Land of the Forsaken?!
The moment I heard that name, it felt significant. Oh boy, were we in for another god or demon-related ordeal?
I looked at Kexin, practically ready to grab some melon seeds and settle in for a story.
The island wasn't that large, but each place was more dangerous than the last. I was already getting used to it.
Tired, just let me perish.
"Master, it's alright."
Seeing my despondent expression, Keya quickly tried to comfort me.
"The Land of the Forsaken is a valley where those who don't believe in gods are imprisoned. This happened a long, long time ago. I only heard bits and pieces from the old priest when I was little..."
As Kexin explained slowly, I gradually began to understand what the Land of the Forsaken actually was.
Despite its grand-sounding name, the Land of the Forsaken was essentially a place of exile for the losers among the island's various barbarian tribes.
Honor and influence are earned, they cannot be bestowed upon others.
Although the barbarian tribes on the island weren't highly civilized, where there are people, there is conflict. Each victor holds the right to interpret the divine, and the losers are naturally deemed forsaken by the gods.
These individuals often held influence and power within their tribes, making it difficult to simply exterminate them.
So, from some generation unknown, all losers and their followers, upon their defeat, would be uniformly driven into this nearby valley to fend for themselves.
This place gradually became known as the Land of the Forsaken and a taboo among the tribes.
After Kexin's explanation, many questions filled my mind.
"You said that the losers and their followers from each generation are driven into this Land of the Forsaken. But wouldn't that risk them gathering more people and returning for revenge?"
I scratched my head. Were all the barbarians of each generation this honorable? The type to accept defeat gracefully.
Kexin and Keya exchanged glances. Keya spoke to me softly, "The sides of that valley are sheer cliffs, hundreds of feet high and rugged. The High Priest said that to enter the Land of the Forsaken, someone must lower the losers down from above using grass ropes."
Kexin added, "After each generation of losers entered the Land of the Forsaken, no one from the tribes ever saw them again. Some even believe the Land of the Forsaken doesn't exist and that all the losers were killed in hidden places after their defeat. But we know it's not a mere fabrication; the Land of the Forsaken is located not far to the east."
Kexin and Keya spoke in turns, elaborating for a long time and resolving my doubts one by one.
"Then how are you so sure that Bru and his group ran into the Land of the Forsaken?"
"Before we moved here, we thoroughly scouted the surrounding area, and there were no other dangers. We can only speculate, after all, no one who has entered the Land of the Forsaken has ever been seen leaving."
Hearing that Kexin and Keya had no concrete evidence, I breathed a sigh of relief.
The Land of the Forsaken they described sounded more and more like Stalin's Gulag to me, a place where prisoners were exiled during World War II.
Gulag was the general term for the labor camps under the NKVD in the Soviet era; calling it a "grand hotel" was merely a facetious nickname.
In that turbulent era, all sorts of people were there.
White Army remnants from the Tsarist regime, Cossack bandits, former Polish soldiers, and all manner of seasoned veterans and criminals converged, forming a peculiar ecological synergy.
It even gave rise to one of the most inhumane groups in the history of crime: the "thief-in-law"!
To me, the Land of the Forsaken and the Gulag "grand hotel" shared a similar nature: isolating dangerous individuals together, believing it would eliminate future threats, but...
Thinking of this, a bad premonition struck me. What if these people, imprisoned for so many years, had figured out a way to escape and return to the surface?
This thought was too alarming. We were still struggling to deal with the Du'an tribe, let alone a group of vengeful old-timers who had been imprisoned for years.
As I stood at the cave entrance, chatting with Kexin and Keya for a long time, my stomach rumbled.
The sun was already high in the sky, marking lunchtime.
The people of the Kasa tribe had already roasted the rabbits they caught yesterday. The three of us sat around the campfire, discussing how to deliver a fatal blow to the Du'an tribe.
As we talked, Kexin and Keya began to disagree.
Keya believed that since Bru had disappeared in this forest, the Du'an tribe would surely send more people to search. We could then lie in wait and pick off the reinforcements one by one.
Kexin, however, was more aggressive. She agreed with Keya's assessment that the tribe would send people to find Bru's whereabouts. But she advocated seizing this opportunity when the Du'an tribe was vulnerable, organizing our elites, and launching a direct assault!
Both had valid points, and I found myself in a dilemma.
Whose advice should I follow?