Chapter 68 Tail Attack
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The dwarven king brought us out of the throne room into the meeting room. The room was tidy and neat. However, due to the stone table, chair, and everything else made with cement, the room gave a rustic and dry feeling which made us uncomfortable.
“Last time I heard, our allies were elves and not tailfolk. Does your ear somehow change into those of tailfolk, Lord Lily?” Sigliendurne asked curiously. “Or are they seriously sending tailfolk slaves to us?”
“I am Lord of Edenthal Forest. While I might be a tailfolk, I am a lord, not a slave. Not anymore, at least.”Lily said. She was stupidly honest that I could hear the group facepalming behind us.
“I see. Never in my life would I imagine these proud elves would appoint someone other than elves to their ranks as a lord.” Sig Smirked. “Now, what business you might have on our throne.”
“We have a need for Golderite and Titan ore. And also, we would like to increase our imports of Iron ore and other precious metals.” Sarielle spoke out.
“We could handle the iron, gold, and silver just fine. However, you need to pay us in food in advance.”
“That would not be a problem.”
“We rejected the rest. Golderite and Titan ores are very precious. We would not trade them. Thank you.” Sig gave a business smile. “If that is all, we will not trouble you further. You may leave. I appreciate your effort to travel across the mountain to meet us. Please leave now. We are currently occupied with other matters.”
“Wait, is there anything you could do to help us? We needed that golderite.” Lily pleaded. However, it fell on deaf ears as the king let us be on our way. Then rendezvous in the inn that the king has provided us.
“The discussion is finished. Golderite and Titan ore can’t be produced willy-nilly. I hope you understand. I suggest you go home now. We will visit you at a later time for our trade of iron ores and other metals like copper and gold.” The king asked his dwarf attendants to kick us out. “Please stay safe and leave. I shall await your visit at a later date.”
“Urgh.. the discussion didn’t progress as much as we hoped for.” Sarielle moaned as we failed half of our objectives.
“What are we going to do?” Lily asked Nora about what we were going to do in some tavern.
“Why do you guys need Golderite and Titan ores anyway? For crafting another fancy sword or arrowheads?” Jona asked.
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“We need them to seal the undead army. It was necessary to prevent the corruption thingie from affecting our troops.” Lily spoke out.
“Wait, Lily!” Sarielle cried out.
“Why do we need to hide it anyway?” Lhorne then asked.
“Because these dwarves would ask for more. They didn’t see that we were fighting for justice. Titan ores are precious enough that each gram of it was priced for more than 1000 gold.” Sarielle facepalmed.
“Huh, wait, how many do we need again?” Lily muttered. I also looked at her notes and discovered we needed about 700 kilos of golderite and titan ores. That would be equivalent to about 700 million gold each.
“Total would be about 1,4 billion gold….” I muttered.
“Jona….” Lily pleaded for help.
“Sorry, Lily, I could not help with this. Golderite and Titan ores are sacred to our culture. I can’t help you.” Jona put the final nail in the coffin.
“Let’s go home….” Lhorne suggested.
“Let’s stay here for a week,” Lily suggested.
“Why? They obviously kicked us out. If we forced it, we would need to pay for the inn with our own pocket.” Sarielle retorted.
“I want to know these dwarves. The earlier conversation seemed so dry and formal. I didn’t know what they needed. They didn’t give us any chance to make an offer regarding this Golderite as if it was set in stone.” Lily muttered. “I was also sort of weirded out that they kicked us out so soon. But they didn’t seem to have any malice. I wonder what’s that about? And Jona, I haven’t seen any tailfolk around here.”
“Oh, yeah, where are the tailfolk? Most of them migrated to the elves, but there should still be some tailfolk that escape here during the fall of your nation. I wonder where they are….”
“Yeah, now that you think about it, they didn’t even let us stay for the night. They are particularly cold toward us even when we AAHH!!!!!!” I screamed my heart out as pain suddenly coursed through my tail.
“Huh? Shiro? Ah! Itchy! My tail is itchy!” Lily immediately stood up and removed her cape. It was itchy for her, but it felt like something was stabbing my body with nails. It hurts so much! What the fuck happened?
“Something! Something is entering me!!!” I screamed my heart out when I looked at my HP. It was decreasing. Something is attacking us? What was it?
I screamed and scrambled my tail. It felt like something was sucking my life away, and the pain was torturous. Something was stabbing and entering me through my body. My mind clouded over the pain.
“Lily….” I moaned in pain. I cried out. Something was entering me, and I could not do anything about it. I pleaded to her while crying. “Lily, it hurts so much! Do something!”
“Hold on, Shiro, what happened?”
“Lily, what happened?” The others asked out.
“I don’t know. My tail feels itchy.” Lily cried out.
She then inspected me while asking, “Where, which part? Is it here?”
“No, a little bit to the tip. Yes. There!” I cried out. “Do something! Take a knife and cut it out!”
“Hold on!” She then took out her knife and opened a wound on her tail.
“Wait, Lily, what are you doing!” The others screamed out, but I didn’t pay any attention other than the wiggling thing inside me
“Lily, it is moving to the base!”
Lily hastened her knife, and after she made quite a significant cut from the middle of my tail to a quarter to the base, she chucked something from my tail with her bloodied hand, and the oppressing and nauseous feeling from my tail was gone.
“Thank you…” I breathe a sigh of relief.
As I looked over, some worm-like creature just a millimeter thick was on her hand. I felt the urge to incinerate it at once but held myself over it.