Chapter 80 - Tonight We Hunt (Patreon)

No wonder Korenga was caught in her sleep.

Everyone is sitting in the room, wide awake and with bloodshot eyes. Well, everyone who actually needs sleep, which are only Awhina and Mereana. But the others, including me, are sitting around the Black God and staring at her with exhausted irritation. Tahiri has made herself scarce after we returned to the inn, and with good reason.

Korenga is snoring at a volume like a free-running chainsaw, and no matter what we do, we can't wake her up. Her body is impervious to physical attacks, to the point where she apparently doesn't even feel people shaking her. And it seems like she doesn't need to breathe either, since pushing a pillow onto her face didn't cause her to suffocate and awaken from the sensation. Why she needs to snore if she doesn't even need to breathe is a mystery, but it's driving everyone crazy.

I'm seriously tempted to just kick her out of the building. I mean, if she really doesn't notice anything that happens to her during her sleep, then she wouldn't notice the impact from being thrown out the second floor window, right? Awhina is clearly playing with that idea, as her left eye is beginning to twitch. Mereana is more respectful of a goddess - or simply not utterly fearless - and lies back down while covering her head with a pillow, but it's obvious that it won't help at all.

Maybe the best way would be to just get another room and dump her there. We did get some funds from inside the castle after all. Speaking of which, after all the scientists had been killed at Korenga's hands, the other prisoners were told that they could leave. Thanking us, but keeping a careful distance from the Black God, they each returned to where they had been kidnapped from. Luckily, none of them had been from Iatukat, or at least nobody recognized Mereana.

Tossing in her sleep, the Black God changes her posture and for a moment, there is silence. Hope blooms in everyone's hearts that she will finally go quiet now, but instead her snoring just changes into the sound of a motorcycle going into a higher gear.

"[Alright, I've had enough.]" Jumping up and growling, Awhina picks the much larger goddess up and slumps her over her shoulder. As expected, she has quite some strength in her thin frame, to easily carry somebody who looks like she'd easily measure at twice her weight.

With this, she unceremoniously throws her out the window.

Waah! It was a joke! I wasn't seriously thinking about doing that!

Wait, did Awhina read my mind or did she really come up with the exact same idea as I did, but actually in a serious way? I rush to the window and look outside, to find that Korenga is lying on a pile of straw - after having crashed through the stables' roof. Her motorcycle snoring is still audible even from up here, although after closing the shutters, it should be bearable now...

So that actually didn't wake her up. Don't know what you can do about your sleep, but I think that getting captured this way wasn't a big achievement on the underlings of Rapania's part at this point, but just luck. I'm sure they didn't know she would be such a heavy sleeper after all, unless it's part of her divine legend. Gotta ask Tokomaha or Tahiri about this later.

Awhina turns around with a grumpy and tired expression, then walks towards my bed and flops down right onto me. Hey, you got your own bed! Ah, she's asleep on my lap already...

I pet her hair and sigh. It did become quite late today, and we've been riding all day long. This is her first time in a city, in a foreign land and after traveling for several days, too. I'll cut her some slack for wanting to sleep in a bed together with me after so long; we've been spending our time together like this for the past year, after all.

Even though I would have wanted to take Tokomaha somewhere and have some fun... oh well, I'll do that some other time.

The next morning we depart the city of Manoa after buying some provisions for the next stage of our journey, a two days' ride to Uarapo. Between Manoa and Uarapo is a well-maintained dirt road, and sometimes one can even meet travelers or merchants taking it in either direction. This must mean that the lands are quite peaceful around here, since the latter aren't moving in armed caravans. Most of them are drawn by donkeys, since normal people can't afford horses, though.

Speaking of horses, we couldn't get another one for Korenga, so my children are now sharing one while she's riding Uten's. I would have told Tahiri to give hers away, since she can just float effortlessly, but somehow it's relaxing to see her lie on horseback like it's solid ground. The one carrying the Black God seems to get exhausted quite quickly, though. I assume it's because she's actually quite heavy, not only judging by her height and appearance.

