"Elder Zurvan," Freya held her paws and bowed awkwardly.
Zurvan stepped aside, and immediately the elderly, the weak, women, and children behind him rushed forward.
Several old women held the food placed on dry lotus leaves above their heads, bowed deeply (a grand bow, a traditional and solemn way of showing respect in Chinese culture) to Freya, and then respectfully placed the food in front of her.
Some women and children also knelt down behind the elders. A few mischievous Wild Folk kids winked at Freya secretly while kowtowing.
Freya stood there stiffly, accepting the worship of these druid believers. This was also the first time Leo saw Freya not going crazy in the face of food.
Seeing this scene, Leo somewhat understood why Freya had left this tribe.
It was too restrictive. She couldn't cut loose!
Finally, a young woman carefully placed a baby still wrapped in swaddling clothes in front of Freya.
The baby was sound asleep, with a weak breath and a pale face.
Freya stared fixedly at the little baby and firmly shook her head. "I don't eat kids!"
Leo helplessly prompted her from the side. "Is there a chance that they don't want you to eat the baby, but to heal it?"
"Oh..." Freya heaved a sigh of relief and nodded with a somewhat disappointed look.
She stretched out her front paw and started to puff up. The hairs on her body stood up one by one, gradually giving off a greenish glow.
These green lights continuously converged towards the front paw she had stretched out, forming a light ball the size of a football.
As she released her paw, the green light ball dropped and hit the Wild Folk baby, bursting open with a loud noise.
The body of the Wild Folk baby quickly regained its color, then opened its eyes and started crying loudly.
The baby's mother wept for joy, hugged the baby in her arms, and kowtowed to Freya repeatedly.
Freya bent down and tapped the young mother's forehead with her paw, and then the other party thanked her profusely and stepped back.
Leo was also stunned. He didn't expect this dumb marmot to have such a skill.
This is magic!
But then again, for an elven druid who could turn into a bear, it was quite reasonable to know a healing spell or something to cure diseases.
After the villagers scattered, Leo whispered mockingly, "Accepting the bows of elders will shorten your lifespan."
Freya wiped the non-existent sweat off her face. Successfully casting a druid spell filled her with a sense of accomplishment, and the whole marmot became much livelier.
Hearing Leo's mockery, Freya put her hands on her hips. "Elders? I'm eighty!"
"You're eighty?" Leo went crazy. At eighty, she still had the intelligence of an eight-year-old?
Freya stuck out her big belly and proudly explained, "The average lifespan of elves is eight hundred years. You ignorant human kid!"
Following Zurvan into the village and all the way to the deepest part where the lord's mansion was located, Leo saw a three-meter-high statue in front of the gate of the lord's mansion.
This statue was carved from a huge tree that two people could just embrace. Although its shape was trying hard to resemble a giant bear, in details such as the head shape, claws, and teeth, it still revealed the fact that it was a marmot.
This was a marmot standing upright, opening its mouth and roaring.
"This is my teacher, the master of the Wildness Sect! The guardian of the forest! The great druid! Bobak Marimotas!"
Freya proudly introduced to Leo, and then pointed at herself.
"And me! The future master of the Wildness Sect! The future guardian of the forest! The future great druid! Giggle!"
"It sounds really impressive. Sure enough, what kind of teacher can teach what kind of disciple!" Leo spared no praise.
Freya's face lit up with joy. Carelessly, one of the packs of lotus leaves she was holding in her arms dropped, and the food inside scattered all over the ground. She quickly panicked and threw herself on the ground, stretching out her tongue to lick up the food.
During the chat with the Wild Folk Elder Zurvan, Leo learned the origin of this marmot statue.
It turned out that Freya's teacher, the elven druid Bobak, had come to the Wolf-Driving Plain decades ago and rescued this Wild Folk tribe.
Ancestor worship has been popular in the Northern Realm since ancient times. It stems from the same origin as the shamanism of the Beast Race. At the same time, neither of them rejects the druidic beliefs of the elves. And the living environment of the Wild Folk naturally fits in with the teachings of the Wildness Sect of the druids.
So during the time when the druid Bobak stayed in the Wolf-Driving Plain, some druidic knowledge and concepts he left behind were regarded as creeds by the Wild Folk, and quite a number of believers had developed over the decades.
Of course, these believers are all pan-believers. Like most people in the Northern Realm, they believe in both the ancestor gods of shamanism and the nature gods of druidism.
In their eyes, the elven druids who can transform into animal forms are undoubtedly the incarnations of gods.
When Freya fell from the sky and came to the Wild Folk tribe, Zurvan thought it was Bobak who had come again. Only later did he realize it was Freya, Bobak's disciple.
"So, you fell because you were stealing honey by the cliff and got stung by bees?"
After hearing Zurvan's story, Leo was extremely speechless. At first, he thought Freya had some tragic past.
It turned out she was just too dumb to talk about it!
Freya mumbled, arguing with a wronged face: "My teacher has been hibernating for two months and didn't prepare any food for me. I haven't eaten for two months!"
"These bees are so wicked. They stung my nostrils!"
After sitting down in the lord's mansion, Leo slowly stated his purpose: "I came here this time as a neighbor to pay a visit. I have no ill intentions."
"The River Bend Settlement Camp is not a knight's pioneer territory. It's just a group of homeless refugees' only place to take shelter."
"I believe you have seen that our military strength is not strong. Even dealing with kobolds is very difficult for us."
Zurvan stared at Leo, his gaze seemed to want to penetrate his soul and see into his heart.
No one would show weakness before negotiations. Even the weak with a huge gap in strength would try their best to package themselves.
Leo recounted in detail the reason and process of why his village migrated to the River Bend. He detailed the war and death by the North Ice River, as well as the disasters during the migration, releasing all the terrifying scenes in the original owner's soul fragments one by one.
"Now, the settlement camp has finally settled down, but we have discovered the threat of the Wild Boar Man."
"The Wild Boar Man is our common enemy. If we join forces to defeat them, I believe the survival of our two ethnic groups will be even safer."
Elder Zurvan looked at Leo and said, "My boy, your sincerity has touched me. I'm glad that suffering didn't destroy you. The Basaka people welcome your arrival. However, we won't join your battle."
In the ancestral legends of the North Region, the god of war Tyr had a hundred sons. They scattered across the North Region and gave rise to a hundred clans.
Apart from his eldest son, Odarov, and several sons like Frolov and Isharov, whose names became the surnames of millennium-old families in the North Region in later generations, there were also some descendants such as Basaka and Lavard, who were regarded as ancestors by many clans.
Basaka means "warrior wearing a bear skin". The Basaka people are the self-designation of the wild folk in the Wolf-Driving Plain area.