Chapter 10
Viosus thought if his Master wanted to start the fire, he would have just done it for her.
Neo and Porsogon were patiently waiting for Yilas to show them some fire energy.
Yilas bent down to place the wood in its position. The smaller branch was already thin and smooth enough to start drilling on the thicker wood.
She placed the smaller wood end in the middle of the thicker ones and with her hands, rolled the stick back and forth really fast in her palm.
All of the others gathered around her and were intrigued, except for Porsogon who was watching it from a distance.
Yilas kept repeating her little movement until it formed a tiny hole in the block. However, it had been several minutes but there were still no signs of smoke. Yilas was starting to break a sweat and became impatient.
It was simple enough in the book she read.
Yilas took a deep breath and increased her speed of rolling the branch.
Finally after a bunch of black ashes was formed, Yilas saw some weak smoke starting. She immediately took the stick out and while covering the ashes with her hands, blowing it slightly. Once Yilas saw some red spark within the ash, she grabbed some shredded leaves covering it. Hoping the fire would start quickly.
After just a few seconds, more smoke was coming out proving her little science experiment had succeeded.
All the males were shocked at the unconventional way of using Yilas's fire magic. But they undoubtedly couldn't deny that it worked.
"I have never seen anybody use fire energy like that Yilas!" Neo was quick to praise Yilas, he genuinely had never seen any fire user acted like her.
"Milady, if you needed fire I could have just done it for you." Viosus looked at Yilas's hands which were now pink with concerned eyes.
Porsogon was quick to catch on to what Viosus just left out. He took a mental notice that this fox could manipulate fire energy.
Yilas was too focused on watching and lightly blowing at the woods so she didn't respond immediately.
"There is no need for that Vio, this way you don't have to use any magic. Anybody can start a fire like this."
All eyes were wide opened like the letter O looking at Yilas.
She noticed all eyes were on her so she stopped her action and gave the small stick to Neo.
"Here, Neo, you do the same thing I just did with that thick block of wood over there." Yilas pointed at the block of wood next to him.
"And you guys watch closely." She said to the rest.
Neo took the branch, squatted down in front of the big block, and started to imitate Yilas's movement earlier.
"Yilas, doing it like this right?" Yilas was surprised that Neo copied exactly what she was doing so quickly, he must have been watching closely.
"That's right! Just roll it really fast." Yilas stood watching him, nodding with please.
Just after a few seconds, the number of ashes and smoke coming from the wood Neo started was already too much, making Yilas cough and making her eyes water. Yilas felt like sulking over the fact that she was Neo's teacher but he ended up doing a better job than her.
"Okay… you can stop there *cough*. Dump the ashes to the rest of the pit Neo." Yilas said with one hand covering her nose and mouth.
Neo dumped the ashes in with the leaves, creating enough smoke to form a little chimney.
Yilas used her hands to fan the smoke a little more, till she saw the first spark of fire. Yilas was overjoyed with her accomplishment, she was grinning from ears to ears.
"See… see you guys! The fire started!" Everybody was watching her and Neo so they noticed it without her even saying anything.
Both Porsogon and Viosus were taken aback at how Yilas just did that. Not only did they have never seen anything like that before, but also the fact that she just taught Neo such an impressive technique so quickly. Both of them undoubtedly were very curious about Yilas and this action she just made.
Yilas hurried and put some more wood in with the rest when the fire was starting to catch on faster.
Neo was next to her talking about how excited he was with learning how to do it and not forgetting to praise her for teaching him.
After not too long, the two members who went hunting came back with 2 rabbits in their hand with its skin already peeled clean and its intestine gutted out.
Yilas noticed that they didn't leave for too long so she suspected that there would only be so much food. However, with 5 men around her, 2 small rabbits proved difficult to divide for all of them.
Yilas happily accepted the rabbit from them and introduced them to Viosus and Bert again. However, they seemed reluctant to acknowledge each other.
With the help of Viosus, Yilas managed the skewed the meat onto wooden sticks and she tried to hand grill them until both of her arms gave out on holding them. So Yilas just gave both of it to Viosus.
Even though Porsogon and his members sat around the fire, they were all bunched up to each other. And what's even more strange that they didn't speak at all, just closely watching Yilas and her clan men.
Once the meat turned brown and gave out an irresistible smell, Yilas had become really hungry.
