LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 40: The Little Things in Life
Waking up from the best rest Esstrey had in a long time, she immediately regrets taking her nap. Her latest real estate acquisition is absolutely trashed, as if a giant spider clumsily strode in and knocked most things down. Roots and mushrooms are scattered all over the place, and a jar full of glittering powder smashed to the floor as well. The powder doesn't look dangerous, so Esstrey decides to check up on a more important matter first. Descending into the basement, she finds that her captives have been utterly slaughtered, with their heads looking drained of fluid. She quickly has some blood from the corpses flow through to the heads, and finds that all the brain matter is missing. If Esstrey knows anything about her situation it's probably the parasite gathering information while she was asleep, since it didn't kill her when it very much could it seems to be planning something else.
Heading back upstairs, she checks through her notes on the thing, and finds that as she predicted, it did indeed destroy the notes she had on it. Such a shame for the parasite that this notebook was a decoy set up to discover more about it. Pulsing a wave of blood magic through the shack, she finds the true notes still carved in blood beneath the nightstand. Using a nearby jar of blue liquid (which is apparently blood) she carves more information in the nightstand. It wiped the notes on it indiscriminately, regardless of language used. That means it must have gotten some sort of imprint on basic knowledge Esstrey knows, but it didn't know more advanced things like the nightstand carving. Furthermore, it didn't wipe anything else. Whether they were things as trivial as the surrounding area, or as vital as what the witch had in storage.
Esstrey fondles a small bag of magnesium hydroxide as she considers that last part. She knows a few more applications of this that don't involve curing heartburn or used as a laxative. Determined to fully translate the books, she picks up another recipe book of the witch, and opens it to where she left off. That's odd... it seems... readable somehow. Combine bloodroot with the leaves of dying kraz fig tree to create cough medicine, boil said cough medicine in slime extract and add dried pieces of the heart of any animal to create a basic health potion. Many more recipes that are simple to make are contained within the book, and the title of the book also becomes readable to Esstrey. 'Potions for Beginners, by the Witch of the Swamp' is the name of the book, and is most likely written by chicken wings or her predecessor.
Esstrey's research is interrupted by a life signature approaching the hut. Judging by the streams of the blood vessels, most likely a child. 1 meter in height, long snout, short and stocky build, and cold-blooded. Esstrey keeps reading through the books as the unknown creature closes the distance, contact will happen at any moment now. At some point, the child runs faster toward the shack, most likely seeing the busted down door the [Kobold]s made. Esstrey grips her shovel loosely as the creature stumbles inside, it looks like a small lizardman, with some more drake-like features than is usual with their kind.
"Great witch! Brood mother sick! Me wants brood mother not to die yet!" The small thing speaks in warbled tones of a different language, but she can still understand the lizard.
"What the hell are you?" Esstrey asks the lizard, and it just now sees Esstrey properly. The titanic mermaid towers far above it, and her tone is commanding. Esstrey doesn't know how she understands the lizard, or why she can talk to it, but such questions are for a different time and place.
"Me [Kobold]! Me descendant of mighty [Dragon]! Me Kuda!" Kuda states it with impressive pride, considering the mermaid currently looking down on the 'great descendant of mighty dragon'.
"[Kobold]? Again? Really? How many damn [Kobold]s are in this place? You know what, don't answer that. Here's a better answer, the witch you are looking for is dead." Esstrey returns to reading her book, and gestures for Kuda to leave with her claw.
"Where is body of witch?" Kuda doesn't get the hint and starts looking around the hut.
"I ate her, now get lost kid." Esstrey gets mildly annoyed, but quickly distracts herself with the contents of her book.
"You ate witch? That means you witch now! You cure mother! And Kuda not kid! Kuda great hunter in tribe!" Esstrey closes the book she was reading with an annoyed look on her face.
"Such confidence, to be making demands of me. I thought you were a kid because you are so small and incapable of recognizing the situation, but you really are an adult, aren't you? Fine, bring your mother over, she sounds like an excellent test subject." Esstrey has a predatory smile plastered on her face as she looks at Kuda, who seems wholly unaffected by the attempted intimidation.
"Yes, yes! I get mother now!" Kuda is still oblivious to the situation, and still very small. Her little clawed feet make rushed tapping noises as she runs out of the shack in some random direction away.
"Am... am I not intimidating anymore? Have I lost my touch?" Esstrey's pondering gets interrupted by a stab of pain coming from her tail, she swiveled around rapidly with a furious look on her face.
A small black cat that had embedded itself in Esstrey's tail sees that it has been spotted, and flees away into some dark corner of the hut. Esstrey for one, is simply left wondering multiple things happening during that entire debacle.
The [Kobold] bandit was capable of advanced magic, Kuda was completely unaffected by her intimidation attempt, and now a cat somehow managed to approach Esstrey completely undetected even when Esstrey can sense blood. What kind of dimension did she step into that the only thing that makes some sense is the one she's carrying in her spine?
