Volume 6 Chapter 69

Volume 6 + Chapter 69: The Mad Bard?

Balan stood atop the carriage, laughing maniacally without pause, uttering incomprehensible words that sent chills down everyone’s spines.

“What exactly are you trying to say, Balan?” Bear One asked.

“Can none of you hear it? Then let the ‘wind’ tell you!”

“The wind? What wind? Where is there any wind?”

Bear One was completely baffled.

Xia Yi also found it very strange. After all, where was there any wind nearby?

She didn’t even feel the air moving.

“Captain, isn’t this elf the guide you hired? Why is he talking nothing but nonsense?” The dwarf merchant glared at Bear One. “Is he reliable or not?”

Everyone in the mercenary group felt that Balan was becoming increasingly abnormal.

How strange, back in Sanger Town, Balan had been perfectly normal as an elf.

So why had he started acting so unhinged after approaching the Elven Kingdom?

“Where the hell is this wind coming from? Balan, get down from the carriage roof right now! Do you still want your payment or not?!”

Bear One climbed onto the roof and forcibly dragged Balan down.

After a while, Balan’s expression calmed, and he seemed to return to normal.

“Hmm? What’s wrong? Why is everyone staring at me?”

Balan looked puzzled.

“Aren’t we going to continue?”

“Balan, what were you ranting about on the roof just now?” Bear One asked.

“Ranting? Did I say something?” Balan countered.

“Everyone saw it. Don’t try to deny it!”

“Don’t be so tense. I was simply communing with nature, it’s a special ability of the elves~”

Balan smiled faintly, played his harp, and used his bardic abilities to soothe everyone’s tension with magically infused music.

The bear-men held a brief discussion, decided to trust Balan’s explanation for the time being, and resolved to continue their journey.

“…”

Xia Yi stared at Balan in silence.

Sensing her gaze, Balan lowered his head slightly. “Milady Xia Yi, I hope my communion with nature just now did not frighten you. If it did, I truly apologize.”

“Do all elves commune with nature like that?” Xia Yi asked.

“Every individual is different.”

“What exactly is this ‘wind’?”

“‘Wind’ is simply ‘wind’, it is not a thing. One can only feel it with the heart.”

Balan plucked his harp, transformed into a riddler, and spoke an incomprehensible riddle.

Feeling that further conversation with Balan would only yield junk information, Xia Yi gave up on the dialogue.

…

The Bear Dominates the World mercenary group escorted the dwarf merchant deeper into the Elven Kingdom.

As the convoy advanced, the fog grew thicker and thicker.

Compared to the thin mist near the border of the Elven Kingdom, the interior had become shrouded in dense fog, visibility extremely low, the surrounding environment nearly indiscernible.

Due to the thick fog, the convoy’s speed slowed down.

“Big brother, the fog keeps getting thicker. We can barely see the road!” Bear Two reported to Bear One.

“Have the brothers light their lamps,” Bear One ordered.

“Okay.”

Bear Two called his subordinates and notified everyone in the convoy to light their magical lanterns and hang them on the carriages.

Although this did little to improve visibility, it gave everyone some peace of mind.

“Why haven’t we seen a single elf so far?” Bear Two asked doubtfully. “Big brother, we haven’t even seen any magical beasts. Is this normal?”

“Well…”

Bear One couldn’t answer either.

If the absence of elves could be explained by not having reached any towns, surely there should be some highly aggressive magical beasts in this vast forest?

Based on Bear One’s past mercenary experience, after traveling such a distance, they should have been attacked by magical beasts at least three times.

But so far, they hadn’t even heard a sound, let alone seen a shadow.

Was this really the Elven Kingdom?

“Balan’s directions are correct, aren’t they? We haven’t been going in circles, have we?”

“…No, we’ve definitely been moving forward. This route should be right,” Bear Two replied.

“Go ask Balan what’s going on.”

“Alright.” Bear Two nodded.

Bear One and Bear Two went together to the carriage where Xia Yi and Balan were.

Balan was playing his harp alone, singing a song. The lyrics were not in Elvish but in the common language of the continent, their meaning unclear.

“The chaotic world shall eventually descend.”

“Perish.”

“Destroy everything in this world.”

“A pitch-black tide sweeps across the land, and all life will be reborn, “

Because Balan was a bard, his music carried magical power. This song was quite peculiar, sending chills down the spines of those who heard it and making them dizzy.

Whereas his previous pieces had calmed the mind, this one induced panic.

“Balan, what in the world are you playing?!” Bear One demanded.

Balan, however, turned a deaf ear and continued playing his own tune.

“Balan has been like this for a while. He doesn’t listen when you talk to him,” Xia Yi said helplessly.

“Big brother, leaving him like this doesn’t seem very appropriate, does it?” Bear Two had never encountered such a strange elf either.

“Well…”

Bear One was equally confused.

After thinking for a moment, he decided to try to snap Balan out of it.

But just as he raised his hand, Balan stopped playing, stood up, threw his harp to the ground, took a few dazed steps forward, and muttered to himself, “Angry, it’s angry!”

“What’s angry?” Bear One frowned.

“The ‘wind’ is angry! The ‘wind’ does not allow outsiders to enter here!!”

Balan became extremely agitated, running toward the front of the convoy while shouting.

“Stop, all of you stop!! No more advancing, the ‘wind’ is already angry! All of you, get out! Do not set foot here! This is a warning, the final warning!!”

“I can’t stand this mad elf any longer!!”

Bear One reached his limit. He ran over, pinned Balan down, and called for others to tie Balan up with ropes.

Even while bound, Balan continued shouting hysterically, urging Bear One to withdraw the mercenary group and everyone else from the Elven Kingdom.

This put Bear One in a difficult position. Although no tangible danger had appeared, the abnormalities along the way had already made him uneasy and tempted to turn back.

“Employer, it seems our guide has gone mad. What do you think… should we…”

Bear One’s implication was clear, he wanted the dwarf merchant to give up.

“No retreat! If we retreat, my business is ruined! Even if we have to die, we’re entering the Elven Kingdom today!!” The dwarf merchant was adamant.

“Run, run, run for your lives!!” Balan’s eyes were bloodshot, his lips trembling as he screamed desperately.

The dwarf merchant said angrily, “Gag this madman’s mouth, “

But before he could finish, he was cut off.

Thud, thud, thud…

The earth trembled, and an unimaginable anomaly occurred.

[Translator’s Note: Please join the Gravity Tales’ Discord Server, if you want to hang out.]

[https://ko-fi.com/golden_dragon]