She would have gone naked, if we hadn't bought something for her on the market. It seems that the gods and goddesses of this land don't care for human conventions. I can certainly appreciate that, since I haven't really felt any shame in a very long time now; even now, I'm actually naked, and the clothes are made from my own skin - a very advanced version of body-paint I'd say. The same is true for Uten and Saten, who share my view on that matter, but still dress up because Awhina would scold them - and me - if they didn't.

Then again, Tahiri wasn't naked the first time she appeared, so she must have paid attention to social norms, huh? Hard to imagine that someone as free-spirited as her would put any thought into it. Well, her clothes are also just made from her powers - although she isn't wearing the feathered headband she used to have until a while ago. Never noticed when she stopped putting that on, though.

"[I think the horse won't do it for much longer.]" Mereana states with a pitiful expression when we set up camp for the night. All the other horses seem fine and are standing around or eating grass, but the one that was carrying Korenga is actually lying on its side and breathing hard. It's sweating all over, even though their breed seems to be strong against the jungle heat.

"[Wahahaha! What a weak creature.]" Slapping her thigh, the perpetrator laughs as if it has nothing to do with her.

"[It's your fault, though.]" Awhina glares at the Black God while preparing the meal. Wow, she's fearless, standing up to this goddess of violence even after witnessing what she's capable of.

"[I guess? Hahaha!]" Korenga seems to have a pretty bright mood at all times. It's like her lowest point is neutral, and it goes up in varying degrees of joy, but never down into the negative emotions. Even when she took her revenge on the scientists she wasn't actually enjoying herself, but neither was she conflicted about her actions. Maybe to her it was really just something that had to be done, and which she felt nothing about.

"[I guess it won't be able to move tomorrow?]" I ask Mereana, and she seems to confirm that judgment with her expression, but trying not to say it out loud.

"[We'll let her rest for tonight and see...]" Shaking her head, she sighs and stands up to join our circle around the fire.

"[Don't worry, we can take turns carrying each other.]" Laughing heartily, Korenga speaks to the horse, which is wheezing and not even trying to eat. You know, I actually wouldn't be surprised if she made good of that declaration, considering her stupid strength.

"If it dies, can we eat it?" Uten and Saten snuggle up to me and ask in a hushed voice.

"Yeah, but only if it dies on its own." Petting their hair, I look to the pitiful being lying on its side. Well, it'd be a waste of perfectly fine meat not to do that. "But don't you go killing it tonight when nobody is watching, alright?" Grabbing their noses, I set down this condition. I'm fairly certain they would have gone and done something just to be able to eat it sooner rather than later, if I didn't tell them not to.

"Understood." And sure enough, they look a little disappointed, but immediately hide their expressions behind a mask of smiles again, as they turn to Awhina, who is about to finish the stew over the fire. Like any Crawling Chaos in development, they are displaying quite some gluttony. I know they go hunting at night, and while they hide the fact that they're gaining mass by never growing up, I understand due to my Chaos senses: Life forms were vanishing around where I could feel their presences all these times.

"[Dinner is ready.]" Upon this announcement from Awhina, everyone turns their attention to the pot in our center. Its contents are more than enough to fill human bellies, but for me, that's more like an appetizer. Maybe I should join my children on their hunt tonight; it might be the perfect timing to teach them about some Crawling Chaos things then.

As expected, Korenga causes trouble once again. When we only had a snack for lunch, she complained that it was way too little. While I can empathize with her on accounts of my own insatiable stomach, she shouldn't expect others to give her food. And this time is the same. According to her, the contents of this pot wouldn't even be enough for her alone, much less splitting it among eight people.

In the end she had to make do with it, just like she did during lunch. But her stomach started to growl soon after and it simply wouldn't stop. Now only does she snore at night, her stomach also growls loudly when she doesn't eat enough. As expected, a troublemaker...

