You had superhuman martial arts skills, and you were telling us you handled logistics?
Chen Yu ignored everyone's stares, turned around, and left.
He put the sword back where it belonged and concealed it again. Having studied camouflage techniques, Chen Yu considered this a trivial task.
Until those two made up, he could only act as a spy. Sorry, little Tsukasa. I'm not doing this on purpose.
Leaving it here meant he could retrieve it whenever he needed it later.
He looked around. As things stood, no one but him knew about this place.
When he returned, he found that Senku, Chrome, Ginro, and the others were gone. Only after asking Kinro did he learn that they had gone to find nearby ingredients for the wonder drug. They had even made a silver spear for the task.
Upon hearing that, Chen Yu's heart lurched with alarm.
Even without him, they had apparently managed to collect it, but they had nearly paid with their lives in the process.
He immediately headed in the direction they had taken to check on them. He couldn't guarantee they would still manage to collect it, but just in case, he brought his silver needles and some medicinal herbs.
However, he wasn't familiar with the area either, so it took him a long time to find them.
They were packing up their things where they stood, but Ginro seemed to have been drawn to something and was walking stiffly forward.
"Pull Ginro back!" Chen Yu shouted.
Hearing the familiar name and voice, Kohaku looked at Ginro. When she saw him walking stiffly forward, she immediately pulled him back in fright, startling several black birds nearby.
Everyone watched the birds fly over the lake and fall into it. The parts of their bodies still showing above the surface began dissolving in the bubbling water.
"D-dissolving?" Ginro stared at the lake in disbelief. Then he saw the goddess in the lake suddenly turn horrifying. The flesh on her face began to melt, shriveling up in an instant.
"Ahhh-no, no! Stay away from me..." Ginro waved his hands, trying to drive away the nonexistent goddess.
Chen Yu walked over and quickly inserted a needle into Ginro.
"What did he see? There's nothing here!" Kohaku asked Chen Yu.
"Did you tell him earlier about anything beautiful here or something like that?" Chen Yu asked the three of them.
"I guess we just said how beautiful the lake was. Why?" Kohaku thought back to what she had said when praising this place.
"Hmm..." Chen Yu thought for a moment, then examined Ginro's pupils and checked his pulse. He used his internal energy to sense the changes in Ginro's body. His heart was racing; he had clearly been frightened.
"Does Ginro have such a serious mental illness?" Chen Yu pondered. After observing him for a while, he realized that Ginro's lustful fantasies were quite severe.
"Mental illness?" Kohaku and Chrome asked in confusion.
"Mental illnesses are problems with the human brain. Common examples include talking nonsense, a split personality, or, uh..." As Chen Yu spoke, their expressions grew even more confused, so he stopped. Since they didn't know what any of those things were, wasn't he just wasting his breath?
"I know what talking nonsense means. It's probably just saying whatever comes to mind, right?" Chrome said after thinking for a moment.
Chen Yu looked at Chrome. That made sense. Who knew whether the people on this little island had moved here hundreds or thousands of years ago? Yet there were still so few of them. The first settlers might have succumbed to wild beasts and disease, but once signs of human habitation appeared, many wild beasts would have stopped coming. Rather than deal with an endless variety of traps and weapons, they would have found herbivores easier to catch.
"Never mind. Basically, Ginro heard you praising the lake's beauty, the lovely scenery, and all that. He seems to have dreamed up an illusion that captivated him, and he got completely lost in it. If someone hadn't interrupted him, he might only have snapped out of it from the pain just before dying-or died without ever knowing what had happened," Chen Yu explained.
"It's that serious?" Chrome asked.
"Can you cure him?" Kohaku asked.
"It's not that serious, but I can't cure him right now. Mental conditions are hard to treat. Acupuncture might work, but I don't have enough needles. Besides, judging by the state he's in, it probably wouldn't help much even if I did. At most, it would rein him in a little," Chen Yu said, shaking his head.
Then he turned around, picked up the glass bottles, and asked, "What are you using these for?"
"To collect... What are you going to do?" Senku had just started answering when he sensed something was wrong and hurriedly asked.
"What do you think?" Chen Yu said with a smile, holding up a glass bottle.
"Wait..." Senku began, trying to stop him.
But Chen Yu inserted several needles into himself, tore off a piece of cloth, and headed down.
"Wait! It's poisonous down there!" Senku shouted.
Before he had finished speaking, Chen Yu took out a rope and tied it around the glass bottle.
Then he kicked a stone by his feet. It fell into the lake, sending up a column of water.
Next, Chen Yu swung the glass bottle out upside down. As the column of water fell, he pulled the bottle back.
This works.
With that thought, Chen Yu kept repeating the motion. Only after several hours did he finally collect a full bottle.
Once he returned to the shore, Chen Yu breathed a sigh of relief. Then he quickly pulled the needles out of his body and took deep, gulping breaths.
"That's... it?" Chrome felt as though he had witnessed something magical. From what Senku had said earlier, it sounded incredibly dangerous, but now it seemed pretty simple.
"That's because Chen Yu is here. Without him, it definitely would have taken us a lot longer," Kohaku said, punching Chrome.
"I don't know what this stuff is, but judging by how it dissolved those birds earlier, it's probably very dangerous. If you don't understand that, I can let you experience it for yourselves," Chen Yu said.
"???" Kohaku and Chrome backed away fearfully. They didn't know what Chen Yu meant, but they had a bad feeling about it.
"I'll show you how terrifying this stuff is later. Once you get back, tell everyone else not to come here," Chen Yu said, then left.
He seemed to remember Hyoga being here this time, but for some reason, he hadn't seen him.
(Did I miss something? Which scene had Kinro fighting Hyoga? I followed the plot, but I still couldn't find it.)
"All right, let's go. If we can handle this without putting ourselves in danger, we will. But we still need to make gas masks. We can't rely on Chen Yu every time," Senku said as he packed up and slung the glass bottles onto his back.
"Okay." Chrome and Kohaku nodded, then dragged Ginro away with them.
Watching Ginro sleep so soundly, Kohaku marveled inwardly. This kid really doesn't have a care in the world...
He went right up to death's door without even knowing it. Sigh...
(Is what I'm writing getting more and more ridiculous? I've revised this chapter and the previous one for now. You can reread them and offer some thoughts.
Someone said sticking needles into himself before going down to collect water was unnecessary. All I can say is that the protagonist briefly used his internal energy and acupuncture points to guard against the poisonous gas, while also allowing himself to hold his breath a little longer.)
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