Gray Sprout Gray Sprout This is the clan of the Storm
At dawn, the beastmen gradually awoke from their sleep.
Rock Rain, in her beast form, reverted to her beast form and put back on the dry, hardened animal hide lying on the ground. Her chest and right arm were injured during the last hunt, preventing her from traveling in beast form. She only transformed into her beast form to sleep at night to deter passing creatures and warn them not to try and kill her cubs.
She led her people out hunting during the snow season and successfully protected most of them.
However, two of her tribesmen were severely wounded while hunting wild beasts and fell into eternal sleep during the snow season. Among the dead beastmen was one who would have reached adulthood after surviving this snow season.
“Yan Duoyu.” Gray Honey, the chieftain of the Rock Squirrel Beastmen, walked up to Yan Duoyu.
She looked up at Yan Duoyu, her gray eyes filled with seriousness. "We're running out of food. We'll have to slow down today and gather more."
The squirrel beastmen were smaller than the leopard beastmen. The middle-aged Grey Honey looked like a leopard beastman cub standing in front of the young Rock Rain.
But she wouldn't underestimate Grey Honey; the best proof of that is her willingness to cooperate with Grey Honey to leave the forest after the snow season.
Omnivorous squirrel-like beastmen lack sharp claws but possess agile movements. Their nimble movements allow them to easily stun wild beasts using the terrain and to use hard long stones to surround and kill their prey.
“Okay, I understand.” Yan Duoyu nodded to Hui Mi, watched her walk back to her people, and then turned to instruct her own people.
The leopard orcs travel by walking on the ground in their animal form, while the squirrel orcs leap through the trees. If they're not careful, they might accidentally shake off the squirrel orcs who slow down in the trees.
The weather was bad today; the two clans had only been traveling for a short while when they were caught in a light drizzle.
The adult orcs were unfazed by the light rain, protecting their cubs who had transformed into beast forms as they continued their journey, inevitably slowing them down further.
Unbeknownst to them, a leopard beastman and a squirrel beastman cub were following behind them, chasing after the trail they had left behind, and would soon catch up with them.
A light rain quietly soaked the forest.
Elsewhere in the forest, a clan was also traveling in the rain. Cotton, in beast form, and Maple, in human form, pulled a wooden cart, running very fast.
They did not leave the forest, but instead wandered through it, searching for the trail markers left by Lan.
On the fifth day after leaving the cave, the beastmen, traveling downstream along the river, gradually sensed something was amiss. To allow Lan and Yanlin to catch up with them sooner, they moved slowly, never running at full speed. At Yanlin's pace, he could catch up with them in less than two days.
But day and night passed, and the sun rose and set several times. The mixed-race clan of beastmen waited in vain for Lan to return.
The beastmen remembered what Lan had said when they left.
"I'll come find you soon."
Very soon? How fast?
Is it one sunset, two sunsets, three sunsets... one season, or the next flowering season?
They belatedly realized that Lan hadn't promised a time to come find them. Therefore, Lan might not come to them for a very long time.
Rock remembered that Rock Forest had told him he would stay behind to find his people. Knowing he wasn't fast enough, Rock promised to leave with Maple Sugar and the others, waiting for him to bring his people back.
The beastmen all knew Yanlin would stay, but they hadn't expected Lan to stay as well. Because Lan hadn't said she was going to find the leopard beastman clan. Lan had only said she would stay in the cave for a while and then go find them after dealing with some matters.
They assumed that once Lan finished dealing with her business, Yanlin would send her back before going to find the Leopard Beastman Clan.
They returned uneasily to the cave, only to find it empty. The slow-witted beastmen finally realized that what Lan was dealing with referred to her and Yanlin's journey to find the Leopard Beastman clan.
Feng Hong, expressionless, squeezed the handlebars of the wooden cart, leaving a dent in her hand. The cheerful, silly smile on her face vanished.
