The Natives of This World Are So Fierce - Chapter 9: Wish, Inspiration Sharing
As Qin Xiaoxia saw it, the little fellow looked like a child and seemed to think like one too, so naturally, he would first try a method for dealing with children.
"Ahem, I know talking to each other right now is like talking to a brick wall, but sometimes, communication doesn't need words."
With that, Qin Xiaoxia turned on his tablet, opened a video app, and quietly turned the volume all the way up.
One of the videos he found was titled "Terrifying! For Children, Injections Are Torture Straight from Hell!"
The little thief couldn't move, but his eyes were clearly drawn to the screen. He had no idea what the fellow who had captured him through such despicable means was planning.
Suddenly, a piercing scream came from the video.
"Ah! No needles! Waaah! Aaaaaah!"
"Hold him down, hold him down... stop crying!"
"Sweetie, it won't hurt at all... hold his legs!"
"Aaaaaah! No needles! Aaaaaah..."
The screams, mixed with the frantic voices of the doctor and parents, startled the little thief on the table.
Although he couldn't understand the words, he could clearly feel the fear and pain in the child's voice.
The child in the video looked about four or five, roughly the same size as the little thief.
Someone in a white coat held a strange container tipped with sharp metal and approached the child step by step.
At that point, the child's cries became especially agonizing, practically assaulting the eardrums.
The syringe contained some unknown liquid. Whatever it was, it definitely didn't look good.
"Aaah!"
With the parents' help, the child in the video finally received the injection. His crying and screaming had reached the point where he was sobbing openmouthed without making a sound.
It made the little thief's scalp prickle.
The video, just over a minute long, ended abruptly there, leaving the little thief shaken.
"Heh heh."
A rather creepy chuckle came from beside him.
The little thief instinctively turned his head, and his entire body froze.
Qin Xiaoxia had already opened the first-aid kit and casually taken out a disposable syringe, which he used to draw water from a little bottle of boiled water.
By the time he held the syringe in front of the little thief, the latter was babbling incoherently, his hollow bravado on full display.
The little fellow was terrified now.
The people of this world actually kept such horrifying instruments of torture in their homes, ready for use at any time!
Watching Qin Xiaoxia approach, he had no way to resist. He also understood that they didn't speak the same language, so even if he begged for mercy, the man wouldn't understand.
Holding the syringe, Qin Xiaoxia looked at the little fellow curled up on the table and decided that his intimidation had worked.
It worked on the first try? All that buildup for nothing.
He fished the gold coin out of his pocket with his left hand and tried to look as kindly as possible, while deliberately waving the syringe in his right.
"Have you got any more of these?"
The little thief on the table looked at the gold coin, then at the syringe. He roughly understood what Qin Xiaoxia meant and nodded like a pile driver.
"Very good!"
"See? We can communicate after all! It'd be even better if we could understand each other."
Now, how was he supposed to make him hand over the coins? Not being able to talk to each other really was inconvenient.
While he was still thinking, he heard a rapid stream of sounds.
Qin Xiaoxia soon noticed that, ever since the gold coin had appeared, the little thief on the table had been staring straight at it and saying something at great speed.
"What are you doing?"
Qin Xiaoxia instinctively wanted to stop this unpredictable development, but events unfolded faster than he had expected.
Before he could tape the little thief's mouth shut again, an emphatic phrase echoed in his ears and his heart.
Strangely, although it was still the same language, this time he understood what it meant.
"Imodo, fasaluluman (Wish, Inspiration Sharing)!"
Thump!
Qin Xiaoxia felt a tremor spread from his heart throughout his body, as though it had originated deep within his soul.
Amid a faint buzzing in his ears, everything before his eyes seemed to blur for a moment, then quickly become clear again.
No, not become clear again. His vision had become sharper.
Although Qin Xiaoxia didn't wear glasses, he actually had mild nearsightedness, somewhere between one and two diopters. Going without glasses hadn't caused him much trouble.
But now...
Everything before him looked clearer than ever, as though a matte phone screen protector had been replaced with a crystal-clear one.
"You little thief, what did you do?"
Qin Xiaoxia instinctively asked the little thief on the table.
"I'm not a little thief! I'm a Saroba Sprite, you otherworld bumpkin! I just used Wish to link us through Inspiration Sharing!"
He hadn't expected an answer, but the little thief suddenly rattled off fluent Mandarin!
Qin Xiaoxia was stunned.
"That feeling just now was this Inspiration Sharing thing? A Saroba Sprite? Saroba? Troublemaker? Wait! Why do I know Saroba means troublemaker...?"
"Because of Inspiration Sharing, obviously! Your vision and perception are on the same level as mine now. Naturally, you also know the languages I can speak and write, and I can understand the languages you can speak and write too!"
The Mischievous Sprite explained to Qin Xiaoxia in a lecturing tone, though the chains and ropes still binding him made the scene rather comical.
"That convenient?"
Amid his disbelief, Qin Xiaoxia keenly picked up on the word "Wish." Then he suddenly realized something was wrong.
The gold coin in his left hand had vanished.
"Where did you put my gold coin? Don't tell me you used it up making that Wish?"
Fuck, just as I thought!
"You used my gold coin without even asking my permission?"
As he spoke, Qin Xiaoxia raised the syringe.
The sprite visibly shrank back. It seemed that although Inspiration Sharing could improve their perception and language abilities, it didn't give them complete access to each other's knowledge and understanding.
At least, while Qin Xiaoxia had acquired the relevant spoken and written language skills, he still didn't know certain other things, such as where the sprite came from. Still, neither of them knew whether this Inspiration Sharing was an equal exchange.
"Y-you put that poison needle away! Gold coins-I have more gold coins! I'll pay you back!!!"
Qin Xiaoxia pressed the syringe's plunger, sending thin streams of cooled boiled water squirting from its tip.
So this guy really does have more coins. I went to all that trouble playing along with him for days and bought so much good food, yet he wouldn't give me a few more!
But soon, other feelings rose within him.
Didn't that little thief mention making a Wish just now?
After they had spent quite some time arguing back and forth...
"No means no! Stop dreaming!"
The Mischievous Sprite squirmed on the table, shaking his head like a rattle drum.
"I just told you, Wish isn't as powerful as you think! Never mind that my wish power hasn't recovered-even if I could make a Wish right now, it couldn't go beyond what I'm capable of. And the more people it affects, the weaker its effect. If it really were that powerful, wouldn't I have wished myself free already?"
"Uh..."
Qin Xiaoxia stopped short.
That made sense! The little thief's brain had suddenly started working!
He had been fooled by the name "Wish." If it could grant anything, the sprite could simply have escaped earlier. If he were a little more vicious, he could even have killed Qin Xiaoxia.
A barely noticeable shiver ran through him.
Qin Xiaoxia felt that he had taken too much of a risk this time.
"Ahem! All right, you need those gold coins to make a Wish, correct? How many more do you have?"
Qin Xiaoxia wasn't in a hurry to figure out details like how often Wish could be used. The important thing now was getting his hands on the gold coins, preferably without leaving a single one with the little thief.
The Mischievous Sprite glanced at the syringe Qin Xiaoxia had kept in his hand the whole time.
"Three... more..."
"Only three? Then where do these gold coins come from?"
"I mint them! But ever since I came to this other world, I haven't been able to make any more..."
There was that term again: another world.
This fellow really wasn't a species native to Earth.