Chapter 349. Clues
Charles and his crew remained standing for an indeterminate amount of time. Just as Charles felt like he couldn't feel his legs anymore, the Mudling moved first and stood before the net of Ropelings. He hopped about and yelled, "Wuwa!"
As the crew rapidly blinked, the Ropelings began to move and free them. Once the crew was freed, the Ropelings then moved toward the hole that Charles and his crew had dug and began filling it up. The Mudling went to help as well.
Now that the danger had passed, they completely ignored the existence of Charles and his crew.
The crew members exchanged odd looks, and they slowly lowered their weapons. No explanation was necessary for them to understand that the Ropelings had restrained them to save them.
"Tobba," Charles called out to his Navigator.
"I'm here!" Tobba pranced his way over to Charles. The jovial old man now had a new stub of newly grown white hair on the center of his head.
Charles stared at the old lunatic with a pensive look. Tobba was too unstable to be relied on, and no one could deduce when his words would hold any merit.
Charles glanced at the Ropelings that were moving away and asked in a low voice, "You could hear them earlier telling us to stop moving, right? Can you still hear them?"
"They're thinking of refilling the holes we dug to bury their fallen comrades back into the ground," Tobba replied.
"That's not what I want to know. Don't just stare at one of them. I want you to take a look at what they're all thinking," Charles said. N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.
"But they all have the same thought..." Tobba muttered and cast a worried look at the Ropelings. He pondered briefly before enthusiastically rushing over to the Ropelings and started chatting with two of them.
"Captain." Dipp's voice echoed next to Charles. With a dagger in hand, he stared worriedly at the Ropelings and said, "Shouldn't we get going?"
"The threat has passed, so why should we leave? We might be able to dig up intel about this island from them. They might be able to tell us the identity of that invisible threat altogether," Charles replied.
At this point, Charles had calmed down enough to understand that the Ropelings had been chasing after them to restrain them, not because the Ropelings wanted to strangle them to their deaths but to save them from the threat of the bizarre music.
But Charles' actions were understandable. He had explored quite a few islands after spending so many years at sea, but this was the first time he had encountered friendly natives.
The many life-and-death situations he had experienced had conditioned him not to take anything at face value and to be hostile toward anything nonhuman.
Charles soon told the crew his decision, and everyone shouldered their gear, clearly eager to leave.
It seemed that they couldn't quite relax around the Ropelings, even though it had been proven that the Ropelings had only been chasing after them to protect them from the killing harmony.
Charles and his crew embarked on their journey to the Foundation ruins, but the Ropelings blocked them once more before they could even take a couple of steps.
"Charles, they want to give us parting gifts," Tobba interpreted for the Ropelines.
The said parting gifts were soon presented before Charles and his crew—moldy Echo bills, a few gold and silver rings, and a gold tooth. They also shoved the naked Mudling toward Charles and his crew.
The Mudling scrambled to return to the Ropelings, but he was shoved away, making it clear to everyone that the Ropelings didn't want anything to do with the Mudling. The Mudling tumbled backward after getting shoved, and he wailed miserably like a child.
Under the piercing gazes of the Ropelings, Charles grabbed the moldy Echo bills and hurled the bawling Mudling toward Linda with his invisible tentacle before saying, "Bring him with us; let's go."
Under the watchful gazes of the Ropelings with their bizarre facial features, Charles and his crew slowly entered the forest. After a while, Lily glanced at the Ropelings behind them as they fell out of their torches' illumination and asked, "Mr. Charles, were they good people?"
"We can't say for sure, but they know the concept of payment, so it's clear that they've worked with humans before," Charles replied.
Lily nuzzled up Charles' cheek with her furry head and muttered, "I think they're good people. They protected us earlier, after all."
Charles glanced at the sulking Mudling in Linda's arms before nodding lightly.
Tobba allowed the group to save time wandering around the island, and the group soon found their destination, all thanks to Tobba's lead.
Charles could already see the Foundation buildings behind the tree leaves in the distance, but he couldn't find any elevator shaft.
"Throw me the monoscope here," Charles called out while clinging to a tree trunk.
Dipp hurled a monoscope toward Charles, and the latter snatched it out of mid-air.
Charle stared at the distant buildings through the monoscope. A door? Does the Foundation use a teleportation portal to travel to the surface and here rather than an elevator?
The Foundation had a penchant for exploiting relics, so Charles believed it was feasible. He swept his gaze across the buildings before dropping back down and turning to look at his crew.
"We're going over there, so leave everything we don't need here," Charles said.