Chapter 15: Checkpoint activated!
Translated by: Chua
Edited by: TN and Elkassar
Hearing Sheyan’s casual shouting, Lurtz took a step forward. His eyes glittering with furious savageness, reaching out for the giant bow behind him.
He had always hated the humans, yet this human in front of him was even more irksome (Not compatible along with his 3 charm). Hence upon hearing Sheyan’s scoldings against his fellow orcs, Lurtz fell a belly of fire. He wanted to sentence Sheyan to death with his bow immediately! Then turn him into dinner for the night.
But at this moment, Saruman’s doppelganger shook his head, gesturing lightly; yet this light gesture was like an immovable handcuff over Lurtz’s wrist, immobilizing him. He didn’t dare to move!! Lurtz released a frustrated grunt from his throat, wildly suppressing his rage. He wanted to vent his frustration and crush anything he could see. Yet in front of Saruman’s doppelganger, his only release was to clench his fist even tighter.
Sheyan picked up the knife and pincer, skillfully slicing away at this snow bear; cutting, draining the blood, cleaning and roasting it. He then begun an entire process to process it into raw materials for his ‘Strength of the bear’s flesh’. Saruman’s doppelganger’s eyes turned gentler. Perhaps Sheyan’s words may be rather exaggerated, but in this place, a familiar thinking assistant was indeed beneficial over an orc! Coincidentally, he was in the midst of a crucial juncture in his research, he really needed a capable assistant to settle certain trifling matters.
“Maybe allowing him to stay for a few days wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ll just dispose of him in the end.”
Thus, this notion floated into the doppelganger’s mind. Actually, he had been constantly pestered by these trifling matters like processing raw materials, and had been delegating uruk-hais to manage them. He had no choice but to admit, they were more brawns than brains, their efficiency was pretty terrible. Of course, it was because of Sheyan’s performance that allowed him to have this thinking.
No matter who, Sheyan was like a puny house fly that he could stretch out his hand and squash anytime, he couldn’t bother much; moreover, this fly was stuck within this impregnable web of the area! With this thinking, the doppelganger’s vigilance naturally receded into a minute, negligible degree.
“You will receive a cleaner residence. As for food wise, the orcs can only offer you raw materials for your own cooking. Of course, unless your taste is the same as them, you can disregard that.” The doppelganger emotionlessly voiced out.
“You can start work now, my slave will bring you to the cellar! Mr Seaman, it is 4 in the afternoon, I expect to see 10 batches of excellent quality materials by 8 at night! If not, you know the punishment you will receive.”
“You will definitely get what you desire, lord! But I have one final lowly request, it is merely a wave of hand for you.” Sheyan instantly struck while the iron was hot.
Saruman’s doppelganger halted his footsteps.
“I hope that during the period I serve lord wizard, My friend and my lover can enjoy a better treatment, and not be oppressed in that filthy cell. Apart from that, if I slave and labour for you but I realized that they have been stealthily executed, I will be devastated.”
Saruman remained expressionless, but he became more relaxed. A weak human who worried about hostages, what trouble could he cause? Hence, he very refreshingly nodded his head.
In actual fact, Sheyan had no intentions of causing trouble. He understood that being kidnapped by these orcs was definitely not for a ransom. He was roughly could guess the prisoners were merely awaiting a tragic and despairing outcome. Sheyan’s current deeds were just to prolong this duration. Putting it bluntly; even if everyone were to be dragged out to be executed, Sheyan would try his best to scheme and allow himself and Reef to occupy the last slots to be beheaded.
“Lurtz.” The doppelganger waved his magic staff, then lightly spoke. “I feel Mr Seaman’s requests are reasonable.”
Lurtz released another muffled grunt, then glared maliciously at Sheyan before striding out in big steps.
Then this formidable wizard indicated for Sheyan to follow, but he didn’t bring Sheyan to continued ascending the Wizard tower. Instead, they headed down, entering into an icehouse at the lowest basement. The icehouse was freezing cold, with massive amounts of frozen creature corpses. Shuttling back and forth amidst the freezing icehouse were odd yet strong creatures.
