Chapter 586 – Western Exploration Team
Chapter 586 – Western Exploration Team
“So, you guys will be leaving soon?”
Inside a dimly lit tent made of animal skins, Egbert, the priest of the Great Stream Tribe, asked in his low but somewhat ear-splitting voice, who was at this moment in the process of concocting a medicinal ointment, where different herbs were first mashed in a stone mortar before being mixed together according to their respective proportions.
“Yes, I have come this time to bid you farewell.” Glenn sat across from him, almost completely obscured by Egbert’s tall form. Even though his own group had been in the Big Stream Tribe for more than two months now, facing Egbert and his people still couldn’t help but create a sense of unnaturalness or even absurdity from the bottom of his heart.
As for where the sense of absurdity comes from, look at the Aigbert opposite him and you will know, a large bull s head …… in short is a head that is extremely similar to some kind of domestic animal used for plowing the fields, resting on a humanoid body, how to look at how to not match.
The first contact with the Big Stream Tribe was still more than two months ago, and even before that, Glenn commanded the Western Exploration Team to drift in the vast ocean, after leaving the Northwest Bay, with the help of the guidance of the stars, their fleet has been sailing to the west, and it was very fortunate that the waters they passed through were very calm, and they did not encounter storms and other weather, so much so that Glenn planned to name the vast expanse of this Ocean of Calm. When drifting in the ocean, they encountered many islands, whenever the crew thought they had encountered a new continent and emotions were high, the subsequent exploration would always make them depressed again, but these islands were more or less able to replenish them with some fresh water and food, which was able to support them all the way to the west.
Finally, after nearly four months from the port of Fulan, the western exploration team finally encountered the real continent. Upon realizing that the land under their feet was not the tiny speck of land that they had encountered before, the excited team members quickly organized their manpower to explore inland, and then ran headlong into the hunting party of the Big Stream Tribe.
The initial contact is not very peaceful, the Big Stream Tribe …… will call them minotaurs for the time being, and their appearance scared the members of the exploration team, the combination of a bull head and a human body, in the old continent can never see such a bizarre creature. And the members of the exploration team also scared the people of the Big Stream Tribe, it looks like they also saw such creatures as human beings for the first time, but their level of panic is a little lighter than the exploration team.
At the sight of the first minotaur, fear drove the members to almost shoot the bows in their hands, and the other party raised the stone spears in their hands – yes, they seemed to be very backward in their tools, and should not be very civilized, and their clothes were animal skins decorated with bird feathers. Glenn, who personally led the group, stopped his subordinates in time, in his impression, but any animal that can walk upright has some intelligence, even the infamous kobolds in the old continent can slightly understand human language, and to have intelligence is to be able to communicate.
Gran’s judgment was correct, he made some actions that he thought could express goodwill, at first the other party just looked at them hesitantly, after repeated efforts, those bull-headed guys only put down their weapons.
The two parties confirmed the harmlessness of each other in even communication, and thus, after leaving half of the crew behind and entrusting Vito – a young shipwright from the port of Fullan – with the task of gathering materials to repair the ship, Glenn led a group of men into the camp of the tribe of the Great Stream. The things they brought from the ship – porcelain, metal tools, tea, bags of salt grains, cloth and silk – were welcomed by the Tahitian tribe, and the members of the exploring party were treated as honored guests. In the eyes of the explorers, these strange-looking natives seemed to be more qualified to be called “orcs” than the orcs on the prairie in the north of their hometowns, where those orcs only had longer body hair, but the minotaurs here really had an animal’s head.
In the following two months, Glenn and his team worked hard to learn the language of these minotaurs, but fortunately their tongue structure and human should be similar, not so much as to be able to make out the human can not make out the syllables, although these guys also like to wail like a cow sometimes. Glenn himself has a very high language talent, he can already stumble and make some simple communication with the minotaurs, in the process of communication, he got to know Egbert, the priest of the Great Stream tribe, his position seems to be somewhat similar to the shaman in the prairie orc tribes, all of them are engaged in some godly things, and this priest seems to be the highest status person in the tribe.
Although the Big Stream Tribe did not have a highly developed civilization, but at least it had a sense of life, the exploration team that had been away from human civilization for a long time had relied on the simple trade of bartering to recuperate here for more than two months. After all the ships were overhauled and well stocked with supplies, Captain Glenn decided to bid farewell to these new friends, and he first came to visit the priest in Egbert’s tent.
After listening to Glenn’s explanation of his visit, Egbert said with some regret, “My friend, it is a pity that I cannot continue to listen to your story of the other continent; in my former knowledge the sea was the sea, and the far side of the sea was still the sea, and there was no other land in the world than that across the southern strait.”
The land across the southern strait, Glenn had heard of it when he was here gathering geographical information, and he had set sail this time to go south to see that land.
Glenn responded sincerely, “If there is an opportunity, I will come back to visit you again. It is just that, honorable Egbert Priest, I seem to see apprehension in your frown, if you have any difficulties, could you tell me, a new friend you have just recently made, maybe I can help in some way.” Egbert priest let out a long sigh, “I do not want to hide anything from my friend, in fact …… our tribe is in danger.”
“Could it be that you are facing some kind of enemy? Where are they coming from.”
“Yes, the enemies are coming from none other than the land to the south.”
The southern land, Glenn was startled, he was planning to visit there himself.
Egbert shook his head and said, “I do not wish to keep this from you, my friend, I did store up the idea of seeking power from you when we first made contact, for you have metal weapons like the enemy from the south, but there are simply too few of you as well as weapons …… “
Metal weapons? Could it be that there is a human civilization on the southern continent?
“Are they …… they human? Ah, I mean, are your enemies creatures that have the same look as me?” There was some excitement in Gran’s tone.
The Egbert priest shook his head once again, “They do resemble you, but they are not exactly the same, which is why our warriors did not strike immediately upon their first meeting with you.”
Glenn thought to himself, no wonder the minotaurs were surprised when they first made contact with them, but it was nothing like the shock the humans felt when they met the minotaurs. It turned out that they had seen human-like races.
“So can you describe to me what these enemies look like? How are they different from us specifically?” Glenn continued to ask Egbert.
With Gran’s current mastery of the Minotaur language, it was obvious that he had not yet reached the level of being able to understand the details of the other party describing the specific image of a thing, and after spending half a day’s effort, Egbert still finally gave up his verbal efforts under Gran’s confused expression, so he turned around and started to rummage around for something, and quickly took out a stone tablet, “This is the image of them on it , you see.”
Glenn looked at the stone tablet with a look of growing astonishment on his face. The painting on the slate was primitive in technique and somewhat abstract, but it was understandable, and the creatures depicted were indeed very human-like, with human heads, human bodies, human limbs, and even human faces and slightly pointed ears.
Except for the curved, goat-like …… horns on top of the head.
(End of chapter)