Zhan Long-Chapter 48: Ginseng Earthworm

Rustle…

The freezing wind howled through the forest and pounded of the city walls of Dragon City, making a frozen whirlpool. Two people could be seen walking through it. One with a burly physique and carrying a heavy chain and another with a staff and a tiny bee.

……

”Sir, what’s the main responsibility of a scavenger in Dragon City?”

Dalin dragged the chains behind him, and smiled, answering: “Our main responsibility is to clean up the surrounding area of Dragon City from anything that would either pose a threat towards Dragon City or the ordinary soldiers transporting goods to or from Dragon City.”

I nodded, thinking back to the time when Dalin killed the Cyclops with a single blow. If I had to hunt down such creatures, I’d probably die before scratching them.

“Moreover…” Beast Tamer Dalin looked into the distance with a cold look in his eyes: “There is another important duty.”

“What duty?”

“Come with me!”

“Okay!”

Dalin leaped forward, traveling more than a hundred yards in a single leap. I rushed after him with my staff, until I came to an earth slope which had large lumps of steaming hot excrement. Some were even giving off small sparks on the top while the others were frozen solid. The pile had a radius of around 1 meter from the top to the button.

“What is this?” I was quite startled.

Beast Tamer Dalin was looking in the sky, pretty curious, I looked as well: “Kid, what you see is the excrement of the phoenix. The phoenix’s main food is the fruit that grows in volcanoes. This causes the phoenix’s body to store lots of energy, which causes its excrement to be high quality and good for heating. Since the winters are unusually harsh in Dragon City, we must store lots of excrement to keep Dragon City warm in the winter.”

Suddenly Dalin’s chains danced in the air and compacted the excrement before he started dragging them towards Dragon City.

I was completely astonished, was this my duty?

“Kid, don’t just stand around. That side has lots of frozen Wild Boar excrement, carry it away.”

“Uhh.. Yeh…Yes….Yes sir!……”

I glanced towards a huge pile of excrement. Was this really poop? How big were these Wild Boars? When I entered the ranks of Dragon City, I expected to become a mighty Dragon warrior or Dragon knight. Instead my profession turned out to be an excrement mover..

Although there was a difference between the types of work, every job was vital, let’s work!

Paa!

I stuck my staff directly into the excrement and made an effort to pick up the frozen excrement to carry back to the camp. The camp was extremely simple only consisting of a tent that could barely contain Dalin. I had to stand outside by the bonfire!

Next to our camp was a huge pit where we threw the excrement. I flicked my staff through the air and the excrement looked magnificent as it entered the pit.

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations, you have successfully cleaned up debris and obtained 900 points of experience.

……

Very unexpectedly I also gained experience by doing this? I couldn’t help but laugh, the experience was almost as good as hunting monsters. The only downside was that there was no chance of dropping equipment or illustration cards.

I kept walking back and forth between the excrement and the pit together with Dalin. This area belonged to Dragon City’s territory and since it was more than an hour’s walk from any major city with extremely high-leveled monsters, normal players would never venture here. This meant that I was alone in doing these humiliating tasks.

As I continued to move the excrement, I quickly got to 27% experience. I was striving to reach level 30 today. Then I would be able to wield Jade City Sword and Silver Locked Battle Boots, which would dramatically increase my strength.

……

Rustle….

On the way uphill, Dalin quickly raised his arm in sign for me to stop and quietly said: “Kid, stop.”

I narrowed my eyes as I looked around: “What’s going on?”

“A jackpot’s coming!”

“Oh?”

The soil suddenly parted and a chubby head emerged. It looked a lot like an insect and a moment later my theory was confirmed, as the entire insect climbed out of the hole. It looked and moved like a sea cucumber. Its status displayed “Ginseng Earthworm” and its rank was unclear, which meant it was at least level 35.

“I am truly lucky today.”

The Beast Tamer Dalin was almost drooling while looking at it: “Kid, this Ginseng Earthworm is very high quality food. Within Tian Ling Empire a pound of its flesh can be sold for a hundred gold coins because of its rare taste and abundance of nutrition. In addition, it’s one of the best foods to fight against the cold. Such a big Ginseng Earthworm can feed the entirety of Dragon City for a week.”

He firmly gripped his chains while staring at the mouthwatering Ginseng Earthworm. With a quick flourish, he pulled out some dried fish from his backpack: “Ginseng Earthworms have a fancy for fish, so I will lure it over here. You circle around it and ambush it, but be careful to not let it escape down into the hole. Once it’s down in the earth it’s as agile as a fish in the water and impossible to catch.”

