chapter 93: cowabunga, dude!

I let out a deep breath after I descended. The body that I chose was that of a fairly normal elf with pitch black hair going down just below my shoulders. Taking in a deep breath, I felt a small smile tug at my lips as I smelled the salty air. The area that I chose to descend at wasn’t the capital but a site which had become even more busy over the years.

As I had descended a short distance away from the nearest town, I began walking at a brisk place as I checked my surroundings. Behind me laid a wide meadow which continued as far as the eye could see, while in front of me I could see a dirt path leading towards a beach. Among the beach were several large rocks that had been uprooted and reshaped, turning into a statue of Ryone.

I could even see the distant town, just at the edge of the grassy landscape and overlooking the beach. It seemed far more developed than I had expected, with several tall buildings made of white stone, and almost seemed to glitter with the ocean behind it. Just beyond the statue, there was an archway made of stone standing above the dirt path. Even though the writing seemingly scribbled on it was far from english, I could still clearly read it.

‘Cau Buhnga’, according to the translation that the system provided, it loosely meant ‘Shielded by the Goddess’. This was the very city that Ryone had stepped forward to protect all those years ago from a tidal wave, and her efforts did not go unrewarded. Aside from the statue, they had even renamed the city itself after that event it seemed.

The one thing that confused me was the complete lack of foot traffic. It was already well into the day, so I had expected there to be quite a lot of people moving about. In fact, when I had casually looked at this place on the map in the past, it had indeed been even more busy than even the capital city of the elven kingdom.

Curious about what was going on, I increased my pace slightly, taking a moment to assess my character sheet, as it had been quite a while since I had descended to look at it.

Note to self, children, level fifty stats are a FAR cry from level two thousand five hundred… I thought to myself when I nearly tripped over my own feet after seeing my Keeper stats. Of course, if Terra’s words are true, then I won’t grow too much past this for a while. Though there may still be some powerful existences in the future that are at the peak of their classes, so I may get a buff there.

Still, that made me definitely decide to keep as low of a profile as I could, and not reveal my Keeper abilities. Glancing around, I decided to perform a quick test, moving over behind the statue so that those in the city wouldn’t be able to see me, even if they were outside. Reaching into my bag of holding, I pulled out the sword that Tubrock had ‘given’ me.

Using only my normal strength, I placed my finger on the edge of the sword, hissing lightly in pain as a small trail of blood flowed from an open wound. Okay, so that really is sharp. I hadn’t even pressed down when it had already cut into me, and I had no doubt it could have chopped off my finger like it was nothing if I had done so. I even lost a single point of health from that!

Next, I focused, drawing on my Keeper abilities, though I kept my mana and ki sealed to avoid detection. This time, I obviously used a different finger and pressed it on the blade of the sword again. To my surprise, I felt the cold edge of the blade pressing against my finger, but there was no feeling of pain. Pressing harder, and I felt only mild discomfort. Curious to see just how far this went, I actually gripped the blade in my hand and squeezed, finally managing to draw a bit of blood.

However, even then it barely hurt, and as soon as I let go of the blade, the wound healed quickly. Okay… so my skin really became tougher with the boost in stats. Quite a bit so. I mused to myself as I stored the blade away once again, returning myself to a normal level of power. If it was like this, I could be considered to be wearing heavy armor at all times when in Keeper mode.

When I stepped away to begin moving towards the city again, I winced slightly as I noticed two deep footprints where I had previously been standing. Okay… so I get heavier too. That is good to know.

Shaking my head, I finally made my way towards the city. Quickly dismissing the notification that I had gained a Scout level as I did so. This was my first Scout level, so it similarly came with an ability. Though, this ability was just a mental compass, which apparently let me identify north.

There were two guards standing at the wall surrounding the city near the gate. Though, instead of on the ground in front of the gate, they stood atop the six meter high wall, with one watching outside the city and the other watching inside. “Who goes there!?” The guard watching outside called to me in an almost panicked tone, and I could definitely tell something was wrong by now.

“I am Jayl, a traveler. What is going on here?” I called up to the guard, the other one still not turning around even though he knew there was an outside at the gate.

