The earth-beast cubs came from the Xia clan of the forest.
As if responding to everyone's expectations, the black egg hatched as the sunset appeared.
Jiang Yunlan was very curious about what kind of animal the black egg that the winged beastman felt familiar with was. When she heard the sheep beastman say that the black egg was hatching, she hurriedly ran over with 022 in her arms.
At the most dazzling moment of the sunset, a claw emerged from the cracked black egg.
"Click".
The head of an orc cub popped out of the egg.
The cub, with its earthy skin, opened its forest-like eyes. It tilted its head, which had a pair of horns on its forehead, and tried to pry open the eggshell with its claws. With a "splat," it fell to the ground along with the broken eggshell.
"Achoo." He sneezed, and the scales covering his body disappeared, leaving only his tail with scales. His two claws also transformed back into human hands.
Jiang Yunlan looked at the cub's long ears, which drooped down to its shoulders like a lop-eared rabbit, and hurriedly whispered anxiously, "Animal skin! Quickly wrap her in animal skin."
Yan Dahe, who was standing nearby, had already prepared animal hides and quickly handed over the fluffy animal hides.
After a flurry of activity as Jiang Yunlan wrapped the orc cub in its clothes, she stared at the cub, still draped in animal clothing and nibbling on its eggshell, and her mind went completely blank. Wait, why did an orc cub hatch from an egg?!
Are the beastmen in this world born from eggs? She pondered, then whispered to 022, "This cub is a girl, who would be a good person to take care of her? How about Grey Honey? She's the chieftain of the Rock Squirrel Beastmen, she should be very good at taking care of cubs."
The more she thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. She then turned around and sent a sheep-beastman to call Grey Honey to the feeding area.
022 looked at Lan and asked in puzzlement, "That child isn't a girl."
"Huh? She couldn't possibly be a boy, could she?"
"Although it's not visible from his appearance, perhaps due to racial characteristics, he doesn't yet have a gender," 022 said.
Jiang Yunlan: ?
"And then there are the Feathered Beastmen, whose race is hermaphroditic. Although in reality they are not quite the same as the hermaphrodites you know, they can indeed be nurturers," 022 added.
Jiang Yunlan: ? ! !
She took a deep breath and forced back the gasp that almost escaped her lips, lest she frighten the newborn cub.
Jiang Yunlan looked dazed, her worldview seemingly being reshaped: "Yes, I should have thought of that. After all, this is... a world where there are hermaphroditic and asexual beastmen, which is quite normal."
"Could there be orcs who can change their own gender?" she asked curiously, having gone through the period of worldview reshaping.
022 neither affirmed nor denied, but simply said: "I have seen such creatures in other places. Of course, there are also animals that can reproduce on their own."
It seemed as if it had remembered something, and its tone became much more complicated.
Jiang Yunlan nodded with her bright eyes, then looked back at the orc cub and said with concern, "I've never seen a cub like this before. What do they eat? Can they eat meat? Can they eat vegetables? Or would it be better for them to drink milk? But there are no animals in their tribe that can produce milk."
Just as she was feeling extremely worried, she saw the orc cub, who had eaten half of its eggshell, crawl and roll to her feet, reaching out to try and reach 022 above her head.
When Little Chirp saw that the chicks were going to her, she didn't move. Instead, she lazily lay in the nest protecting the sleeping chicks.
“This is also 022’s first time encountering this race, and we don’t know their diet. The winged beastman, Green Branch Feathered Crow, might know.” 022 said, perching on Lan’s head and stretching out a long arm to play with the cub.
Hearing its reminder, Jiang Yunlan suddenly remembered that the winged beastman had said he was familiar with the black egg's aura. She decisively called to Yan Dahe and told the bewildered leopard beastman to call Qingzhi Yuya.
The Green-Branched Crow had just finished feeding the other animals and followed Yan Dahe with a blank expression.
"...Earth Beastmen? How could the Xia Clan have Earth Beastmen?" Qingzhi Yuya frowned deeply, his suspicious gaze sweeping over all the Xia Clan beastmen, almost subconsciously keeping the Earth Beastman cubs away from the Xia Clan beastmen.
The cub smelled the bird-like scent on the Green-Branched Crow and obediently let him pick it up. Its light green eyes looked in the direction of Jiang Yunlan and 022, revealing a soft smile.
Yan Dahe was taken aback by the winged beastman's agitated reaction.
Not wanting Lan to be misunderstood, she pointed towards the woods and emphasized, "Lan found the cubs and the baby birds in Xiao Qiu's nest in the woods. Lan would never intentionally kidnap other races' orc cubs!"
"This cub almost died when Lan found it. We and Xiao Qiu raised it very carefully and that's how it survived," she said angrily.
The Green-Branched Crow often comes to the plains and is very familiar with the habits of the Earth Beastmen. They know that when the Earth Beastmen cannot hatch their own offspring, they will entrust them to other birds for incubation.
Hearing this, he realized that the Xia clan had mistakenly picked up the eggs of the earth beastmen's cubs while collecting eggs. His wary attitude softened, and he said as if explaining, "They've encountered situations where they were forcibly taken away by beastmen of other races before, and I thought this was the same."
The Earth Orcs were not originally a clan from the plains. They were rescued from the Bear Orc clan by the Hatti clan and then moved into the forest.
No orc knew where they came from, nor why they had been kidnapped and brought here by the bear orcs. For a long time, apart from Hati, no orc discovered that a clan lived in the forest.
It was on one occasion, when Green-Branch Crow and its people were trading with Hati, that they heard Hati mention an orc clan in the forest, and that's when they began exchanging goods with the orcs.