She didn't believe Yanlin was unaware of how dangerous the forest was during the Flower Season. Lan was wise; finding the missing Leopard Beastman clan wasn't impossible, but Lan was still a cub, a tiny cub vulnerable to all sorts of dangerous creatures during the Flower Season!
Feng Hong was furious and wished she could beat Yan Lin right now and smash him into the ground.
A deathly silence descended upon the orcs, broken only by the sounds of furious hands and weapons rubbing together.
"Bring Lan back," Maple Syrup said, breaking the deathly silence.
The orcs roared in unison, "Bring Lan back!"
Danger, beast—all were forgotten in that instant. Their minds were consumed by one thought: their chieftain had been abducted by Yan Lin!
That was Lan. Lan was the one who led them out of hunger and cold, and helped them survive the snowy season.
Even if staying might mean facing off against a giant beast, they couldn't abandon Lan and leave. They had to find Lan. A beastman was leading Lan aimlessly through the forest; if they weren't careful enough to protect Lan, she would die.
Lan.
Lan.
Lan.
The orcs trudged through the rain, frantically advancing along the trail left by Lan to find them. They were going to retrieve Lan.
Gradually, they came to understand the significance of the road signs.
What are road signs? Road signs are directional markers for finding the way back to Lan. Road signs are...
Lan.
Jiang Yunlan carved a new road sign and looked at the damp ground outside the cave. A pottery pot sat on the wet soil, filled with rainwater.
It was raining today, and Yanlin was worried that she, being a cub, would get sick from the rain, so he didn't carry her on his back. Instead, she and Yanlin spent the day in the place where the leopard beastmen and squirrel beastmen had rested.
While searching for the Squirrel Beastman clan, Jiang Yunlan noticed that the Leopard Beastman's signpost and the Squirrel Beastman's signpost suddenly appeared at the same time and ran parallel to each other.
The two clans traveled together.
She and Yanlin were both very happy, as it meant they could find two of the clans they wanted at once.
Inside the cave were two stone markers left by different clans, along with some fruit pits and bones, which looked like they had been left just a couple of days ago. She and Yanlin should be able to catch up with them within the next day or two.
Jiang Yunlan was excited, and so was Yan Lin. The two orcs quickly filtered the rainwater with stones, charcoal, and snow-washed down, then packed the boiled rainwater and half-smoked meat slices into vine bags and set off again.
There was still some time before nightfall, and they hoped to find the Squirrel Orc Clan and the Leopard Orc Clan the next day.
...
"Yan Duoyu, here are some herbs for you." Gray Honey took out some rare healing herbs from the clan and tossed them to the leopard beastman who was licking his wounds.
The tribe's herbs were certainly not enough, but she didn't want Yan Duoyu to die from her injuries. There were eight adult beastmen in her tribe, but also six cubs and four semi-adult beastmen. Without the help of the leopard beastmen to protect them, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to protect all the cubs from the jaws of wild beasts.
Yan Duoyu glanced at the herbs she offered, but instead of refusing, he tore off a piece of his own dinner and tossed it to her.
The leopard orcs owe no favors to any orc.
Today, the squirrel orcs gathered a lot of berries from the trees, and the leopard orcs also successfully caught new prey, enough for all their people to eat for three or four days.
The only bad news was that her wound had reopened, preventing her from participating in the hunting expedition three days later.
Grey Honey caught a large piece of meat that Rock Rain threw to her, turned around and went to the cubs, sharing the meat with them. Adult orcs are responsible for gathering, hunting, and fighting; they eat plenty of food, are well-nourished, and rarely go hungry.
Most of the tribe's food was given to the adult orcs, leaving the cubs and semi-adults with only vegetarian food. She could sense that the cubs needed more meat.
Yan Duoyu didn't go to see the departing Hui Mi. She put the herbs in her mouth, chewed them a few times, spat them out, applied them to her wounds, quickly finished her dinner, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
She didn't sleep well that night; her wound was both painful and itchy, making her suffer terribly. Her mother, the clan chief, had told her several times that she shouldn't scratch scabbed wounds, but she had never remembered before.
