Chapter 71 Quarantining Tail
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I looked at my surroundings while casting light with my fire spells. The previous day with the worm scared me to death, and now I am unable to relax even a little in this nation. I continued to shine a light through the shallow cave until dawn broke out.
“Wow, you are something else, able to cast fireballs even when asleep,” Jona commented.
“Huh? I did?” Lily was dumbfounded.
“Shiro, what happened? Did we get attacked last night?”
“No, I was simply afraid of another parasite.”
“I see.”
“Alright, let us go home. We failed our objective for titan ores and Golderite, but we didn’t come home empty-handed. Right?” Mattheus said.
“But we failed our primary objectives. How are we going to explain this to the high council?” Sarielle replied while looking apprehensive.
“We didn’t fail yet,” Alith said. “ They said we can discuss this later, right?”
“Oh yeah! You are right!” Lhorne said, “We didn’t fail yet.”
Their optimism was good, but I didn’t find any way for King Sig to relent on these metals. It was a hopeless battle. He didn’t even give us the reasons why they refused. I couldn’t find any way for us to succeed in this endeavor.
“So, I am still curious about yesterday.” Sana asked, ”Lily gave them an idea?”
“Oh, well, we just needed to give former tailfolk country back to her. That’s all.”
“Oh! Will you participate in the war for us with humans?” Alith was happy at the suggestion.
“That’s….” Lhorne and Sarielle were tongue-tied.
“Huh?”
“We will help, of course, but I have already explained to you about the population crisis, right?” Sarielle said. “Please don’t expect us to aid you in that matter. At the very least, not now.”
Ahh! now that we knew about the existence of high magic, they could not steer the conversation as they liked, huh? The high magic was not as absolute as I thought. Now that I remember it, those central nobles always spoke as long as we thought it was fair. Is it because of this so-called rule?
“Hmm… if we did obtain our freedom, the elves would suffer,” I whispered to Lily.
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“Huh? Why?”
“If the tailfolk decided to travel to our country all at once…. never mind, it is not our immediate concern.” I closed the conversation.
“That’s Edenthal Region. Don’t forget to do quarantine and check all of our belongings.” Sarielle pointed out toward the forest in the distance.
“We didn’t get to visit the dwarven kingdom properly. I wonder if we could revisit it in the future.” Lily lamented
“How did those pests manage to get into your kingdom anyway?” Alith asked Jona
“I didn’t know. It was not there 3 years ago!”
“By the way, here is the trade itinerary from the dwarven kingdom. They will send their caravans in six days.”
“Huh? That’s fast!” Lily exclaimed. Sarielle also nodded.
“Wait, the number of food is fine. But this deadline is….” Sarielle rechecked the itinerary.
“Nah, this is fine. Edenthal can fulfill this much alone, shall there be a delay from central. Or you could simply pay us the money.” Lhorne replied.
“That would be best. However, please remember that the food price is subject to the kingdom’s laws.” Sarielle glared at Lhorne for trying to take profit from this.
“Of course.” Lhorne nodded. Even if we adjust the price to be low, Edenthal could still profit by about a million gold each year out of this deal. There was no market for food Edenthal produced, and thus it was hard for them to penetrate the elven market. However, dwarves wanted food, and even if we sold them the usual beat-down prices, we could still profit, although not that much.
“Ugh…” Matheus groaned. As a representative of humans and their greed, he could only lament the missing chance of obtaining big profits. “What a tyrant.”
“This is just how elves are, Mattheus. We still profit out of transportation fees anyway. So, it is still a good bargain. We could not exploit the other elves by blackmailing them about deadlines.” Lhorne said proudly. Others could only shrug their shoulders, not caring about these minutiae of politics.
“Alright. Let us declare an emergency and take away a single house for quarantine. I suggest a hunter hut near this border.” Lhorne replied. He then shouted loudly for the occupant of the said hunter hut to empty their house while we waited outside.
Matheus rolled his eye when the hunter obediently obeyed Lhorne’s orders and exited their hut in less than two hours.
“Open up all the bags. Empty your pockets! Females go to the next room and strip, while males will stay in this room. For tailfolk, pay special attention to your tails and ears. These worms might have already laid their eggs somewhere.” Lhorne replied.
“Uggh. No male tailfolk here? Lhorne, please make this a secret, okay?” Alith said anxiously.
“Huh? Why?”
“It is embarrassing for others to touch your tails. “
“Ahh, I understand… I would feel uncomfortable, too, if someone else touched my body. But this something that must be done.” Sarielle nodded. “Come one. Off you go. Please check your tails thoroughly, okay?”
“Yay, I will touch Shiro,♪” Nora said excitedly.
“Ugh! I didn’t like it, but I had no choice.” I muttered as I gave out my body to Nora. She lewdly stroked my tail but stopped immediately after looking at the bandages covering my tail. She then stopped teasing me and inspected me carefully.
“Sana, what is this white powder?” Lily looked into her tail and found some kind of white object.
Roe of tailslayer. (dead)
Eggs of the worm-like creature that sucks blood from animal’s tailends. Live in aerated appendages such as tails or ears.
“Found the culprit,” I told Lily. But it is dead. I wonder what killed it.
We then triple-checked our bodies before cleansing our bodies with warm water from Lily’s magic, then spent another three nights doing nothing but staring at our own bodies and others.
Lhorne found a live egg on Alith and Sarielle’s hair and put it inside a glass bottle, where it hatched. He said that he would call some scientists to investigate this creature.