Chapter 885: Chapter 885 On the Hunt
It was early morning in the day after dealing with the ‘explosion’ from the cultivators. Kat and Lily where by themselves running through the forest looking for some food. See, it turned out that not having access to any food in the storage rings might be fine for Kat but not for Lily. Lily had insisted she would be fine, but Kat ignored these protests and forced her to check to see if she could open the ring with her mana.
Sadly, it turned out that either the rings were locked in some way or mana simply wasn’t compatible with them in the same way demonic energy wasn’t. Different energy systems that didn’t seem to play nice with each other. Perhaps if Kat managed to find a world with both mana and qi there would be a work around figured out... but in a world with only qi they just had no reason to even know it was a problem, let alone resources to look into a solution.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. Lily had agreed to the hunt when her stomach started growling rather embarrassingly and she could no longer deny that she was hungry. She did manage to ring a concession from Kat that they’d go hunting in the morning, hopefully giving the cultivators time to wake up. Kat wasn’t quite so hopeful. Perhaps that was for the best, because Kat used the extra time she gained from needing less sleep to make...
Well it wasn’t really a tent, it was more a hole in the ground with some leaves for the bare minimum level of comfort. Kat had placed the two cultivators into them and then covered the hole with leaves. Hopefully it would be enough to prevent them from being found by animals. The area still stunk to high heaven so it wasn’t like anything would be smelling food. Whatever braved the stink would need to either have no sense of smell, or be really determined.
Kat didn’t think there was such an animal in the area. If there was the brook probably would’ve been home to the largest predator in the area. Really, it was the giant snake head that seemed most likely to attract predators. It was a giant hunk of meat just sitting out in the open. Kat didn’t find this to be a problem at all. It had been a pain to get to the brook carrying it, and it was going to be massive pain getting it out. If anything could actually eat the damned thing before she returned, after braving the smell, Kat would congratulate it and send it on its way before the cultivators woke.
That was another thing, they still hadn’t woken up. Lily seemed hesitant to just leave them there... but Kat rightly pointed out that the only person who could defend was her, and the only one who was fast enough to catch something to eat... was also her. Lily might have recently been shown that her strength wasn’t that of a barely fit human bookworm, but that didn’t mean she had any practice... nor had she properly spoken about it anyway.
Then again, the idea of hunting and clawing at something with her hands and feet, or rather, fangs and paws, wasn’t really all that appearing. Apparently her human instincts were enough to say that chasing down a deer in the forest wasn’t an activity to relish. Raw meat, totally fine, perhaps even preferable as a Memphis. Hunting? Leave that to some other cat. Like the one she happened to be dating.
.....
So there they were, Kat was dashing around the forest listening for some source of food. They’d past by a few birds but while the pair could justify risking a hunt once, regularly coming back into the forest for more food was probably stretching it. This meant they were hoping to find one large-ish animal to keep them, mostly Lily, fed for a day or two until the cultivators woke up.
After an hour of Kat running around essentially blind, with Lily bundled up in her arms. Kat said, “Yeah... this isn’t working. Even if I chase after sounds I here it’s really hard to look for specific things and I’m just as likely to be chasing after some animal brushing against a tree trunk as just hearing the leaves scraping together from the wind. It turns out, having great hearing is nice and all, but without really being given anything to distinguish it all from other sounds, it’s kinda useless. Any better ideas?”
Lily hopped down from Kat’s arms to transform, “Hmm... maybe I can try leading the way? You might have enhanced senses but I’m not sure Succubi were ever meant to be hunters... err...” Lily paused as she looked over Kat and saw no change in expression, “right, I see that flew straight over your head. Do I want to explain...” Kat just shrugged and gave Lily a light kiss on the top of her head, “you’re not making this any easier Kat!”
Kat seemed completely unrepentant, “I’m not really trying to make it difficult, you can either tell me, because I like listening to you talk, or you can hide it for some reason. I can tell it amuses you, so it’s probably not something I NEED to know, and it’s not that important or embarrassing otherwise I’d feel that as well. So really, just go with whatever gives you the most amusement,” said Kat happily.
“Hmm... guess I’ll save that one for now. Anyway, I think... maybe following my nose? Or ears or whatever? Maybe with you flying overhead? I just need to get close enough for you to see whatever it is and then dive on it. I doubt anything here could outrun you,” said Lily.
Kat shrugged and nodded. “It’s better then anything I can come up with so let’s GO!”
Lily transformed and took off, running through the underbrush and letting her nose lead the way. For the first ten minutes, Lily continued to feeling the gnawing sensation of uselessness. She wasn’t finding anything. She still wasn’t contributing to the team. Even if all Yang had done was whine, she did voice her opinions and help decide the path. It wasn’t much sure, but it was something. Lily was worried she’d just be leading Kat around for another hour or two until they failed.
Except... at about the fifteen minute mark Lily’s steps started to become surer. She didn’t quite know what was going on, but she did know she was on the right track. Letting her instincts guide her, suddenly she picked up on a scent, it was deep and musky, with a bit of dirt mixed in. A little strange, but Lily was on the hunt.
She shot off at speeds rivalling, and perhaps surpassing, Kat back when she was Rank 1. To a normal human she would have been a blur as she dashed from tree to tree, using what solid footing she could to increase her speed as much as possible, using her wings to glide slightly over rougher terrain to prevent it from slowing her down.
Kat followed through the air, and quickly worked out where Lily was going. There was another small clearing that contained a pond that probably connected to the same aquifer. It was much smaller, just enough for maybe one or two buckets of water... and there was a moderately sized bear drinking from it at the moment. The bear had thick dirt plates covering its back and would be about a head shorter then Kat if it stood on all fours, but the earthen armour made it much wider, and it likely weighed a considerable amount more.
Lily reached the clearing not long after and was just about to pounce on the thing while it was unaware, drinking, when her mind caught up to her body and she realised what she was doing. Lily’s claws dug into the bark of the nearby tree, trying to stop her momentum. Sadly, a speeding Memphis is too much for a bit of tree bark to stop and the area she’d grabbed on to simply ripped off the tree, coming with her.
Lily assumed, mistakenly, that this meant she was going to crash into the bear without any real control. It was even starting to look up at her after it heard the tearing sound. Of course, Lily was a little silly to ever imagine that Kat would prioritise her over killing some random bear. Kat dove down and easily intercepted the fluffy missile, catching Lily, and a good deal of bark in her hands.
The bear roared at them both, annoyed by this invasion of its territory. Kat just hurled a fan at it using her full strength, keeping it closed for maximum speed. Kat’s fan tore straight through the beasts head. It wasn’t even a contest. The fan in question continued, loosing almost no speed and digging itself deep in the earth on the other side of the bear. “Hmm... I give it 6/10 for our first hunt. Now we need to figure out how to deal with all this bear,” said Kat.
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