The Medusa Girl Woke Up

Bang!

In an instant, the one-eyed frog sprang again, as if trying to break free of the red cord.

Li Ziran's heart skipped a beat. Why had this thing woken up now? He instinctively pressed it down, but the harder he pressed, the more fiercely it struggled.

"Li, what's wrong?" Karen noticed something unusual, and her gaze landed directly on Li Ziran's hand.

"Nothing!" Li Ziran smiled at her and suppressed the panic in his heart. If this sharp-eyed woman noticed the Medusa at his waist, this trip would truly leave him stripped to the bone.

"Oh, have you got any ideas? With so many slaves, can any of them give me a pleasant surprise?"

Li Ziran shook his head. "Not for now. But there are a lot of slaves here, and I need to think it over carefully. If you don't mind, I'll give you an answer tomorrow morning. Is that all right?"

"Of course." Karen smiled. "There's no rush. You can take your time considering it." As she spoke, she pressed a ring of copper keys into Li Ziran's palm. "These are the warehouse keys. You can come inspect the place whenever you want."

The instant the keys appeared, the iron cages throughout the warehouse began shaking with loud bangs. Countless gazes snapped in unison toward Li Ziran's left hand. Arm after arm stretched out from the cages, as if trying to snatch the keys.

"Let me out! Let me out!"

The shrill cries seemed ready to boil the entire space.

Crack!

A long whip instantly crushed every sound into silence.

The whip had struck with incredible speed and vicious precision. One lash tore blood from every outstretched arm, the droplets pattering down like rain.

"Quiet!"

A voice that shattered the space boomed through the warehouse like thunder. From the depths of the cages, a lion even larger than a giant crocodile rose upright and walked out.

A Rhine lionman, one of the powerful beastman races, known as the kings of the plateau.

Before he even came close, an overwhelming pressure had already rushed forward, making it hard to breathe. His sharp eyes swept over the trembling cages as though he could chew them apart at any moment.

Li Ziran noticed that the other man's paw was a whole size larger than his head.

"Don't be afraid. This is Jon, our friend!" Karen quickly explained. "He helps me manage the warehouse."

Then she introduced Li Ziran to Jon. "This is Li, a wizard and my friend. He'll be coming here often from now on. Jon, get acquainted."

Jon's azure eyes assessed the little runt before him. He said nothing, but when his gaze fell upon the key in Li Ziran's left hand, the baleful look on his face gradually faded. He raised a hand toward Li Ziran. "Pleased to meet you. My name is Jon. I hope we'll work well together."

Li Ziran also reached out his hand, but it looked like a thin little stick in Jon's grasp. With the slightest force, the other man could have snapped his small arm.

"I'm pleased to meet you too!"

At the moment of introduction, Li Ziran noticed the slave mark beneath Jon's jaw and could not help sighing inwardly. Such a magnificent battle race had fallen into slavery as well. Fate truly was a ridiculous thing.

He had meant to exchange a few pleasantries, but the frog at his waist began jumping again. Wrapped in emerald light, it actually started expanding.

Was the Transformation Spell... failing?

No. Without his blood, it could not return to its original form.

But now...

He seemed to understand. Although the Transformation Spell could not be undone, certain special races could recover their original size.

Just imagine it: an adult-sized frog suddenly appearing here. What a joke that would be.

He could not linger here.

He quickly pulled back his hand, vigorously rubbed his head, and said, "Karen, I drank a little too much just now. I need to relieve myself, but..." To make his act more convincing, he began swaying back and forth like a clown.

The abrupt change made both of them laugh. "Your room has one. To the left!"

Li Ziran had no time to care about anything else. If he did not leave now, he would be exposed. One hand covered the frog, the other covered his crotch, and he hopped away like a kangaroo.

Before he was even halfway there, the frog was already covered in green light. In the blink of an eye, it had grown larger than his palm.

"Haha, that wizard!" Karen laughed with deliberate exaggeration.

