Chapter 13

【13】

The snow was getting thicker. After strengthening the stone wall, the warriors began to make ice bricks from snow and stacked them on top of the stone wall.

The Wall was a large region. This year, winter came early, and many warriors left their strongholds and came here due to a lack of food and firewoods. The ice wall was built higher and higher. However, there were more and more cyanrats.

「If the cyanrats can dig under the wall, what’s the point of building this wall higher? 」 Slair asked.

「There are other monsters. Although there are walls underground, it is hard to maintain. There would always be a few holes here and there.」 Grieve said, 「At underground, those cyanrats can’t attack in large quantity at once, and the giant cyanrats can’t even get across. Thus most cyanrats need to climb the wall. If there are many cyanrats gathered here, they will leave a lot of corpses, and other hungry monsters could eat those corpses instead of humans.」

Slair’s magic had recovered these days. Although his physical strength was weak, with the help of wind magic, he could easily carry things that could not be lifted. With the proficiency of magic, he gradually kept up with everyone’s progress.

Slair also been collecting information secretly and drew a simple map. All the men had to build the ice wall, and Enya would be the only one at the inn preparing for the winter. If Slair pretended to be sick, he could stay in the inn and then escape to the nearest village in the daytime. It was almost impossible to catch him after he got to another town. A silver coin was worth a lot here. If Slair sold his clothes, woven with gold threads and embellished with precious gems, it would allow him to live the rest of his life extravagantly.

Of course, he did not plan on living with wild humans. If he goes to the most prosperous place, he may find the “Wild Human” filming crew and beg the dragons to take him home.

The only problem now was to convince Choco. Even with the blessing of the wind element, walking in the windy and snowy weather was too terrifying. However, the scaled house was quite stubborn on this subject.

That evening, the warriors were having dinner together like usual. Slair sat beside Grieve quietly, thinking how he could convince Choco today. Since he was Grieve’s property, a servant, a captive, and was not a real warrior. Not many people would talk to him, so it did not matter if he was dazzled in his thoughts.

Oh, there was a last piece of bison in the basin, excellent; it was a rare delicacy.

Slair forked away that piece of meat, and the warrior sitting right across Grieve, slighter further away from the basin, held his fork awkwardly in the air.

Slair did not know who that was. He might be a new warrior who joined recently. Based on the wolf teeth necklace, he must be a mighty warrior. Slair nodded at him perfunctorily and then quickly stuffed the meat into his mouth.

The guy with wolf teeth got mad instantly. He slammed the deck and stood up, then he pointed his finger at Slair’s nose and cursed,「You are a prisoner, a coward, a man without a weapon. Who gives you the right to sit and dine with the brave warriors?」

Slair looked at him blankly:「Who are you?」

「My name is Gordon, who hunted seventeen wolves! Grieve’s prisoner, you are nothing but an object, a good. You shall not dine with us, just like the wives shall not eat before their husbands; the sons could not walk in front of their fathers!」

「He worked with us」Grieve said,「The ice bricked on the ice wall also has his share. I don’t think there is any reason why he could not sit with us .」

「If you admit that he sits on an equal footing with us, then I will challenge him.」 Gordon said,「If he does not accept the challenge, he has to leave the table now.」

Grieve frowned and was about to say something, but Slair clapped his hands and stood up.

「Oki,」 He Said,「But you have to let me decide what the challenge will be, warrior. As you know, I am a man without a weapon. You will bully me if you challenge me with a bow or sword. However, the fight will be too ugly to watch if we both hold a shovel. How about arm wrestling? It’s faster and not dangerous. 」

Gorden laughed:「You are smart and know you will get hurt if we duel with weapons. Fine. Since your wrist is so thin, I will let you use both hands.」

The warriors started to hustle. They felt the challenge was still one-sided, and Slair was getting bullied. However, nothing was entertaining during the winter, they urged them to start the challenge. They were waiting to see if Grieve would challenge Gordon after Slair lost, then they would have some real entertainment to watch.

Grieve looked at Slair with concern. To everyone’s surprise, those slender hands were only swayed by Gordon at the beginning. Then Slair won by an overwhelming advantage.

All the warriors were shocked. Even Grieve couldn’t won’t Gordon this quick.

「This is not right!」 Gordon shorted. 「You must use trickery! Again! Do not use both hands. We will fight fairly this time!」

Slair stretched out his right hand slowly. It seemed like Slair did not use much strength this time, either. Gordon blushed and struggled for a while and still lost.

「Fine,」Slair stood up and patted Gordon’s head.「Although I win the challenge, I don’t want anything from you. To be honest, it was just a piece of meat. Why make a fuzz about it?」