They don't talk mushroom language like that!"

To calm them down, we need to communicate with them through the dawn.

But to get the dawn to communicate, they must first calm down... This is clearly an unbreakable cycle!

"No, I know a way—"

Tang Qi immediately directed the [Silver Medal],
"Quickly, restrain her body and control her!"

Wendy, Rumi, and even Shattered Stone carried out the orders almost without thinking, extricating themselves from the standoff with the beastly undead and, with the help of Dawn, restraining her limbs.

"Tear off her gauntlets!"

Tang Qi drew his scimitar and, the instant Chenxi removed her arm armor, slashed her palm.

Dawn's body does not contain 'blood'; it relies entirely on the nutrients in the [Restoration Glue] to nourish its body, which contains necromancy.

This resulted in only a crack appearing on her palm, from which a little nutrient solution oozed out.

"What are you doing?"

The pebbles couldn't help but ask,
"Such weak strength wouldn't be enough to dismember her..."

"I don't have that much recovery glue to help her get back to health!"

Tang Qi rolled his eyes at him, then brandished his scimitar, leaving wounds on Chen Xi's arm.

No one knew his intention in doing so, but they could hear the chaotic sounds around them, which seemed to be subsiding.

Chenxi felt the will that was wrestling with her turning from anger into resentment.

Her emotions seemed to have gone through similar ups and downs.

That was a hundred years forgotten after the souls were placed in the Temple of Dawn.

The servants who remembered her achievements have disappeared into the long river of history.

When she realized she had been forgotten.

Endless anger once filled her soul.

But as time went by, she realized that anger could not undo the consequences that had already passed, and her rage was gradually consumed by the flickering flames.

It turned into anger.

But anger cannot last much longer.

Another hundred years have passed, and this sentiment has turned into resentment—resentment for the passage of time, resentment for the injustice of fate, resentment for the self that achieved great feats, only to end up as a soul that has lost its freedom, imprisoned in a broken sword.

Until complaining became numb and turned into calm.

Joy, anger, sorrow—people are always entangled in too many complex emotions.

But when looking back, one can only capture that one emotion that filled most of one's life within the limited span of one's existence—

calm.

Calmness is the normal state of life, and it is also the normal state of emotions.

As the wounds multiply, and as the emotions of 'Sage Mode' take hold, the soul of Dawn is infused with the [Mind Blade].

The dungeon mushrooms, which were connected to the spore nerves in her wrist and occupied her 'corpse,' also seemed to be infected by this tranquility.

This gradually dulled the already ferocious undead around them.

The spores that had invaded the corpse also became inactive.

The adventurers who followed Tang Qi finally had a moment to catch their breath:

"Have they... calmed down?"

The babbling that sounded like a roar gradually fell silent, as if the person had fallen into a deep sleep.

They wandered through the dark forest, indulging in emotions they had almost forgotten—

"I saw a cave."

Chenxi suddenly said,
"There were only mushrooms there, mushrooms of all sizes—the swaying mycelium shimmered with fluorescence, and starlight-like dust was scattered on every patch of soil."

They communicate peacefully, reproduce peacefully, and live peacefully.

That seems to be their home...

I used the "Poet's Inspiration" four times, but thankfully it was somewhat effective.

This is the biggest drawback of spores being a single entity.

Although they are nominally independent individuals.

However, the vast neural network means that every 'calm' cut Tang Qi makes will spread throughout the entire spore community via invisible synapses.

The more the [Mind Blade] is swung, the wider the area affected by the 'calm' emotion becomes.

Although it is only temporary, as time goes by, this forcibly injected 'calm' disappears, and they will turn back into anger.

However, the rapid transmission of emotions did give Tang Qi the possibility of influencing the entire Spore community.

This allowed him to look at the dense array of knife wounds on Chenxi's arms and ask:

"You can communicate with the spores now?"

"No, they just stopped being hostile. They seemed to see me as an outsider and refused to communicate with me."

"That means there is still hostility, and it needs to be further deepened."

"Then keep chopping?" Since he hadn't experienced the cellar incident, he didn't quite understand.

Tang Qi shook his head.

He had completely depleted his [Poet's Inspiration], and now he could only try to recover it through [Resting Song].
"Let's rest first."

He then sat down on the ground, strummed a soft string note, and began to hum a melody without lyrics—

Exhausted from the zombie attack, the adventurers quickly gathered around Tang Qi to guard the light source.

Now they simply gathered around the light, each taking out supplies from their packs for a brief preparation.

But the soft rustling sounds from the living corpses still lingered in my ears.

In the darkness, they could not see the movements of the undead.

The gentle breeze that stirred seemed to symbolize the fact that they were swaying:
"Could it be that the corpse is... enjoying the singing?"

They hurriedly looked in the direction of the song, only to see, in the very center of the light, several white birds perched on the shoulders of the poet who sat cross-legged on the ground—

Several monkeys lay on the stone bench, scratching their bright red bottoms; squirrels and rabbits lingered around Tang Qi's legs; even the red eagle circling in the air hung on a branch of the giant tree, enjoying a rare moment of comfort...

"Wait, can those spores hear the song too?"

Feeling the effects of the [Resting Melody], Shattered Stone couldn't help but remind him,
"Wouldn't it be an even bigger problem if they also came back to life because of your music?"

Tang Qi shook his head:
"They're mushrooms, not devils or orcs, how could they do such a thing?"

Language is the bridge to communication.

But it is not the only bridge.

The "Relaxation Song" will bring benefits to all companions who can hear this music, such as healing injuries and replenishing energy.

And the selection of this 'partner' is, of course, up to Tang Qi—

He chose all living beings who could hear this music.

This includes adventurers, the Red Scarf Gang, or even beasts and spores...

He had already learned about the nature of these spore communities through the cellar.

These lawful and benevolent beings are merely strangers who have lost their homes in a foreign land.

In order to have a place to live, they are even willing to sacrifice part of their population, just for a safe place to live.

However, they were ultimately angered by the excessive harvesting, which led to the birth of rebellion.

Tang Qi could understand their anger.

This also makes it clear that they have the potential to communicate.

"Not everything in this world needs to be solved by force."

Tang Qi shook his head.

"At least here, we have no enemies."

As the continuous music soothed their eardrums, the adventurers, realizing their energy had been restored and their wounds were healing more quickly, couldn't help but gasp in amazement:

"Is this... the magic of music?"

He... he really was a bard? A true bard!
Damn it, I've only ever heard of this kind of magic in the self-aggrandizing ballads of poets—I thought it was just a legend.

Don Qi Weinberger, he will definitely become a legend.

"I hope that day comes sooner rather than later, so we can boast to others that we've personally witnessed legendary adventurers!"

(End of this chapter)