Chapter 438: Yuusha

A tall but completely bald man stood at the muddy bank of a huge, wide river.

He casually held a long bamboo rod that had a string attached to its end. He whistled a catchy tune as he stood in place patiently, moving his body to the groove and the music of his own whistles.

Just as he felt a sharp tug on his bamboo rod, he suddenly heard sounds coming from a completely different direction.

He turned his head to his left to see a bunch of people suddenly appearing out of thin air. The group of people were standing amidst the thick jungle trees, looking slightly disoriented.

Seeing these people, the bald man couldn’t help but frown.

"What the fuck is Anderson doing here?" he muttered under his breath. "And what are these guys doing here?"

He let out a soft sigh and muttered again.

"Man, these are some faces I did kinda miss, but I really don’t feel like seeing them right now. The whole reason I picked this remote island is because I never thought they would actually come here Hmm though, maybe I can’t really say though... after all, it should be almost eight years before I actually got summoned to this world in my last life."

He frowned deeper.

"I just wanted a peaceful life outside of the whole Hero bullshit this time. Those assholes in the Crestwall Empire used me, and I got absolutely nothing in return for all that hard work. I couldn’t even go back to Earth bruv... and now these guys show up uninvited and I have a really bad feeling that these assholes will just mess things up for me..."

He kept his grip on the bamboo staff with one hand, grabbed the string at the top with his other hand, and started to pull slowly. But while he did that, his eyes remained locked onto the group that had just arrived.

There were ten people standing right there and he remembered almost half of their faces from his past life. Everyone except four of them.

While those four specific faces weren’t exactly familiar to him; at least not as familiar as the others. he did vaguely recall seeing them a few times in his past life, just not too often.

Almost ten seconds later, he had a freshly caught, struggling fish in his hands. He easily pulled the hook out of its mouth and tossed it into a medium-sized wooden bucket partially filled with river water.

Only when that was done did he start walking over towards Anderson and his Crestwall party.

The group was already on high alert and all of them had their weapons drawn and ready.

Seeing this aggressive reaction from them just from looking at him, the bald man raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you guys? And how did you come here? I am pretty sure that there was no one nearby just a moment ago."

Listening to those words, the knights looked at each other hesitantly and a few moments later, Anderson stepped forward.

"We... we were at the sea, and we got lost," Anderson lied. "We got hit by a terrible storm, and all of a sudden we found ourselves here. It was like magic... like we were teleported. May I know what your name is, Mr. Fisherman?"

The bald guy just kept his eyes on them without saying anything for a few seconds.

"You can call me Yuusha," he said flatly after a while.

"Oh, okay," Anderson nodded. "So Yuusha, is there a way you could help us? We desperately need somewhere to stay. A place where we can call home for now. We don’t know how to get back to our homeland, and we don’t exactly know where we are right now."

The self-proclaimed "Yuusha" looked at them calmly.

"Sure. You can stay here. But you will need to go through an entrance ceremony first. My tribe has very strict rules against simply accepting random outsiders. If you can prove yourselves in one way or another, then we can have you."

"Sure," Anderson said. "Could you tell me more about this tribe of yours?"

"Well, we are a peaceful tribe. We mostly get our food and survive from basic agriculture, fishing, and rearing of animals. We used to be a warring tribe long ago, and we still hold a lot of importance to personal strength, bravery, courage, and loyalty. But we are not as aggressive as we used to be. You would still need to prove yourself to enter the tribe, though. We do not wish to harbor weaklings or betrayers."

"Okay," Anderson said. "Just tell us what we need to do."

"All you need to do is challenge the strongest warrior of my tribe and win against him," Yuusha explained. "And you can, in fact, all go together against him at once. By winning, I mean that youdon’t have to outright defeat him or kill him. As long as he accepts you guys as respectable warriors after the spar, then you will be officially allowed into the tribe."

He pointed toward the jungle.

"But of course, even if you do manage to enter the tribe, you will not have a free place to actually stay. You will have to build your own huts and you will have to gather your own food. We will share some of what we have for the first two or three days to help you settle, but after that, you will be entirely on your own. You will need to earn the goodwill of the tribesmen yourself. And to do that, you would need to actively help others. Only when you help people do you receive help in return. Once you are accepted by the tribe properly, only then will you see and experience the true concept of family that we have."

Hearing this, Anderson nodded thoughtfully.

"So you are a peaceful tribe," Anderson summarized. "You have a strong concept of family, and you do not aggressively attack other tribes unless other tribes actively attack you first. Are my assumptions right?"