The maple syrup's kin have become the Xia tribe's Xia, and will usher in...
Following the trail left by Ilovian, Jiang Yunlan and her people left the sparsely vegetated hills and entered the mountains and forests.
Sveta recalled the Ilovian's lair he had just seen. It looked exactly like the lair's owner hadn't returned for several days, yet a few scattered energy stones remained in a corner.
The food wasn't taken away, so she must have just left home temporarily, not gone on a long trip.
Sveta remembered her personality and said with a puzzlement, "She's not good at talking to orcs and rarely goes to forests where she's likely to encounter them. She herself said that if it weren't for coming to find me, she would rather stay in her lair. It's really strange. How come she's been in the forest for several days now and hasn't returned to her dwelling yet?"
The more Sveta spoke, the more uneasy she became. Especially after learning of the organization's existence, she worried that she had arrived too late. She couldn't help but wonder if Ilovian had been captured by that organization for not returning.
Hearing its worry, Jiang Yunlan's ears perked up and twitched slightly. She gently comforted the forest spirit and paid even closer attention to the traces around her.
Something was definitely wrong. The traces left by Ilovian were messy, as if he was urgently searching for something.
"What are they looking for?" Jiang Yunlan wondered.
"Lan, there are orcs watching us." Sveta surveyed the forest, casually tossing out the direction of the orcs before continuing to unleash his power to sense Iloven's current location. The forest would tell him everything about it.
Jiang Yunlan understood and turned her head to look. The sound of branches swaying came from not far away, then fell silent again after two seconds. She heard the sound of the orc falling to the ground, and a few muffled groans.
Silently amplifying the wood power she had just released, she bound the orc who was secretly spying on the group. She raised her paw and gently patted the sheep-orc's head, then pointed her paw at a tree not far away.
“Let’s go over there,” she said to the beastmen.
Xia's orc responded. The sheep-orc carried her steadily over, accompanied by the even faster orcs, including Greysien.
Behind the tree, seven orcs, heads bowed, tried to untangle themselves from the plants that had inexplicably bound their feet, only to be caught off guard by a shadow looming overhead.
The seven orcs were drenched in sweat, their weak bodies trembling slightly.
Before them lay a goat-like beastman in animal form, with a squirrel-like beastman peeking out from under his head.
Jiang Yunlan looked at the seven beastmen with vastly different body shapes, her gaze drawn to the three orange-haired deer-beastmen among them. She remembered that Maple Syrup and the others had antlers like these.
"Sorry! We shouldn't have been spying on you." they shouted, cautiously raising their heads to secretly observe the orcish group that had captured them.
The moment the three deer-like beastmen revealed their faces, Xia's beastmen couldn't help but be startled. They looked so alike; the eyes of these three deer-like beastmen were exactly the same as Maple Syrup, Maple Red, and Autumn Fruit.
The deer-beastman with dog-like eyes looked at him pitifully, and Kurotsuchi instantly thought of Maple's face. Maple would also show this expression when she was wronged.
Jiang Yunlan was almost certain that the three of them were Maple Sugar's people. She subconsciously looked at the other four strange beastmen who were as small as unicorns, used her wood power to untie the restraints on their feet, and hesitantly opened her mouth: "Are you deer beastmen and hedgehog beastmen?"
Hearing the language of the forest, the seven orcs who had migrated here from the other side of the forest were no longer afraid. They excitedly approached Jiang Yunlan and her group, their eyes sparkling, "Are you also orcs from the forest?"
After completing a series of actions, their minds finally came to work, and they suddenly remembered that they had never seen such beastmen in the forest. Only lemming beastmen were familiar to them.
The seven orcs froze, stunned. Oh no, could they have mistaken one for another?
“I am an orc who came from there. Do you remember your people who remained in the forest? They are now my people. We have been looking for you for a long time.”
Jiang Yunlan's words soothed the seven beastmen, who recalled the events surrounding their clan's impending migration. One hedgehog beastman vaguely remembered that the herbs the deer beastman chieftain had requested from the healer clan were meant for the deer beastmen's maple syrup.
The hedgehog beastman's mood immediately plummeted upon thinking about the herbs.
One of the deer-orc warriors became excited, reciting the names of his tribesmen who remained in the forest while asking, "Maple Syrup, Maple Red, Autumn Fruit... are they all still alive?"
He didn't reveal the names of the Green-Clad Beastmen and the others. He knew the old Deer-Beastman was already nearing the end of his life, and even if he asked, he wouldn't get the answer he wanted to hear.
Jiang Yunlan froze upon hearing three unfamiliar names. It turned out that before she came to this world, Maple Sugar and the others had already lost their kind. She gently shook her head, gazing at the deer-beastman warrior, and said, "Now, only Maple Sugar, Maple Red, and Autumn Fruit remain alive among the deer-beastmen."