"[Let's go hunting.]" I stand up and gesture to my children and Korenga. Awhina and Mereana are preparing their beds, and Tahiri is lying on of the lowest branch of the tree above like a cat, but neither of them are signaling that they want to join us. Well, it's to be expected that the former two would want to sleep, after the troubles last night, and the latter isn't easy to motivate anyway, unless it involves Oripiaw.

"[I-I'll go hunting, too.]" Tokomaha stands up and pulls her spear out of the ground. Her wording makes it sound like she's going to go on her own, rather than come along.

"[Oh? Good luck then.]" Acting as if I don't realize that she wants to go with us, I respond in the most casual manner. For a second, she doesn't understand what I meant and smiles, but it freezes over and she stares at me in bewilderment, flapping her mouth open and shut without making a sound. Unable to say what she actually wanted because it would clash with her personality, her eyes swim around until she finally looks up to Tahiri for help.

"[Have fun, Tokomaha.]" The God of Storm crushes her hopes with a smile. Yep, she understood the situation, too.

Turning back to me, the petite goddess blinks, still speechless. That's just too cute~

"[You can come with us, if you want.]" But I release her from her suffering with this invitation and pet her hair. Biting her lower lip and shaking from the humiliation, she blushes and can't even muster the will to slap my hand aside as she has done so often. Ahhh, it's so fun to tease her~

Well, with the two goddesses around, I can't really show off my true form now, can I? Actually, I could, but I don't know how they would react. Especially Korenga, who thought I was an aspect of Mataku, might attack me if she saw that my real form is that of a monster. And I don't want Tokomaha to look at me in disgust. Of course, I care more about Awhina's reaction, but I wouldn't want to lose the former's tsundere love for me. I wouldn't have someone to tease anymore.

"[So, how do you two usually hunt?]" I ask Uten and Saten. I cleaned up an entire ecosystem of life by expanding, using my body to form spikes, and sometimes transforming into a dragon or even the Chaos Warhead to hunt down flying animals. But these two don't know how to do the first one, don't have a dragon template and sure as hell don't know anything about funneling wind magic for propulsion.

Oh, and I sure as hell won't be giving them the dragon template just yet, considering the fact that they're really mischievous and would use it for playing pranks.

"[We transform like so.]" And they turn into two large black cats. Pumas? They look exactly the same as those found in the world from my previous life. "[And then catch our prey.]" Their voices are still the same even after they changed. They must be getting better at partial transformations of intricate things such as retaining a human's vocal cords even while the entire body is something else. It came to me really easily for some reason, but they weren't able to do it right away. Must be because I'm a genius - or because it's easier for me to imagine all kinds of things due to my memories.

"[Ohhh, that's interesting. Are you two gods of nature?]" Korenga looks impressed and inspects them from different angles while scratching her chin. That's the exact same thing the villagers of Aoranam thought about me.

"[Hm, but isn't that a little slow?]" I look at my children and wonder. Of course, there's the thrill of hunting properly, including tracking and stalking, but I'd rather do it quickly and efficiently. "[Watch this.]"

And with these words, I produce a spike from my shoulder without even looking in the direction of where I'm extending it towards. It moves so quickly that it would appear to go out instantaneously, and disappears in a tree above us. I feel myself hitting my target and a life signature disappearing, so I turn the spike into a tentacle, upon which I carry my prey down to ground level.

It's a... I don't even know. It's body is like that of a monkey but it has a head like a rat. Might be something that only exists in this world, although I don't really know many species from my previous world, so I can't tell. In either case, that's my first victim of the night, and I present it to my children, who look up at me in awe. At least I think it's awe, since I can't really tell in their current forms.

"[How did you do that?]" The Black God grabs my shoulder and looks at it closely. I extend a rounded tentacle explosively and hit her right in the forehead, upon which she quickly lets go of me and flinches backwards. "[Ohhh! So your body is really malleable, huh?]" I did it with enough force that a human might have been knocked off their feet and suffered a concussion, but she doesn't even seem to have registered how strong that impact was, instead analyzing how it works.

