Reverend Insanity: The Goody Two-Shoes System

Chapter 463 - 463: First Earthly Calamity: Part Two

The boy responded, "There's someone there? Who's there? Are you friend or foe?""I'm friend," Wang Tian answered, hoping that that would be true.

He found the quiver and bow and kept them aside before approaching any closer, wary for any weapons the boy might have. When he saw the boy's face, he saw that the boy really was young, about Wang Tian's age.

"Hello," Wang Tian said, flashing him a smile. "What exactly happened? What are you doing down there?"

"Oh, you know, I was just feeling tired so I decided to crawl in here for a close nap - and WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? What do you think happened? I fell in here and I can't get out!" he yelled out angrily.

"All right, calm down. I'll help you out," Wang Tian said, and extended a hand towards the boy. He was heavy, and it took some effort as well as breaking a few of the surrounding rocks, but Wang Tian was finally able to slip him out of the narrow crevice.

"Thank you," the boy said.

Wang Tian got a better look at him now. He was dressed in a set of furs and was wearing a necklace made out of animal bones around his neck. Wang Tian had never seen a person like that before, but from his very brief assessment, it looked like this boy was wealthy - perhaps the child of a chieftain. Or maybe they were just different ways of depicting status from wherever he came, Wang Tian thought.

"Here, you must be hungry," Wang Tian said, offering the boy some of the mushrooms he had collected, as well as some water from the bucket he had stolen from the horse-riding group earlier.

"Thanks," the boy answered. After drinking the water greedily, he eyed the mushrooms with some suspicion. "Are you sure that these are okay to eat?"

"Sure, I'm sure," Wang Tian answered, and put one in his mouth and chewed it as a demonstration that he thought they were safe.

"All right then," the boy answered, nibbling on a mushroom.

"My name is Wang Tian," Wang Tian said after a while. "What's your name?"

"Wang Tian… I haven't heard of a Wang tribe," the boy answered, scratching his chin. "My name is Huang Fei."

Suddenly his eyes lit up, as if he had remembered something. "All right, I was supposed to be following them. Drat it!"

"What's wrong?" Wang Tian asked.

"Did you see a group of people riding reindeer nearby?"

Wang Tian nodded. "Yes, but I'm not sure if I should tell you about them or not. What's going on?"

"Those are my reindeer," Huang Fei answered. "My tribe was supposed to be keeping them, but then the earth split and started shaking. Some of the reindeer ran here and there, and then those men showed up and just grabbed a few of them!"

Wang Tian nodded. In times of chaos, it was perfect for people to take advantage of things. After all, that was exactly how he had managed to escape.

"So you've been sent by your tribe to get them back?"

"Yes and... no," Huang Fei answered. "Those reindeer are important for our survival. We rely on their meat as well as their milk to get along. The place where we live in - it snows most of the time, and it's not like we can grow crops or otherwise."

"Why don't you just leave?" Wang Tian asked. Though now that he thought about it, that seemed to be a silly question. There was a reason why most areas were already occupied by one group of humans or another. It wasn't like Huang Fei's family could just pack up and move whenever they wanted. Huang Fei endorsed the same.

"We can't move into other areas and just eat those fruits. Those reindeer could be the difference between life and death for my tribe. I couldn't just - the others told me that it was a fool's errand, but I couldn't just stand by and watch other people steal what we had," Huang Fei said.

"But there are four or five of them, and there's only one of you," Wang Tian pointed out.

"So what?" Huang Fei answered. "I can't just sit around doing nothing. I'm definitely going to go after them, even if it's just me alone." He found his bow and quiver and held them up in the air as if to show his determination. "Thank you for your help, by the way. Does your tribe live nearby, or… wait, are you reluctant to tell me where they are? That's also fine."

Wang Tian shook his head. "No need to worry about that. But do you need someone to come with you in order to help you take those reindeer?"

Huang Fei glanced at him with a blank look - a blank look that turned to suspicion quickly enough.

"Why exactly are you helping me? I'm just a stranger."

"I don't know. Something about your story just resonates with me," Wang Tian said. He shook his head. "I don't have any people anymore as it is. My tribe was wiped out some days ago."

"Oh, because of the earth shaking?" Huang Fei asked, eyes widening. He had heard that the damage was greater in some areas than others, but he couldn't imagine an entire tribe being wiped out unless things were really bad.

"No, they were killed long before that," Wang Tian answered. "For now, I've just been wandering the world and looking at its wonders. But I don't think I can let you go and fight those people on your own. With the two of us, our odds have doubled, haven't they?"

Huang Fei was suspicious of this random stranger, but then again, Wang Tian had helped him. From Huang Fei's perspective, Wang Tian looked utterly miserable. He indeed looked like someone who had been trying to survive in the wilderness on his own. His clothes were torn, he smelled bad, and he looked emaciated for the most part. He looked like a true barbarian that was trying to scrape by in the wilderness. So in other words, his story lined up.

'Maybe he's just doing this so that he can try to join the Huang tribe. Well, if he happens to help us grab those reindeer back, maybe I can speak with Father and he can join us,' he thought.

"All right then," Huang Fei said, shaking hands with Wang Tian. "But if we want to catch them, we better hurry up. They're mounted and we're not."

Despite the fact that the people they were following had mounts and they didn't, as well as the delay in trying to find them, they were able to make good time mainly because the terrain here was rocky and unsuited for traveling long distances with the reindeer. Not to mention, as far as Huang Fei knew, these people were not very good at riding reindeer - not like his own tribe.

They were probably just some barbarians trying to take them for their meat. They found the bones of a reindeer some distance away, indicating that one of their reindeer had indeed been killed.

"Hopefully, we can find the others, though," Huang Fei said.

A little bit further away they found human remains. It looks like an argument had broken out between the thieves. This person's body had been cleaned of all its valuables, including its clothing. Truly, there was no honor amongst thieves.

But something happened which had surprised Wang Tian. "Oh!"

"What's wrong?" Huang Fei asked him.

"N-Nothing," Wang Tian said. The gu worm in his aperture looked like it was recovering. Whatever it needed, it seemed to have obtained. If he had been part of a larger clan outside, he would've received some guidance on what his gu worms needed to eat. Right now though, all he could do was stumble along and experiment; hoping that he was on the right track.