There Are Savages (II)

Chris stood beside Mia and the Barbarian, rubbing his chin as he watched the latter sing. Then he glanced down at the big white pig, which let out an occasional grunt amid the singing.

"What happened here?"

Mia looked at Chris for a moment, then turned to glance at Isaac and the two players. After a moment's hesitation, she shook her head without saying anything.

Well, if she didn't want to talk, that was fine. Chris wasn't the sort to force his own people to do things or speak.

Chris thought for a moment, then continued asking.

"Does this Mountain Savage pose a danger to us?"

Mia glanced back at the savage's fervent, earnest face and shook her head, only to nod immediately afterward.

"He isn't good-looking, but he isn't ugly either."

Isaac and the players were baffled, unable to understand why Mia was bringing that up. Chris alone looked thoughtful.

He remembered the first thing Mia had said when they met, along with what had happened afterward. Putting those things together, Chris began to understand what she meant.

"Untie him."

Chris turned and gave the players the order.

"Really?"

Barbarossa's eyes widened.

"Yes."

As Chris spoke, he stepped forward and took a brass sword medal from his pocket, personally pinning it to Barbarossa's chest.

"This is a Third-Class Sword Medal, symbolizing the kingdom's sword. I award it to you in gratitude for removing a potential threat to our party. I hope you'll keep up the good work."

"A medal?!"

Barbarossa's eyes went wide. He immediately brought his feet together, clasped his hands behind his waist, and thrust out his chest, posing while Chris pinned the Third-Class Sword Medal to his clothes.

Once Chris finished the simple award ceremony, Barbarossa happily stroked the medal. In the last light of the sunset, its brass surface shone with a pale golden gleam.

The Third-Class Sword Medal was roughly two fingers wide and long, shaped like an elongated shield. A sword occupied its center, surrounded by a ring of olive leaves and gear patterns.

And when Barbarossa's hand touched the medal, a medal interface popped up before his eyes.

+Third-Class Sword Medal (Barbarossa)

Description: Awarded by Chris Lin at the Bagnia/Bohemia border to the warrior Barbarossa for capturing a Mountain Savage of unknown intentions and successfully protecting Chris's personal safety.

Effect: Owning/wearing this medal grants ten Reputation Points.

Note: Players may spend 1,000 yuan outside the game to purchase an identical piece of game merchandise.+

Seeing this information made Barbarossa especially happy. Although he still didn't know what Reputation Points were for, he was the only player who owned this medal.

The delight of having something utterly one of a kind was like nothing he had ever experienced!

With the medal in hand, Barbarossa immediately stopped caring about Chris releasing his trophy. He cheerfully drew his dagger, turned to cut the ropes binding the Barbarian, and ran toward camp.

Barbarossa was clearly off to show it to the other players.

Home Alone, who had watched the whole process, followed him.

"Hey, hey, don't run so fast! Let me look at it, let me touch it... You cheapskate, I just want to touch it! I won't take it, honest!"

Chris had ordered this medal online. It was a high-end piece that cost a hundred yuan, made with solid materials and good workmanship, resistant to wear and drops, and wouldn't lose its color for decades.

This was something Chris had come up with to reward the players. Sometimes, when they completed a quest or did something significant that benefited him, he naturally had to reward them.

Giving them money felt too impersonal, and the players might not like it. But giving them intangible things like reputation or affection points was too abstract.

So, after thinking about it for a long time, Chris had hit upon medals.

Medals were perfect. They were physical objects the players could touch, and if owning one in the game wasn't satisfying enough, they could pay to order one in the twenty-fifth century, and Chris would have it shipped to them.

As for whether twenty-first-century workmanship would look crude in the twenty-fifth century...

Well, the players would only say, "Crude is good! Only when it's crude in just the right way does it have collectible value."

The players ran off, bantering and jostling, leaving Chris, Isaac, Mia, and the others there.

After being released, the Barbarian neither grabbed a weapon to attack anyone nor turned and fled. Instead, his legs buckled, and he dropped to the ground to prostrate himself before Mia and the big white pig.

