Chapter 185: A Stoneman Speaking Human Language?

With the power of the punch, the Stoneman’s heavy body was lifted off the ground for a moment as it was even sent flying backward.

Seeing the effect, even Magna became surprised as he watched the heavy body fly backward and hit the ground, kicking another cloud of dust into the air.

"Is it dead?"

His intention wasn’t to kill it, but only to make it stop. He had simply miscalculated his strength.

Thankfully, the Stoneman didn’t die as it soon started getting back up from where it had fallen.

Magna didn’t move to land a finishing blow or stop it from getting up. He simply watched.

There was a small crack across its oval stomach, but that was all as it soon stood back on its feet.

It didn’t rush at him this time. Instead, it fixed its single eye, glowing like a red gem, on Magna for a while before slowly lowering itself onto both knees and pressing its head against the ground.

It was probably the most universal body language someone could use, regardless of language or race, to show that they were surrendering.

Magna was surprised, as he hadn’t expected that, and walked closer with a surprised expression.

He didn’t lower his guard, though, as it could still be a trap to lure him closer. The Stoneman had a very massive and heavy body, so if it managed to grab him once, Magna would probably have to take quite a few hits before he could free himself.

Carefully, he came in front of it and looked down at the Stoneman. Seeing no threatening movement from it, he called out. "Raise your head."

When he saw that the Stoneman still wasn’t moving, he lightly slapped the top of its head twice.

"Hey, get up. You’re making things awkward."

It finally raised its head, still sitting on its knees.

There were no clear features on its stone face that could form any expression, but when Magna looked into its single red eye, he could somehow tell there was no anger or killing intent in it, only complete submission.

It even looked quite pitiful with the deep crack across its head, which made Magna feel somewhat guilty.

"Sorry about that." He said it in an apologetic tone while pointing at the crack.

The Stoneman seemed to understand him as it raised one hand and placed it over the crack on its head, rubbing it a couple of times before opening its wide mouth.

"Rakh kah kuh nah."

’I think it means, nah, don’t worry about it?’ Even if that wasn’t exactly what it meant, it had to be something along those lines.

At least, the Stoneman was intelligent enough to understand intentions and body language.

Magna then pointed his finger toward the settlement and asked, "I want to visit your village. Do you think that’s okay?"

He already understood that the Stonemen weren’t an aggressive race, or at least that they were the kind that respected whoever was stronger.

So he thought he might be able to use this one’s reference to enter the village without any problems.

The Stoneman moved its head toward the direction Magna was pointing.

"Gurh tok gah." Its voice sounded as though it had gravel instead of vocal cords as it slowly got back on its feet.

Magna took a step back to keep a safe distance when he saw it standing up.

Thankfully, the Stoneman’s attention wasn’t on him. It walked to its stone spear, took it, then turned toward the settlement and started walking.

Thinking that it probably meant yes to his question, Magna started following behind it.

They soon arrived at the settlement, which was quite lively, with many Stonemen walking around.

Some were going outside, probably to find food, while others were coming back inside with the corners of their mouths covered in the black blood of worms, meaning they had just returned from feeding.

While Magna inspected them, they also looked at him, but whenever they saw the cracked-head Stoneman walking in front of him, they turned their heads away again.

Magna was quite sure that if he had tried to enter alone, they would have stopped him, and he might have even been attacked by them. But thanks to the cracked head, he had now entered the settlement comfortably like an invited guest.

He was even glad about his earlier decision not to kill it, as it had turned out to be much more useful this way.

The cracked head even started behaving like a tour guide, occasionally stopping in front of certain structures and pointing at them with his hand while saying something.

"Raaah uh pat pat."

Magna couldn’t understand what its words meant, but he nodded along with every word, sometimes even making a surprised or impressed expression to make it feel happy and accomplished.

There was nothing particularly impressive to see, as every crudely made house was basically just a shelter made by stacking stones on top of each other, with no real architectural thought behind them.

There wasn’t even anyone living inside them, as the Stonemen were always walking around here and there. Magna hadn’t seen any of them sitting down or resting even once, which made him even more confused about why they had built these houses in the first place.

That was until they came in front of a stone house that looked very different from the others they had seen so far.

The cracked head stopped in front of this house and again started pointing at it while speaking. This time, it was making much longer sentences, so it was clearly explaining something important.

Too bad Magna still couldn’t understand any of it, but he continued inspecting the structure with quite a bit of interest.

It was at least 5 or 6 times larger than the other stone houses and was much better built.

All the stones had been placed neatly on top of each other like pieces of Lego, and they had even used some kind of mud as plaster over them, making it look more like a proper stone house.

There was even a door made from a single large piece of stone, unlike the others, which didn’t have doors and simply left their entrances open.

After the cracked head finished speaking his long lines, he turned toward the door and pushed the massive stone.

It was quite heavy, as even the cracked head seemed to struggle while opening it.

Magna waited quite curiously for it to open as he started looking through the gap, trying to see inside.

The inside was quite dark, with no windows, and as the door opened, more light slowly entered and revealed the room to his eyes.

The first thing that caught his attention was a large shelf stretching along one of the walls, with many stone spears lined up on it.

Magna started wondering if this was some kind of weapon storage when he noticed a Stoneman sitting on the ground in the middle of the room, rubbing a stone against a long stone stick in his hands.

It looked like the one who crafted all the stone spears in the town.

This one also looked quite different from the other Stonemen.

Its body was a little bigger than everyone else’s, and although it was still gray, it was a much lighter shade of gray, looking more like marble than ordinary stone, as though its entire body was made of smooth marble.

While Magna stood at the doorway, inspecting the strange Stoneman, it also raised its head and looked at him.

Then it opened its mouth, revealing its rows of sharp, shiny teeth, before speaking.

"It has been quite a long time since we had a human visitor."

Shockingly, it was speaking human language.