Chapter 456 Held Hostage
Bob woke up to find himself in magic restraining shackles in a cage. Jermine was in a similar shackle beside him, unconscious. The dragon imdiately panicked and tried to break the shackles using his pure strength but he couldn’t even transform. There was so sort of substance in his body that made him weak and the dragon growled. His first thought was to reach out to his master but after two attempts, he paled.
Zero wasn’t answering and he couldn’t reach Truen in the party call. What happened to them? Mii was also offline and the entire party appeared to be dead.
Quickly, he checked the summoning bond he had with Zero and felt a little relief when it was still there. Still, there was no pulse from Zero through their connection and that made Bob worry. What was going on and where were they?
"Eek!" there was a nasal squeal and the sound of soone falling from their chair before running away. The light was too bright and Bob was having a hard ti adjusting to it. He couldn’t tell who was there.
"The dragon is awake!"
There was a snort before an arrogant voice said, "See those shackles that they’re wearing? I made them myself so relax. Unlike Thomas, my stuff works. Technicians are unreliable."
Understanding dawned on Bob as he listened to the gnos talk. They were finally in gno territory but he didn’t speak. Now that they were hostages to lure Truen and Zero out, the dragon had to play it smart. His master tasked him to protect Jermine so he couldn’t afford to offend the gnos. He was completely at their rcy with these shackles on.
Why were they imdiately on bad terms with the gnos? That was one thing he couldn’t understand. From mory, gnos weren’t always this hostile. They were peace-loving folks with no desire for war. Wasn’t this why they chose to isolate themselves and live in the desert?
The alchemist gno called Wesley walked forward. He took a look at Bob who glared at him.
"You’re quite a young dragon," Wesley stated. "I thought they were extinct!"
Bob smirked. "I could say the sa about gnos. We thought that they were completely wiped out until we ca across Gnaway."
The na "Gnaway" made Wesley stiffen. "Nonsense! How can you know anything about Gnaway? You’re lying!"
Bob played it cool. It was easy to rile this gno so he might get the answers he wanted if he led the gno towards it.
"Really? And how would you know if I was lying? How else do you think we were able to track you down so easily when nobody else has succeeded in so many years?"
Wesley was enraged. "You didn’t know! You were just lucky that your summoner leader called a lucky find at the oasis! Nobody else would have known our location!"
Hearing that they knew about Zero and was watching them ever since the oasis, Bob decided to bait this hot-headed gno. "Is that so? How co we were told to head west then? My leader didn’t just summon a random creature, do you know who he summoned? He summoned a djinn. Don’t you think that it is a coincidence for a summoner to summon a djinn? Oh, did I ntion, that wasn’t the first djinn we talked to. We also talked to Raju who was quick to tell us everything about Gnaway. Is this how you treat your guests?"
Raju was a very familiar na and Wesley was thoroughly shocked. He was starting to have doubts about Bob’s words. Perhaps the dragon was not really lying.
"Turric," Wesley called the timid gno. "Tell Thomas to co over. The dragon is awake and he has stories to tell us. Also, tell him to stop trying to break the lamp and bring it over. He can tell us more about the two elves and where they went."
Without question, Turric ran to do as he was told. Wesley looked at Bob with an unsure expression.
"Tell the truth, why are you looking for us? You didn’t really co because Raju told you to, right? According to the legends, gnos are already extinct. Why cross the dangerous desert just to search for a species that has gone extinct?"
Bob shrugged. "You’ll have to talk to my leader for that. I don’t know anything, I’m just a hired rcenary with the girl here."
With this, Bob was confident that he could buy ti. He didn’t know what lamp they were trying to break but it doesn’t seem like the gnos have found Truen or Zero yet. This could be good news for him so he passed the ti by napping. His master was strong, they wouldn’t be defeated by gnos so easily.
Wesley couldn’t do much so he left to discuss this news with the other gnos. The dragon didn’t seem to be an ally of the two elves they blasted so it should be fine to let them go after wiping their mories. However, they wouldn’t do that before first finding the two suspicious elves. Nobody could disappear into thin air at such a point-blank shot of the nova canon. After all, the nova canon was designed to decimate countries and even shoot down the Gods sitting in Heaven.
Thomas said it before that the nova canon wasn’t sothing he ca up with. The mad technician kept whispering that soone taught him how to build this in his dream so he wrote everything down and built it based on the schematic of a dream. Strangely enough, that was the smoothest invention that Tomas ever made and the gnos agreed to never use it for genocide or revenge. They would only use it to protect their base.
With six gnos in the shelter, it would only be a matter of ti before they beco six aged corpses. They only wanted to docunt as much as they could everything they knew for a lucky explorer to learn everything they dedicated their lives to mastering. For all he knew, they could very well be the last gnos alive.
With a heavy sigh, Thomas wondered what the others would think if he proposed to teach the dragon all their craft before letting it go. At least this way, the knowledge they had could live on for a few hundred more years. It wasn’t every day that they received guests, this must be a sign of hope from the Heavens for their race.
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