Chapter Sixty-One: How the Ox Died

The sudden appearance of a village drew our attention. When Bull Million and I exchanged a glance, we both bolted straight toward it. On this vast, level grassland, no matter how fast we ran, we could never shake the pursuers behind us. If we could flee into the village and use its tangled terrain, perhaps we could still find a way out.

We vaulted over the wall and immediately began twisting this way and that, taking only the roughest side lanes as we probed our way deeper into the village. After only three or four turns, the pursuers were already out of sight; only the occasional disorderly footsteps behind us proved they were still close on our heels. After a few more corners, those footsteps grew fainter and clearer at once, sounding as if the enemy had split into separate groups and only one man was following us now.

We crossed a front street and ducked behind a collapsed wall. My eyes lit up when I spotted a warehouse ahead. Inside, all kinds of lumber had been tossed about haphazardly, stacked high enough that, if one crouched low, one could hide completely. Unless the pursuers climbed inside, they would have a hard time discovering anyone concealed there. I leaped into the pile of timber, and in a flash saw Bull Million standing under the eaves, staring fixedly at a gap in the wall and lifting his black obsidian pillar high overhead.

"Bull Million, what are you doing?" I asked in a hushed voice.

"Shh... there seems to be only one of them behind us. As soon as he sticks his head out, I’ll smash him good, ho ho ho..." The minotaur paladin grinned with utter cunning.

This was not the first time he had done such a thing. In past adventures, he had often lain in ambush, waiting for us to lure some troublesome beast right before him so he could launch a sudden attack. I must say, our minotaur friend was rather wasted as a paladin. With his habitual lewdness and his devious mind, he would have been far better suited to the rogue’s trade, striking from the shadows with a club.

But the idiot had forgotten something very important.

"Don’t—" I gasped, startled, trying to stop him.

"Quiet, quiet!" He flapped his hands at me, signaling me not to make a sound.

"Run!" I pointed urgently toward the road leading to the warehouse’s back door, urging him to get out at once.

Bull Million stared there in bewilderment. Then he pricked up his ears and listened for a long while. Finally he turned back to me and shrugged, as if to say there was no one pursuing us there. I must have heard wrong.

Frustrated, I slapped my forehead and jabbed desperately at the top of my own head, signaling him to look up.

By then the stupid ox had completely lost the sly nature he once possessed. He glanced stupidly at the warehouse roof. Naturally, he saw nothing.

Enraged, I raised my long sword and slashed it back and forth across my own throat, trying to warn him that danger was upon us.

He actually bonked his huge head twice against the stone pillar in pantomime, then made a comical face as if he had fainted.

For heaven’s sake, when your life is on the line, who the hell has time to joke with you? I wanted nothing more than to kick his backside hard twice.

But it seemed I would have no such chance.

"Dumb ox, run! They can see your name..." At that moment, Longbow Sun-Slaying suddenly poked his head out from a giant water vat by the corner and shouted. Hm? Strange—hadn’t he been right behind us all along? When had he run ahead and hidden here? I had not noticed him at all.

No sooner had Longbow Sun-Slaying spoken than a fountain of blood burst from behind Bull Million. Immediately afterward, the vampire sword-dancer, the undead mage, and the demon berserker all vaulted over the wall one after another, seized their weapons, and charged at him ferociously. Bull Million had just begun to cast his spell of divine protection when Who Dares Be Uglier Than Me smashed him from behind with a club and knocked him senseless. He became a fixed meat target, helplessly butchered by a variety of weapons. From the midst of the melee came cries such as, "Let me stab him once more!" and "Move over, I still want to give him another kick!" Clearly, those four adventurers from the Empire of the End Times were enjoying themselves immensely as they hacked him apart. In the blink of an eye, the towering minotaur paladin had become a stiff, upright bull carcass.

Even then, the vile undead mage would not spare him. Crouching beside the corpse, he tore at it and devoured it in great gulps. This was a special racial ability of the undead, allowing them to restore vitality by consuming an enemy’s body. But right now, the life points of this already-dead fellow were plainly full; what he was doing was obviously nothing more than venting his rage.

"If only it could be made into a fat-beef hotpot, that would be even better..." Before long, Bull Million’s corpse had been gnawed down to a heap of bull bones. I had no idea how there was room inside that skeleton for so much minotaur. The mage shook his head with obvious regret, smacking his lips hard, looking as though he still had not had his fill.

I only hoped Bull Million would not be distressed after his resurrection by the sudden slimming effect.

That was what I thought.

