Chapter 14: Trade Offer

I woke up to a commotion below. Never thought I'd fall straight to sleep after boning a giant lizard. When I looked down, a massive t-rex-like creature with a camo pattern on its hide laid lifeless on the ground. Stab wounds riddled the creature’s eyes, and most slashes were concentrated on the belly.

I went down. I had a feeling about who was responsible for the hunt. Sure enough, it was Atala. She wiped the brown and red grime sticking on her body with leaves.

"You did that?" I said as I approached Atala.

The t-rex was fucking massive, just a bit bigger than a damn double-decker bus. How the hell did she drag that thing to here? Scratch that, how would someone hunt something like this?

"You were honest about being the Patriarch of the Prophecy," she said, smiling, "we will talk after I clean myself."

While she was away, I watched the lizardfolk dismantle the creature. It was almost the equivalent of a land whale. Their crude metal knives barely scratched the hide. No wonder why Atala had to target the softer points. Since they couldn’t skin the creature, they carved a hole on its belly and butchered it from the inside out, leaving a deflated dinosaur. Piles of meat and offal sat next to it.

I had fun watching them, but couldn’t help wonder why they would stick with such poor weaponry. Maybe because they didn’t have the metallurgical knowledge to make steel?

Out of curiosity, I touched the dinosaur skin. It was almost as hard as hard. Steel wouldn’t work on this even if they had one.

Mihan helped chop the meat into smaller, manageable slabs. Since I had nothing else to do, I offered to help. It was pure drudgery chopping the meat with dull cleavers. So I dropped the job and talked to Mihan. I'd always been curious about her position.

"I am in command of a fifth of Elder Atala’s warriors," she said. "What's it to you?"

"Just curious. I mean you were out hunting with only two hunters when we first met. I thought you were more of a scout."

Offended, she glared at me. "I am a scout and a captain. What manner of stupidity would it be if I brought everyone for mere scouting?"

"What were you scouting down south? I thought the enemies came from up north?"

She sighed. "Outsiders don’t always come from the sea."

Right. There were probably settlements along the rivers west from here. If my mental map was correct, that left Xitlachtan’s north and south exposed to outsiders, with the troll mountains blocking the west side.

A lizardman passed the creature's eye to Mihan. It was the size of a yoga ball. Blood drip from the pink flesh dangling from it, painting the ground red. Mihan approached me with the thing.

"Our Elder instructed us to pass this to you as a sign of trust."

That red t-rex eye was staring at me. It wasn't too different from a human eyeball, or any mammal eyeball for that matter. It still looked very alive.

"What do I do with it? Eat it?"

"However you want. Be grateful that it is the Elder herself that gave it to you. Only a select few have had the honor of a gift from the Elder.”

Even if this fetched a price in cities, it’d be spoiled before I got there. Best I could do with this was a giant offal soup, but I knew more about wiping my ass than cooking.

"Thanks to her, I guess. But I can’t really think of anything to do with it.”

“Bury it and let it nourish the jungle. That is another way.”

“Yeah I’ll do that.”

I looked around for any soft soil to bury. The base of the tree where Atala’s hut was built should be good enough. So I turned to Mihan to borrow a shovel, but her face expressed an intense seriousness for some reason.

"You have an intense look on your face.”

She shot me a sidelong glance. “You have become a catalyst of war.”

Whoa that was straight to the point. I thought it was just her sheer focus on chopping the meat.

“What’s up all of a sudden? Did I do anything?”

She sighed, stepping closer to whisper. "Everyone suspects our Elder is preparing for a rebellion.”

Oh, that wasn’t too obvious. I thought she was loyal to whoever ruled this… wait.

“Rebellion, you said?”

She nodded.

Rebellion meant war. And war was, well, profitable. I got curious and inquired.

Atala disliked the new Thorned-Tender, or the queen of Xitlachtan Empire. In Atala’s eyes, this Thorned-Tender was immature and incompetent, one who only desired living a luxurious life and ignored the duties of the leader of this nation.

It had only been five years since the new queen assumed the regency. Since then, the warriors slacked off. Everyone did whatever they wanted and because of it, more outsiders infested the jungle from all directions.

"I hope rumors of the Thorned-Tender accepting outland gifts are false."

"So does Atala want to be a queen or not?"

My remark earned a sharp glare.

"Do you want the grass to turn red with your blood? Don't say that out loud!"

I whispered. "So it's true?"

"No, our Elder wants nothing more than to restore the traditional order."

Adding more watchmen on the outskirts of the jungle, reorganizing the army into smaller divisions for efficiency, and increasing the forges in cities were among the changes Atala wanted for Xitlachtan. I was honestly surprised by how progressive it was. Hell, reorganizing the army into corps sounded very modern. It took until Napoleon for humans to realize huge numbers didn't always guarantee victory.

