Ch. 19 - The Clever Kuru
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Seeing Black Snake begin to assess the feasibility of this plan, Stonecrusher elbowed his thigh:
"If the Lord finds out we're incompetent at our jobs, he'll probably recruit a new batch of mercenaries to station in this town, right? By then, even if we stay in this town, it won't be as easy as it is now. Hell, I don't want a bunch of rookies breathing down my neck!"
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 stayed here?" Stonecrusher simply gave him a light punch. "Of course, if you're tired of this place, just pretend I didn't say anything. After all, you saved my life, and I'm only following you here to repay that debt—at worst, I just won't get to drink starberry wine anymore. I can always go to the city and drink some fine tequila instead."
Black Snake smiled and made up his mind after weighing the options. Although there were too many random variables in the process to devise a perfect plan, with two spellcasters present, it had a certain degree of feasibility...
He looked at Tang Qi:
"All right, poet, you've convinced me again—this time you didn't use any tricks, did you?" He was referring to that incident at the execution platform.
"Spellcasting requires conditions, like this kobold's chanting, like my singing." Tang Qi shook his head. "If you still want to hear it, I don't mind performing a couple verses?"
"That won't be necessary. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to stop myself from beating you up." Black Snake waved his hand, then turned to look at the kobold kneeling on the ground. "Listen, as long as you help me get things done tomorrow, I'll spare your life."
The kobold, having barely escaped death, kowtowed repeatedly:
"Kuru, will do!"
"Poet—forget it, what's your name?"
"Tang Qi."
"I'm leaving this matter entirely in your hands. I'm the kind of person who doesn't ask about the process, only the results. Screw it up, and I won't spare you."
Regarding Black Snake's desire to be a hands-off boss, Tang Qi felt displeased but found it hard to say anything. He didn't want that scimitar—capable of crossing over a hundred feet in two breaths—pressed against his throat. Jackal was a greenhorn, but these two mercenaries weren't.
However, for now, they needed to transport the remaining starberries and spoils of war back to town first—
The robed kobold, apparently holding the position of chieftain, commanded its clansmen to gather all the starberries that hadn't rotted. Finally, they were divided into seven boxes and loaded onto the cart that had been blocking the cave entrance. Four kobolds took the cart's handles while two pushed from behind, barely managing to move this wagon that should have been pulled by oxen or horses...
Perhaps they really were beasts of burden?
Along the way, Tang Qi was extremely curious about this intelligent kobold. To fill out his journal, he interrogated it with many questions:
"Do you have a name?"
"Kuru!"
"You know magic, right? Those strange footprints in the orchard—that was your handiwork? But if you used magic to clean the footprints in the orchard, why didn't you clean them completely? Instead, you deliberately left a trail of clues pointing toward the town?"
This was, in Tang Qi's view, the strangest part so far. If it weren't for that trail of clues, Tang Qi wouldn't have noticed anything amiss, much less investigated in the opposite direction.
Kuru understood his meaning but couldn't describe the entire sequence of events with the vocabulary it had mastered. Fortunately, Tang Qi had a strong thirst for knowledge and spent quite some time finally sorting out the ins and outs:
Kuru had actually decided to steal the starberries early on—to make an offering, it hoped to find some tribute. To this end, it led its clansmen away from the cave and spent some time secretly studying the watering patterns of the orchards outside Starberry Town.
Because it was close to Dawnmist Forest, the soil in the orchards was consistently moist and easily retained footprints. Therefore, three days ago, after deciding to steal the starberries, Kuru first commanded its clansmen to steal several pairs of boots. Being small in stature, they could only steal a few pairs of standard small boots.
Since there weren't enough boots and their individual strength was small, they could only transport things in batches. At the same time, to frame the town's residents, they started picking from the eastern orchard near the town. By working backwards, they wouldn't leave complicated footprints, achieving the effect of misdirection.
But just yesterday, Kuru had learned a cantrip called Mold Earth. Also a 0-level spell, it could smooth out soil traces within a certain area. This way, they could escape investigation without even needing footprints to exist.
However, the range of Mold Earth was only five feet. To erase all previous traces would require a massive amount of time. Considering that the backwards-walking method still had flaws, Kuru had no choice but to let its clansmen leave with the starberries first while it stayed in the orchard to cast spells.
During this time, a farmer happened to wake up in the night and noticed its presence. Kuru had to abandon the plan and flee in haste, resulting in its inability to completely erase the footprints in the orchard—
After that came the farmer reporting to Black Snake and all the events that pointed the finger at Anbi.
Tang Qi understood and immediately asked another question:
"In that case, why didn't you master Mold Earth first before carrying out the theft?"
"Kuru, not know, it, mold earth."
"You only knew its effect after mastering it?"
"Rua!"
Tang Qi said in amazement:
"So no one taught you magic at all? Then how did you come by all these spells—Mold Earth, Ray of Frost, Silent Image...?"
Kuru was clever. Compared to secrets, its life was obviously more important. After hesitating for a while, it pulled out a delicate notebook pressed close to its robe—a spell book, 15 inches in size, bound in handmade cowhide with a six-pointed star carved in black thread on the leather.
It pointed at the robe on its body, then at the plate armor on the cart:
"Forest, hunt, three, humans, dying, Kuru, eat, have book, read book, learn."
The scattered words allowed Tang Qi to piece together the gist of things—it should have been a party of adventurers who encountered danger in Dawnmist Forest and were scavenged by this group of kobolds when they were on the verge of death.
Kuru had inherited one of the wizard's legacies—these people were constantly immersed in the study of magic, carrying more books in their packs than food. This allowed Kuru to learn their spells by studying the symbols.
Tang Qi was somewhat amazed: "When did this happen?"
"Recently!"
Kobolds who lived in underground lairs year-round had difficulty understanding the concept of months, making it impossible for Tang Qi to determine the specific time. But the information that "recently" could represent was already enough to make one gape in astonishment.
He took the kobold's spellbook and opened it to find obscure and difficult-to-understand text and symbols inside. Unlike sorcerers whose power was innate, for wizards, magic was a project of discovery, research, and summary.
By comparison, it was like mathematics. The elements and the Weave that existed everywhere in this world were equivalent to "numbers"—objectively existing things. Arranging or composing them using specific methods into a "formula" resulted in a spell.
But the differences between people were sometimes greater than those between humans and animals. Due to different abilities and methods of understanding, wizards sometimes used symbols that only they could comprehend to explain the so-called "formulas," recording them in their spellbooks. This made their spellbooks quite personal objects.
Therefore, when obtaining someone else's spellbook, it was generally difficult to immediately understand what the contents represented. A certain amount of research and analysis was needed to truly penetrate the logic within.
For sapient beings, due to the commonality of language, transcribing a spell generally required anywhere from a few hours to several days. But Kuru was a kobold. Previously, it might not have even known of the Common Tongue's existence.
Purely through intelligence, it had learned written language and wizard symbols in a short time, and by analyzing them, mastered the mysteries within... It was like the family husky suddenly solving advanced calculus one day.
Thinking of this, Tang Qi took a deep breath:
"I never thought the day would come when I'd be intellectually inferior to a kobold."