Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 777 - 42 - Hunter’s Temporary Residence_1

Chapter 777: Chapter 42 - Hunter’s Temporary Residence_1

"Hiss, you guys came out much sooner than I expected." As soon as Catherine’s voice faded, the girls felt a sudden haziness around them. Through the blur, Catherine seemed to see a pair of eyes again, ordinary yet steadfast eyes, Nellie’s eyes. However, just as she tried to take a closer look, the Inherent Psychic Domain shattered, and the distinct hissing sound of the Lizardman speaking rang in her ears: "I thought it would take you at least an hour or two to come out."

"I think you guys are the ones who are really fast," Catherine turned around to see Galantis next to her. Seeing the distance between herself and the Lizard Lady, Catherine couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they ended up in the exact same spot when they returned from the Psychic Domain to the Living World. Of course, such a thing wouldn’t happen, as if a person’s emergence from the Domain had any obstacles or the space couldn’t accommodate the person’s body, their emergence point would automatically shift until there’s enough space. Despite knowing the answer, the knight couldn’t help but ponder, but it was more of an innocuous imaginative thought than a serious question. Turning back, Catherine smiled at Galantis, playfully grabbed and shook the large tail that the Lizard Lady extended towards her, and assured, "Sorry for making you worry, but rest assured, we’ve killed all three Marsh Stalkers, we’re all fine, almost unscathed, everything went smoothly. But you guys gave me a fright as soon as I came out, you’ve set up a temporary dwelling so soon, are you planning on camping so early?"

Catherine was right, the Lizardfolk were indeed fast. It had been just over fifteen minutes since the six of them had entered Pannis’s Inherent Psychic Domain, yet a rudimentary Lizardfolk temporary dwelling was already standing in front of the girls. The Lizardfolk’s temporary dwelling was unique, built in the midst of a broad swath of mud. This swamp was situated near the former hunting grounds and stretched over two square kilometers, swallowing up everything with its sludge. Apart from the suguwood thriving within, there was only reed that reached half the height of a human. Technically, even Lizardfolk and magical swamp beasts can quickly dash through such mud, but will slowly sink into the swamp if they linger for too long, let alone camp in the middle of it. Yet, the Lizardfolk managed to set up a seemingly nice camp in these conditions.

"Hiss, this can’t be deigned fast," Galantis said, flicking her forked tongue, "Setting up camp in the outdoors is an instinct for us hunters, hiss, particularly in a swamp. The first skill a child learns is probably how to camp in a swamp, so it’s really quite slow to take over ten minutes now."

"But you also had to rescue the injured and clean up the battlefield," Catherine shook her head, "Adding all those tasks together, you have barely ten minutes to set up camp, we couldn’t achieve such speed. Also, your method of setting up camp is... ingenious."

It was indeed ingenious. As experts living in swamps, the Lizardfolk’s method of setting up the camp was tailored for swamps. The camp was set up right in the middle of a sizable swampland, with a layer of pad to separate the base of the camp from the mud. This layer was made up of a large number of triangular objects, overlapped like fish scales, laid across the swamp. They featured suguwood frames assembled from three sticks over a meter long. Suguwood is light in nature. Following the Lizardfolk’s special craft treatment, the wood became much more flexible and could hardly be broken manually. In the center of the triangular frame, a thin animal hide was stretched tightly. The hide evidently also underwent processing. It appeared as though it was split into several layers from one piece of hide, so each layer was as thin as paper; it’s a mystery how the Lizardfolk managed to do this. If you throw these wood frames with stretched hide into the water, they won’t sink, not to mention when spread over mud. Even if you try to sink them by stepping on top, you’d find it difficult.

They didn’t just make one of these frames but tens of thousands. Since both the wooden sticks and hides were extremely light, the hunting team assigned dozens of members to carry large bundles to store them. Once they were needed, each hunter would receive some of these units, assemble them into a floating surface on top of the swamp by layering them alternately, and connect them all to form a mobile platform. When people step on it, they won’t sink into the swamp as the force is distributed across the surrounding frames. All they would feel is a soft ground beneath their feet. Of course, anyone unfamiliar with it would probably trip due to the unstable footing, but if you have good body control or have grown accustomed to this way of walking, it would feel very relaxing.

Above this artificially made surface, a thick layer of dried soil was laid in the center and a dozen similar spots were arranged around in a ring shape. This was where the food was cooked. It was paramount to keep the fuel and the hide-wood combination underneath separate; otherwise, a fire could easily occur. The fuel for cooking was obviously the reeds that originally filled up the swamp. The camp’s exterior was surrounded by a fence made from large wooden shields from the shield-bearers. Every few meters, they drove one shield into the swamp at an angle, and then used vines to link every shield, with wooden poles placing behind the shields – thus, a fence was easily set up. As for the interior of the camp, there were no tents, just sleeping bags made from animal hide. When night falls, the Lizardfolk would bunch around the bonfire, crawl into their sleeping bags and fall asleep to the sky made of suguwood branches.

"Hiss Hiss, come in and sit, you guys should not be that in a hurry to get on the road." Seeing that the six had returned, the elderly Lizardman, Graneer, walked over from the camp. The moment he got closer, he noticed the neatly chopped pieces of meat scattered on the ground, and couldn’t help but frown, "Is this a special way of processing game? Such large prey is chopped into such small pieces, seems a bit too much. It also seems wasteful seeing that the quality of these chunks of meat looks pretty good."

"Unfortunately, you can’t eat Marsh Stalker’s meat, it’s too poisonous. Even demigods would feel uncomfortable after eating it." Pannis shrugged his shoulders, kicked a piece of meat at his feet, and continued, "On top of that, these chunks of meat have been subjected to the baptism of a special energy, which can be considered as a sort of deadly poison. Okay then, let’s go in and have a sit. I have lots of questions for you all." (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to recommend and vote for it on qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)