Viosus gave one of the skewers to Yilas and said.
"Milady, you must be hungry, you should eat first." The smell of the meat was so delicious and could make Yilas drool but she held back her urges.
She grabbed the skewer and put it in front of Porsogon's face. He looked I at her, surprised, slightly raised his eyebrow.
"There are only 2 rabbits so it's only fair if you guys have one and we have one."
That was the first time in his life that Porsogon was offered food by a female. He was touched by her kindness. Although he still didn't accept it and said anything.
"We hunt it for you!" Hugo the tiger said, and Heff the leopard also nodded in agreement "so you should eat it.
"No, the other one is enough for us, you guys have this one. I know it's not enough so I will have them get some fruit for you guys."
Neo, Hugo, and Heff, along with Porsogon were very surprised at the act of caring coming from Yilas. It was a fact to males that they should provide for the females, especially if they were spouses. They had actually never seen a single female sharing her food to others, and what was more shocking to them was that they were males from a stranger clan to her.
They kept looking at each other, wanting to refuse but also worried it might upset Yilas, making her dislike them.
Seeing them stuck in a dilemma, Yilas didn't let them have any more time to think. She forced Neo to held the meat and look at him seriously in the eyes.
"You better eat it or I will never share anything with you guys again."
Then Yilas turned around to get back to her seat next to Viosus.
Yilas didn't feel right eating the food another male had prepared for her but he also wanted Yilas to have nutritious food. Since the incident happened, Viosus hadn't left the house to hunt so the job had been pa.s.sed down for the other males so the number of meat they had in the house was basically just some small birds and squirrels. Which was clearly not enough for all of the members in the house.
Yilas smiled happily after sharing the meat to Porsogon and the pack, she also tore the rabbit meat to share her portion with Viosus and Berth. Though she knew one grilled rabbit was not enough for their stomach to be full so she secretly gave them the bigger pieces.
One bite of the meat and Yilas were both happy and sad. Happy because she hadn't eaten any real meat since she woke up, all she had was soup and broth with tiny chunks of meat. Yilas was also sad because the meat even though satisfied her craving, it didn't have much taste because of the lack of seasoning.
While the others were busy eating, Viosus spoke quietly to Yilas.
"Did you really not use any fire energy earlier Milady?" Yilas raised one of her eyebrows to look at Viosus.
"It really wasn't any of that magic. I don't know how to use any of that Fire magic to begin with so how could I do all that." Yilas was speaking the truth but Viosus seemed like he doubted her answer.
Viosus didn't know much about his Master's energy training or the progress she made so far but he knows that her level was high enough to obtain Compete-Civil transformation so he thought that she must also be very advance in energy manipulation.
Viosus didn't keep talking about the matter because he was afraid that the boar clan men might start to suspect them.
"Don't we have some fruits in the house Viosus? Could you help me get some to share with everybody here?"
The Porsogon and the other heard Yilas request to Viosus, they stopped their chatting and looked at him, questioning will he be that generous.
By now they weren't surprised by Yilas's kind behavior of sharing but they all doubted that her clan men would be that generous. Afterall, Viosus and Merth were already generous enough to let them enter their territory without and conflict.
Both Viosus and Merthort were dumbfounded by Yilas's request. But it didn't take Viosus long to react, he stood up and was about to leave to grab what Yilas had asked for.
"Why do we have to share our food with them Young Master?" Merth couldn't help but feel that Yilas was being unreasonable. After all, he was already holding himself back for all this time.
Yilas smiled and looked at the young Berth.
"They already shared their meat with us, it is the right thing to do to share them something from our home too." Yilas was still sitting down, waving her hand at Viosus to tell him to continue with what he was about to do.
Berthort stood up, holding his hands in a fist and was obviously not too happy with Yilas answer.
"Berthy… sweetheart… they are our ally from now on, we should treat them as our own right?" Yilas looked at Porsogon for rea.s.surance. She knew little kids can act out without thinking, but upsetting the four of them would be troublesome for everyone.
As soon as their eyes met, Porsogon got the clue and nodded his head.
"Yes we are allies." Neo and the rest were very surprised at Porsogon because he had never said anything of the sort like he needed allies or members. Since when did Porsogon and Yilas agree to this without telling them. But Porsogon was never the type of leader to ask for their permission to do anything, to begin with.