He muttered as he bowed. Although Chris couldn't understand what the Barbarian was saying, he could tell that his feelings toward this big white pig named Aisha were far from ordinary.

Chris stayed still, Isaac didn't leave, and Mia said nothing at all, allowing her pig companion to receive the Barbarian's worship.

After several minutes, the Barbarian finally finished his ritual and rose from the ground. Then he turned to Chris and rattled off something.

"What's he saying?"

"Pasa says: who are you, and what are you doing in the Oka Tribe's hunting grounds?"

Chris raised his eyebrows. This Barbarian was certainly arrogant. He'd already been captured, yet he was still running his mouth without the slightest sense of his situation.

He turned to Isaac.

"Go slap him twice."

At that, Isaac walked over and delivered two resounding slaps to the Barbarian, leaving his face red.

Only after Isaac finished did Chris speak leisurely to Mia, having her translate.

"We're weapons merchants, passing through here on our way to the Kingdom of Bagnia across the river. We hit you only to prove that we aren't afraid of this so-called Oka Tribe. And I'm not killing you to prove that we bear you no hostility."

Mia turned and spoke in that chattering language to the Barbarian sitting on the ground. After looking stunned for a moment, he stood up, his previously straight back now bent.

It seemed Isaac's two slaps had indeed worked. This fellow named Pasa really was a savage: he understood only fists, with no idea what civilization meant.

The Barbarian lowered his voice a couple of notches and spoke with a hint of grievance, while Mia translated as he talked.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Let you go."

Chris waved a hand and pointed into the distance, telling him to get lost.

"Leave now. If you don't, I'll treat you to a meal before you go."

As Mia relayed this, the Barbarian's eyes lit up.

"Then I'll eat before I leave."

Mia continued translating the Barbarian's words as he spoke.

Chris was stunned too. Seriously? This Barbarian actually means it? Can't he hear the threat?

Chris took a careful look at the Barbarian's innocent, expectant expression and shook his head. Forget it. There was no point getting worked up over an uneducated fool.

"Let's go back to camp. Give him a meal, then send him on his way."

With this unexpected incident, their trip to inspect the river would have to be postponed.

Chris led everyone back to camp and went over to the kitchen, where he personally picked up a large iron ladle and began cooking the communal meal.

Dinner was as hearty as ever. Everyone received a large bowl of cheap broken rice cooked with mixed grains, weighing at least half to three-quarters of a kilogram.

The side dish was a bowl of vegetable and meat soup, with a layer of fat half a finger joint thick floating on top. Beneath it lay over a quarter kilogram of dehydrated chopped vegetables and a little minced meat.

There was also a bowl of Chicken Liver and Potatoes stewed in a large pot... Chris had originally planned to serve frozen chicken breast, but remembering the mounted bandits' night raid, he had switched to chicken liver.

Eating more organ meat would provide vitamins and help cure the malnourished mercenaries' night blindness, allowing them to fight at night if necessary.

And with that, dinner was ready. Though there wasn't much variety, it had staples, hot soup, vegetables, and meat.

The mercenaries and caravan workers were all satisfied, while the Barbarian who had shown up to mooch a meal was even happier. The moment he received his bowl, he buried his face in it and began noisily wolfing down the food.

In barely two minutes, he polished off a bowl containing three-quarters of a kilogram of staple food, a large bowl of oily soup, a whole chicken liver, and over a dozen mahjong-tile-sized chunks of potato.

Not only that, the Barbarian shamelessly took his bowl back to the food line, hoping to cut in for another serving, only to be punched and kicked by the mercenaries waiting there.

The Barbarian didn't get angry at being beaten. He seemed to have grasped that he had to line up to eat, and obediently went to the back of the queue to wait his turn.

When the Barbarian's turn came, the cook glared at him but still picked up the iron ladle and filled his large wooden bowl with staple food. Naturally, there were no more side dishes or soup.

This was a rule Chris had established: they could eat as much staple food as they wanted, provided they didn't waste any, and return for as many servings as they liked. If anyone was still hungry after the bucket was empty, the Logistics Department responsible for cooking had to make more until everyone was full.

