Lan is sick; the mixed-race clan in the forest
Jiang Yunlan is sick. The day after she returned from the cave where the ice crystal was located, she realized she had caught a cold the moment she opened her eyes.
Perhaps because her body was invaded by cold air, she coughed from time to time.
Jiang Yunlan felt that her illness was not serious. Apart from a slight fever on her forehead and a cough, she had no other discomfort.
Orcs are much stronger than humans, with incredibly powerful immune systems. She figured that as long as she didn't catch a cold in the next few days, she'd recover in three or four days without needing any medicine.
None of the orcs in the gathering team fell ill. Maple and Cotton, the two orcs who had been closest to the ice crystals, were perfectly healthy. Perhaps it was because they hadn't gone to collect the ice crystals, or perhaps it was because their constitutions were strong enough. Neither of them even coughed; they remained energetic and lively.
"Achoo." Jiang Yunlan wiped her nose with a soft leaf and continued weaving.
To recover, she didn't go out with the beastmen today, but instead stayed quietly by the fire. From the foot of the mountain came the howling of the beastmen; they were practicing spear throwing and combat skills, occasionally letting out some unintelligible shouts.
Upon hearing the sound, Jiang Yunlan calmly picked up a bowl and took a sip of warm water. At the same time, at the foot of the mountain, rocks took freshly boiled water from the fire and poured a bowl of water for each of the orcs under training, then placed it on the ground to cool.
Lan said that once the water boils, there's no need to add more branches. When the fire goes out, they should finish training and go stockpile branches for the snow season, as well as red soil from the river and black and yellow soil from the forest.
Yan Shi put down the pottery jar in his hand, grabbed the stone spear beside him, stood up, and began to practice throwing the spear at a tree.
His spear-throwing practice was just about to begin when Kurotsuchi had already put away her stone spear and stood in front of Yanlin. She looked up at Yanlin, expressionless, her eyes full of seriousness: "I want to learn how to fight from you."
"Huh? You said you want to learn combat skills from me?" Yan Lin glanced at the tiny lemming orc cub, feeling quite puzzled.
She nodded solemnly. Yan Lin was very capable, and she wanted to become capable as well.
Yan Lin reached up and touched the back of his neck, then said a few words and led her to an open space to the side, “Come on, you can give up when you can’t take it anymore. I won’t go easy on you just because you’re a cub.”
He always softens when facing cubs, but battle is different. Being soft-hearted towards cubs during battle isn't being kind to them; it's killing them.
Black Soil, facing Rock Forest with its rich combat experience, met a brutal end. He fell, fell, and fell again and again.
Scattered wounds appeared on Heitu's body.
Mo Rong watched her silently get up from the ground, changing routes again and again to meet the rocky forest standing in the same spot, and he couldn't bear to watch any longer. He turned around, gritted his teeth, grabbed the stone in his hand, and aimed at the trees ahead.
He wasn't good at fighting; his thrown stone spears rarely hit their targets. Unlike Black Soil, who almost always hit his mark, he couldn't put down his spears and learn fighting techniques. He couldn't go; he couldn't help Black Soil restrain Rock Forest.
“Come on, attack this way,” Yanlin said, pointing out the method of attack for Heitu.
Feng Hong, who had thrown the stone spear, was stunned for a moment upon hearing this. It took her two seconds to come to her senses before she went to pick up the stone spear that was stuck in the tree. The deer-beastman who had once taught her to fight had also said these words.
The fire burned, then gradually died down, leaving behind a pile of ashes. The beastmen stopped practicing, picked up the vine baskets on their backs, and went into the forest to gather dry branches.
Maple Red walked at the front of the group, and for some reason looked back at Black Soil behind her. Two lemming orc cubs were huddled together talking, unaware of her gaze.
"Black Earth, your hands and legs are injured. Apply them when you find the herbs later."
Hearing Mo Rong say that, Hei Tu glanced at his own wound, which was just a scrape and a little blood, and nodded, saying, "Mm."
She speaks very little, not because she dislikes talking, but because she is more accustomed to not speaking.
Feng Hong casually picked up a dry branch from the ground, and after the two cubs finished speaking, she asked, "Does Hei Tu like being a warrior?"
She didn't understand why Feng Hong would ask that question, and her stern face revealed a hint of confusion. She stared at Feng Hong for a while, then said confidently, "I like it. After becoming a warrior, I can become stronger and kill wild beasts."
Thinking of her deceased mother, and her clan destroyed by wild beasts, Heitu couldn't help but clench her weapon tightly. Her free right hand picked up a branch from the ground and tossed it into the vine basket behind her.
Lan and Qiuguo made two small vine baskets. Now, when she and Mo Rong go out, they carry the vine baskets instead of carrying wooden buckets.
“If we don’t get stronger, we can’t protect anything. We can only run away, keep running away…” Hei Tu broke off the branch he was holding and casually tossed the two pieces of the branch into the basket behind him.
She didn't originally dislike running away. When wild beasts destroyed the clan's habitat, her mother took her to the clan of Morong, and that's how she survived.
But simply running away wouldn't work. Even if she went to another clan, her mother would still join the hunting party, still face wild beasts, and still... die because of her weakness. If she wanted to live, if she wanted the people she cared about to live, she had to have the power to defeat the danger.
