240 – Tongdan Continent (3)
Chester tried to throw away the tiger’s skin, but Sena said that he should sell it instead of throwing it away. That it is sold expensively.
“Big cat skins are sold at high prices? They are strange people.”
“No, this isn’t a cat, it’s a tiger…….”
“I heard that cats have needles on their tongues. Are they like relatives?”
“Tigers are not just animals in the jungle, they are revered as spiritual beings. A person who hunts a tiger becomes a tribal hero, and even if it is not, it is sold at a high price simply because it looks cool.”
Chester looked at the limp hide and thought.
“A spiritual being?”
“Um.”
Senna shut her mouth. The tiger skin they had now dismantled was torn and stretched from the wind that Rex pulled with his fierce force.
“I don’t think it’s worth that much for being such a monstrous spiritual being.”
“There are tribes who rather like roughly damaged leather, saying it’s the traces of fierce and glorious battles.”
“Indeed. You have that point of view.”
Some warriors regard their wounds as a sign of weakness and feel ashamed of them, while others call them the wounds of glory and take pride in them.
For Chester, if it’s an animal, it’s important whether it can be eaten or not, but if you’re going to brag about it to others, I like clean leather.
He’s a hunter, not a warrior. The tattered hide was evidence that he had not hunted his prey, but had battled it, so he could not boast so much.
“It’s my first time eating tiger meat…….”
“But why is your name a tiger?”
“Huh? Ah, it used to be just called Jungle Incarnate. That’s why I came to call it a tiger. 20? No, did you say 30 years ago? I don’t remember.”
Sena said while spinning the grilled tiger meat on her own skewer.
“In the past, people who invaded our continent used tanks, but in the jungle, the roads are rough, so the tanks couldn’t roll well, right?”
“Yes.”
“They say the sound of that tank rolling in the jungle resembles the cry of an incarnation. The tank’s name was Tiger, and from then on, the incarnation was called Tiger. Aren’t there still tribes called incarnations?”
While the two were talking, Monia cut the surface of the grilled tiger meat with a knife and tasted it, and she frowned at the rich smell.
She then started sprinkling her spice to get rid of the smell.
“Keep it off… !”
Rex and Ant ate the raw meat deliciously next to Monia fighting so hard.
“Yes, there is something to be aware of. Didn’t you know it was your blow gun?”
Chester nodded at Senna’s question, and the others shook their heads.
“Like this, it’s a weapon that shoots poison-stained needles by holding a hollow stick in your mouth and blowing with your mouth? Many people who come here for the first time get caught off guard when they see the stick and fall down after being hit by a poisonous needle.”
“Is there such a thing? I’ve never heard of it, how does Chester know that?”
“One of my father’s friends was writing it, so I learned it too. It’s not a good fit for me, so I’m not going to bother looking for it.”
Blow guns are useful, but they also have limitations. It doesn’t work on thick-skinned animals, and the movement itself is restricted because of the action of blowing with a stick in your mouth.
A person has to move by balancing the center of gravity with both arms, but in order to aim and shoot a blowgun, he has no choice but to move in an unstable state with one arm attached to the body.
With the slingshot, I could shoot the slingshot with one hand and do various things with the other hand and leg, and there was no particular restriction that the arm that turned the slingshot should be attached and fixed anywhere on the body, and it was easy to catch even thick-skinned animals. So powerful
That’s why blowguns aren’t for Chester, who wants to leave his body as free as possible unless he’s fighting with a weapon.
For similar reasons, Chester could shoot a bow, but he didn’t use it much. At best, he only used the bow he had made for a short while, but after teaching Monia how to shoot, he used the catapult again.
Similarly, crossbows were not being used because there were restrictions on loading them, so their utilization was decreasing.
Currently, that crossbow is owned by Monia, and she was thinking of making a crossbow that can be loaded and fired with one hand by applying the structure of a hand sling to a crossbow.
I didn’t mean to make it seriously, it was just a fun pastime with a crossbow that Chester had been neglecting halfway through and a hand sling that he hadn’t used since he wanted to, using the tool making and maintenance skills he’d learned so far.
“Monia, how far has the making been?”
“Huh? I’ve been trying to reverse-engineer how the crossbow works, but it hasn’t worked out yet.”
“Really? Where can I show you?”
Monia showed her that she had drawn a blueprint for a reverse engineered crossbow.
Looking at the picture, Chester and Senna seemed to understand why the reverse engineering of the crossbow keeps failing.
“Monia.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll ask you first.”
“Yes!”
“I’m sure what you showed me was the blueprint for the crossbow, but why do I see a picture of me holding a crossbow and shooting a dragon instead of the blueprint?”
