Kingdom's Bloodline, page 414
The hard, rocky land was still beneath his feet, and the boundless desert was still in front of his eyes. The wind was getting stronger and the temperature was rising.
As he sped up, Thales frowned. He found that the gravel under his feet was getting smaller, and his footsteps were no longer firm.
After ten hours, at dusk, he looked up after taking a miserly sip of water and found that no matter where he looked, be it the direction forward or the way back, everything around him had long since been replaced with yellow sand.
At some unknown point of time, he had reached the Great Desert.
Thales had this thought in his mind as he looked at everything in front of his eyes with a dumbfounded gaze.
'The problem is… Who is the person who will receive me from the Secret Intelligence Department? Did I miss him or took the wrong path?'
When he thought about the path he took, it only made him feel lost. Thales hesitated for a long time, and he finally decided to continue moving forward, to follow the direction in his memory and head all the way southeast to find an oasis and look for the Constellation army supply line.
Prior to this, Gleeward and Kurtz of Dragon Clouds City seemed to have foreseen that he would not stop moving even if he escaped from the city. They prepared in advance for the prince gear suited for travel, and Monty's two steeds were obviously related to the Secret Intelligence Department. The bags on the saddle were all necessary for crossing the desert: water, bread, salt, flint rocks, and included thick clothing and rope. He also had the two staves that he made when he was on his way to this place.
Once Thales finished checking his luggage, he felt that everything would be fine. However, the hellish trip he experienced told him that he had been wrong.
Thales had underestimated the Great Desert, it was far more frightening than he had imagined.
The soft sand on the ground seemed harmless, but in fact was very difficult to traverse. He stumbled with each step. When he climbed a slope, he would often slip down, and it was more difficult to deal with than the snow in the north during winter. Thales even felt like he had not walked more than ten miles on the first day.
The wind in the desert was so strong that Thales would be blown to the ground if he let his guard down. Once, when he climbed a sand dune, he was blown off, rolling and screaming down the dune, and there went his ten minutes' worth of effort for the climb.
After that, Thales was determined never to go up high slopes again, and he no longer went straight up these dunes. He would rather move along the ripples on the sand, because if he decided to go against the wind, the wind would also go against him.
The terrain in the desert was uneven. There were not just undulating dunes, he would also occasionally encounter huge sandstones and steep canyons.
After much difficulty 'exploring' the bottom of a canyon, Thales felt that it would do him good if he stayed far away from them. And so all the way he went thus. The first day, first night, second day, second night… All the way to the present—the fourth day in the desert.
Four days in solitude with no human in sight.
Step by step, Thales narrowed his eyes and tried to move forward. He tried his best to count the number of steps, took off his waterskin every time he moved a certain number of steps, and took a small sip of water to moisten his lips.
At some point in time, the sun rose higher and higher, and his surroundings got hotter. He could even feel that his skin under the thick cloth was sweaty, and his whole body was sticky, wet, stuffy and uncomfortable under those clothes.
But he must not take them off. Absolutely not.
Thales resisted the discomfort, clutched the staves, and walked down a slope with the wind in his favor. He could not help but frown when he looked at the area behind him. He felt as though he had gone the wrong way.
'Sh*t,' he cursed in his heart, then jabbed the staves into the sand. He observed the shadow of the staves projected on the ground, then looked back to get a stone before he placed it on top of the shadow.
After he entered the desert and suffered the first day, Thales encountered another problem over all the other problems he faced: The wonderful sense of direction he gained after his trip in the Black Track once made Thales happy thinking that he would never lose his way again. However, this wonderful ability failed after he entered the Great Desert. He could no longer feel the terrain and the direction he took under his feet.
'It seems that no matter how almighty and omnipotent a power may be, it would still have problems when adapting to a place.' Thales thought tiredly, 'If the Desert God really exists, he probably wouldn't welcome Silver Shadowman.'
When the sun did not shine too brightly and the sand was not hot, he sat down and rested for a while as he tried to identify where he was.
Thales took a sip of water and sighed. It had already been three days.
'Three days. How much longer? Another three days? How long will it take for me to meet reinforcements? Will I die here? This is really bad. F*ck!'
Thales shook his head and patted his cheek to calm his agitation.
'Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it.' Thales admonished himself. 'Arrive at the next destination first, then think about your next step.'
He was afraid that if he could not find the place, the stress would become too great and he would breakdown.
In fact, because of the long period of solitude, lack of communication, and monotonous scenery, the prince now felt that his mind was starting to turn mad.
His reaction was slowing down and his vision was becoming fixed to only one spot. His emotions were also beginning to grow unstable.
Thales chuckled and shook his head. No… He must not give up. He had to retain his composure until he found a way out.
And ironically, Thales had felt that the desert was not too dangerous during the first day. He had followed the trail of sparse vegetation at that time. At dusk, he had found a small, shallow pool under a huge rock.
