ebookland Chapter 229 Lintip
Chapter 229 Lintip
Amid cheers, Teacher Rebecca pulled the lever at hand.
Lilith felt a rumbling vibration coming from under her seat, which made her feet numb. The fog that had been lingering in the center of the venue finally dissipated, and countless rugged rocks and buildings rose from the ground, shocking everyone on the field.
"Wow! It's completely different from last year!" Lulu exclaimed as she looked at the stadium.
"Of course. How could those dwarves allow themselves to make boring and repetitive content? Even if Catherine doesn't want to bother, they won't agree!" Lilith smiled. She turned her head to look at the princess sitting on her left, only to find that she was serious again.
Why is Catherine so nervous when it comes to the competition? She patted Catherine's shoulder, but it scared her instead. Lilith couldn't help laughing.
"Don't worry, you have done what you can do, and you have done it well! Now let's just enjoy the game, my Lord President." Lilith nudged Catherine with her shoulder, deliberately knocking her to one side or another so that she could relax.
Catherine couldn't keep a straight face any longer. She gave her a compromising smile and stood up. "Okay. I have to go find Phoebe. I'm going to record the number of casualties this year—"
"You really can't stay idle..." Lilith sighed helplessly, and waved her hand to send her away in annoyance.
The competition venue was now fully exposed to the public. Unlike last year's seemingly random pile, this year the dwarves actually divided the venue into four areas of almost equal size. Separating these areas was a cross-shaped waterway nearly four meters wide. The color of the water was almost dark green. Either it was dug very deep, or there might be a lot of things in it...
"I don't know if the underwater watcher will come again this year, and whether its legs have grown back yet..." Lilith swallowed as she thought of the octopus feet that they secretly ate last year.
Madam Terra said that their broken limbs would regenerate, but they would not be as hard as before.
——Hehe, doesn’t that mean she’s more youthful? Lilith smiled longingly.
"Yes, yes, of course our venue will be different every year! Oh Rebecca, it looks a lot like a square chessboard, doesn't it?" Hurst explained excitedly.
The light lit up in different areas one by one, and the four teams entered the venue one by one through the small teleportation array.
The students who competed this year had watched last year's competition and were much more cautious than last year. For example, the team tied with red cloth strips was in no hurry to invade other people's territories. Instead, the ten of them huddled together and conducted a carpet search of their own teleportation points. They believed that even if they encountered trouble, at least they could solve it alone without having to face attacks from different forces.
After almost being wiped out by the underwater watcher last year, all teams carefully avoided the waterways for fear of being swept under again. However, the creatures in the water could no longer remain patient, and while the Red Team was busy looking for caves or reward boxes on high places, something took advantage of the cover of the grass, slowly climbed up the shore, and shrank into the shadow of the haystack.
Not only that, a short but extremely agile boy from the red team climbed up a dead tree and pulled out the box that was stuck in the inner wall of the tree. However, this action startled the children sleeping inside.
Before the boy had time to open the box, he heard a strange buzzing sound, like the sound made by wild beehives in the mountains.
"Rupert, don't move!" his teammates shouted at him suddenly, frightening the boy so much that he froze in place.
But it was too late. Rupert looked at the dark tree hole where the box was taken out, and pairs of green eyes lit up one after another, staring at him in unison. Goose bumps immediately spread from his back to his neck.
Rupert tried to evacuate the crooked dead tree gently, but a group of dark shadows suddenly burst out from the tree hole, like a sudden burst of black fog, instantly blocking everyone's vision.
"Oh, giant fireflies, they have a bad temper..." Instructor Hurst sighed, "But when we have no food, roasting them is delicious."
But the students in the competition venue had no time to think about how to eat these things. These giant fireflies were worthy of the word "giant". Each one was the size of an adult's fist, with shiny black mouthparts. What Rupert thought was an eye before was actually the light-emitting organ in their abdomen.
They gathered into a formation in the air and pounced towards the crowd below with their fangs and claws bared.
"Wow, it's not yours! What's wrong with me taking it? Why are you so angry?" Rupert put the box aside, hurriedly picked up his weapon and joined his teammates. He hid in the shield held up by his partner and shouted provocatively at the giant firefly.
"How come we run into such a troublesome thing right when we get here? You are so unlucky." His teammates frowned as they looked at the black shadows in the sky. Such a big insect was really creepy. It felt like the shiny black mouthparts could tear off human flesh in one bite.
Enemies from the air are always troublesome, and you can only delay time and release large-scale spells to try to clear the field.
"Why am I so unlucky? You didn't understand last year's game at all!" Rupert was very dissatisfied with the criticism from his partner and turned around to argue with him.
"High risks bring rewards. Have you forgotten the senior who jumped into the water last year and took the box off the watcher in the water? This box has traps all over it, so there must be a reward inside!" Rupert was full of confidence. "If you don't believe me, I'll open it for you right now - eh?!"
Rupert looked down at his feet. The box he had placed there before was gone?!
A strange, shrill cry was heard, and Rupert looked in the direction of the sound. A strange, black creature was running and laughing in the grass, holding the golden box that he had just found with great difficulty. It turned back and looked at him provocatively, as if it was proud of the success of its prank.
"…What is this?" Rupert and his partner were amazed at the strange creature that looked like a mouse and moved like a monkey.
"Oh... this is..." Instructor Hurst squinted his eyes, raised the telescope and looked carefully at the field, and finally confirmed, "Isn't that Lintip? I tried to talk to them before and invited them to drink dew, but they laughed and ran away. Tsk, what a weird guy who likes to play pranks."
"Lintip? Isn't that a monster in nursery rhymes that likes to play tricks on people?" Lilith remembered the story that Teacher Kenny told her when she was a child. This thing actually has a prototype? It looks like a water monkey...
"You've even seen this thing?" Teacher Rebecca looked doubtful. Even she sometimes couldn't tell whether what Hearst told every day was bragging or his real adventure story.
"Of course it's true!" Hester vowed, "They are old residents of the Pathless Forest. I suffered a lot there."
Rebecca looked over in surprise. The Pathless Forest... isn't that... the outskirts of the elves' territory?