Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 37

Indeed, as Charlie had said, the Darby Belly Fish reacted very blandly to swallowing a few large living people—strictly speaking, it wasn’t “swallowing”. According to the rabbit-headed shopkeeper, they were staying inside the fish’s mouth.

The space inside wasn’t as uncomfortable as everyone imagined. On the contrary, aside from the complete absence of light, there was nothing particularly uncomfortable. Perhaps this kind of fish had a unique ventilation system, as the space accommodating the passengers didn’t feel suffocating. The only oddity was the elastic sensation underfoot and along the walls.

This experience was very new for Duke Dwight and made him want to analyze the survival principles of this rare and exotic creature. As they entered the mouth of the fish, it seemed that the passengers themselves temporarily acquired the ability to change size, allowing them to follow the large fish through various rivers, streams, and even drainage outlets.

If all went well, the Darby Belly Fish would swim out of Syriacochi through the waterways and deposit them onshore at an appropriate location.

However, Dwight didn’t fully believe Charlie’s marketing spiel that the Darby Belly Fish was as docile as a sheep, content to be petted, and willing to carry humans. If such a rare creature, unseen even by him, were so naively simple, it wouldn’t have escaped human detection and survived to this day.

The tamer he spoke of must have taught him some trick, but the darkness provided perfect cover for the rabbit-headed shopkeeper, and Dwight couldn’t deduce what he had done before entering the water.

“It’s so dark.” Columbus broke the silence. Perhaps because his body was made of tin, he was more resilient than humans, so he was least reactive to the unfamiliar environment. “Charlie, are we moving?”

“Yes. The Darby Belly Fish is fast, but it decides the destination, so I’m not sure how far we’ll go,” the shopkeeper said gently.

Eugene took a deep breath. “This is really…”

He muttered something in a dialect that no one understood, but the tone suggested it was neither grateful nor complimentary.

Everyone but the shopkeeper could empathize with his feelings.

Honestly, although Charlie had assured them that the journey was absolutely safe, for heaven’s sake, they were in the mouth of a large fish—how could they know for sure that this unheard-of animal was herbivorous? What if it got hungry while swimming and realized it had a snack right in its mouth? That would truly be courting death.

Losing the concept of time and space could instinctively make one anxious. As time passed, even Shivers quietly regretted their hasty decision to embark on this venture. He thought they might have been better off with the flying contraption made of chairs. Although they would have no chance to struggle if something went wrong in mid-air, the current dark and quiet environment tested their mental and physical endurance even more. If it wasn’t his imagination, he might even hear the heartbeat of the large fish…

Years of tacit understanding allowed Dwight to sense, even without seeing, that his Knight Commander was a bit tense. The uncertain environment placed a significant burden on Shivers, who felt responsible for the Duke’s safety, though he wouldn’t readily show his unease like Eugene.

It was the first time Dwight “saw” Shivers so restrained. It seemed that completely enclosed and dark spaces could indeed have a significant impact on people, but personally, he felt okay.

Thinking this, Dwight suddenly paused.

He had just realized that, since stepping into the fish’s mouth, the rabbit-headed shopkeeper had not let go of his hand. Perhaps because the darkness and silence had drawn most of his attention, the Duke, who generally disliked unnecessary physical contact, had overlooked this detail. When he finally did notice, Dwight thought he would shake the hand off, but for some reason, his body didn’t react.

Perhaps in this environment, he found that the joined hands provided a miraculous supporting strength. The touch of skin conveyed a convincing sense of ‘not being alone’, more compelling than eye contact or voice. It was similar to the sensation of trembling from trekking through snow and finally holding a steaming cup of hot cocoa in hand. Even without actually drinking it, the warmth in the palm alone could produce a strangely comforting and stabilizing effect.

“Tell me about,” Dwight began, “the tamer.”

“Ah, it was in an autumn.” Charlie immediately grasped the Duke’s intention and began to speak in the tone he used for storytelling to the children in Maplewood. “Mrs. Mickey from next door rang my doorbell, complaining about the cat of the neighborhood priest ruining her herb garden. She wanted some thyme and nettles from me. I always welcomed Mrs. Mickey’s visits because she is a lovely, enthusiastic woman who never comes empty-handed. That day was no different. She brought deliciously fragrant fruit rolls, her specialty, still steaming when she set them on my table—oh, they smelled so sweet. After taking her herbs, she mysteriously told me, ‘Charlie, I guess you’ll have a visitor soon. You can serve them light coffee with fruit pie.’”

“I said, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Mickey. I’ll brew some coffee. But how do you know I’ll have a visitor?’”

“She said, ‘Ah, because there’s a foreign man standing on the street corner for half the day.’”

“I said, ‘But, foreigners don’t necessarily come to see me.’”

“Mrs. Mickey smirked and said, ‘Mr. Charlie, he’s definitely here to see you. Because I saw him hiding a dragon in his arms.’”

Charlie paused here. Sure enough, Eugene couldn’t contain himself. “A dragon? How is that possible? Everyone knows they no longer exist!”

Charlie chuckled softly. His voice was pleasant, articulate, and melodic, with the brightness of youth but also the maturity of age—a combination that significantly reduced the oppressiveness of the enclosed, dark space. “Don’t jump to conclusions so quickly, Eugene. Anyway, Mrs. Mickey was right. That foreign man really did come to see me. For some reason, he walked into my shop just after dusk, before the streetlights were lit, wanting to make a deal with me.”

“He told me he was a descendant of a tamer from the lost ancient kingdom of [Malta], whose ancestors had served the Malta royal family, possessing the ability to communicate with various rare and exotic animals.”

Dwight immediately asked, “Malta… the Kingdom of Gold?”