“Is this a blueprint? Look!”
Monia pointed at the crossbow.
When I looked closely, I could see that the lines were drawn with different thicknesses for each crossbow structure.
Certainly, it was a blueprint that seemed like it could not be called a blueprint if you made it big and looked at it.
“That, um.”
Senna wondered what she should say, then she said.
“You have a good painting style! It’s nice to see that, although it’s delicate, it has a bold and rough feeling that matches the powerful scene of hunting a dragon.”
“It’s better to draw well than before!”
Monia stretches out her chest at Sena’s praise and points out her blueprint here and there.
‘Why is the description of the dragon and my composition or the metaphor hidden in the painting longer than the explanation of the design of the crossbow?’
Chester didn’t say that much, but whenever Monia explained something, she smiled and nodded her head.
Considering the purpose of her drawing, Monia’s blueprint wasn’t a good drawing at all, but she liked it, so I thought that she was fine with it.
“Hey, that one.”
Senna was about to say something, but Chester cut it off.
“Originally, the idea of a genius is a little different from others. There are things that ordinary people can’t understand, okay?”
If it was survival related, Chester would have given the right advice instead of stepping out like this, but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t like that.
“The couple are in good hands as a pair.”
Only Sena sighed.
I thought that Monia was going to come and go with Rex and Ant, but when I saw that Chester was also going to come and go with Monia, the two of them were there.
‘I’m just trying to eat tiger meat.’
Tongdan Rather than being moved by eating tiger meat, which has a great meaning as a continental person, I laughed out loud at Chester and Monia’s foolish love affair.
“Oh, hot.”
Without thinking, Senna popped the tiger meat into her mouth and spat it out as it was hot. She frowned and reached for the meat, sticking out her burnt tongue, as Rex handed Senna cool water from a nearby river.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thanks, Rex. Never mind me, eat more.”
Having received the water from Rex, Senna held her cool river water in her mouth to cool her tongue.
“I can’t eat when my tongue hurts. Tiring.”
Rex took care of Senna until her meal was over, after which she took the grace of her top and helped her heal Senna’s tongue.
“Come on. You can leave your tongue here.”
“Yes. He, thank you?”
It was quite embarrassing to lick jewelry with her tongue sticking out in front of her people, so Sena’s face turned red.
The meal was over, but it was still a little early for sleep.
Chester was engrossed in carving out twigs he picked up nearby with the remaining bonfire in front of him, and Monia lay down with her head on Chester’s shoulder and sang her song.
“What song is it?”
Chester asked in her low voice, and Monia said, stroking Ant lying on her stomach.
“A love story.”
“Opera?”
“Yes. It’s a little old story, but it’s popular, and it’s a story with great artistic and historical value in the kingdom of Beend, so many theater companies have put it together with various interpretations.”
After Monia gave a brief explanation, she sang again.
“There are various interpretations. What interpretation did you like best for Monia?”
“Um….”
Monia closed her eyes and recalled the stories she had heard, with different interpretations.
“This is the story of a man and a woman who deeply loved each other, but the man loses his mouth and the woman loses her eyes due to a trick of a passing devil.”
Confirming that Chester nodded her head, Monia followed up with an ending.
“The two people who were forcibly separated after being cursed went through hardships on their journey to meet each other, and met at the end. Of course, even if a man recognizes a woman, he cannot convey that he is himself. A woman does not even know that a man is in front of her.”
Looking at the starlight faintly visible through the cracks through the roof of the densely spread leaves, Monia spoke.
“A man holds a woman’s hand, and the woman who has suffered bad things from men until now stabs the man with a dagger hidden in her bosom. Then, she realized something. The two men and women communicate with invisible eyes and speechless mouths. I don’t know what conversation it is. Men can’t talk, and women don’t talk, so they just talk about themselves. It’s an apology, it’s an angry word, it’s also a tear.”
Monia looked up at her Chester with her head up.
From noble mtl dot com
Chester was smiling and staring at her Monia.
“And then, the two of you break up.”
“Are you breaking up?”
“Yes. Some say that the curse was so hard that they couldn’t overcome it, so they distanced themselves, some said it was because the man who was stabbed in the stomach hated the woman, and some said the woman didn’t recognize the man in the end and just left… I like the interpretation that we broke up because we loved each other.”
“If we grow apart from each other, the devil’s curse caused by love will be lifted, and that person will regain his eyes and mouth.”
“Yes.”
As Chester continued to look at himself, Monia continued her words.
“What would Chester do in the same situation?”
“I will kill the devil.”
When Chester answered her own question like flowing water, Monia laughed and dug deep into Chester’s heart.
The first night in the new continent was passing.