230. Childhood Friends - Butterfly
"Ugh."
A boy put down a basket full of mushrooms. He dumped them into a cart and returned to where he ca from.
After placing the basket down next to his resting younger sister and grandmother, he resud the gentle task of picking mushroom caps from logs.
Even though sumr hadn’t ended yet, this cool place was the Uena tribe’s mushroom farm.
Thousands of logs cut to chest height were propped up in the middle of the dense forest, with trees casting a green shade every five steps.
Plump, blooming mushrooms.
The logs were festooned with mushrooms of varying sizes. Before the main harvest, the Uena tribe mbers plucked the mature mushrooms first. Euta, Enen, and their grandmother worked diligently, their hands moving swiftly.
It was an incredibly abundant scene. Mushrooms the size of fists, with exquisite fragrance and quality, could be plucked at will.
This was a luxury that the Uena tribe could enjoy due to their rare mushroom cultivation techniques. However, Euta’s busy hands paused montarily as he let out a yawn.
“Ahh~”
He was bored, finding no fun in the repetitive work. His sister, Enen, glanced at her brother with an expression that said, “That’s just like him.”
Their grandmother didn’t scold him, rely continuing to pluck mushrooms with her aged hands, leaving it to her granddaughter to speak up.
“What’s with you helping out today? Aren’t you going to practice archery?”
She spoke with her arms crossed, lifting her chin so her nostrils showed. However, her small stature was far from intimidating. Euta finished his yawn and then playfully smacked his sister on the head without any particular reason.
“Ow!” Enen grabbed her head, whining, before tattling to their grandmother.
“Don’t fight, children,” the grandmother said, not pausing her mushroom picking. Enen’s cheeks puffed out in frustration.
How could she get back at him?
After so thought, she took her revenge by tossing a beetle onto her brother’s head as he resud picking mushrooms.
Once the brief commotion ended, Enen, Euta, and their grandmother pushed the cart back toward the village. The sun was setting early in the forest, casting long shadows, when they encountered a lively group along the way.
“Wow, you’re quite the hunter, sir! I thought you wouldn’t know how to hunt, being from outside the village.”
They were travelers.
A large man with thick eyebrows was tearing into a freshly roasted deer haunChapter Smoke rose in plus from a bonfire, and it appeared that among the dozen or so young n gathered, there was a clear leader.
It was a young man with light brown hair.
His skin was healthily tanned, and he sat confidently at the center, clearly the leader, while the much larger man offered him the haunch.
“Here it is. But you should’ve let us handle the hunting. Both Vanne and I are pretty good at it. Haha. Just say the word and…”
“Reuben, quiet. The villagers are passing by.”
Among them were three won, and one of the slender ones spoke as if scolding the large man. At her nod, the travelers turned their attention toward the siblings and their grandmother, who were pushing the cart.
Worried that there might be so unnecessary conflict with the outsiders, Euta sped up their pace with the cart. At that mont, the young man with the light brown hair stood up and approached them.
“Is sothing wrong?”
“Apologies for the late greeting, ma’am. I’m embarrassed that we were caught hunting in your forest. Please take this as a gift.”
The young man offered a large deer haunChapter Enen swallowed her saliva, looking at the steaming at. The sll was irresistible.
“Who owns a forest? Thank you. Would you like so mushrooms in return?”
“That would be wonderful.”
It was a generous exchange.
As Euta watched the young n begin to roast the mushrooms, he drove the cart away. Seeing his sister excited about the at, he playfully smacked her on the head again.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“You’re drooling over food in front of strangers? Honestly.”
“Co on~ I’ve never eaten at before. I bet it’s delicious! Don’t you think?”
“You silly girl…”
Back ho, the at they ate was delicious. The juices from the at trickled down the mushrooms, and Enen’s small mouth worked busily. For so reason, Euta felt uneasy.
at for dinner... tch.
I wanted to be the one to provide it.
The next day, Euta didn’t go to pick mushrooms. Having practiced archery, he decided to go hunting.
It was his second ti venturing out to hunt. Since the Uena tribe didn’t typically hunt, there was plenty of ga in the forest.
But, as before, the boy didn’t succeed in hunting. Whenever he got close, the ga sensed him and ran away. Hitting them with an arrow was no easy feat.
He did manage to hit one once.
But the creature ran off with the arrow stuck in it. After chasing it for a while, Euta ended up empty-handed. It was rare for a ga to die from a single arrow hit, especially when using a boy’s toy-like bow and arrows.
“Do I need to aim better?”
How much better? I thought I did well... Euta couldn’t hide his disappointnt as he left the forest, pondering how the outsider had managed his hunt.
“Should I ask him?”
That young man had been hovering suspiciously around him and his sister. Initially, Euta had thought he was strange and kept his distance, but after yesterday, he didn’t seem so odd. He was polite...
But still.
“He’s a bit intimidating.”
They were ard outsiders. Among the villagers, there was speculation that they might be knights hiding in the forest.
There might not be any good in approaching them. Yet, as a young boy, Euta thought, “It wouldn’t hurt just to ask.” By chance, the young man with light brown hair was wandering at the edge of the village, visible from the hillside.
Whether he was out for a walk or had nothing better to do, Euta approached him.
“Excuse …”
“What’s up?”
He was only a few years older, but Euta found it hard to talk to him. The young man seed very adult-like, so Euta used formal speech.
“Well, how did you catch that yesterday?”
“The deer? With a trap.”
“A trap?”
“Yes, a trap.”
What’s a trap?
To the boy, who didn’t even know the term, Rev demonstrated by making a "snare." It had been a long ti since he’d done this, and it felt nostalgic.