Charlie looked in his direction—though all he saw was pitch black. “You really are well-informed,” the shopkeeper sincerely praised. “The tamer said he’d been wandering the continent of Pennigra for fifty years, and everyone called him a delusional madman because no one had ever heard of such a country.”

The Duke pursed his lips and said nothing.

“I’ve never seen this name in any history book or map either, but the tamer claimed that not only does this country truly exist, it also…”

“It produces gold, unimaginably rich,” a voice with a metallic tinge continued his words. “Trees bear gems, rivers flow with honey and milk, drinking vessels are made of pure silver, and the palace roofs are made of gold. On clear days, that brilliant golden light can reflect across to the other side of the sea.”

At this point, Dwight paused. “But that’s just a fairy tale for children.”

The precocious Duke also had a childhood. No child was born enjoying obscure poetry, complicated history, or advanced arithmetic. He couldn’t frolic everywhere with commoner children, nor could he leave the castle at will. Therefore, before he became Duke, Dwight once bribed a lower steward to smuggle many leisure books into the castle for his amusement. Those children’s books, although also screened by the steward to ensure there was nothing indecent that the future Duke shouldn’t see, contained many whimsical fairy tales that didn’t really have anything objectionable beyond their absurdity.

Thanks to his superior memory, the adult Duke vividly remembered how many childish and crazy things he had been obsessed with as a child.

The Kingdom of Gold of Malta was recorded in one of the books smuggled into the castle, in a chapter of a collection of stories cobbled together by a third-rate writer. Because the book was crudely made and somewhat disjointed, it certainly wasn’t a bestseller at the time, and it was unclear how it had passed the castle’s screening to reach his hands. But young Dwight, being under strict educational supervision at the time, would read anything that wasn’t part of his curriculum, even a dull cookbook, and it was for this reason that he immediately remembered the name Malta when he heard it years later.

“I believe legends and fairy tales have a basis in reality,” the shopkeeper said. “And I have seen with my own eyes, that guest really did have the ability to communicate with animals…”

“Charlie, you haven’t talked about his dragon yet,” Columbus said eagerly.

“Don’t rush. I’m getting there. He did indeed have a little creature in his arms, but it wasn’t a dragon. It was a magical salamander with the ability to locate gold mines. He showed me how he could communicate with animals and taught me some tricks to tame rare and exotic beasts as compensation, one of which was the Darby Belly Fish. This species is quite widespread, characterized by a curiosity about humans and no malice. If handled correctly, the chance of summoning them and getting a response is quite high.”

Shivers, captivated by his story, interjected to ask, “If the Kingdom of Gold really exists, on which continent would it be?”

The Knight Commander believed that, compared to strange animals, the legendary visions of landscapes filled with gold were much more captivating.

Charlie chuckled lightly. “It remains a legend because no one knows where this country is. Even the tamer himself has never seen his homeland, as his ancestors had traveled far from home long ago. If such a place truly exists, it’s either powerful enough to dominate a continent or doomed to be destroyed by war. Perhaps being a lost country is the most fitting fate for it. After gradually disappearing into the flow of history, even some Malta people and exotic beasts who had scattered early on could no longer trace their homeland’s whereabouts, thus becoming foreigners, never able to return home in their lifetimes.”

Everyone fell silent.

Dwight then asked, “So, what deal did you make with that tamer? He gave you nearly mythical information about rare beasts, so you must have given him something equivalent in return. I guess you must have helped him find his way back home.”

To tame exotic beasts, coming from a land rich with gems and gold, the things considered valuable by such a tamer probably included directions, maps, or navigation to the Kingdom of Gold.

In other words, did this rabbit-headed shopkeeper actually know the real whereabouts of the now-vanished Kingdom of Gold?

Eugene naively said, “That’s right.”

“…This is a trade secret, not worth discussing.” Charlie smoothly deflected, forcibly changing the topic. “Honestly, this was also my first attempt at summoning a Darby Belly Fish. I was skeptical of this little trick before this.”

I don’t believe you at all.

Except for Columbus, this thought simultaneously crossed the minds of everyone else present. From the time spent together, not only had the shopkeeper shown the typical merchant’s silver tongue and thick skin, but his words also required careful consideration and skepticism—not to be taken at face value—if they didn’t want to be completely taken in by him.

This much was clear not only to Dwight and Shivers, but even the slightly less intelligent Eugene could feel it, thanks to his inherent cunning and caution.

The real naive one was the little tin soldier, Columbus.

He always took the shopkeeper’s words at face value. “The first time? Then how are we supposed to get out, Charlie?”

“Ah, as long as it thinks—”

The shopkeeper’s words were cut off as the previously calm, dark space suddenly shook like an earthquake, violently enough that everyone lost control and fell, sitting into the mouth of the Belly Fish.

The Duke suddenly had a bad feeling. His face fell, because the last time he felt this way, he was inside a flying box!

“Since this is your first time summoning this thing, then you can’t guarantee how we’re going to leave its mouth, right?” Dwight said unceremoniously. “Is it about to spit us out?”

Eugene: “I have a possibly inappropriate guess…”

Although it was dark and their faces couldn’t be seen, everyone looked uneasy. Before anyone could stop Eugene, he blurted out his guess. “It’s not going to pass us from the back, right?”

Even though he switched to a slightly more elegant expression in time, what greeted him was still a deathly silence.

Seeing the bad turn of events, the shopkeeper hurriedly interjected, “No, no, not at all.”

Just as he finished speaking, the oxygen in the dark space seemed to be sucked out in a second. Everyone felt compressed as if dehydrated, and it was getting tighter and tighter…

Struggling to breathe in the darkness, the shopkeeper managed to utter—

“Uh-oh.”

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