Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 1323 - 109 Visitors?

Below the fortress made of white bones, the first and perhaps only batch of visitors arrived.

The closer they got to the Bone Fortress, the more towering and grim it appeared. Countless skeletons and Undead wandered among the bones, filled with the environment’s death aura. The sound of bones rattling, to the young girls raised on stories of the Undead, made the scene before them seem like a childhood Mare come to life, naturally invoking the fear and excitement they felt as children when they heard these tales. As for the Undead themselves, although they had sensed the living beings from afar, they did not respond as they did to other scouts, with attacks and intimidation to expel the intruders. Instead, they acted as though they saw nothing, allowing the visitors to approach the fortress and even watched them traverse traps and reach the rib bone chevaux-de-frise without any show of hostility.

"Your guess was spot on, there really isn’t any enemy attacking us," Catherine said, having easily bypassed the quicksand traps. She stopped courteously before the rib bone chevaux-de-frise without rashly climbing over or breaking the barriers, then turned back to Pannis and spoke, "If it weren’t for the consistent accounts from all the scouts who had reconnoitered and the envoys sent to contact the Undead, I might have thought the message was just someone’s sick joke."

"No one would use such a thing as joke material during a time of war," Pannis replied with a wry smile. "That could lead to very serious consequences."

"So I was just saying," Catherine stretched out her finger and touched the sharp tip of the rib chevaux-de-frise. The ribs were not only sharp but each one had several barbs like fishhooks, making it not as simple as a piercing wound to remove it once impaled. The knight girl frowned, clearly not fond of such a malicious design, but could only sigh and shake her head as she asked, "Pannis, why did you ask me to stop here?"

"Of course, it’s to wait for the Undead to come and check us out," Pannis shrugged and explained, "Since the Undead now have their own will and don’t attack us unexpectedly, as visitors, waiting for the host to welcome us is the least we can do in terms of courtesy."

"Visitors..." Catherine couldn’t help but chuckle at the word. To the living beings of the Yarran World, even knowing that the other party had their own will, using the word ’visitors’ for a group of Undead felt quite incongruous. Of course, her laugh was merely a subconscious instinctive reaction. The knight girl nodded, understanding, and obediently stood still. She held firmly onto two young girls, Lina and Vivian, whose curiosity and thirst for knowledge had them about to dismantle the rib chevaux-de-frise. Unable to escape Catherine’s hold, Lina and Vivian turned back and glared at the knight girl with accusatory eyes until Catherine released them, promptly thumping each on the head, only then did the disheveled girls hold their heads and quiet down.

"Shh, someone is coming," Freya poked Catherine’s back and whispered, "Umm, dead people count as people, right?"

"Be polite," Catherine glanced at the princess and whispered back, "I see them too, Pannis, standing still is all we need to do now, right? It feels a bit unsettling waiting for a group of Undead to walk towards us."

"I also find it awkward," Pannis spread his hands. "But, just think of them as Annie and Little Deer, would you feel nervous and uneasy if a group of Annies and Little Deers walked towards you?"

"Of course I would, one Annie and one Little Deer are already troublesome enough, who knows what a bunch of Annies and Little Deers would do to the house," Catherine exclaimed with wide eyes, fearfully saying, "That’s not just nervousness and unease, that’s outright despair."

"Okay, seems like you’re not nervous at all," Pannis realized worrying was superfluous and simply stared blankly at Catherine for a while, then said helplessly, "You’re not at all worried they might suddenly attack us?"

"Heh, not worried at all," Catherine lowered her head slightly, speaking softly, "because you said they wouldn’t attack us."

"Cough cough, big sis," facing Catherine’s exasperating behavior, Lina knew she had to do something, so she cleared her throat and interjected, "Although I really don’t want to interrupt your flirting, I think we forgot to do something before we approached the Bone Fortress."

Catherine, caught in her intention, blushed and made a threatening gesture at Lina but immediately covered her mouth with a gasp and said with a bitter smile, "Shoot, I forgot to let them out."

"You finally remembered," a resentful voice came from the compartment of Lina’s backpack, "I thought you’d never remember."

"You child, why didn’t you say anything?" Catherine quickly took Lina’s backpack, opened the compartment, and took out Little Deer’s scattered bones, saying apologetically with a smile, "Sorry, Little Deer, it’s my fault."

"Actually, Annie and I were peeking," as soon as she was out of the backpack, the little one began to slowly assemble her body. Ever since she was first taken apart in the Forest of Death, this had become one of Little Deer’s daily entertainments. Her movements were becoming more and more skilled, and she could still shout in Freya’s direction while distracted, "Silly Annie, stop sleeping, come out and play with me."

"I don’t want to play with someone who calls me silly. I did well in my language and magic script classes when I was little; I’m not silly at all," Annie said, refusing while already floating out and hovering around Little Deer, "On the contrary, you silly, with your dull eyes, you look dumb."

At the moment when the two little ones popped out, the approaching dozen or so Undead abruptly stopped in their tracks. Although it was impossible to read expressions on the faces of a group of skeletons, through the Soul Fire flickering in their eye sockets and the rapid rattling exchanges between them, it was clear how surprised the Undead were, and it was obvious that they were no different from normal sentient beings.

However, the two little ones didn’t notice the group of their own kind nearby. After assembling their bodies, Annie and Little Deer ran up to Pannis, put on stern faces, huffed heavily, and in unison turned their heads away, showing Pannis their discontent through their actions.

"Uh..." Pannis rubbed his nose with a wry smile, understanding what the little ones were upset about. He bent down to pat their heads, speaking softly, "Sorry, little ones, I shouldn’t have left you behind without saying a word. I apologize; can you forgive me this time?"

"Hmm... let us think," Little Deer and Annie bit their fingers, looking at each other for a moment, then simultaneously extended their hands toward Pannis, saying in unison, "You can’t do this again."

Pannis picked up both little girls in one go, smiling on his face but deeply sighing in his heart.