Chapter 24. Aftermath

I lowered my crossbow after I saw the fleeing knight fall to its death.

I looked at the weapon in my hands, the weapon that I used to take a life.

I didn't feel anything, I did not feel any remorse or regret.

"Maybe something is wrong with me... "

I whispered to myself.

"What was that Trader!?"

"What was what?"

"The exploding arrow! How did you do that?"

"You mean the firework? I mean this is not its original purpose, but this is one of the most powerful weapons in this world. Nothing can protect you from its blast."

He just looked at me with a shocked face. I also just realized that I didn't hear the noise of the battlefield anymore.

I looked down to see if the battle has finally ended, but the people suddenly stopped and just looked at the place I shoot my firework at.

The piglins and villagers were shocked.

Could it be that they didn't know the existence of such items?

But the sock didn't last for long before they continued to attack each other.

"That looked like an arrow with a TNT, how did you find that recipe?"

"Uhh, I rather not answer that question if I could."

I said that in embarrassment. I don't think I can keep answering that I found information in ancient ruins before Bobby will start to get suspicious.

"If you don't want to say, I won't force you. But you said that this was one of the best weapons in this world. Does that mean that there are others as powerful as this one? And you know how to make them as well?"

Bobby looked at me with a serious expression.

I didn't want to lie to him, Bobby was my first friend in this new world, a friend that trusted me without a question. I'm surprised that it took so long to actually ask me more serious questions, I wanted to be truthful with him, but I didn't feel ready to tell him my whole story.

I'm afraid that I'll get too attached to him, to this world and then I wouldn't want to return to my original world anymore, I wasn't ready to give up on my original goal.

The only reason I suspect I'm still sane from all that I've been through, it's that I still see this world as a game, not as my new reality.

And I'm afraid to make that transaction.

But I didn't want to keep my friend in the dark, so I'll tell him half of the truth.

I looked back at Bobby with a serious expression as well.

"Yes, I do Bobby, I know information that even the wisest human in this world would be shocked to hear. I know how to create weapons that can destroy countries before getting killed, I know how to find items that can cheat death, I even know how to bypass the barrier of this world even. And how do I know those things? It's because I'm not from this world, nor from the Nether. I'm from somewhere more complex that I don't want to talk about. So in conclusion, yes I do know how to make more dangerous weapons."

We looked at each other for a few more moments.

"O-ok... I don't know how to react to that information, but thank you for trusting me with your secret."

Then we looked back at the battle. They were almost finished as well, with only three more villagers remaining, and with the overwhelming numbers against them, it didn't take too long before they were finished as well.

Once the final knight fell to the ground the whole tribe started to cheer in victory.

Undying Flame climbed somewhere higher and started to shout:

"My people! We have won the battle, we avenged our lost friends and families."

People started to cheer to the declaration.

"But it's not over yet, we have to collect everything in this place before the next team will come back. Unfortunately, we can't defend the forest, so will have to move somewhere else."

And after a few more minutes of celebrating, they started to loot the bodies and move the striders with fishin' roads that had a mushroom at the end, they also used buckets with lava to keep the animals hot and healthy all the way to the new location.

After a few hours of hard work, the bodies were looted and burned, and the striders moved safely to the next location.

With everything done, everyone started to march back to the tribe in a happy mood, even if there were losses in this battle, it was way lower than if they attacked without our support.

We arrived at the tribe where we started to truly celebrate the victory. Strider milk, cooked meat, and mushroom soup were served in abundance.

Happy songs were sung, and games were played, and the people were more than happy to include us in their celebration.

I heard stories of their hunts, stories of their trades, and even love stories through the tribe.

I had a lot of fun with them, and Bobby looked like he enjoyed himself as well. But after a few hours, we got tired so we retreated to sleep in our quarters.

The next day, everyone was back to their normal activities. It was like they didn't just party all night.

I went to Blue's house and knocked at the door, and after a few moments a response came:

"Come in."

I opened the door and entered the house. In the middle of the room were Blue Flame and Bobby talking with each other about brewing and different recipes. In the coroner of the room stood the head of the tribe bored out of her mind on a chair.

Once I was in full view they all looked at me.

"Morning Trader or I think it's morning. It's hard to tell the time in this dimension."

Bobby greeted me. I could see that he was a bit stiff from our last discussion, but he didn't seem like he wanted to give up our friendship, which I was glad.