“You haven’t heard? Get inside somewhere, quick! The ninja turtles are coming!” The guard let out a panicked warning, causing me to stop dead in my tracks. Ninja… turtles? Now that I could see inside the gate of the city, I saw that all of the doors for the buildings were closed. Some even had gone so far as to mold the marble stone of the building to cover part of the door to truly lock it.

“Where am I to get inside?” I called up. “All the buildings have shut themselves.” While a ninja turtle sounded rather amusing, I didn’t want to underestimate anything that would throw a town like this into a panic.

The guard stared for a few moments, before realizing that the city had already gone into lockdown. “Uhm… The wall! Here!” He slammed his hand down onto the surface of the wall in front of him, and multiple protrusions emerged to serve as handholds to climb up. “If you don’t want to die, climb!”

Well, faced with that choice, there really was not any reason for me to refuse. Hastily, I grabbed onto the first protrusion, and quickly climbed my way up. Even though I was still fairly low leveled, I was able to climb to the top of the wall within a minute. And after getting to the top, I finally saw what the guards were so worried about. “They’re here.” The one watching towards the ocean muttered as I stood up.

I could barely make them out from this distance, but I could see a large number of shapes moving out of the water. Each one seemed to be moving at roughly a walking pace, so they did not seem too frightening. At least, not until I looked closely to inspect the information on them.

Okay, so they really are ninja turtles. That, or the system called them that because it is what the locals identify them as. I was wondering why this was, until I saw the one I was focusing on abruptly vanish, moving over a dozen meters forward with a single step. Oh… f***, they have chakra. That means that they can use ki and mana, too…

I was suddenly very glad that the guard had been kind enough to bring me up here. “I don’t suppose that they can climb the wall, can they?” I asked, looking over to him. He was wearing leather armor, with a bow and quiver on his back. His hair was golden, and his features sharp.

“No, thankfully. Else, we wouldn’t be able to keep watch during their tide.” He answered, letting out a sigh of relief.

“This happens often..?” That was a disturbing thought. I might be able to survive if I went down there, but only if I activated my Keeper abilities. Even then, there were at least a few hundred of them.

“Once every year.” The guard says, turning back around to once again look towards the meadows. “The ninja turtles surface from the seas and move into the town to look for food, staying for three days and nights, before finally leaving into the seas once more. The first time, we lost nearly half our men and women to them, so we don’t allow anyone outside during their ‘visit’.” He says the final word with an ugly expression.

“Have you guys considered moving the town?” I had to ask, though I did feel somewhat guilty. I knew that these turtles had to be a result of buying the fifth tier of monsters, due to their abilities.

The guard turned to look at me as if I had considered blasphemy. And, in truth, maybe I had. “You really don’t know where this is, do you?” He asked, doing his best to keep his expression calm. “This is the city of Cau Buhnga, the land where the goddess herself appeared to protect her people. We cannot forsake that favor by moving the town after the danger has passed.”

“They made it to the feeding ground.” The other guard interrupted, reporting the progress of the turtles. When I turned back, I found that they had completely vanished from the beach already, and were instead well inside the city. They had begun surrounding a circular building with an open roof, inside of which was a pile of animal corpses. I could see some that looked like boars, or giant lizards, all haphazardly piled up.

There seemed to be a few ditches dug into the ground beneath the wall, allowing the turtles to gradually move into the ‘feeding ground’ to get at the dead animals. “This is why we don’t leave.” The guard that had been talking to me said. “We are able to deal with them… we just have to give them what they want.”

Okay, so the ninja turtles are carnivores… I can understand why they can be seen as a natural disaster now. “So… do the two of you just stay up here for three days and wait for them to leave?” I couldn’t help but ask. While this was certainly one way to see the elven culture, it is not quite what I had in mind.

“Someone will send us rations once a day, by means of a flying animal.” He said, pointing to a nearby building with a large open window near the top. “Though, I suppose they’ll need to send another portion now. If they see anything moving along the ground, they swarm at it. So, you can’t exactly leave until they are gone, unless you want to try to outrun them…”

And it was unlikely that outrunning them would even be a possibility for a normal elf, given their ninja abilities. “No, I’m fine staying up here for a while. Mind if we talk a bit, though? It doesn’t seem like any of us are going anywhere…” Why can’t I just descend and find a normal city?