I nodded as I raised my staff and called Baby Bobo to circle around the worm.

Dalin quickly ran up the hill and dropped the fish before concealing himself. Less than half a minute later the heavy earthworm had waddled over and began stuffing himself with the fish. Suddenly Dalin jumped up towards it and yelled: “This time you will not escape!”

Chu!

The iron chains pierced directly into the Ginseng Earthworm and blood splattered in all direction. It was making an endless struggle and wriggled in an attempt to get free, before finally a snapping sound was heard. It had torn its own body through the iron chain and escaped. It took a huge chunk of damage, but that didn’t stop it from rushing towards me and the hole.

“COME ON, GET IT!”

I crossed my staff as I prepared to encounter it, meanwhile I commanded Baby Bobo to rush towards it. Baby Bobo immediately used [Combo] and dealt over a 1000 points of damage. Hmm, the defense of the worm wasn’t even decent.

“Good, kid, stop it, STOP IT!” Dalin yelled as he prepared to throw his chains again.

The Ginseng Earthworm was desperately rushing forward, I attempted to stop it, but it simply bashed me away. Baby Bobo was still furiously attacking and even though the worm’s defense was low and it only had around a total of 5000 health, we were unable to kill it within such a limited time period.

Ka ka……

In a blink of an eye the Ginseng Earthworm was back in the ground and gone. The chance was gone. You could hear how disappointed and bitter Baby Bobo was from his buzzing.

……

Shortly afterwards, me and Dalin both stood in front of the hole. Dalin was looking quite sad and disappointed as he said: “Damn, it actually escaped, such a shame…………. Kid, it’s not your fault…………”

I pursed my lips: “I didn’t say that it was my fault…”

“Alright, there are a few giant boars up ahead, we will hunt those. As the winter draws closer, our employed convoys are often intercepted by either wild animals or bandits, so we cannot depend on them. We have to gather supplies ourselves.This is why we hunt.”

I nodded but I asked: “Sir, as there are many strong generals in Dragon City, why don’t they also hunt?”

Dalin smiled as he said : “There are many outstanding people in Dragon City, but they are either meditating or practicing martial arts and combat. They have no time to hunt for animals. This is our responsibility and also one of the reasons Captain Frost allowed you to become a member of Dragon City. You could say that we are food providers to Dragon City’s kitchen.”

A bit disappointed, I looked towards Dragon City and asked: “Sir, are there really dragons in this frozen wasteland?”

“Ah?!”

Dalin thought about it for a couple of moments before answering: “Who knows, it has been a couple of hundred years since anyone has seen a Dragon. I think the last time a Dragon was seen was 500 years ago in the war of empires. Maybe Dragons have since then lost the god’s blessing and become a fable to never appear again.”

I took a deep breath. Looked like I wouldn’t get the chance to fight a Dragon.

……

We continued forward and soon encountered huge boars at the forest’s edge. Dalin was the main attack force, while I supported him. Less than 15 seconds later the boar dropped to the ground disturbing a huge cloud of dust.

“Even though this meat is very tough, it’s also quite a treasure in winter times.”

Dalin threw his chains around the boar and dragged it back to the camp. When we arrived, there were already more than a dozen black armored Dragon warriors waiting. One of the men with a bunch of excrement in one hand, turned around respectfully asking: “ Dalin, did you find some more food?”

Dalin laid down the boar: “Yeah, it’s around a 500 kilo boar, you may take it. After all there is nothing like bacon, and a pot of wine in the winter. That is the good life.”

“Haha, thank you sir.”

When we handed over the porcupine a system message appeared.

“Ding!”

System Notification: Congratulations, you have successfully delivered food and received 3000 experience points.

……

I felt joy, unspeakable joy! I also got experience from delivering dead monsters! This meant that I could get experience both from killing monsters as well as delivering them to the pit. Also it was giving reasonably more experience than simply throwing excrement into the pit.

If I was lucky the experience reward might increase further if I was doing it on my own. Either way, me and Dalin continued hunting and dragging monsters to the awaiting Dragon soldiers.

As the afternoon light dimmed, my experience had increased to 87%. I was extremely close to level 30 and became anxious, not wanting to get another setback.

“Kid, I’ll take a break now, go ahead and continue cleaning up the wilderness.”

Dalin laid down inside his ripped tent, enjoying the little extra shelter and warmth it gave.

I walked away with my Baby Bobo, it was time to solo hunt.