Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 952: Did you find the wrong person?
About half an hour later, the fairy was sleeping in the lobby of the hotel.

"My name is Songtaya. I'm a hunter from the Wusu tribe. Yes, I'm also the youngest hunter! My tribe is currently staying on the mountain road leading to the Frozen Snow Valley from the Little Vichi Mountain. Because the wind and snow in the Little Vichi Mountain have been extremely fierce recently, the elders and father... uh, the leader have determined that a snowstorm may break out, so they decided to move to the Osor Mountain to avoid it. I was sent out to explore the way. Ah, this is delicious. Can I have another one?"

The Chattoto girl named Songtaya put down the lamb ribs she had eaten cleanly and looked at the proprietress eagerly.

"Sure." Shesta said with a smile, not targeting her for her previous offense. In fact, as long as you are willing to acknowledge the boss lady's cooking skills and show a little yearning for the banquet, then she will be so enthusiastic to everyone.

"Great!" Songtaya raised her hands and cheered.

Everyone gathered around the dining table, watching this scene silently, feeling speechless.

As to why the attitude of the non-violent and non-cooperative Chattoto girl changed so drastically, it was certainly not because the proprietress’s cooking skills were so good. The glowing dishes she cooked easily touched Songtaya’s heart and made her let down her guard against these strangers of unknown origin - this kind of plot would only appear in Alice’s nonsense food worldview, but unfortunately, this is a magical worldview.

The real reason was that she saw Brandi eating hay in the stable.

The girl's eyes lit up at that moment. This was not an exaggeration, but a realistic description. She was so excited that even her voice became stammering: "This, this, this, this, this snow-white hair, this noble posture, and these eyes that are more awe-inspiring than ice and snow... Could it be that it is the legendary snow mountain divine horse, the incarnation of the purest snow spirit, the darling of ice carved by the mountain father, and the so-called unparalleled Sun Snow in heaven and on earth!?"

The writing is pretty good, at least Alice can't think of so many adjectives.

"Uh." As the horse's owner, Xino groaned at the time, as if he was shocked by her exaggerated reaction. He said awkwardly, "It is indeed Sun Snow, but to say that it is unparalleled in the world is a bit too exaggerated, right? Like Sun Yangyan of the Great Brittany Kingdom, Iron Mountain Gray of the Mindrias Empire, and Yu Zhongyin of the Motosh Republic, I remember that they are all famous horses as Sun Snow..."

"No, they are not even worthy of lifting the hooves of Sun Snow!" Xino was interrupted by the girl before she finished speaking. She turned her head and glared at the young knight angrily, as if she was very dissatisfied with her humble words: "Do the horses you mentioned, such as Sun Yangyan, Iron Mountain, Gray Rain Hidden, etc., have the same noble and elegant temperament as Sun Snow? Can they gallop freely on the snowfield above 5,000 meters? Can they only serve upright people like Sun Snow with high moral character? They can't do it, right? So they are just ordinary horses. Only Sun Snow can be crowned with the name of a divine horse and praised by the world! You don't understand anything, so don't talk nonsense..."

"Ahem!" Seeing that the Xia Toto girl was getting more and more excited, and Xinuo's smile was getting more and more awkward, Ling Ge finally couldn't stand it anymore and had to speak up, forcibly interrupting her endless chatter, and then ended this one-sided debate with a concise sentence: "In fact, she is the owner of this Sun Snow."

"Ah..." The girl's open mouth suddenly froze, all the words were stuck in her throat, and her expression looked funny.

Shino looked a little embarrassed, but still nodded and said, "Brandi is my good friend. We grew up together."

"Hey?" Brandi in the stable raised her head and blinked her big ice-blue eyes, looking very innocent.

Things were very simple after that. It seemed that everyone living in the snowy mountain area had heard of the legend of the Sun Snow and knew that only people with high moral character could gain their recognition. So, as Brandi's owner, Xino quickly won the girl's trust, and Lingge and other companions also benefited from this and were listed as "barely trustworthy".

After turning enemies into friends, in order to express her apology, the proprietress put aside her past grudges and personally cooked a table of delicious food for Songtaya - mainly because after so much time, it was already noon, and it was indeed time for lunch. Songtaya was a guest, so she naturally had to be treated well. If conditions did not allow it, the proprietress might have started the banquet directly, giving the simple tribal friends on the snowy mountains a little shock to the hotel.