Blue Flame had a neutral expression so I couldn't read too much from him. But Undying face lit up when she saw me, finally something to end her boredom in this house.

"Congratulations on your victory guys! I'm glad that you managed to come back alive."

"We couldn't do it without your help. And we thank you again for that. As promised we will give you the items in time, and when you want to, we would show you the location of the fortress."

"Don't forget that now I also belong to you."

Undying Flame spoke and made everyone in the room freeze.

"T-there's no need to do that anymore since we agreed to take only the items and the location of the fortress."

I tried to deny her offer.

"We won't be able to hold the cost with only those two. We would be in debt to you for our whole lives with how much you two helped up. So I want to give myself to lessen the debts of my tribe."

I looked at Bobby for some help but he looked as uncomfortable and confused as me.

"You seem uncomfortable with this deal. How about instead of taking only the head tribe as your slave, you'll take her role in the tribe? And you don't have to rule it yourself, you could let me and Undying Flame do it for you like we always did. With this you'll be the owner of the whole tribe, but we'll do most of the work as usual."

That idea sounded much more pleasant then the first one.

But I felt like something was wrong with this deal and I couldn't put my finger on what. I looked at Bobby again and he seems like he liked this deal better than the first one.

"Ok, well do that."

"I'm glad to hear that. And I'm happy to have such a powerful guardian like you."

Both Undying Flame and Blue Flame smiled at each other once I accepted their deal.

This made me think that they aimed for this in the first place, and I was just led by the nose to this point.

I didn't know how to feel about this. On one hand, I didn't feel comfortable with owning a slave, a female one on top of that, and on the other hand, now I had a whole tribe under my protection, but they could take care of themselves without my input as usual. So I was the owner of the tribe but only in name, where everything would just go back to normal since I don't plan to move in this hot dimension.

After we discussed a few more details we decided that it was time to leave for the fortress.

I started to prepare some items for this journey, it wasn't too much, and in case of emergency, I still had two more fireworks left to shoot.

This time only Blue Flame was the one that would show us the way to the fortress, since Undying still had to organize some stuff in the tribe so she stayed behind.

We drank the strider's milk for fire resistance and equipped our iron armor for protection. With all that prepared we started our journey toward the unclaimed fortress.

It was a long journey, took a few days to arrive there. But the journey was not boring at all.

On the way there we passed through a blue forest and saw an abundant number of endermans, which fortunately didn't attack us as long as we didn't look them in the eyes.

But I did feel that those endermans were different from the first one that I saw. But I couldn't tell what was different.

Bobby also found out about the existence of ghasts which greatly disturbed him.

"What's with that huge ghost? Is that what the souls of the monsters become when they die?"

"Not really, the souls usually get trapped in the soul sand, where you can see them constantly screaming in pain."

I joked to him. But Blue Flame and Bobby took it seriously, and when they saw the texture of those blocks their faces paled.

I didn't know if what I said was true, nor did I want to find out. But I was surprised to see that even Blue didn't know about this, even though he lives in this world.

We also saw a ruined portal, but the gold and chest were looted way before we came.

And on this trip, I also killed my first animal, and not in a pretty way. It was in an actual brutal way, I used flint and steel to light on fire a hoglin to see if it would give cooked meat. The screams of agony made me rethink my way of actions and made me wonder if some information it's worth testing.

It was also the time that I found out that I had to actually butcher the pig, and I did not have any experience, but with Blues help, I manage to learn it pretty quickly, since it wasn't as complicated as in my world.

The meat to our surprise was cooked.

But after a long and tiring journey, we finally arrived at a big dark structure that was stretching over a huge lava lake.

Once we got closer to the bridge that connected with the fortress we started to see something unusual.

"Blue Flame, when you said that the fortress was unclaimed did you exclude the skeletons from the equation?"

"You can't have a fortress without monsters, that's why there are so many outsiders in the fortress. They have to kill the constant wave of monsters that keep spawning. But I don't think those monsters are normal. They seem too.... organized."

And his observation was on point. I did expect to see a lot of monsters in the fortress, but they didn't walk around the tall bridges mindlessly. They were walking in small groups like they were on patrol, even the entrance was guarded by two skeletons with stone swords.

Actually, the fortress was run only by black skeletons, I couldn't see any other mob besides them.

"What happened here?"