Ch.403Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

A black wave surges across the golden fields, taking flight, and an eerie noise cuts through the blue sky.

The sound of thousands of locusts rubbing their wings together is more grotesque and nauseating than one could imagine.

Flames burn the vegetation in the wake of the black locust swarm.

The fire flickering in the breeze above the densely grown underbrush creates a dreamlike atmosphere.

A convoy of vehicles, led by an old SUV, begins to climb the slope of the hill.

Episode 16 – The Six Million Dollar Man

We split up into cars and headed down to the village.

The SUV, which shot down the steep hillside path, instantly captured the attention of the villagers.

I quickly scanned the entire village as I passed through its entrance toward what appeared to be the village square.

Was it because they were on edge after being attacked by monsters? Or was it because foreigners, rarely seen here, had appeared? The faces of the locals that flashed by the windows clearly showed wariness.

After briefly parking in the open space, I gestured to summon the warlord duo.

“Please ask them if someone could explain what happened here.”

*

When the Al-Bas tribesmen explained the situation, the hostile gaze in the villagers’ eyes softened considerably.

After parking our vehicles in the open space and waiting briefly, the village elders soon appeared. The local elders, who introduced themselves as the village chief and council, conveyed their message through an interpreter.

“They welcome us to the village,” Farid Al-Bas translated the elder’s words into Kiyen.

“This is the village elder. He keeps thanking us for eliminating the monsters. He says we’ve gone through great trouble coming such a long way.”

He quickly interpreted the conversation between the elder and the war correspondent. His skill was close to simultaneous interpretation, and considering that his major in journalism was quite different from translation studies, it could be called nothing short of artistry.

In addition to his quick interpretation speed, he spoke with precise standard pronunciation. It seemed his translation skills stemmed from his experience studying in a country adjacent to the Kiyen Empire.

“He asks for our understanding that the village’s circumstances are modest and they cannot properly host guests because they’ve just been attacked by locusts.”

“Not at all. It’s only natural to help when lives are at stake.”

The village chief and elders welcomed the foreign visitors who had suddenly appeared in their village with open arms. This was because they recognized that one of these foreigners was the person who had turned the murderous locusts to ashes.

The Al-Bas tribespeople gathered the villagers and vividly recounted what they had witnessed.

The story of a magician who dispersed the locust swarm that filled the fields with a single gesture.

That protagonist was Camilla.

“Hmph.”

Thanks to this, she could listen to the praise around her with an air of triumph.

As the villagers who heard the truth praised Camilla as a hero, Farid raised his eyebrows, seemingly impressed.

“Where did you find a magician with such skills?”

I silently shrugged my shoulders.

Farid translated everything the villagers, led by the chief and elders, told me.

I became very curious about why he had volunteered to interpret when he had been sitting quietly until now, but there was no time to ponder the reason.

With a competent interpreter at my disposal, I began questioning the elders and villagers to dig into the village’s situation. How large was it? How many residents? How many roads connected to the outside? What geographical features surrounded the area? And so on.

All of this was part of intelligence gathering.

I should have researched this basic information before setting out on this assignment. Since the military intelligence agency had withdrawn all reconnaissance assets from this area to neighboring countries after receiving intelligence that conflicts in allied nations would intensify, all information gathering had become my personal responsibility.

Fortunately, the locals didn’t seem suspicious of the foreigner bombarding them with questions. The warlord’s collaborators had introduced me as a journalist and explained the situation thoroughly.

Of course, Farid’s eloquence was also an undeniably positive factor.

“So there are about 70 residents living here.”

“Exactly 64. Excluding those who just passed away.”

Farid cooperated with my investigation very diligently. He was so bright and proactive that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had pawned off guest reception to his subordinates earlier.

Finding this suspicious, I suddenly asked him why he was acting this way.

“Oh? That incident this morning? I had my reasons then,” he replied.

“Reasons?” I asked Farid.

Farid began rubbing the back of his neck with an awkward smile.

“Well, you see. I don’t particularly enjoy getting involved in tribal affairs.”

“Tribal affairs?”

“More precisely, my father’s affairs. You know about my father, don’t you? What kind of person Nayan Al-Bas is.”

Upon hearing this, a hypothesis suddenly flashed through my mind. And that hypothesis was soon confirmed by Farid himself.

“My father is the warlord’s accountant. People say my father does good work and is an amazing person, and the same goes for my uncle. But I think that’s wrong.”

“Uncle” refers to his father’s cousin. And Nayan Al-Bas’s cousin was Sheikh Nasir Al-Hassan, the leader of Group 3.

In other words,

As I suspected, Farid was someone who harbored doubts about his tribe. To be precise, he didn’t think highly of the entire Hassan warlord faction to which Al-Bas belonged.

That suspicion was soon proven correct. By none other than himself.

“Honestly, it’s awkward for me to say this when I’ve benefited from having a well-connected father and even studied abroad… But I have a vague idea where that tuition money came from. That’s why I didn’t want to come back here.”

“…”

“I thought once I got my journalism degree, I could get a job at a newspaper or broadcasting station. I thought even if not for a foreign news agency, I could become a reporter here and then be selected as a correspondent to go abroad. Who would have thought the president would shut down all the news agencies?”

