Chapter 257: Winged Nomad 2
TL/Editor: Raei
Schedule: 5/Week Mon-Fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
Join the discord! Here
A considerably large Harpy Queen stood on two feet like a human.
She would be about 3.5 meters tall, with wings large enough to support such a massive body.
Her claws were much larger and sharper than any awl or dagger, and she had prominently large symbols of femininity.
Next to the Harpy Queen, who had such a large body, stone dwarves, not even reaching 1.5 meters tall, looked like kindergarten kids clinging to their aunt.
"I'll explain, so you all go back to what you were doing."
"But we've flown all this way"
"We didn't fly; my subordinates carried us here."
The queen didn't scold the slightly younger stone dwarves for whining but skillfully calmed them down, making it even more like she was dealing with young children.
Though they were a headache, the Harpy Queen didn't dislike them.
She flapped her large wings to calm the grumbling stone dwarves and turned her gaze back to us.
Sitting alone in a giant stone building at the top of a mountain, unreachable by humans, the grandeur of the giant queen had long since faded.
Now, she felt like a beautiful kindergarten teacher stuck between naughty four-year-olds causing her trouble. Perhaps she had rescued the children first when the city was destroyed.
Why did all the stone dwarves helping the queen seem so young in spirit?
Still, the gold lines and gem ornaments decorating the queen's pale skin were exquisitely beautiful. They were so beautiful that if brought to the ladies of the capital, they would try to buy them, even if it meant selling their family's treasures.
"Huh The ones without mouths are louder than those with."
The stone dwarves quietly went back to their tasks.
The Harpy Queen shook her head and continued her story.
The party awkwardly smiled at the comedy between the Harpy Queen and the stone dwarves, listening attentively as she slowly began her tale.
"What I need to ask involves the noisy creature that roams beneath our nests. That's why these stone dwarves fled to our nest."
From her story, the red harpies, like the stone dwarves, were a friendly race from another world.
Not particularly friendly towards humans, but not part of the Demon King's army either.
To put it simply, they were like the barbarians of the north in fantasies or the beastmasters of the martial arts world's southern jungles.
These races, living outside the continent, knew little about the Demon King's army and crossed over here alongside the stone dwarves.
The small groups of red harpies outside were minor tribes, while this mountain range felt like the kingdom of harpies, like nomads.
As I organized these details in my mind, the queen's explanation continued slowly.
"Beneath my kingdom, something strange started wandering around. It's the same thing that destroyed the stone dwarves' city and began shaking the mountain range."
The story was about a giant monster that had destroyed the underground city and was big enough to shake the mountain range, causing the Harpy Queen's kingdom to tremble whenever it moved.
Internally, I'm not talking about political instability but actual physical shaking.
They're a race that builds nests on cliff edges, and with the cliffs shaking several times a day like there's an earthquake, it's like being a victim of noise complaints from upstairs neighborscan't sleep and might even lose their eggs.
Strangely, when the animals they were raising as livestock died, they didn't leave behind meat but turned into weird stones, giving the queen who rules the kingdom a headache.
Its long tentacles, stretching out from underneath, have enough strength to crush rocks like tofu as it moves.
The reason it's said to be like a bug is because of its eyes, dozens of them, rolling around like those of spider-type monsters.
Despite living underground, it occasionally comes above ground, looking quite horrific.
"What a disgustingly ugly creature."
"Of all the monsters I studied to become an adventurer, this one is the most grotesque and bizarre."
"Could it be a chimera created by dark mages? How could something have such an appearance..."
Even I, who can casually throw away cockroaches with a tissue, find it repulsive, let alone the rest of my female companions.
Just hearing about the sticky tentacles, hideous gnashing maw, and dozens of rolling eyes made us shiver as if bugs were crawling down our backs.
The viewers watching through the camera felt similarly.
-Teacher Roland, please one-shot this thing
-I really don't want to see a close-up fight with that thing.
-Isn't the design team a bit too serious about this stuff?
-I guess I'll just spend my life riding golems on the 30th floor.
-Lol, so to see the harpies the Queen, we have to fight that creature?
[SuspiciousTentacleMerchant Donated 10,000 Won!]
Would you accept a mission where you let the boss bind you up?
"Who would accept that! Honestly, if someone offered you money to dive into a pile of cockroaches or maggots while holding your breath, would you do it? The sensation of tentacles wouldn't be painful, so BB Games, these perverts, must've implemented it somehow."
Half of the viewers worried about how the horrific visuals drawn by Lili would be captured on camera, while the other half, the perverts, looked forward to seeing how the beautiful ladies would suffer at the hands of this terrible monster.
Those mocking us, saying, "As long as it's not me."
"First, setting aside that we don't even know its location, starting an exchange is the priority."
"Roland's right. There's Granny Pipi's city beneath this Harpy Kingdom, and they're unaware of each other."
"The mountain paths outside are treacherous, so we could transport supplies through the city of the stone dwarves. But what kind of goods could the Harpy Kingdom offer for trade?"
While Han Se-ah was dealing with viewers' bizarre requests involving boss tentacles wrapping around her or sucking on antennae, my companions and I were wrapped up in serious contemplation.
Exchange isn't just about having the intention.
Stone dwarves, as a craftsman race, handle all sorts of rare minerals and gems and can even perform alchemy.
Just digging the ground could yield something valuable for them.
But what about the harpies, who fly naked through the skies?
In many ways, they seemed like a race with nothing to sell but their bodies.
As Irene said, it was worrying not to see anything of trade value.
Though it wasn't necessarily our concern, everyone, being kind-hearted, seemed to wish for the harpies to integrate well with the human world.
"Goods from the flappers? There's something the squishies would really love."
"Eh?"
And that concern was very anticlimactically resolved by a passing young stone dwarf.
Not their bodies, but their eggs could be sold.