I smelled a good fucking opportunity here. Their weapons relied on weak pig iron. But this was a fantasy world. Adamantine probably existed somewhere.

My arms dealing skills could come in handy here. But this time, though, I wanted to sell real weapons, not stories.

However, taking advantage of it meant contributing in war. And war meant the loss of innocent lives.

“You know war means fighting against your own people,” I said.

Mihan nodded. “There have been precedents. Xitlachlan is huge and separated by lakes and mountains, so tribal feuds are very common.”

“That meant you could possibly kill innocent people.”

“It is the price of change,” she said, “and even nature herself is violent at times. But we are aware a storm must pass to water the jungle.”

Even if I didn’t involve myself, innocent people would still die. But still this was a rare opportunity offered to me.

"You seem like you’re willing to die for your Elder’s cause," I asked out of curiosity.

Mihan took her time to think, then answered with a firm expression. "I would. She raised me as if I was her own. She gave me life and I would return it to her if she ordered me to."

Atala appeared, fresh and clean. Although she vanished all night to hunt the dinosaur, not a hint of exhaustion was apparent on her face.

It was all thanks to my supersemen.

"How do you like my gift?"

"The eye? It’s a hell of a sight... Oh, we’re supposed to talk, right?"

And I found something else to talk about, too.

Atala didn’t beat around the bush as soon as we climbed up to her hut.

"You will stay here in this jungle with me," she said. It sounded like an order.

I snorted. "Seriously?"

She grabbed her spear. "Seriously."

I sighed. I swear every women in this world either wanted to hunt me or keep me as a sex slave.

Thankfully I had a way out of this.

"I mean I don't mind having sex with you everyday, I like me some lizard pussy."

She glared.

"But I heard you want to do something about this jungle."

She didn't say anything. My cue to keep going.

"That weapon is shit. Everyone's weapon is shit. You know that, right?"

"If it can kill it doesn't matter."

"I'd never seen lizards fight against each other. But I touched you enough to know that metal won’t always work against your skin.”

"Which is why we have hammers and cudgels."

"But that takes much more effort, you know?"

She sighed impatiently. "Get to the point."

"I can get you weapons much, much better than what you already have. Weapons that can easily penetrate even that dinosaur’s skin."

“Dyna-what?”

“The creature down there.”

“A tleboch.”

“Right, a tel— whatever. But imagine if your warriors could hunt dozens of those monsters without your help. Won’t that be great?”

Although she was doubtful, she didn’t turn me down right away.

"If you plan on getting me those thundering blow-pipes, then stop. It is too complicated and very slow."

The borestaves, or borestaff in singular. I learned how it was called from the fort.

"Of course not. Those ‘blow-pipes’ are shitty, anyway. Which is why I'll get you adamantine."

And I had no damn clue if that metal even existed in this world. I was winging it. As long as a material hard enough to pierce that tleboch skin existed, then it was good enough. Plus this was a fantasy world. Surely such a material existed.

"It's like... pushing a sharp metal stick into mud. Adamantine is very strong and weapons made with it are very sharp. Leave it unmaintained for a whole month and it’s still sharp!”

Okay she was intrigued by my pitch.

"You can enslave me all you want and gain my power, but what about your warriors? It’s not like you can fight alone, can’t you?”

She remained quiet. Gladly she was thinking this through very well.

"You won’t have to worry about your warriors if they have adamantine weapons. Even if they operate in small numbers, you can rest assured that they will accomplish their missions with such weapons by their side.”

She hummed. "So Mihan told you."

"She did, and because you'd been generous to me, I wanna help. I wanna help you fulfill your destiny."

"Or you just want to leave."

"No, of course not! I'd love to stay with you. But I know restoring your jungle’s order is more noble than fucking a man tied to a pole.”

She thought for a bit. I was confident that I managed to negotiate myself out of chains. And even if she ended up tying me I'd just escape. But that was a last resort. I smelled a business opportunity and I wouldn't let it go.

"I have confidence in your actions. You get things done. But in you personally? You have the tongue of a shrewd and deceitful trader. How will I know you will still return?"

I could keep fucking her and acquire her abilities. That was enough reason until no skill was left to copy. Other than that, the jungle was bountiful. They had all sorts of spices and other exotic items that could fetch a fortune in civilizations beyond the sea.

To become an actual viceroy of this world, I’d need a lot of funds.

"Other than sex with you, I want to trade and become wealthy. See? I’m honest. As long as you let me trade with you, I can keep providing everything you will ever need for your campaign."

No response. For a long time she held her silence, her expression remained serious.

Beads of sweat rolled from my forehead. Damn, this girl didn’t have to leave me in suspense! It took her a couple minutes until before she decided.

"Fine. You shall become my associate, then. But I still don't trust you, not yet. Which is why the human girl must stay here."

If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.