There were even a few jackals gathered in a small corner of the pool. Whenever they took a sip of water, they would turn their heads around. It was a vigilant but inefficient way to drink water.
At that time, Thales was overjoyed and felt that he had beginner's luck, even though he was not playing poker and actually trudging through the desert. He happily slid down the sand dune to fill his waterskin.
But then, when he slipped to the edge of the pool, the ground beneath him caved in suddenly and his feet sank into quicksand!
The frightened Thales struggled, only to find that the more he struggled, the deeper he sank. In just a moment, his waist had sunk into the quicksand.
Thales' heart dropped.
It was only at that moment did he understand why the jackals would rather gather in such a small corner and drink water in such a miserable fashion instead of choosing to spread around the ostensibly large pool.
Only God knew how desperate the young man was at that moment.
If it was not for Thales activating the Sin of Hell's River just in time to calm down, force himself to abandon his struggling, settle his body level to the ground, and avoid sinking…
...then the Crown Prince of Constellation would have been a cold corpse in the desert a long time ago.
On that day, he shuddered and pulled out his bow and arrow from behind him. He tied a rope to the arrows, then shot twice—because his first shot had missed due to his hands shaking too much. He shot a strange tree in the distance and pulled himself out of the quicksand as he trembled.
With fear lingering in his heart, Thales chased the jackals away with arrows while they yipped in dissatisfaction. He then occupied that safe corner, shivered, and finally filled his waterskin.
This was the first time Thales came to really understand the dangers of the desert.
Thales, who rested under the sand dune, sighed and dragged his thoughts back to the present. He grabbed the second stone and placed it on top of the staves' shadows, which had now moved quite a considerable distance, causing the second stone to connect with the first stone.
Thales looked at the way he came from and frowned while he made comparisons with the line formed after the two stones were placed together.
'I have indeed gone off course. I have to correct it.'
He adjusted his direction to head southeast, grabbed the staves which he had used to determine his direction, and proceeded on his journey again.
*Swoosh...swoosh…*
The gusts of wind grew stronger. This was another threat of the desert.
Thales gritted his teeth and went over a dune while under the paired attack from the foul stench of his sweat, and the dampness on his skin. He raised his right palm over his eyes and looked for a place with lush vegetation that could be used as a shade, and which might also have a water source.
It was going to be noon soon. He had to be prepared for the next step.
He recalled the first noon he encountered when he had just entered the desert. He chose to camp at the bottom of a large sand dune to escape the sinister sun and the ruthless wind.
However, Thales woke in the afternoon with a mouth full of sand.
In his panic, he spat out the sand and was horrified to find that after shutting his eyes for two hours, the wind had fully covered his legs with sand and would soon cover his hands.
If he had slept for another half an hour…
Since then, Thales had learned that unless he wanted to find a free grave in the desert, he should never choose a place that was too low to rest.
The prince silently recalled the many experiences he had learned after suffering torment over the past few days. Then, he found a resting place—a small tree beside a steep slope.
Thales took a sip of water and moved on.
He struggled forward and felt that his body was becoming dehydrated very quickly. As the sun climbed higher and it became hotter around him, the energy and nutrients required for him to move around would increase exponentially.
'Take a break,' Thales thought very solemnly, and forced himself to only think of this goal at this moment. He needed to rest and avoid the hottest few hours in the desert.
The wind continued blowing.
He stared at the yellow sand slowly getting blown off the spot beneath his feet. Thales counted more than eight hundred steps before he finally reached his destination.
He hid under the shade and avoided the scorching sun.
Once he felt the sharp drop in temperature, he sighed and untied his headscarf and mask.
Thales was prepared to take a break, but he was not rushing to find an open space. Instead, he grabbed his staff, struck the ground with it, and pushed the surrounding stones away, preferably as far away from him as possible.
Thales did not forget that the first 'friend' he met in the desert was a rattlesnake.
On the second day after he had entered the desert, his exhausted self had wanted to rest under the shade of a tree. He plopped himself down on the ground, and had pressed on a slippery, cold object.
The 'object' jumped up quickly from the stone behind him and bit his forearm!
Thales was frightened out of his wits. The rattlesnake was obviously not satisfied that someone interrupted its nap. If it were not for Thales wrapping himself tightly in thick clothes like a madman after experiencing the bone-chilling cold on his first night, that bite would have most probably killed him, although Thales did not know whether the snake was poisonous or not.
When Thales recalled the frightening journey from that day, he subconsciously touched his left arm. The tear on his three-layered sleeves was still there. He carefully swept away the surrounding stones.
Sure enough, after a larger stone slab was lifted, a 'new friend' crawled out in discontent.
Thales frowned. He stared at the black scorpion that was half the size of his palm and watched its terrifyingly huge pincers as well as its not very eye-catching tail. He extended his staff, ignored its protests, and chased the scorpion into the distance.