"[Where's the fun in hunting like that?]" Tokomaha states with a dissatisfied expression and performs practice-throws with her spear. So her approach is to actually find her prey and then killing them with that? Maybe she actually creates clones of herself to hunt in a group, which is certainly more efficient than doing it alone. Well, can't fault her for that, she doesn't have a convenient body like a Crawling Chaos.

"[Hunting is for food.]" I approach the little goddess and lift a hand in front of her face. "[This is for fun.]" I wiggle my middle and ring finger suggestively. She blushes furiously and I'm sure there's a certain reaction downstairs as well, at the reminder of what I can do with just these two fingers.

I laugh and turn around to Uten and Saten, who have transformed back and are trying to do the same as I have. It seems they aren't as great at manipulating their mass yet, since their shoulders aren't extending very quickly, and they can't control the direction too well. One of Saten's spikes even stabs me in the chest, and he apologizes profusely, even though he should know that it doesn't hurt me.

"[Try using your fingers or the whole hand. You should have a better feeling for it that way.]" At the start I also used my fingers, which I actually pointed in the directions of my targets, like a gun. That way I had better focus and could gauge where I was aiming. After doing so for several days, I started to be able to do it much more effectively, until I could just use any point on my body for it - especially after my Chaos senses awakened.

"[Hm, are you siblings?]" Korenga asks while looking between me and the twins. Oh right, I never told her about our relationship.

"[No, they're my children.]" Petting the two at the same time while they extend their fingers at a tree trunk, impaling it repeatedly for practice moves, I state with a hint of pride. So that's how a mother feels when she's asked about her children, huh? They look up at me with upturned eyes and questioning expressions. It seems they weren't paying attention to what we were saying. How cute they are while doing this~

But they're boys.

"[You have children that big? You look so young!]" Why thank you, Korenga. But it's a little different for our kind. Then again, I'd think that gods don't really age beyond whatever they decide is perfect for themselves, unless Tokomaha really is only the age of what her appearance suggests. Although her personality is quite childish most of the time, she is a goddess, so...

"[I did it!]" I hear Uten celebrate and turn to look at him. Apparently he was able to impale a small bird up in a tree, showing it off to me with a wide triumphant grin. Saten is sulking in the background. Were they aiming at the same target and his brother got it first? But they look really cute with these expressions~

But they're boys.

"[Well done! Now, go out and hunt some bigger game with that.]" I pet both of them; even if one of them achieves more than the other, I'll have to treat them equally; they're twins after all. They hop up and down in excitement and then run off into the jungle. They're just so cute~

But they're boys!

"[Now, show me how you hunt.]" Turning to Korenga, I'm interested to see how she's going to go about this.

"[It doesn't work when people are around.]" She states with a self-assured grin. Huh? Is that something to look proud about?

"[What do you mean?]" I don't doubt that her physical abilities would allow her to just chase down even the fastest animals on foot, and she could easily wrestle bears with her bare hands, so why would it be difficult for her to perform these feats while someone's around?

"[Animals gather around me naturally, so I can just grab some of them.]" Shrugging, the Black God sits down on the toppled trunk of a tree. "[But they get afraid when predators are near me, too.]"

"[Alright, then we'll leave you alone for now and come back later.]" That sounds like a really useful effect on wildlife. Though I wonder how they still trust her when she starts grabbing and killing them for food. Maybe it's something they can't fight against? But then they wouldn't mind other predators either. Oh well, I won't question the intricacies of a goddess' powers.

With these words, I wave at her and walk away, knowing that Tokomaha is looking between Korenga and me with a flustered expression. Of course I intend for her to come with me, but since I didn't say it out explicitly, she can't just follow me on her own - she has an image to uphold, no matter how far it has already crumbled in everybody else's views.

"[Hey, what are you waiting for, Tokomaha? Come with me.]" I turn around to beckon her. Her expression lights up and a bright smile appears on her face, but she immediately forces herself to look irritated again.

"[I-it's not like I wanted to come with you or anything! B-but if you insist...]" Spouting this typical tsundere line, she skips over to me with a clearly excited spring in her step. She's just too cute~

And she's a girl.

- They did lots of "hunting" afterwards -