The bard fantasized again.

Chapter 19 Clever Kuru

Seeing Black Serpent assessing the feasibility of the plan, Broken Stone nudged his thigh:

"If the lord finds out that we have done a poor job, he will probably recruit a new batch of mercenaries and station them in this town, right?"

Even if we stay in this town, things might not be as easy as they are now.

Hey, I don't want a bunch of newbies towering over me!

Black Snake narrowed his eyes, stroking the stubble on his chin:

"You want to help him?"

"I want to help you! Have you forgotten why we're here?"

The gravel simply gave him a light punch.
"Of course, if you get tired of this place, then disregard what I said."

Anyway, you saved my life, and I'm only following you to repay that debt—

"It's just that I can't get to drink Xingmei wine; I can still go to the city and drink the best tequila."

Black Snake smiled and made up his mind after weighing the options.

Although there are many random elements in the process, it is impossible to formulate a perfect plan.

However, with two spellcasters present, it is still somewhat feasible...

He looked at Tang Qi:
"Alright, poet, you've convinced me once again—this time you didn't use any tricks, did you?"

He was referring to the time at the execution platform.

“Spellcasting requires conditions, just like this kobold’s chanting, just like my singing.”

Tang Qi shook his head.

"If you'd like to hear more, I wouldn't mind singing a couple of lines?"

"No need for that, I'm afraid I'll lose my temper and beat you up."

Black Snake waved his hand, then turned to look at the kobold kneeling on the ground.
"Listen, if you get things done for me tomorrow, I'll spare your life."

The kobold, having survived the ordeal, repeatedly kowtowed:

"Kuru, definitely!"

"Poet—never mind, what's your name?"

"Tang Qi."

"I'm entrusting this matter entirely to you."

I don't care about the process, I only care about the result.

If you mess this up, I won't let you off the hook.

Tang Qi was unhappy about Black Snake's desire to be a hands-off manager, but he couldn't say anything about it.

So as not to let that curved blade, capable of traversing over a hundred feet in two breaths, reach his throat.

The jackal was a greenhorn, but these two mercenaries were not.

But for now, let's get the remaining star plums and spoils back to town first.

The long-robed dog-headed man likely held the position of clan leader, directing his clansmen to gather together the unrotted star plum blossoms.

Finally, they were divided into seven boxes and loaded onto the cart that was blocking the hole.

Four kobolds carried the cart's handles on their shoulders, while two more pushed from behind, barely managing to move this wagon that should have been pulled by oxen or horses...

Perhaps they really are cattle and horses?

Along the way, Tang Qi was very curious about this intelligent kobold, and in order to fill in the blanks in his log, he asked it many questions:
"Do you have a name?"

"Kuru!"

"You know magic, right? Those strange footprints in the orchard, were they your doing?"
"But since you used magic to clean up the footprints in the orchard, why didn't you just remove them completely? Instead, you deliberately left a trail pointing to the town."

This is what Tang Qi finds most strange so far.

If it weren't for this clue, Tang Qi wouldn't have noticed anything amiss, much less investigated in the opposite direction.

Kuru understood what he meant, but he couldn't describe what had happened using the words he knew.

Fortunately, Tang Qi had a strong thirst for knowledge and, after quite some time, finally managed to figure out the ins and outs:
Kuru had actually planned to steal Xingmei long ago—

In order to make offerings, it hoped to find some tributes.

Therefore, it led its people out of the cave and spent some time secretly figuring out the watering routine of the orchard outside Star Plum Town.

Because it is located near the Dawn Forest, the soil in the orchard is always moist, making it easy to leave footprints.

Therefore, three days ago, after deciding to steal Star Plum, Kuru first directed his people to steal several pairs of boots.

They are small in stature and can only steal a few pairs of standard boots.

Because there weren't enough boots and the individuals weren't strong enough, they had to move them in batches.

Meanwhile, in order to shift the blame onto the residents of the village, they started picking the fruit from the east side of the orchards closest to the town.

By walking backwards to commit the crime, he wouldn't leave complicated footprints, thus guiding the eye. But until yesterday, Kuru had just learned a trick called "Clay Shaping."

Both belong to the 0 ring and can smooth out soil traces within a certain area.

In this way, they can escape investigation without even needing to leave footprints.

However, the clay-shaping technique only covers an area of ​​five feet, and it would take a lot of time to erase all the previous traces.

Considering that there are still some flaws in the method of walking backwards.

Kuru had no choice but to let his people take Xingmei away first, while he stayed in the orchard to cast spells.

During this time, the fruit farmer happened to get up in the middle of the night and noticed its presence.

Kuru had no choice but to abandon his plan and hastily escape, thus failing to completely erase the footprints in the orchard.

Then came the report from the fruit farmer to the Black Snake, pointing the finger at everything related to Ambi.

Tang Qi understood, and then asked:

"If that's the case, why not master the [Clay Shaping Technique] first, and then carry out the theft?"

"Kuru, I don't know, it, clay."

"You only know its usefulness after you've mastered it?"

"Rua!"

Tang Qi asked in surprise:
"So no one ever taught you magic?"

"Then how did you acquire spells like [Clay Shaping], [Freezing Ray], [Silent Illusion]...?"

Kuru is very smart.

My life is obviously more important than a secret.

After hesitating for a moment, she took out the exquisite notebook that was tightly attached to her robe—

A heavy spellbook, 15 inches in size, handmade in cowhide, with a six-pointed star engraved in black thread on the leather.

It pointed to its robe, then to the slatted armor on the cart:

"Forest, hunting, three, human, dying, kuru, eat, have a book, read a book, learn."

The scattered words allowed Tang Qi to piece together the general outline of the matter—

It must have been a group of adventurers who encountered danger in the Dawn Forest and were on the verge of death when these kobolds picked them up.

Kuru inherited the legacy of one of the mages—these men were constantly studying magic, and their bags contained more books than food.

This allowed Kru to learn his magic by studying the symbols.

Tang Qi was somewhat surprised: "When did this happen?"

"recent!"

The kobolds, who lived in the underground caves for many years, had a hard time understanding the meaning of months, so Tang Qi was unable to determine the specific time.

But the information that 'recently' represents is already astonishing enough.

He took the kobold's spellbook, opened it, and found it filled with obscure and difficult-to-understand characters and symbols.

Unlike sorcerers whose power is innate.

For a mage, magic is a process of discovery, research, and summarization.

By analogy, it's like mathematics.

The elements and magic network that are ubiquitous in this world are equivalent to 'numbers' and are objectively existing things.

When these elements are arranged or combined into a specific 'formula' using a particular method, a spell is formed.

The differences between people are sometimes greater than those between people and animals.

Due to differences in comprehension abilities and methods, mages sometimes use symbols that only they can understand to explain so-called 'formulas' and record them in their spellbooks.

This resulted in their spellbooks becoming a rather private matter.

Therefore, when you receive a spellbook from someone else, it is generally difficult to immediately understand its meaning.

It takes time to study and analyze it before one can truly understand its logic.

For Homo sapiens, due to the commonality of language, copying a spell can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days.

Kokuru is a dog-headed man.

It may not even have known of the existence of the 'Common Language' before.

Purely through intelligence, he learned the written language and the symbols used by the monks in a short period of time, and mastered their mysteries through analysis...

It's like your husky suddenly figuring out advanced mathematics one day.

Thinking of this, Tang Qi took a deep breath:

"I never imagined that one day my intelligence would be surpassed by that of a kobold."

(End of this chapter)