Their appearance resembled a weak edition of a terrestrial octopus. They had no bones nor torso, their intellect was relatively high. An enormous soft greyish head formed their head, with a single round massive eye.7-8 strips of tentacles extended beneath the head, and they used it to nimble travel and work. Sheyan observed the numerous pupils in the eye, sensing an unfeigned danger. It was obvious if he were to battle this creature, the critical focus would be against its damned eye.
This odd tentacle creature had a scientific name called an Ocean-freak, Brachiopod. He suddenly thought about that colossal octopus, an Ocean-freak known as the Watcher in the water near Moria, of the original storyline. Even the powerful Fellowship of the Ring didn’t dare to encounter it head on, and were forced to infiltrate through the mines of Moria. From how Saruman’s doppelganger addressed them, it vaguely suggested a relation to that colossal octopus.
Sheyan begun operating under the watchful surveillance of the ocean-freak. Don’t even mention escaping, even his personal freedom was vastly limited. He could only continue slaving, diligently and without slacking. Fortunately, his goal was to drag for time, moreover processing raw materials was an activity that needed skills. Hence, trying to skive easily went unnoticed by the ocean-freak.
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3 days passed by quickly.
Sheyan was shuttled to and fro from the Wizard tower daily, delivering processed materials; gradually he observed the surrounding terrain. His work rate could be said to be pretty high; after working he would head over to ‘ahem ahem’ with the elf maiden, and chat with Reef. He was really carefree and without worries. After the 3 days, Reef also noticed – Every sunny day, there would be a new batch of captives delivered out of prison and never returning. According to his deductions, they should’ve have been delivered to the wizard tower to used as guinea pigs.
Instead, Sheyan rejected that possibility. That was because he knew that although Saruman conducted experiments and research on the humans, he definitely believed that human’s weak disposition was not suitable for modifications. It could be said that humans did not have the qualifications to be his experiment guinea pigs. Hence, where the captives were delivered to had undoubtedly became a tremendous mystery.
Saruman’s doppelganger remained rather cautious of Sheyan, never allowing him to interact with deeper levels of his research. Yet processing these materials was also slightly beneficial to Sheyan. Previously, he could only process the raw materials of bears, foxes, and raptors. But within these 3 days, he experienced working with many other varieties of creatures; exceeding 10 varieties! The quantity he processed was in the hundreds.
This meant that at least 10 kinds of creatures could be refined, and concocted into various mixtures. The damaged, incomplete diary previously only allowed him to grasp 3 variations of the bear, fox and raptor. Yet it didn’t mean that he couldn’t take the initiative to attempt to mix other creatures to produce new gene mixes.
Amongst the creatures he processed, although 5 variations couldn’t be found in the present world, 5 other creatures existed in the present world. They were the wolf, freshwater fish, snake, dog and mantis. He planned to use these 5 creatures to experiment when he returned to the present world. If he didn’t try, how would he know if it could succeed?
Even though Sheyan tried his best to prolong his stay, the corpses inside the icehouse were gradually declining, less and less, and finally total emptiness. The ocean-freak then went out to notify others. Not long later, a thumping oppressive footsteps reverberated in. A sinisterly fiendish uruk-hai stomped in, casting a devilish grin at Sheyan. It was Lurtz.
“Filthy human, you have lost the rights to stay on. Scram from our sacred ground! Now!”
Sheyan’s heart sank, knowing that he had ran out of options. Sighing slightly, yet being able to drag out this 4 days duration, could be considered a victory itself. At least, half of the elves that were captured with him had been dragged out already, nobody knew where they went. When Sheyan returned to the prison cell, he suddenly received a notification from the nightmare imprint.
“Scanning: Contestant no.1018 has reached a checkpoint for this establishing party mission ‘Survival’ !”
“Warning: Contestant no.1018 has reached a checkpoint for the mission ‘Survival’ !”
“Warning: The difficulty will increase. From now onwards, you will be unable to utilize the interspatial region of your nightmare imprint!”
“Pointer: Party mission ‘Survival’ has various checkpoints. Every time your period of stay in this world has reached the relevant checkpoint, the survivability difficulty will be increased.”