Cooking with Wild Game: Volume 18 by EDA

Author:EDA [EDA]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: J-Novel Club
Published: 2022-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4: Showdown

1

This is all something I was told about after the fact.

On the fourth day since we were invited to the Sauti settlement, the thirty-first and final day of the indigo month, there was a strange stirring in the forest starting around when the sun hit its peak.

Everyone could sense that something serious was coming.

However, that didn’t change what the hunters had to do.

The hunters from the clans under the Sauti deployed throughout the forest while coating themselves in the scent of giba warding fruit, just as they had done yesterday and the day before. They totaled sixteen, which was their full number aside from the seven who were seriously injured, though roughly half of those going out also had some kind of minor injury. However, they couldn’t just leave the fate of their clan up to the Ruu hunters, with whom they had no blood ties whatsoever.

Those sixteen split up into groups of four and progressed into the forest as planned. Since they had hunted down a staggering number of giba over the past two days, there didn’t seem to be many in the forest. And yet, in spite of that, the atmosphere still seemed unusually noisy. It was as if the very forest itself was stirring.

The hunters advanced into the forest, forcing down their uneasy feelings and the trembling in their chests. Ultimately, it was the young Vela clan head who saw it first. The previous clan head had lost his ability to hunt after facing off with the lord of the forest, and so the youth had taken up the position at the age of just eighteen.

What he found was a massive hole. It was dug out at the base of a thick tree, and looked like the mouth of some giant monster, pitch black and gaping open.

Despite the fact that it had briefly rained not long before the sun hit its peak, a nearby mound of dense soil was dry. On top of that, bits of a gigo-like plant giba loved were mixed into it.

A giba had dug the hole out very recently. However, an ordinary giba couldn’t possibly make one so large.

Having received a signal from the young clan head, one of the hunters gave a brief blow on a grass whistle. Then, a similar response came from far away.

Their nerves even more on edge, they pushed deeper into the forest.

Before long, five hunters approached from the north. Actually, one of them had already retired from hunting—the Rutim elder Raa Rutim.

“There weren’t any signs of giba in the north. If you found traces, then the lord must have moved to the east or south.”

The group then split into two again, and they advanced in both directions. Raa Rutim accompanied the Vela clan head as they searched to the east, while the other group went south. However, he stayed upwind so his sense of smell wouldn’t be thrown off by the smell of giba warding fruit.

“I can’t detect the lord’s scent here either. We should move south bit by bit as we continue heading east.

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