Perhaps because of past traumas, the Earth Beastmen accepted those with avian auras, yet remained unwilling to interact with other clans. They refused to speak of themselves, including their clan's name and their original habitat. Even the name "Earth Beastmen" was given to them by the Feathered Beastmen.
After listening to Qingzhi Yuya's explanation of the cause and effect, Jiang Yunlan could understand his overreaction and did not take his previous attitude to heart.
“It’s so good that you know the earth beastmen. Could you send the cub back to his original clan? He’s too young; we don’t know how to raise him,” Jiang Yunlan said, letting out a sigh of relief. She was genuinely afraid the tiny cub would die.
Green-twig Crow stiffened instantly, and said somewhat awkwardly, "I only know that they live in the forest, but I don't know the exact location of their clan. Every time we enter the forest, they appear right in front of us."
Not far away, Grey Honey walked over after hearing what he said, and just then saw a new dent appear next to her.
“Like this,” he said, looking at the depression in the ground not far away.
"Got you!" Grey Honey suddenly dug the orc out of the crater, grabbed the orc in its beast form, and frowned, "How come it's an orc?"
The afterglow of the sunset had faded. Jiang Yunlan looked at the creature with pointed horns on its forehead, furry ears that drooped to its shoulders, its body covered in scales, and four claws, which resembled a dragon but was not quite a dragon, and slowly flicked a question mark with its tail.
The captured orc silently curled its tail to cover its vision, not even thinking of escaping. It would steal a glance at the cub, then at the gray honey behind it, then back at the cub and then back at the gray honey.
Jiang Yunlan felt helpless about the beastmen who frequently came to peek at her cubs.
She could understand the orcs sneaking into the breeding area, but...
“This is the habitat of the Xia clan,” Jiang Yunlan said seriously as she walked up to the earth beastman. “Wandering in without permission is extremely impolite and will be punished if caught.”
The earth beastman shuddered, slightly shifting his tail to meet her gaze, his eyes filled with wariness.
“However, our Xia clan has also trespassed into your habitat before, so this will be considered a clean break. I won’t do anything to you, but there can’t be a next time. If there is a next time, I’ll make you work!” After making a villainous face, she smiled gently at Grey Honey and said, “Alright, Grey Honey, put this beastman down.”
If she wasn't mistaken, the place where she found the orc cub should be the location of the orc clan.
The four-legged earth beastman glanced at her, awkwardly apologized, and leaped a few steps to the Green-Branched Crow, intending to carry the cub back to its clan. The earth beastman hadn't visited the Xia clan for a long time.
After confirming that the cubs were being properly incubated by the adult birds, the earth beastmen stopped coming over in shifts. They suddenly came today because they sensed the cubs were about to be born, but by sheer coincidence, they were caught.
Just as the Green-Branched Crow was about to hand its sleepy cub to the Earth Beastman, a sharp bird cry rang out.
"Gah—"
Little Chirp flapped its wing, sending the small, beast-like earth-beastman flying. It bared its teeth and growled at the beastman, issuing a warning. It wouldn't entrust its cub to an unfamiliar animal.
The orc, sent flying by the slap, rolled on the ground with a "thud".
Little Chick didn't look at the orc lying on the ground, but instead pecked the Green-Branched Crow hard, "Caw caw caw!"
The Green-Branched Crow could read its mind. Seeing the Earth Beastman hesitating not far away, it didn't hand the cub to Little Chick, and sure enough, it was pecked several more times. Little Chick was in too much pain from the beast pecking, so it took several steps back and stuffed the cub into Jiang Yunlan's arms, hoping she could control Little Chick.
Jiang Yunlan was a little scared when she was suddenly pulled into the "battlefield" and instinctively hugged the cub tightly.
The little bird didn't dare to bite her, so it just circled around her, making "quack quack quack" sounds in dissatisfaction.
The cub slept soundly and wasn't woken up. The earth beastman, who had gotten up from the ground, looked at Xiao Qiu, then at the cub in Jiang Yunlan's arms, and his expression was somewhat aggrieved.
"I'll bring food for the cubs tomorrow morning," the earth beastman said, then sadly burrowed away.
The large bird that was incubating its young was unwilling to let the chicks be taken away, so the earth beastmen could only come back another time.
Jiang Yunlan was shocked, then puzzled, and then, looking at Xiao Qiu who could send the earth beastmen flying, she suddenly realized. So, it was because they were too weak, unable even to defeat Xiao Qiu, that they had to make a tactical retreat?
"022, if I take the chick away, will Little Chick peck at me?" She stared at the big blue bird cawing at her feet, hesitant to move for a moment.
"022 doesn't know either."
Hearing the voice above her head, she became even more afraid to move. She had never been pecked by a little bird before, but seeing that the Green-Branched Crow's animal hide had been torn open, she knew that the little bird's pecking must have been extremely painful.
The earth beast cub in her arms, annoyed by the noise, let out a soft cry and buried itself in its animal hide, pouting.
When Little Chick heard the cub's voice, its arrogance immediately subsided, and it stopped moving.
"Gah...!"
Grey Honey caught the little chick that had stopped and looked at Lan to comfort her, "Lan, I'm holding on tight. You take the cub away, I won't let it peck at you."
"Grey Honey is really reliable!"
Jiang Yunlan was touched and stepped back while saying, "Grey Honey, can you take care of the cub tonight?"
"Okay. Lan, I'll come find you and take the cub away in a bit."
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The author notes: The word "she" is only used when the character is clearly female from an omniscient perspective, or when a character believes that another character is female. For all other genders of orcs, "he" is used. "He" is also used as a third-person pronoun to refer to both males and people of unknown gender.
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