Chapter 349. Clues
Charles and his crew remained standing for an indeterminate amount of time. Just as Charles felt like he couldn't feel his legs anymore, the Mudling moved first and stood before the net of Ropelings. He hopped about and yelled, "Wuwa!"
As the crew rapidly blinked, the Ropelings began to move and free them. Once the crew was freed, the Ropelings then moved toward the hole that Charles and his crew had dug and began filling it up. The Mudling went to help as well.
Now that the danger had passed, they completely ignored the existence of Charles and his crew.
The crew members exchanged odd looks, and they slowly lowered their weapons. No explanation was necessary for them to understand that the Ropelings had restrained them to save them.
"Tobba," Charles called out to his Navigator.
"I'm here!" Tobba pranced his way over to Charles. The jovial old man now had a new stub of newly grown white hair on the center of his head.
Charles stared at the old lunatic with a pensive look. Tobba was too unstable to be relied on, and no one could deduce when his words would hold any merit.
Charles glanced at the Ropelings that were moving away and asked in a low voice, "You could hear them earlier telling us to stop moving, right? Can you still hear them?"
"They're thinking of refilling the holes we dug to bury their fallen comrades back into the ground," Tobba replied.
"That's not what I want to know. Don't just stare at one of them. I want you to take a look at what they're all thinking," Charles said.
"But they all have the same thought..." Tobba muttered and cast a worried look at the Ropelings. He pondered briefly before enthusiastically rushing over to the Ropelings and started chatting with two of them.
"Captain." Dipp's voice echoed next to Charles. With a dagger in hand, he stared worriedly at the Ropelings and said, "Shouldn't we get going?"
"The threat has passed, so why should we leave? We might be able to dig up intel about this island from them. They might be able to tell us the identity of that invisible threat altogether," Charles replied.
At this point, Charles had calmed down enough to understand that the Ropelings had been chasing after them to restrain them, not because the Ropelings wanted to strangle them to their deaths but to save them from the threat of the bizarre music.
But Charles' actions were understandable. He had explored quite a few islands after spending so many years at sea, but this was the first time he had encountered friendly natives.
The many life-and-death situations he had experienced had conditioned him not to take anything at face value and to be hostile toward anything nonhuman.
A grinning Tobba soon returned to Charles while dragging two Ropelings with him.
"We're good friends now!" Tobba exclaimed.
Contrary to Tobba's words, the Ropelings' struggle made it clear that they were anything but willing friends.
Charles glanced at Tobba's hands and found that he had restrained the Ropelings with an exceptionally strong grip to the extent that his knuckles had become white from the exertion.
Charles hesitated, but he still ended up saying, "Ask your friends about the identity of the attacker earlier and if it appears on a schedule."
"I don't know their language, so I can't talk to them. Hehehe," Tobba replied with a sheepish smile.
A vein bulged on Charles' forehead, and he felt his blood boiling. Regardless, he chose to remain silent.
However, Dipp had a different idea.
Dipp jabbed a webbed finger at Tobba and roared, "What do you mean you don't know their language? Weren't you talking with them just now? Are you trying to fool our Captain here?! Do you really think that we can't afford to maroon you here?!"
"Who says you can't be friends with someone even though there's a language barrier between you two? I can hear their emotions and see what they are seeing," Tobba replied.
Charles had no time to watch their bickering. He pulled out a pen and a piece of paper before swiftly sketching out a few buildings in the architectural style of the Foundation.
Once he was done, he showed the Ropelings the drawings and pointed at each and every one of them with a questioning expression. The Ropelings' torsos remained motionless, but their heads slowly swiveled to look behind them.
"They turned around not because they don't want to answer your question," Tobba chimed in and said, "They're saying that what you've drawn lies over there. I can see the path in their minds, and I can guide us there."
Charles was instantly elated. He had always been doubtful about the absence of any of the Foundation's traces here, but it turned out that the Foundation had not ignored the tiny islands on the periphery.
Perhaps they would find traces of the so-called door among the ruins of the Foundation here.
"No, we can't go there, Charles!" Tobba suddenly exclaimed with a look of terror. He stared grimly at Charles and explained, "The killing harmony is from there!"
Killing harmony? Charles instantly recalled the bizarre music that they had just encountered.
So that music is from the ruins of the Foundation here? Could it be from some relic that had breached containment? Charles frowned. He pondered over the matter, but he still decided to press on.
It would be dangerous, but there was no reason for them to turn back now that they had found their target. A clear way to counter the killing harmony had also been made clear, so the danger level was within Charles' risk tolerance.
Charles soon told the crew his decision, and everyone shouldered their gear, clearly eager to leave.
It seemed that they couldn't quite relax around the Ropelings, even though it had been proven that the Ropelings had only been chasing after them to protect them from the killing harmony.
Charles and his crew embarked on their journey to the Foundation ruins, but the Ropelings blocked them once more before they could even take a couple of steps.
"Charles, they want to give us parting gifts," Tobba interpreted for the Ropelines.
The said parting gifts were soon presented before Charles and his crew—moldy Echo bills, a few gold and silver rings, and a gold tooth. They also shoved the naked Mudling toward Charles and his crew.
The Mudling scrambled to return to the Ropelings, but he was shoved away, making it clear to everyone that the Ropelings didn't want anything to do with the Mudling. The Mudling tumbled backward after getting shoved, and he wailed miserably like a child.
Under the piercing gazes of the Ropelings, Charles grabbed the moldy Echo bills and hurled the bawling Mudling toward Linda with his invisible tentacle before saying, "Bring him with us; let's go."
Under the watchful gazes of the Ropelings with their bizarre facial features, Charles and his crew slowly entered the forest. After a while, Lily glanced at the Ropelings behind them as they fell out of their torches' illumination and asked, "Mr. Charles, were they good people?"
"We can't say for sure, but they know the concept of payment, so it's clear that they've worked with humans before," Charles replied.
Lily nuzzled up Charles' cheek with her furry head and muttered, "I think they're good people. They protected us earlier, after all."
Charles glanced at the sulking Mudling in Linda's arms before nodding lightly.
Tobba allowed the group to save time wandering around the island, and the group soon found their destination, all thanks to Tobba's lead.
Charles could already see the Foundation buildings behind the tree leaves in the distance, but he couldn't find any elevator shaft.
"Throw me the monoscope here," Charles called out while clinging to a tree trunk.
Dipp hurled a monoscope toward Charles, and the latter snatched it out of mid-air.
Charle stared at the distant buildings through the monoscope. A door? Does the Foundation use a teleportation portal to travel to the surface and here rather than an elevator?
The Foundation had a penchant for exploiting relics, so Charles believed it was feasible. He swept his gaze across the buildings before dropping back down and turning to look at his crew.
"We're going over there, so leave everything we don't need here," Charles said.
Visit freewe𝑏(n)ovel.co(m) for the b𝘦st novel reading experience