“Controlling the press is what dictators commonly do.”

Farid smiled with a composed expression. A bitter smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

“…Just saying. Don’t worry about it too much.”

He might think this conversation was just trivial venting, but what we just shared became valuable intelligence for me.

It was essentially the same as opening up the possibility of recruiting the beloved son of the Al-Bas tribal chief as an informant.

Of course, talk of the intelligence world was too premature for an aspiring journalist.

“I apologize for the cold treatment this morning. My father suddenly assigned me work. I didn’t want to work with his subordinates.”

“I understand.”

Farid apologized to me with a slight bow. He was a better person than I had expected. For the son of a warlord official, he seemed refreshingly human.

Having cleared up the misunderstanding, Farid and I returned to the main topic.

“This is the northernmost territory of the Al-Bas tribe led by my father. The people here are essentially under the influence of the tribe my father leads.”

He began explaining about the remote village with quite a confident attitude.

Despite his expressed desire to avoid tribal affairs, he knew a great deal. This part was exactly as his father had assured.

Farid recited the backstory of this village. According to him, this place was not originally Al-Bas territory.

“This village didn’t exist until two years ago.”

“Two years? So it’s a recently established village.”

“Yes. It’s a clan village formed by people who migrated here following relatives from Asen.”

A clan village. It’s been a while since I heard that term.

A clan village refers to a place where people with the same surname gather. The Tang family in Sichuan, the Peng family in Hebei, and the Namgung family in Anhui that often appear in martial arts novels fall into this category.

Such clan villages tend to be closed-off communities, often attributed to the tight-knit social culture characteristic of rural areas.

“What made the residents move here from Asen?”

“Government military oppression. And there were conflicts within the Asen tribe too. You could say they’re people who came here temporarily for refuge.”

“What’s the relationship between the Al-Bas tribe and this village?”

“Between our tribe and this place? We’re just neighborly acquaintances. Actually…”

Farid looked around.

A barren field and a remote village stretched out before us.

“The tribe doesn’t really pay attention to it. Since it’s so isolated.”

“So Hassan doesn’t consider this place a strategic stronghold?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I try to avoid getting involved in those matters…”

A clan village at the northernmost territory where a monster colony has settled in the north.

Somehow it feels like an accumulation of all the words I don’t want to hear. The fact that it seems to be under tribal control yet is actually a marginalized area also bothered me.

I quickly scanned the village to identify potential risks.

“How far is the nearest village or town from here?”

“There’s the village you just investigated, and for a town, you’d need to drive about 5 hours. But why do you suddenly ask?”

“Just curious.”

A map of Al-Bas territory formed in my mind. A village of about 200 people two hours away, and a small town of 3,800 people five hours away.

I asked the warlord accountant’s son:

“Are there any units stationed in the nearby town?”

“Units? Ah, yes. Not military, but police.”

“Police?”

“Police operating in tribal territory. Filled with tribal people.”

While I couldn’t determine exactly how capable these police were, I was relieved to know that reinforcements could be requested if needed.

We roamed the village, observing the residents’ way of life.

Luckily, there was a house with an open door, and peering inside, I saw an idyllic (or in other words, bare) household scene with just an old radio and a light bulb sitting alone.

While having nothing might be typical for a rural area, I wondered where they got the radio from.

“Where do the residents here get daily necessities or electronic devices?”

“From what people tell me, peddlers come periodically from the city. If they need something, they get it through those people.”

So it’s dai gong after all.

I’m familiar with these peddlers who travel to remote villages in third-world countries. It’s a common practice, and I’ve disguised myself as one before.

Farid and I left the village and headed toward the fields.

Nothing remained where the killer locust swarm had swept through. No crops, no grass or trees, and even the people who had been working there.

However, thanks to forming a defense line in time, a significant portion of the farmland had been protected from the locusts.

While skinny adult men were controlling the embers with water drawn from wells and soil, a man who appeared to be their leader pointed at us as we photographed the scene.

Seeing this, we waited, and an old man approached us, tapping his walking stick. Farid listened attentively to the old man’s words, nodding, and then translated:

“He says looking is fine, but please don’t take pictures. It frightens the people.”

I carefully hid my cheap camera under my coat. The old man then smiled gently and greeted me in brief Kiyen.

“Welcome.”

There was no need to translate that meaning.

While Farid guided the old man to a nearby rock to sit, I began observing the men.

Though their nutritional and hygienic conditions weren’t great, the men were very calm, organized, and simultaneously wary of me.

I detected an implicit hierarchy in the signals and commands exchanged between them. I immediately called Farid to confirm their identity.

“Those people?”

Farid looked around at the men and answered.

“The old man says they’re a vigilante group.”

“Vigilantes?”

“There are dangers lurking near the border.”

The son of the Al-Bas tribal chief smiled bitterly.

“Monsters, robbers, looters, soldiers. There are more enemies than guests in this place. I understand that looters were rampant in this area last year due to famine.”

I silently nodded.

“Sometimes humans can be more dangerous than monsters.”

It’s always been that way.

