novelslam Chapter 69 [The Divergence of Two Paths]
Chapter 69 [The Divergence of Two Paths]
It was getting dark when Terra's exploration team returned to the village.
They looked exhausted, all of them had lost weight, and their animal skin clothes were covered in scratches and mud.
The villagers gathered around, and Anya quickly stepped forward, checking on each of her returning relatives. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that no one was hurt.
"Terra, what did you find?"
"Some...stones." Terra gestured to Mason behind her.
Mason and several team members carefully put down the animal skin bags on their backs. Inside were several gray-white stone slabs with strange symbols carved on them.
This is all they brought back.
"Just these broken stones?" someone said from the back of the crowd.
Kahn crossed his arms and led his hunting party over; they had just returned from hunting and still smelled of blood.
Those who were with Kahn laughed.
"I thought you guys brought back some treasure," Kahn said, scoffing. "You ran off for over ten days just to pick up a few unwanted stones?"
Mason ignored him and carefully touched the patterns on the stone slab.
The members of the exploration team wanted to speak, but Terra stopped them with a look.
That night, the campfire was lit again.
The entire tribe gathered together, eating the food brought back by the Karn hunting party.
The atmosphere was a bit strange.
The people on Kahn's side were laughing and talking loudly, boasting about their daytime harvest, and occasionally making jokes about the broken stones that Terra and his group had brought back.
Just then, Lia stood by the campfire.
Everyone was surprised, including Terra and Mason. The usually quiet girl took a deep breath.
She raised her right hand.
"Look, is she going to conjure up some roasted meat for us with a stone?" a hunter said with a laugh.
Lia ignored her.
She closed her eyes, as if recalling something.
Then, she opened her eyes and slowly drew a strange symbol in the air with her fingertips.
The symbol was composed of curves and straight lines, and no one could understand it.
A small cluster of orange flames suddenly appeared on Lia's fingertips, dancing merrily.
The noise around the campfire stopped immediately.
Everyone stared wide-eyed, mouths agape, unaware that the roasted meat and wooden bowl in their hands had fallen to the ground.
A small fire started burning on a girl's finger.
This is even more astonishing than when Professor Bahrain and his team produced the first batch of molten iron.
Iron smelting is at least understandable; it involves burning stones. But this fire... appears out of nowhere.
The flame at Lia's fingertip flickered a few times and then went out.
The entire tribe was deathly silent; you could hear a pin drop.
After a long while, a child whispered, "She...she stole the fire..."
"The fire thief!"
I don't know who shouted it first.
The crowd erupted in chaos the next moment.
The crowd didn't cheer; instead, there was a restless commotion filled with a mixture of respect and fear.
People involuntarily stepped back, clearing a large space, and looked at Lia with eyes that seemed to regard her as a god.
Mason was the first to rush forward, not towards Leah, but towards the stone slabs that had been thrown on the ground.
He picked up a stone slab with trembling hands, repeatedly rubbing the dirt off it with animal hide, his eyes filled with piety, as if he were looking at a priceless treasure.
"Knowledge...this is the power of knowledge..." he stammered, his words becoming incoherent. "It's something that can be learned!"
Several craftsmen around him also gathered around.
They no longer saw it as a "broken stone," but as a sacred object that could be set on fire.
Mason immediately decided to lead everyone in studying these symbols and to fully support Leah. They believed that knowledge was the future of the tribe.
On the other side, Kahn's face was ashen.
"What a load of bull, the fire thief!" he spat. "It's just a little trick to scare children."
Someone next to him chimed in, "Yeah, Kahn. What can you do with this thing? Are you going to use your fingers to set a bison's hide on fire?"
"Exactly!" Kahn scoffed. "In real combat, this thing is useless! You think you can scare away a Frostsaber Bear charging at you with this little flame? The way we live, earned with blood, is the only true path!"
He felt that his authority was being challenged.
He had earned his current status through countless hunts and battles with wild beasts, but now, that status was being threatened by a small flame.
The two groups faced off across the campfire, neither willing to concede.
Anya stepped forward again.
She walked to Lia's side, gently took her cold hand, and gave her a reassuring look.
Then she said to everyone, "Everyone, be quiet."
The tribe quieted down again, and they all trusted Anya.
"Leah has brought us new hope. This is not magic; it is a power we do not yet understand, which may change our future." She first affirmed Leah and Mason.
Mason and his companions showed expressions of gratitude.
“But,” Anya then looked at Kahn, “Kahn is also right. Until this power can protect us, the tribe’s survival depends on Kahn and his hunting party; every bite of meat we eat is earned with their lives; the village walls and weapons we use to protect ourselves are also built with the sweat of Mason and his men.”
Her gaze swept over everyone.
"Knowledge is a good thing, but it can't fill your stomach; force can buy food, but it can't help us survive the winter; skills can build houses, but they can't keep out wild beasts."
"We are a tribe, a whole; therefore, we should have three paths: Kahn's strength, Mason's skill, and the knowledge that Lia has just ignited for us; together, they should support the future of the tribe."
Anya's words eased the tense atmosphere.
Terra nodded in agreement.
Mason was thinking.
Kahn outwardly accepted it, grunting but offering no further rebuttal.
But he felt even more agitated and a sense of crisis.
He noticed that the eyes of the young people in the tribe had changed.
In the past, they worshipped the strongest hunter.
Now, their gazes involuntarily drift towards the girl who can conjure fire out of thin air.
He could not tolerate this betrayal.
He must overshadow the "intellectuals" with a resounding victory and a mountain of spoils.
Late at night.
The clansmen dispersed with mixed feelings.
Leah was placed in the safest tent, while Mason and a few others stood guard outside, studying the symbols on the stone slab by moonlight.
In the shadows of another corner of the village.
Kahn summoned a dozen or so of his most trusted men.
"Boss, what do we do next?" a young hunter asked.
Kahn remained expressionless, his eyes cold.
"Prepare the best weapons and medicine. We'll set off before dawn tomorrow."
"Where to?"
"Deep in the forest," Kahn sneered, "to hunt that giant rhinoceros we never even dared to dream of before."
Everyone gasped.
That area was well outside Bahrain's designated safe zone.
"We must win this high-stakes gamble," Kahn said in a low voice. "We'll use its head to show everyone who the true ruler of this tribe is."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest.
An orc army is marching stealthily through the night.
These orcs were tall and muscular, wearing bone-inlaid leather armor and carrying poisoned iron weapons. They had been lured here by the Black Tide Lord.
This force has crossed the boundaries of the safe zone that Bahrain once designated for human beings.
At the very front of the group, an orc scout with a keen sense of smell stopped.
He found several sets of very fresh footprints on the ground.
He rubbed some soil between his fingers, smelled it under his nose, and made a gurgling sound in his throat.
"Humans..." The orc scout turned around and gestured to his captain behind him, "A small team. They've gone deeper into the forest."
Two different predators, in this way, headed towards the same hunting ground in different directions through the dark forest.