“See, this is a snare trap. When an animal passes through here and triggers it... it gets caught and hangs in the air like this.”
“Wow! How does the tree spring up like that?”
“Wanna try making one? It uses the elasticity of the tree. You make a notch on the underside of a branch like this, and…”
[Leo, you beca a great hunter and lived happily with Lena. This achievent carries over so of Leo’s *hunting* skills.]
Rev taught Euta how to hunt.
Rev taught Euta everything he knew about hunting, from setting traps according to their types and purposes to reading the terrain to guess where prey might be and how to track them. He showed him all of this while roaming the forest together.
Enen will probably live happily with this boy. Thinking that this might be the last ti, Rev taught him with extra care. He also asked Vanne and Reuben to teach him a few things from ti to ti.
Then, one day, a rchant caravan arrived at the Uena tribe. The rchants filled their wagons with the mountains of mushrooms the Uena tribe had harvested and went on their way.
It was autumn, and that ant Enen’s death was approaching.
Rev started carrying his sword all the ti from then on. Whenever possible, he stayed close to the siblings...
It was a day like any other.
While Euta was engrossed in practicing the traps Rev had taught him, a butterfly fluttered by. It was a white butterfly, scattering sothing like pollen in its wake.
“Wow…”
Enen, as if entranced, chased after the butterfly, and Rev gritted his teeth.
[Achievent: Baptism of the Saint – Leo has acquired the skill {Divine Power Detection}.]
The butterfly carried divine power from the gods. Enen’s death was not an accident or a coincidence.
Rev swore under his breath and followed Enen as she ventured deeper into the forest. A dozen steps behind her, Rev began to recognize the surroundings as eerily familiar. It was the place where Enen had been cruelly murdered.
The butterfly gently landed on a tree trunk. There was sothing watching Enen approach the butterfly with interest.
It was a roaming beast called an "Oantahu."
The creature resembled a monkey with long green fur. Its arms were longer than its legs, and its skin was red. Its overall appearance was sleek, but, true to its nature as a magical beast, it was huge. It was a wonder the tree it clung to didn't break under its weight.
“Heh…”
Enen crouched, holding her breath as she reached for the butterfly. The Oantahu, too, reached its long arm toward Enen, but Rev silently circled around to get behind it. Just as he was about to draw his sword,
“Enen!!”
Euta’s sharp scream rang out.
The Oantahu’s head whipped around. Surprised as well, Rev stopped thinking and sprinted forward. He intended to cut the creature’s throat while it was hanging on the tree, but it climbed higher, so he only managed to nick the arm reaching for Enen.
- Screeheeheeheeheehee!
Rev covered Enen’s eyes and held her close. Looking back, he saw Euta, Vanne, and Reuben rushing toward them.
“Vanne, take the kids! Reuben! Let’s deal with this thing…!”
- Whomp!
Before he could finish, the Oantahu lunged. It didn’t push off the ground; it leaped to a nearby tree and swung its arm from above. The massive palm with deeply etched lines flew straight toward Rev.
It was large enough to fill his vision.
But Rev held his ground. He stepped back to shield Vanne, Reuben, Euta, and Enen and shouted.
“Haaaah!”
A blinding flash erupted as aura ford on Rev’s sword. The blade slashed diagonally, eting the descending hand. However, no one was struck by it.
- Screehee!
“Eek!”
Blood poured out in torrents. A hunk of flesh with four fingers fell away, leaving only a thumb on the Oantahu’s hand. The palm was cut diagonally, with more of it missing than remaining.
“Vanne, quickly get the kids out of here. We’ll handle this creature.”
With a flick of his sword, Rev raised his head. He pondered how to deal with the creature, which was hesitating while hanging from the tree.
There was no way to handle it as long as it clung to the trees. Its ability to leap high was impressive but had its limits.
As Vanne took the children and retreated, Rev finished devising a plan. The problem was that it was up there. All he had to do was bring it down.
- Crack!
If I need to conserve aura blades for soup... Rev cut down the tree that the Oantahu clung to. As it attempted to jump to another tree, Rev sliced through that tree as well.
The creature flailed comically in midair before crashing to the ground. Terrified, the Oantahu flipped its lips back in a threatening gesture, screeching and posturing, but only for a mont. Recognizing that the figure approaching it was a far superior male, it... presented its backside to Rev.
“Ugh.”
Its large size ant a large backside.
The creature thought it was showing a submissive posture, but for Reuben and Rev watching, it was nothing short of revolting.
The truth was, even if it had groveled and begged for its life, they wouldn’t have spared it.
Rev, slightly taken aback, avoided the proffered rump and searched for a spot to drive his sword in...
- Flap.
A white butterfly fluttered into view.
The butterfly danced around the Oantahu, which lay with its eyes tightly shut, rump raised, and head buried in the dirt, before it suddenly flew into the creature’s nose.
The Oantahu’s eyes flew open.
- Screeeee…! Screeeeaaak!
“What the…?”
The Oantahu’s long arms bulged as if they might burst. The once short and slender legs thickened explosively, making it resemble an orangutan more than a monkey.
Its green fur turned red, and its red skin beca jet black, covered in a horrifying number of grotesque protrusions.
- Ohohohoaagh! Ughaghagh!
The Oantahu, now as massive as the beast "Azhinugab," which had been based on Migas, lost control of its newfound strength and slamd its elbows into the ground.
Rev felt the earth tremble beneath his feet and spoke.
“Reuben, go... get the others.”
Then he added,
“We can’t handle this thing on our own.”
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