But now, she remembered, she wouldn't scratch her wound when she was in pain. Her mother, the chieftain, wouldn't grab her hand when she scratched it anymore.
Waking up again, Yan Duoyu realized that he and the squirrel beastmen had all overslept. They must have eaten a big meal yesterday and were too tired to sleep until now.
"Chieftain, something is coming from over there." Yan Hua looked at a golden glint in the distance, stood up, and stood in front of the cub, staring directly at the approaching golden object.
Yan Duoyu instantly snapped to attention and abruptly stood up to warn the Grey Honey and Squirrel Beastmen behind her.
They slept under the tree last night with little cover, leaving all the cubs exposed. If the creatures approaching are a pack of wild beasts, a fierce battle is inevitable.
"It looks like a leopard carrying something on its back," Yan Hua squinted at the gradually clearing gold, then suddenly smelled the familiar scent of her own kind, and her eyes widened immediately, "It's Yan Lin!"
The fifteen leopard-like beastmen became agitated and rose to their feet, surrounding Yanlin who had come from afar.
"Yanlin! You're still alive!"
"Well done, Yanlin. You actually managed to come back alive from the damage caused by the giant beast. Well done."
The leopard beastmen were overjoyed to have welcomed back a member of their tribe and excitedly touched Yanlin's muzzle with their faces. Jiang Yunlan, who was sitting on Yanlin's back, suddenly fell into the middle of a group of golden leopards. She stiffly straightened up, unable to find a place to get off.
"Gray Bud."
"Is this cub a squirrel-beastman cub?" Yan Duoyu, in her human form, looked at Yan Lin with a questioning gaze. Standing in the middle of the golden leopard, she could clearly see Lan sitting on Yan Lin's back.
"Gray Bud."
Yan Lin gave his fellow clansmen a look that said "keep away," and struggled to steady his body, which was being jostled around by his clansmen, so that Lan wouldn't fall.
“Yes, she is a squirrel-beastman cub, her name is Lan,” Yan Lin said.
At this moment, Grey Honey finally ran to the front of the leopard orc group, looked at the squirrel orc cub on Rock Forest's back, and shouted loudly, "Grey Sprout!"
Jiang Yunlan was startled when she heard the orc language she had never heard before. A strange sense of familiarity welled up in her heart, and she looked in the direction of the voice calling "Grey Sprout" and saw Grey Honey with grey eyes.
She met the gray eyes, staring intently at the unfamiliar squirrel-like beastman, a phrase in beastman language flashing through her mind.
Chieftain Amu.
Jiang Yunlan didn't say those words aloud as the voice in her head told her. She simply watched Gray Honey not far away, pursing her lips as she accepted Gray Sprout's fragmented memories.
The squirrel-beastman cub who rescued her is named Gray Sprout.
She has fulfilled Gray Sprout's wish. Gray Sprout's wish was simply to eat food again and to see Chief Mother again.
In her heart, it was not she who called out "Chief Mother" in the Orc language, but Gray Sprout.
“It’s not Gray Sprout,” Gray Honey looked at Jiang Yunlan’s unfamiliar eyes and smelled the orc scent that was different from Gray Sprout’s. Her excited mood instantly calmed down, and she said in a low voice, “It’s a cub that looks a lot like Gray Sprout.”
Jiang Yunlan lowered her gaze, then quickly smiled again, her voice gentle: "Hello, my name is Jiang Yunlan, I am an orc rescued by Gray Sprout."
Don't worry, I will help you protect your clan leader, Mother. Gray Sprout.
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Author's Note: Gray Sprout's wish to eat was fulfilled on the very first day Lan arrived in the Beast World. It was Gray Sprout who was crying out for food then. So, after Lan ate, Gray Sprout's cries of hunger ceased. In a sense, it was because Lan came to the Beast World that Gray Sprout was able to eat the food she had longed for, even though Gray Sprout was already dead at that time.
With both wishes fulfilled, Gray Sprout's soul finally found peace.
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