So, under the gaze of everyone, Songtaya started to gnaw on the lamb ribs as if no one was around, showing an amazing generosity. She also gave her name and background, which explained the reason for the previous tracking.

"Osor Mountain is the sacred birthplace of the Xiatoto people. It has extremely important significance for our Wusu tribe." Songtaya finished chewing a lamb rib and put the bare bone on the piled-up plate next to her. Then she picked up another one and started chewing it, not noticing that the lamb had buried its head in the corner and shivered. "So as a hunter of the tribe, in addition to being responsible for exploring the road conditions and ensuring the safety of the migration route, I also have to be vigilant to you sudden outsiders and maintain order in the holy mountain area. It's reasonable, right? Chew, well, this lamb chop is delicious."

My appetite is pretty good.

After listening to her explanation, Ling Ge raised his eyebrows slightly: "I didn't know that the Xiatoto tribe had the responsibility of maintaining order in the snowy mountains. Besides, when did Osor Mountain become the territory of the Wusu tribe? If I remember correctly, this should be a no-man's land, right?"

To be precise, the entire Eastern Alps is a neutral area. This was a resolution adopted by 1771 countries along the mountain range at the "International Geographical Symposium" held in the mountain fort in , and was preserved as written evidence in the "Eastern Alps Regional Division Regulations". The regulations stipulate that governments have the right to govern the mountains within their borders, which is internationally defined as "territorial governance rights", but no individual, organization or force may establish military bases or conduct military and political activities on these mountains.

Therefore, although Heidblomsberg at the foot of the mountain can freely develop the tourism resources of Mount Osor, it dare not claim that it has all the sovereignty over it. Do the people of Chateau dare to go against international public opinion?

"It's not a territory, it's a holy land." Songtaya corrected with a serious face.

"Holy land?" Linger thought this statement was a bit strange. Generally speaking, only believers of animism would regard Mount Osor as a holy land, but what does this have to do with the Shatoto people, unless: "You also believe in animism?"

"Is there any need to ask this?" Songtaya looked at the young man with a strange look, and her tone seemed to be a matter of course: "This is the place where the saint attained enlightenment, and the Xiatoto people are the saint's earliest followers. Is it strange that we believe in animism?"

Who were Saint Tomi's earliest followers?
Where did this statement come from? There was no record of it in the history books Ling Ge had read.

"It's so uninformed."

Songtaya said disdainfully before she began to explain.

In fact, it is not complicated. The ancestors of the Shatto people lived in this area a long time ago. At that time, it was not called Mount Osor, but Mount Nellaril, which means "snow-filled land". Affected by the complex and changeable climate in ancient times, the snow-capped mountains here were taller and steeper, and the environment was more difficult and harsh. Therefore, the ancestors of the Shatto people naturally lived a harder life than today. Not only did they have to face the threat of ferocious demon beasts, but they also had to face frequent blizzards. It was common for most of the tribe to be killed or injured after a snowstorm.

It was in this difficult situation that the ancestors of the Xiatoto people met Saint Tumi who wanted to go to Mount Osor to observe the stars and gain enlightenment. They did not show any hostility, but enthusiastically assisted him in climbing the mountain, built three simple stone houses for him on the top of the mountain, and brought him food and water every day during his enlightenment. It was with the help of these simple and kind friends in the snowy mountains that Saint Tumi was able to devote all his energy to his career and finally completed the surveying of the star map in just 33 months.

It can be said that the Xiatoto people played a crucial role in Saint Tumi's path to enlightenment. Perhaps out of gratitude for this favor, the saint did not leave immediately after returning from the starry sky, but stayed in the Nalaril Mountains for another 33 months, teaching the tribesmen on the snowy mountains how to make hunting tools with simple materials, how to distinguish between poisonous plants and edible plants in the snowy mountains, and how to judge the time and scale of a blizzard by observing the movement of air currents and clouds...

The tribesmen who had lived in the snowy mountains for a long time actually knew all this knowledge, but what they had mastered were only the rules summarized from their own experience. Once they were separated from these experiences, the rules would no longer work. What Saint Tumi taught them was more systematic knowledge, which even included his various investigations and inferences on the local natural environment and climate conditions when he traveled in the Raetia region. It was undoubtedly very valuable knowledge for the Xiatoto people at that time.