But Jon showed no expression at all. His eyes remained fixed on Li Ziran's hopping figure as he cautiously said, "He isn't drunk. That frog..."

"Everyone has their own secrets." Karen's expression turned solemn, clearly unwilling to spell things out. "But I think that, as a friend, he'll tell me those secrets."

Jon looked at his captain and nodded. He was certain she had that ability. He had experienced it deeply himself.

Li Ziran did not hear their conversation behind him. Right now, he needed to see what was going on with this little Medusa.

By the time he passed through the corridor, the Medusa had grown to half a person's height. When Li Ziran found the toilet, she was nearly adult-sized.

"Petrification!"

The instant he passed through the toilet door, a tender voice, soft as a kitten's, suddenly came from his waist.

Li Ziran felt an icy chill spread from the soles of his feet up through his legs. By the time he sensed that power, the arm he had braced against the wooden door had already gone completely numb.

"Don't, little miss, spare me!"

Perhaps Li Ziran's plea worked. The terrifying petrification finally stopped when it reached his neck.

He barely managed to turn his head. A huge green frog was staring at him. One eye brimmed with hatred; the other was hollow, like a bottomless abyss.

Li Ziran could not help wanting to apologize for his sins.

"Y-hello," Li Ziran greeted her stiffly.

"I'm not well!" Her voice was stubborn and furious. "My eye!"

"Listen to my explanation. All of this..." Li Ziran wanted to say that if not for him, she would not have kept her other eye either. But before he could speak, a pale beam shot out, and the petrification extended directly to his lower lip.

"You bear the curse of the Medusa royal family. It was you who gouged out my eye!" Her icy voice left no room for excuses.

Royal family?

The little girl Barbaro had stolen from who knew where was actually Medusa royalty?

Li Ziran felt like crying, but he could not let this little girl make a scene. This was no untouched paradise removed from the world.

If Karen learned that this was a Medusa royal, she would probably laugh in her dreams.

"Mmph! Mmph!"

He wanted to speak, but no sound came out. Although his tongue had not petrified, his throat could not vibrate at all.

"Communicate with me through your mind. I can tell whether you're lying!"

Through his mind?

He did not know how!

"Move me into the toilet!" At that moment, however, a strange voice suddenly rang out in his mind. It did not come from vocal cords, but from that blank world inside his head. "They can't find you, and they can't notice anything unusual. Listen to my explanation. I'm the one who saved your other eye!"

The female frog stared at Li Ziran for several moments before lowering herself and wrapping her two slender arms around him, intending to carry the fully petrified Li Ziran inside. But Old Li was simply too heavy. Even after exhausting all her strength, she could not budge him an inch.

"Help me undo the petrification. Don't worry, I won't hurt you."

Li Ziran's plea was completely ignored. The girl chose the stupidest method possible. She took a running start from three steps away, then kicked Li Ziran in the butt.

Driven by inertia, Li Ziran toppled straight forward.

Only then did he notice that this was a crude latrine with only two crossbeams. Beneath them lay countless piles of excrement and animal entrails.

Clearly, the slave troupe had thrown all the slaves they could not tame into this place.

The endlessly rolling stench battered Li Ziran's nerves. He was beginning to regret not provoking this woman into petrifying his head as well. That way, he would not be able to feel anything.

Bang!

The door slammed shut. The Medusa girl crawled inside, planted a foot directly on Li Ziran's lower back, and coldly demanded, "Tell me. Where is my eye?"

Li Ziran's heart was full of bitterness. Was this woman really resorting to torture already?

This was simply disgusting!

After all his years in the Wasteland, this was the first time.

"Um, do you have any memories? I admit that I took one of your eyes, but I had no choice. If I hadn't, you wouldn't have survived at all. I'm telling the truth. This is mental communication—you should be able to tell that I'm not lying, right?"

The girl said nothing for a long while. But a moment later, her voice became even colder. "You harmed other Medusas too? You executioner!"