*

After the killer locusts retreated and the situation settled, the villagers flocked back to the village.

A gloomy atmosphere hung over the village, now reduced to just over 60 people. Grief over the dead and lost livelihoods weighed heavily on everyone’s hearts.

However, there was a vibrant energy at the center of the village.

“Wow!”

The villagers enthusiastically welcomed the warlord’s people and the two outsiders.

It was an incredibly warm reception.

Bonfires blazed in various spots, surrounded by food, and people huddled together by the fire, all with smiles on their faces.

At the center of it all was a red-haired girl.

“Yahoo!”

Camilla, receiving the villagers’ fervent hospitality, jumped up and down.

“Did you see? Did you see that?”

“Yes, I saw it already.”

“When I shot the flames like whoosh! The locusts just went splat!”

Having saved the villagers’ lives from the killer locust attack, Camilla had instantly become a hero.

The village chief and elders welcomed the foreign magician who had saved lives and the village as their guest.

“Try this! It’s delicious, I tell you!”

Camilla thrust a skewer of lamb meat toward me.

“Alright, just calm down a bit…”

“Wow. What is this taste? The spices are so unique, really.”

“Sigh.”

The British magician (former Muggle, current aspiring spy) was devouring the food she was served.

Following tribal tradition, the village women provided us with food and lodging to welcome their precious guests. Despite their meager resources, the residents used most of their ingredients to prepare local dishes. All for Camilla.

Although Camilla alone had actually saved the village, the hospitality was extended equally to all of us.

The villagers’ logic was that anyone who had guided the magician here—be they warlords or whatever—had essentially saved the village, as without them, the magician wouldn’t have come and everyone would have died in the monster attack.

By that logic, I too deserved lavish treatment.

Indeed, as soon as the villagers heard that “the magician came as an escort for the war correspondent,” they prepared a feast so abundant the table could barely hold it.

Despite this incredible array of local cuisine, I found it difficult to eat.

The reason was simple.

“Should I eat this…”

The raw ingredients for the food were mostly local produce. Some items were brought from the city, but that’s just about distribution. The actual storage and cooking were all done in the village.

So here’s the question:

How is meat and fish stored in a third-world rural village without refrigeration?

I already knew the answer.

According to the experiences of myself and my colleagues who frequently traveled through Africa and the Middle East, in such villages, meat isn’t refrigerated but kept at room temperature. Simply because there are no refrigerators.

Therefore, all ingredients are consumed before they spoil. The problem is that in hot climates, meat spoils quickly.

Once, during my early days in Africa, I bought a meat dish at a rural restaurant. My seniors’ prediction that I would regret it came true that evening with a terrible case of food poisoning accompanied by high fever and diarrhea.

Since then, I’ve been careful about consuming meat outside major cities. The same goes for fish. Freshwater fish caught from rivers were often teeming with parasites, and eating them incorrectly could lead to long-term hospital treatment upon returning home.

If that’s the situation in Africa and the Middle East, what about the more underdeveloped Moritani continent?

“…”

I looked at Camilla, who was obliviously devouring the food she was served. She was eating like a vacuum cleaner, shocking the village women.

“…Camilla.”

“Yes?”

“Uh, never mind. Just eat plenty.”

The Al-Bas tribesmen and the warlord duo were casually eating with their hands. Farid, who had some exposure to foreign customs, looked for a spoon, but unfortunately, such civilized implements hadn’t reached this place.

Honestly, I was quite concerned about their health, but I didn’t need to worry about the locals. Their stomachs were probably much tougher than mine.

Avoiding the meat that could be who-knows-how-spoiled and the freshwater fish that looked utterly unappetizing, I chose a grain dish. Using a plastic spoon from my combat rations, I took a spoonful.

“…Hmm.”

The carefully selected food was porridge. I didn’t know its name, but it looked like porridge.

The dish, made by boiling rice in water seasoned with spices until thick, tasted very familiar.

Ketchup.

Yes.

This taste in my mouth was unmistakably ketchup.

“…”

Bland porridge with copious amounts of ketchup. I wanted to throw the spoon away immediately at that indescribably terrible taste, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.

Not finishing food you’ve been served is disrespectful to the host.

And if I was going to monitor the government forces’ outpost tomorrow, I needed to eat something. Combat rations were truly for emergencies. I had to save them until the end.

So I reluctantly forced myself to eat.

“Oh my. You’ve finished? Have another bowl.”

Just then, a woman appeared from somewhere and poured more porridge into my bowl. Carrying a green plastic container, she used a ladle to generously serve more of the food I didn’t want to eat.

Not stopping there,

“Try the meat too. It’s chicken bought from the city a week ago.”

“Uh, does the village have a refrigerator…?”

“Refrigerator? No. We sold that last spring. We disposed of it when the generator broke down.”

“…”

“Oh my, where are my manners? Try this fish porridge too. The elder specially caught it for the guests…”

Witnessing this horrific scene, I quietly spoke to Camilla, who was devouring traditional Moritani rice cakes made from grain dough.

“…Camilla.”

“What?”

“Let’s see if we survive this.”

“…?”

That dawn.

Camilla and I got food poisoning.

It was the inevitable result.