Little did they know, Porsogon was just following Yilas's lead, he didn't put too much thought into the consequence of his action.
"See, my little Berth" Berthort stomp his feet in discontent, making the ground around Yilas shaken a little but then he just sat down and crossed arms around his chest.
Viosus went back after a few minutes with only a handful of mixed wild berries.
"Give it all to them," Yilas told Viosus, so he just left the all the berries in front of the Boar men, about 2 feet away.
After dinner, the fire was starting to die down so Viosus rushed Yilas to think of a sleeping arrangement, hinted Yilas of kicking them out.
Since Viosus and Berth were not in agreement with all 4 of them sleeping in the house, Yilas politely asked them to sleep at the edge of their garden. The Boar knew better than anyone that males are very territorial so just said they will camp out near the river and will stay for a few days.
Yilas and the crew agreed so they parted way for the night. She would have never guessed that the encounter could end up being this peaceful. Yilas could pat herself in the back now.
Once the Boar clan men left, Yilas could finally talk to Viosus about the rest of her clan members.
"Where are the rest Vio?" Yilas and Viosus were inside the main house, while Berth was about to go to sleep outside.
"I haven't found Lyth and Merth but when I catch up with the Crow earlier, I already told him to look out for them. He was also the one to tell me where Berth was, Milady."
Yilas laid on her bed while Viosus sat at his usual seat next to the bed. Looking at the rock ceiling, Yilas could barely make up anything in the room if it wasn't for the moonlight. She sighed.
"Maybe it is better for them to stay in the forest for a few days, we don't know what they would do if they found a young healthy female." By they Yilas meant the Boar clan men.
Viosus sighed too, he was also thinking about the same thing.
"I suspect they haven't made their move because I am not up to their standard, they might be waiting for more females of our clan to come back here. We must not let Lyth come back Vio."
Viosus still kept quite. Not that he agreed with his Master of how she was not up to the Boar's standard, but he would rather not argue with her about his selfish opinion right now.
"What should we do with them Milady?"
"We should treat them nice and act like there are only 3 of us living together. Every day you should find the others and give them food and instruct them to stay hidden, but only do so early in the morning."
Yilas must find a way for the Boar to leave quickly, but after they leave they would have to worry about a bunch of new problems.
"Vio…" Yilas was about to tell him about how she planned to go to the river and talk to their leader later tonight but knowing Viosus, he would never let her go.
Seeing Yilas called for him but paused too long, Viosus softly reminded her.
"Yes, Milady?"
"Nevermind, I was just thinking you should rest, today has been a long day."
"Alright Milady, I will go to the yard. You should rest now." Viosus left the room and went to his sleeping spot outside.
Yilas was laying on her bed, thinking of ways to peacefully make the uninvited guesses leave. In her last life, every time she would fake feeling sick or being in pain the visitors would get kicked out so that was always her escape card. Now, if she used that move, it would only worry everybody and the guests would have more reason to stay.
What a pain in the a**, she thought.
Out of 4 of them, Neo the Hawk was the only one who seemed approachable to Yilas. Not only did he always smiled at her, but he had also helped Yilas with the task she a.s.signed him.
Porsogon looked very intimidating and Yilas felt pressured talking to him so there was no good way to get information out of that guy.
Yilas didn't have much time to interact with Hugo and Heff so it would be hard to communicate with them one-on-one.
So the plan in her head was set, she would try to get close with Neo and figure out what they want.
And what better time to do it than when n.o.body is around? Or when they were asleep.
After a few hours, when everything had gone quiet, Yilas finally made her move and sneakily ran to the river.
It was still dark but the moonlight was much brighter than the city moon Yilas remembered. She was just walking, trying to follow the trail they went through today when she heard a rustling noise close to her.
Yilas freaked and jumped. She wasn't sure if she was just too scared or the sound was actually close to her.
And then another rustling noise coming closer this time, Yilas heart was beating like it was pumped by a motor. She squinted her eyes looking around to pinpoint the direction of the sound, but it was too dark, she couldn't do it.
Another rustling and then another one, it was coming closer and closer to Yilas. She was panicking and kept looking around helplessly like a prey who already gave up on running.
Please somebody help me! Yilas couldn't speak up but she prayed in her head. Going out alone at night was definitely a bad idea, stupid Yilas!