The deer-orc warrior, dejected upon receiving the answer, took a deep breath and broke into a smile. Three more of his kind had survived, and his teammate Maple Syrup was also alive—something to be happy about.
"If only I could see them, I don't even know if we'll ever see them again," the deer-orc warrior said with a wry smile.
Upon hearing this, a deer-beastman next to him glared sharply and delivered a chop to his head.
"Ouch! Why am I getting hit again?" the deer-orc warrior complained.
The older-looking deer-beastman withdrew his hand as if it were commonplace, and said in a calm tone, "How many times has the chieftain said that we must never give up hope, no matter what? Even if we are the only ones who can still move, we should not say such discouraging things."
The four hedgehog-like beastmen exchanged glances and encouraged him, "Let's cheer each other on! We'll definitely survive this together."
Jiang Yunlan's ears perked up, and she gave a friendly smile. "What kind of problem have you encountered? Can you tell me about it? Maybe we can help you."
She couldn't help but feel grateful that there were still her people on the ship, and she could ask an orc to accompany them to the ship to fetch reinforcements. She had finally found Maple Sugar and her kind, and she was determined to bring them all back.
Upon hearing this, both the deer-beastman and the hedgehog-beastman looked at the blue dragon. They remembered the dragon that had said it would help them a few days ago.
Ilovian hasn't returned since that day, and everyone's illnesses are getting worse. The blue dragon, its color is different from Ilovian's, but its beast form is very similar; it must be a member of Ilovian's race.
Should they ask them to look for Ilovian as well? The deer-beastmen and hedgehog-beastmen were torn.
They remembered that Ilovian would always avoid strange orcs whenever he smelled their scent. Asking so many strange orcs to find Ilovian would only make things harder for him. And since they couldn't shout loudly in the forest, as it would easily attract wild beasts, the new Maple Sugar tribe couldn't find Ilovian by name.
Greysien, stared at by the seven orcs, tilted his head in confusion. "Why are you looking at me?"
Jiang Yunlan immediately realized from their hesitant reaction that they had something else to say, something that was probably related to Ilovian. Otherwise, they wouldn't have looked at Greysien, who was also a dragon.
Could it be that the problems they're facing are related to Ilovian?
Jiang Yunlan had a bad feeling. She raised a paw and gestured to Greysien, seemingly puzzled, and said, "Speaking of which, have you ever seen an orc who looks a lot like him? We're looking for that orc."
The seven orcs in front of her reacted with a relaxed attitude, tinged with hope and a hint of unease. Her heart instantly calmed down; it seemed that Ilovian's relationship with the two orc clans wasn't bad.
“Her name is Iloven, and she is a member of my tribe. If you know anything about her, please be sure to tell us.” Jiang Yunlan said, looking expectantly at the deer-beastman closest to her.
The older deer-beastman sighed, putting one hand on his hip. "We're also looking for Ilovian. Nine days ago, she came into the forest looking for herbs to cure our illness, but she hasn't shown up yet."
If they hadn't noticed the dragon that resembled Ilovian, they wouldn't have initially been spying on these beastmen in their animal forms.
"She's an orc with fire powers. We don't know what happened to her, we're all very worried about her," a hedgehog orc said anxiously.
After the Hedgehog Beastmen and Deer Beastmen migrated here, they became neighbors with Ilovian. Having spent several snowy seasons together, they had long since come to regard Ilovian as a friend.
"Was he away for nine days?" Jiang Yunlan pondered as she moved the basket from her left arm to her chest.
She opened the openwork basket and looked down at the two elves lying in the basket.
The sleeping basket had two compartments. Freya on the left flashed her light but remained silent. Sveta on the right was equally silent, seemingly still exploring the forest in search of Ilovian's whereabouts.
She silently took back the small basket lid, preparing to put it back on.
Sveta suddenly spoke up: "Lan, I saw Ilovian. She's been trapped in a cave by a group of orcs wielding stone weapons and can't get out. The orcs are too close, and she's afraid of stepping on them."
At this point, it began to wonder. Why were the orcs blocking Ilovian's path, and why did they seem so angry? Given Ilovian's aversion to encountering orcs, it was unlikely he had provoked so many.
"I saw a lot of herbs around her, probably for the deer-beastmen. She couldn't take all the herbs in her human form, so she definitely wouldn't want to turn back. I really don't know what those beastmen are so angry about. The snow season is coming, don't they need to gather food? Why do they have to block Ilovian?" it said angrily.
Jiang Yunlan was surprised and subconsciously asked, "Are there many people? Do we need to go back to the ship and get reinforcements?"
“I alone could have rescued her; they weren’t any powerful enemies. She didn’t make a move, so those orcs must not be very bad, which is why she didn’t burn them all down,” Sveta said.
"Lan, let's go and rescue her."
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