“So I want to become a warrior. I want to be strong enough to protect Mo Rong, to protect you all,” she said.
The strikingly similar words reminded Maple Red of her older sister, Maple Syrup. Maple Syrup wanted to become a warrior for the same reason.
He wanted to protect his people.
“Black Soil, you will become a powerful warrior,” Maple Red said.
When she was still a cub, the deer-beastman who taught her to fight told her that only those beastmen who wanted to protect others could become powerful warriors. She had no intention of "protecting" anyone, and even though she was stronger than an adult deer-beastman, she couldn't become a good warrior in the future.
"Feng Hong, why did you become a warrior?" the former chieftain of the Deer Beastmen asked, looking at her when she was still young.
She looked up and met the deer-orc chieftain's gaze for a second, then turned to show him the back of her head and said matter-of-factly, "Because warriors can eat more food."
Young Maple was born with immense strength. In less than seven snow seasons, she ate as much as an adult deer-beastman. She didn't understand why she was always hungry, but she could see other cubs smiling when they were full, while she never had a full meal.
She knew the pain of hunger all too well, and felt that hunger was more terrifying than death. If it weren't for the fact that warriors were the orcs in the clan who were the first to fill their stomachs, she would never have bothered to become a warrior seed.
The chieftain who doesn't feed her is so annoying, the clan that doesn't give her food is so annoying. She doesn't like them at all, how could she possibly want to protect them?
What the young Feng Hong couldn't understand, the semi-adult Feng Hong understood. She finally realized that her people were able to eat their fill not because the chieftain secretly fed them, but because she needed too much food; the food that could feed her people couldn't satisfy her.
She no longer disliked them. However, as she was about to become a warrior, she still couldn't understand what "protection" meant.
For her, becoming a warrior was simply about having enough to eat. She probably would never understand why the deer-beastman who taught her to fight said that "protection" was the most important reason for becoming a warrior.
Feng Hong stealthily circled behind the medium-sized prey she had suddenly spotted, and swung her weapon at the opportune moment.
The reason for becoming a warrior? It doesn't matter. Nothing is more important than food. Maple, having killed her prey with her companions, grinned. Strength is secondary; as long as it's enough to capture the prey, that's sufficient.
Feng Hong carried the animal that looked like a combination of stone and tree, a long-necked wild herbivore, and happily led his people back to the cave with a full basket of firewood on his back.
Tonight I can eat Lanxiang's new food again!
Inside the cave, Jiang Yunlan finished the last stitch of the garment she was knitting, then picked up a glass of warm water to soothe her throat. After knitting for several days, she had finally finished the clothes she wanted to wear.
After taking off her dry, stiff animal skin clothes and putting on a fleece shirt and fleece pants, she immediately felt her body warm up.
"Next, I should make clothes for the other two cubs." She picked up a wooden stick to use as a ruler, and began knitting the sweater by gesturing over several strands of twisted yarn.
Her clothes weren't perfect; they didn't fit her quite right, but other orcs' clothes were more comfortable.
"Lan!"
Suddenly hearing a voice calling her name, Jiang Yunlan looked up blankly. Who was calling her with that faint, indistinct voice coming from afar?
"Sister! Lan!"
The case is solved; it was Feng Hong who returned with the orcs from the gathering team.
It seems she's found something good. Hearing the joy in Feng Hong's voice, Jiang Yunlan silently put down the sweater she had just started working on and got up to walk towards the semi-circular platform.
Feng Hong, carrying her prey, climbed the gentle slope and happened to bump into Lan coming out of the cave. When she saw the clothes Lan was wearing, her eyes lit up, and she circled around Lan like a puppy, even forgetting to put down the prey she was carrying on her shoulder.
"Lan, is what you're wearing made of fur from a furball beast?" she asked in the beastman language, her eyes filled with undisguised delight.
If she could wear clothes like that, she wouldn't be afraid to go out during the snowy season.
Jiang Yunlan was almost confused by her and quickly called out, "Feng Hong, put the prey down first."
As Feng Hong watched Lan's gestures, she belatedly realized she had almost forgotten to show the prey to Lan. She decisively put down the strange creature whose body and limbs were like stone, but whose neck and head resembled a tree trunk and crown.
"Can this thing actually be eaten?" Jiang Yunlan squatted down and poked the Stone Tree Beast's left forelimb, a limb that looked like two oval stones and one round stone.
"Click click".
It made a very crisp sound; it must have a hard outer shell.
After confirming with Feng Hong that it was edible, Jiang Yunlan immediately decided to eat it today.
"Gurgle, gurgle."
The stone tree beast's hard shell was peeled off by the beastmen and placed into a clay pot. The stone tree beast's neck resembled dried hardwood and wasn't very tasty, but the red meat inside the stone shell was quite delicious, though there wasn't much of it. However, paired with the juicy, succulent-like canopy, it was exceptionally delicious.
Jiang Yunlan took a bite and was so amazed that she took another. She could say with certainty that the Stone Tree Beast was the most delicious animal she had ever eaten since arriving in the Beast World.
We need to think of a way to hunt a few more Stonetree Beasts before winter arrives. The Furball Beast has a lot of meat, but the taste is really indescribable and not suitable for eating continuously.
A note from the author:
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The "little angel" used two doses of cold medicine on Jiang Yunlan, and Jiang Yunlan's health improved somewhat.
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