Though Bull Million was my companion and comrade-in-arms, to be fair, he had only brought this fate upon himself. I think everyone understands what had just happened. Yes, the wall had indeed concealed Bull Million’s body and that thick obsidian pillar, but the great fool had forgotten how outrageously long his wretched name was. Those beasts, and ordinary natives too, could not see the soul markers above people’s heads, which was why his ambushes worked so well when dealing with beasts. But to those four space-crossing warriors from the Empire of the End Times, the absurdly long, boastful, shamelessly grandiose name hanging above Bull Million’s head was like a giant sign planted in open ground. Even in the dead of night it would blaze with radiance and shine brilliantly, stretching all the way to the heavens, so that the gods dwelling upon the vault of the sky would know of his infamy.

Rather than saying he had been ambushed and killed by the enemy, I thought it would be more fitting to say he had been stupid to death.

"This great dumb ox..." I muttered under my breath.

"One down. Now it’s your turn." The troll assassin glanced at the dwarf crouched in the vat and said leisurely, "If you hadn’t made a sound just now, we really might not have found you."

Longbow Sun-Slaying shook his head in dejection, slowly climbed out of the vat, and shrugged. "Who told me I’m such a good person, willing to risk my life to save a friend?" he said. Then he called toward my hiding place: "Jeffritz, come out. He’s seen us."

The four of them immediately turned their gazes toward me.

Hatred surged in my chest, and I even wanted to strangle that damned dwarf with my own hands.

I leaped out of the timber pile and, before my feet even touched down, began cursing at the top of my lungs. "If you want to be a good guy, fine, but why drag me down with you? You got discovered, but I was still—"

Suddenly, I realized something was not quite right. The moment the four of them turned their faces, Longbow Sun-Slaying took off on his short little legs. Like a rubber ball, he darted straight toward the lane behind the warehouse. But the instant he saw me leap out, he froze in place, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"...hiding very well," I finished weakly.

"Jeff? You really are hiding here?" Longbow Sun-Slaying’s words made me want to vomit blood. It seemed... that perhaps... when he pointed toward me just now, he had only meant to draw those four men’s attention away.

"Weren’t you here earlier than me? Didn’t you see me when I came in?" I shot back.

"I’ve been crouching inside the vat the whole time. I didn’t even dare lift my head when I heard voices. How was I supposed to know it was you lot? Only after the noise stopped did I dare look around, and then I saw Bull Million, that idiot."

I did not think that a fool who had exposed his own position had any right to call Bull Million a fool.

And for me to have been tricked by this idiot into walking straight into the trap—clearly, in this absurd game of who could be dumber, I was the ultimate winner.

Our exchange left the four enemies staring at one another. After a moment, they burst into laughter so violent that the undead mage’s jaw came unhinged. After he finally reset it, the demon berserker laughed so hard he could barely stand; the vampire sword-dancer laughed with such charm that she nearly dropped the sword in her hand; and the troll assassin’s waist bent so far he practically planted his face into the ground.

If only the four of them could keep laughing like that until they died of split livers and shattered guts, it would have been a splendid ending. Alas, their self-control proved far stronger than I had hoped.

"Well, well, since both of you are here, my task just got much easier. Darling..." The troll assassin turned to look at his vampire beloved and held up three slender fingers. "...you’ll be washing dishes for three months."

The vampire sword-dancer nodded firmly. "If it’s three months, then three months it is!"

Having received her confirmation, the troll assassin led his three companions toward us with apologetic expressions. "I’m terribly sorry, but the two of you will have to suffer a little and wash my dishes for those three months."

I knew very well what sort of ending awaited us, and hurried to instruct the believer beside me: "I can’t run back to my corpse. When you come back, make sure you resurrect me, all right? You must, absolutely must remember to resurrect me!"

Right here and now, Longbow Sun-Slaying was my last reliance. I could think of no other way to prolong my life. I could only hope he possessed enough sense of justice and responsibility to grant my wish.

"The corpse run is too far. I still prefer letting Sister Death revive me on the spot..." His sense of responsibility was only so strong.

"You can discuss it after you’ve both reached the resurrection point!" The demon berserker could not wait a second longer. Brandishing his long-handled broadsword, he charged out first. I really wanted to tell him that I had no way of reaching the resurrection point at all, but he seemed uninterested.

Whoosh!

A shrill whistle of cutting wind rang through the air. Then, before our eyes, a flash of brilliance lit the world, like a meteor streaking across the sky. In the next instant, the starlight vanished, a crimson blaze erupted, and we heard the demon berserker cry out, clutching his head, "Ow!" A steel-feathered arrow was pinned squarely between his brows.

"Hey, Jeff, it seems every time I see you, you’re in trouble." From a ruined wall on the eastern side drifted a lazy male voice. I turned toward it and saw, standing atop the broken wall, two tall and graceful, striking figures.

For some unknown technical reason, Xiaoxianzi spent a week locked in a life-and-death struggle with his computer. Today brought good news: I have finally been defeated by a computer virus.

Though I can still barely type and get online, the computer’s other functions are basically unusable. So I plan to use the free time tomorrow and the day after to find a legendary expert to help sort it out. As a result, the update may be delayed for these two days. I ask everyone’s understanding.