Chapter 29: Night of Massacre

The entrance to the cave was extremely narrow.

It was difficult for even a slightly plump adult to pass through.

But the inside of the cave was very spacious, appearing to be at least a hundred square meters.

Different from the overall humid climate of the marshlands, the cave was very warm and there were no insects.

After layering with some dry reeds, one could directly sleep on the ground.

For life in the wild, it was very fortunate to be able to find such a shelter.

You must know that Roger had been sleeping in wet tree holes, among cold bushes, or against tree trunks full of ants for most of the past month.

At that time, he had always missed his little bed in Tongma Town.

　　...

"Swish, swish, swish..."

The quicksand lamp swayed slightly, making continuous hissing sounds as the sand rubbed against each other.

Spots of white light slowly lit up, illuminating every corner of the cave.

Roger squatted down, ready to get himself something to eat.

He did not light a fire.

This was not a matter of ventilation, but because the heat emitted by a campfire was easily perceivable by sensitive monsters.

For avoiding troubles, Roger would always strive to avoid them as much as possible.

The food for this meal was mainly bacon strips, fresh water and a plant called Sand Potato.

The bacon strip was brought by Roger when he set off from Tongma Town, and only the last bit was left.

Both sand potato and fresh water were traded from Dragon Tooth Village.

Roger actually quite liked the taste of these sand potatoes.

The shape of this thing resembled a taro, and it looked like a tuber of some kind of plant.

It tasted crisp and sweet and could easily make one full.

And most importantly, it could be eaten raw without too much processing. It was especially suitable for travelers like Roger who lived in the wild all year round.

After eating two sand potatoes, the strength that had been consumed before began to slowly return.

He stretched lying on the reed mat and started thinking about the current situation.

Since he had decided to intervene in this war, Roger must be fully prepared.

From a normal perspective, the menacing gray dwarves were much stronger than the villagers in Dragon Tooth Village.

The people Roger met in the village were mainly farmers, and few had combat abilities.

If these people were to run into gray dwarves holding short crossbows, he feared that they would be killed with just one move.

Some more, there were Humphrey's refugees eyeing them like hungry tigers.

This seemed like a one-sided war.

But things were definitely not that simple.

"The people in the village are all farmers? If so, where did all these fields and farms come from?"

Roger smiled softly.

Regarding this issue, he had already noticed it earlier.

It was just that he was a traveler at the time, so he didn't care about it at all.

Now that he thought about it, the fact that Dragon Tooth Village could gain a foothold on Yellow Stone Island was an incredible thing in itself.

Firstly, there was not much suitable land on Yellow Stone Island for planting.

But when trading with Roger, the villagers were able to generously come up with such good things as sand potatoes.

This meant that in this world where food was extremely scarce, Dragon Tooth Village did not lack food at all.

Secondly, Dragon Tooth Village was severely short of fighters.

Even dabbler hunters like Eric could actually be considered masters.

Except for the mysterious Cindy, there was only Rachel and her Flying Dragon Beast that had a certain level of combat abilities.

If so, how were they able to maintain their foothold under the watch of the monsters and the covet by the refugees in the marshlands?

Thirdly, Rachel once said that the Gray Dwarves of the Marshlands came for Dragon Tooth Village.

If that was the case, was there anything in the village that was worthy of the gray dwarf mobilizing so much manpower?

Roger thought for a while but found nothing unusual.

　　...

"Sand potato? This thing is indeed possible."

But Roger didn't think anymore.

Because in the absence of information support, the deeper the analysis, the more outrageously wrong it might end up being.

It was already enough for him to figure out that Dragon Tooth Village was not as simple as it appeared.

Cindy must be holding a trump card that could restrain the refugees.

Otherwise, Humphrey didn't need to unite with any gray dwarves.

As long as Dragon Tooth Village did not lose so fast, then Roger would have plenty of opportunities to hunt.

He stood up and relaxed.

Under the dim light of the quicksand lamp, Roger started tonight's work—

He was carefully removing the arrowhead of the penetrating arrow.

This kind of arrowhead was embedded, and there was a thin iron needle attached behind each arrowhead.

This meant that an arrow shaft with the right material could be replaced.

Roger was going to exchange these arrowheads onto white feather arrows.

Although he could also use crossbow arrows, it was too inefficient and easy to fail.

And the crossbow was far less flexible than Violet Wind.

So in the quiet cave, the sound of "Ding Dong Ding Dong" began to resonate.

In a short time, Roger completed this part of the work.

A total of 67 penetrating arrows had been seized from the gray dwarves, from which he only kept 7 as spares and disassembled the rest.

Immediately afterwards, he embedded these arrowheads one by one into the shaft of the white feather arrow.

　　...

[You made a new type of arrow, please give it a name!]

　　...

"White feather arrow plus penetrating arrow, it's better to call..."

Roger finished the naming after a moment of contemplation, "Just call it White Feather Penetrating Arrow!"

　　...

[You have successfully made a white feather penetrating arrow, making 3 white feather penetrating arrows in total]

[Your life skill: bow and arrow maintenance and making (39) has been improved]

　　...

In this way, Roger made 60 white feather penetrating arrows in one go.

He had somewhat good luck tonight.

In the 60 arrows made, not one had failed, and because of this, the related life skill had increased by 5 points.

When he had completed the balance test on the last arrow, thin rays of light had already started shining through the holes above the cave.

It was almost dawn.

Roger yawned and put down his tools.

After inspecting the mechanism at the entrance of the cave three times, he laid down to sleep in peace.

　　...

At dusk, Roger woke up drowsily.

With an empty stomach, he casually grabbed two sand potatoes and ate them.

He felt instantly refreshed.

He did not go out in a hurry but waited patiently for a while.

He waited until the sky was completely dark.

Then he left his cave, fully armed.

During the day, Roger heard the noise of the gray dwarves marching.

He estimated that the number of gray dwarves on Yellow Stone Island must be much more than yesterday.

After a day's time, the bodies of the gray dwarves killed by him should have been discovered.

Once the enemy was on guard, it would be impossible to kill people simply by diverting attention like yesterday.

Relying only on Ladder Cloud Leap to kill by force was also very dangerous.

Fortunately, he had prepared a brand new gift for the gray dwarves.

Tonight was destined to be a real night of massacre.

　　...