He sat down while panting, then brought out his waterskin and the last bit of food.
Everything before him did not seem to have changed. It was just as the Old Crow had said. There were only three things in the desert: Himself, sand, and more sand.
Thales suddenly understood why the Old Crow mentioned sand twice.
During the past few days, everything that he heard and saw told him that this was a completely different world from the one he knew and was familiar with. It was a world a teenager who grew up in a city's slums, and had grown accustomed to life on the streets as well as in the castle, would not be able to imagine.
When he thought back on the countless dangers he experienced during the past three, short days, Thales could not help but curl into himself.
'The heat and cold here are equally fatal. Day and night are equally terrifying.'
In this place, the path to survival and danger existed at the same time in the same place. Usually, the number of animal bones found buried beside water sources—their fountain of life in the desert—would be the highest compared to other places.
He rarely saw living creatures in this place. Even if he had, the habits he was used to seeing in these creatures had changed while they were in the desert. The snakes in the desert never crawled in a straight line, but would bend themselves into the shapes of waves and 'shoot out' like a spring while they moved. The strange scorpions would dig into sand, as if they had made up their minds to not venture out unless it was nighttime. The rats in the desert look like they did not need to use their legs, because they rarely 'walked' normally. They preferred getting in contact with the sky, and would rather jump when they moved forward. The vultures in the sky would occasionally fly past in a flash as though they never had to stop. They would migrate into the distance every single day. The color of the spiders in the desert was practically the same as the sand itself, it was impossible for him to be able to tell them apart.
He had to be humble in this place. Thales remembered Hicks' words. He had to learn everything again, such as learning about the jackals by the water sources. From then on, Thales learned that he would at least not make too big of a mistake if he traveled by following the animal tracks.
Thales sighed and ate the last bit of cheese while he started to think about his most dire problem: He was out of food.
It was not that the prince had never endured hunger before. His life when he was in the Abandoned Houses had rarely given him a to chance to be full.
But he was in the Great Desert, and that was the worst.
And…
The person who was supposed to receive him was still nowhere to be found.
It was not that Thales had never tried to search for fruits on trees. In truth, he had indeed found some fruits and melons growing on some strange-looking plants while he was on a slope with the wind against him, and he had been almost unable to suppress his hunger… until he saw a dried-up corpse beside the plants.
'My god…'
Thales rubbed his forehead, feeling that his current predicament was full of suffering. Lord knew what sort of things could still be eaten in this desert.
At that moment, he managed to catch a glimpse of something with the corner of his eyes. The unfortunate scorpion whose nest was occupied still had not left into the distance; it was still poking and jabbing around the area in an attempt to search for another home.
As he watched that scorpion, Thales touched his rumbling stomach and scowled.
'...No way, right?'
Chapter 367: Sellsword |
Thales sighed angrily.
In the next moment, the scorpion discovered this: 'Having my nest destroyed is not the unluckiest thing.'
Thales' face was scary while he was above it. He lifted the staff and cruelly applied pressure on the scorpion while he fought intensely against himself in his own mind.
Finally, Thales swallowed dryly in pain and made a decision.
He took out the JC dagger and first cut out the stinger at the back of the scorpion. Then, as it struggled madly, he ended its life.
"The Desert God does not deliver disasters, but all lives in the world still perish. The Desert God does not need to forgive the desert, but all lives in the desert are still spared.." He picked up the brave scorpion, lifted it before his eyes and looked at it with an unpleasant expression. Then, he mumbled as though he was trying to comfort himself.
"Thank you for your sacrifice."
'Heroic scorpion who saved the Jadestar Royal Family and Constellation,' he added in his heart. Strangely, Thales felt much more relaxed after saying that.
It was probably because he had not talked for a very long time. He looked at the twitching and unconscious scorpion, and actually had a feeling like they were communicating.
At the thought of this, Thales suddenly shuddered as he realized where his line of thinking was going. He did not dare continue to think on it. He shut his eyes tight, then, with a pained expression, he bit the scorpion with great difficulty.
*Crack!*
'Oh f*ck!' With just the first bite, Thales' face contorted with agony.
The 'incredible' taste and smell passed through his teeth, his taste buds, and entered his sensory nerves.
*Crack!* The second bite.
'Savoury, juicy, crispy, chewy, and it saves lives.' Thales tried hard to think about these words and forget the unique texture in his mouth. The two scorpion pincers were outside his mouth and he bit them.
*Crack!*
This taste, it was like a rotting peel.
'Um, as I'm chewing, puddles of salty juices burst from the scorpion itself. It fills the mouth, and enters the throat.'
*Chew...*
'And… the soft flesh that tastes as weird as the shell... Ah, should I have cleaned the internal organs first?'