Under the guidance of Saint Tomi, the ancestors of the Shatoto people changed their previous way of living in caves and fighting snowstorms with their bodies. They began to wander like nomads chasing the tail of blizzards. Their footprints gradually expanded from Mount Osor to the entire Eastern Alps, becoming the earliest residents to adapt to this land. Saint Tomi also gave these tribes with the same blood a name according to this nature, namely: Shatoto people, "people chasing snow".

In the years that followed, the Xiatoto people always revered Saint Tumi as a "sage", "wise elder" and "Snow Mountain Saint". It is said that after the news that Saint Tumi founded the spiritual prayer meeting reached the remote Eastern Alps, the Xiatoto people collectively elected a representative to travel thousands of miles to the city of Ardes, the hometown of all spirits, to seek the wisdom of the Snow Mountain Saint for the Snow Chasing People. It was from that time that the Xiatoto people had their own beliefs.

At that time, the Spiritual Prayer Society had just emerged, and Saint Toumi had only proposed a general doctrine, and had not yet come up with a potion system that could establish his status as a pioneer of civilization. Even the Twelve Saints followed him with a skeptical attitude, unable to be sure whether this system could help mankind out of its predicament. However, the Xiatoto people, with their enthusiasm, regarded animism as supreme, without any doubt or wavering. Can you say that they were not the saint's earliest and most steadfast followers?

Of course, other branches of animism would not agree with this statement. In general, the earliest followers of Saint Tomi should be the twelve students who studied the origin of spirituality with him, that is, the twelve saints in later legends. Since the Middle Ages, the doctrines of various sects that have been split off can mostly be traced back to these twelve saints, just like the inheritance of the True Spirit Sect comes from the Cursed Ring King Kenos among the twelve saints. This is the so-called orthodoxy.

The statements of the Chattoto people undoubtedly questioned the legitimacy of this orthodoxy. If they had not been hiding in the Eastern Alps and not caring about worldly affairs, they would have been attacked long ago. This attack might even be more fierce than the attack by animists on the united sect. There is a famous saying in the religious world that can explain this complex phenomenon, namely: heretics are always more hateful than pagans.

However, Lingge didn't care about such trivial matters. He looked at Saint Xia Liya, saw the joy in the shepherdess's eyes, and quickly made a decision.

Although it seemed a bit of a coincidence, they had just discussed how to contact the Mist Mountain Hermitage on the top of the mountain not long ago, and they got a clue in a blink of an eye, and the other party took the initiative to deliver it to the door, but Ling Ge felt that this should not be a conspiracy. Because they had just arrived at Mount Osor, if the other party could find out their identity and purpose in just half a day, and then reach a consensus and quickly weave a conspiracy against them, based on this efficiency, they should have been assigned to the Night Watch or the Balance of Order, and should not be hiding in the snowy mountains playing hide-and-seek with the blizzard.

Since it was just a coincidence, it would be easy to deal with. Ling decided to get straight to the point: "Okay, I roughly understand what you mean. It seems that this is a complete misunderstanding. I am willing to apologize for this and hope to meet with your leader to discuss some things."

"Leader? Do you mean chief? Or elder?" Songtaya blinked blankly.

It seemed that she didn't understand what he meant. The young man frowned slightly and had to explain it more clearly: "I am not referring to the leader of your Wusu tribe, but the leader of your sect - the Wushan Hermitage."

"Ah?" Songtaya opened her round eyes wide and became even more confused: "Wist Mountain Hermitage? What does that have to do with us?"

what?
Ling Ge didn't expect this kind of answer. He was stunned for a moment, then he suddenly realized something and asked quickly, "Aren't you from the Wushan Hermitage?"

"I didn't say I was!" Songtaya was also anxious.

"Then whose teachings do you believe in animism?" Ling paused for a moment, worried that Songtaya would not understand the question or would be vague, so he went straight to the point: "Tell me, which god do you people of Xiatoto believe in?"

This way of asking is indeed more simple and crude. When Songtaya heard him asking about the name of the god, her face became serious and she answered very seriously: "As the snow chasers on the snowy mountains, we, the believers of the Mountain Guard, naturally believe in the ancestor of the mountains, the origin of the abyss, and the protector of the Three Valleys - the great Mountain Father!"

Give me some meow