It didn't matter if they cooked too much. It could be eaten tomorrow; no one would complain about food left overnight.

Besides, Mia's Aisha was an impressive "cleaner of the platters." There was practically no chance of the party having leftovers overnight.

After putting away two bowls of staple food in succession, Pasa finally patted his belly in satisfaction and set his bowl down.

After resting briefly and getting used to his swollen belly, Pasa found Aisha and Mia, who were feasting away. He kowtowed heavily three times to the big white pig, then turned and ran out of camp.

Chris paid little attention to the Barbarian's departure, and cared just as little about his worshipping the pig.

The Barbarians could worship whatever they liked. It was none of Chris's business, and his bringing people here hadn't interfered with them.

If they said this was their hunting ground, then fine, it was their territory. Chris had no intention of taking his people hunting here anyway.

It was spring now, and both carnivores and herbivores were lean and tough, without any fat on them. None would taste good.

Even the bear that had delivered itself to them as meat yesterday was the same. Under its dull fur, it was nothing but skin and bones, and even its two paws were shriveled. After butchering it, a player skilled at cooking had shaken their head and walked away.

In the end, the bear meat went to the mercenaries instead, successfully providing them with an extra dish that evening.

Chris, meanwhile, got the bearskin. Once its initial processing was finished after some time, he expected it to earn him twenty to fifty thousand yuan on an online shopping platform, perhaps even more.

As for whether selling a bearskin was legal... Chris certainly wouldn't sell it domestically. Plenty of buyers abroad would gladly purchase it.

So there was no conflict of interest between Chris and the Oka Barbarians. He didn't care how much Pasa ate, either. However short he was on money, he could still afford a few kilograms of mixed grains. The man could eat as much as he wanted.

Thus, after Pasa ran off, Chris also ignored Lin Ruoyu when he came over and suggested following him.

That left Lin Ruoyu walking away rather glumly... He had hoped to use this opportunity to earn a Sword Medal, but it hadn't worked out.

Chris wasn't concerned about the Barbarian's appearance, but Isaac had become wary.

That evening, he not only requested wire fencing from Chris and used it to surround the camp, combining it with log barricades to create a simple but sturdy defensive line.

Isaac also doubled the sentries on duty, guarding against the possibility of Barbarians sneaking into camp.

As it turned out, the Barbarians really did come that night. But instead of arriving after midnight, they came a little after ten.

"Sir, sir, get up! The Barbarians are here! Lots of Barbarians!"

The mercenary bringing the news shouted outside the tent, startling Chris, who was lying comfortably on his camp bed and scrolling through short videos on his phone.

Seriously? This Oka Barbarian tribe really came to raid us at night?

But when Chris hurried outside in his nightrobe, flintlock in hand, he discovered that the camp wasn't in chaos at all. The mercenaries and caravan workers were laughing as they streamed toward the camp entrance.

Judging by their expressions and behavior, Chris decided it wasn't an emergency, then turned and ducked back into his tent to change.

Still, this little incident taught Chris a lesson.

"I've let my guard down too much. From now on, when I spend the night outdoors, I need to wear clothes I can move in, not carelessly lounge around in a nightrobe."

Once Chris had changed and arrived near the camp entrance with his flintlock, he found many Barbarians in animal skins gathered in the clearing outside.

There were roughly a hundred of them, men and women, old and young. Their gathering filled the air with an indescribable smell.

The moment Chris caught a whiff, he raised his hand and pinched his nose.

The mercenaries had smelled similar when they first joined, but after Chris forced them to take two hot baths and scrub themselves with soap, that odor had disappeared.

He hadn't expected to get another "opportunity" to smell it now.

The Barbarians carried no weapons. Some sat and others stood while the mercenaries pointed at them and commented. The Barbarians also chattered and laughed with the mercenaries. Neither side understood a word the other said, but the atmosphere was quite harmonious.

Chris found Mia in the crowd and hurriedly asked her to inquire.

"Go ask what they're here for."

Mia gave Chris the answer directly.

"They're here to eat."

"What?"

"To eat. They're hungry."

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