The sun was still yet to appear, and so it was still dark.
Upon sensing the vibrations Fabby gritted her teeth and ran toward the tent. Gossini also came from the other direction.
“Get up!” Fabby bent and pushed Edgar, whereas Gossini just footed Tenzai’s shoulder.
“Ah!” Tenzai was the first one to wake up with a scream.
Fabby couldn’t employ such a brutal tactic on her brother, so she pinched him on the cheek.
“Aw!” Edgar, too, woke up.
Just then the squirrels poured on their tent, tore it apart and made their way inside, screaming like drunk baboons.
A storm of squirrels had hit them.
Things always wouldn’t go as planned.Before Edgar and others collected even a tenth of the squirrels they had killed, all the creatures living in the ant hills and termite mounds swarmed to the scene.The ants were three to four inches tall, and they easily ripped through the skin and the muscles of the squirrels. And they overwhelmed Edgar and others with their numbers, forcing the four of them to retreat with struggle.However, Fabby didn’t give up so easily.She raised an earthen wall in the center of the piles of squirrel corpses, so the ants only got to feed on half the bodies. As for the other half, Fabby raised the ground into a slope, so that all the bodies would roll and gather at the bottom of the slope. Edgar then used his drive to spread through
After finding a quality beast core and an egg in one of the caves, they couldn’t help but go and look in other caves on their way to the top of Solidia.And they found something they weren’t expecting. Big mushrooms of all colors and shapes. Even Fabby and Gossini didn’t know most of those, but of those they knew, they could tell that these mushrooms were quite precious.The cell-repairing and muscle-strengthening mushrooms were especially abundant. However, when they tried to pluck those mushrooms, they released poisonous gasses out of the roots. So they had to cut them at the base. It took hours to tour different caves.And they eventually arrived at the mountain peak in the cool of the day.A hot pool was waiting for them. The water was quite clean despite all the wind blowing around.Edgar and Tenzai jumped into the pool in their undies.“So selfish and shameless…” Fabby opined.The pool was big, but it was out in the open, so Fabby didn’t feel inclined to enter the pool. As for G
It was night, and the cold light of the moon was whipping winds in a silent, smooth fashion.Fabby and others were in wintry outfits. They had camped not far from the hot pool at the peak.All the four were enjoying the hot mushroom soup that Fabby had cooked.Gossini was observing Edgar. (He’s behaving a bit strange ever since we’ve been to the pool. Her eyes enlarged a bit. Did he…) “Ahem, hey you, Mr. Decent! You didn’t peek while I was bathing or anything, did you?”Edgar’s eyes popped out of his sockets. “H-Huh? W-What are you talking about all of
As the moon moved in the sky, many animals, from squirrels, racoons, chipmunks to rabbits, rats, and beavers came out of holes near the pool and scampered here and there. There were no birds around, so they were enjoying the pool and healed their bodies. Normally, the redback squirrels and terra rats were mortal enemies, but inside the pool, they acted like buddies. Even the beasts that had reddened eyes were able to calm down and feel at ease. Fabby and others observed all of this from a distance, while hidden inside a natural-looking earthen structure she had created. All the four of them looked absolutely fresh, with no external wounds whatsoever. “Just what makes that pool so special?” Tenzai was scratching his head.
Edgar was fighting off other wolves that kept coming in his way. Though it irritated him, the moment he saw the blood trail on the ground, his heart pounded in his ears. The air around him suddenly changed, and even the wolves briefly felt something run down their spines.Edgar suddenly released both electricity and drive, which resulted in an explosive sound, and he burst forward like a shooting star and covered the distance between him and the scar-faced wolf in little time. As he fell on the beast, he hugged it and violently rolled it to the side.The scar-faced wolf showed its experience and still didn’t let go of Fabby’s shoulder. Fabby wasn’t crying anymore, probably because she was in too much pain to cry anymore. The wolf’s teeth were likely tearing their way through her flesh and hit sensitive nerves, thereby numbing her whole b
Climbing down the mountain took much less time because they took an almost straight path. So they arrived at the base after dawn.There weren’t many birds there, but there were bits of trees and bushes here and there near the base.But what caught their eyes was the fight between a two-feet-tall crow and a wounded man. He was desperately fighting for his life, but the crow was rather persistent. It had already eaten one of his ears and a finger.Fabby was the first to react. She raised a pillar out of the nearest boulder and smashed the crow in its face from the side. The crow almost fell to the ground. After seeing the four new humans who arrived at the scene, it flew away in haste.“Are you alright?” Fabby came to him in a hurry.
The mantis zone was unlike other regions. Each tree was gigantic, and even the leaves of the trees were so big a few humans could sit on them, and they wouldn’t break. “Survival depends on working together,” Rengan kept talking while leading Edgar and others into the mantis zone. “If we want to reach Black Well, we have to stick together. So please watch my back.” “What’s he rambling about?” Tenzai shook his head and looked at the mantises that were standing on the leaves of the trees and were gazing right at them, or so it seemed. Seeing that it was humans, some of them drooped downward and started to sleep. “I-It looks like my information is correct,” Rengan’s heart speed lowered just a bit. “We just have to keep going without doing anything silly.” Though it seemed like they were walking casually, everyone was on high-alert. It was still unbelievable for both Edgar and Fabby that these mantises weren’t attacking them. Since they left Shushui mountain, they never came across a
The mantises were everywhere, doing their things, which primarily involved making noises. Any child would discolor their pants if they were to be hearing such a noise, let alone be in the presence of such an overwhelming number of praying mantises.The five humans, however, seemed alright with walking through their midst, without lowering their heads or bending their spines, until they came across the king of the zone.The three-meter-tall praying mantis, the king of all the local mantises, just happened to be passing by. And all the nearby praying mantises had their antennas lowered in their king’s presence.“That must be the king…” Rengen hurriedly said as the mantis king’s attention turned to the humans. “Lower your heads.”&