Chapter 58: Chapter 58: Savage Kinship
"'When there are plants, there are no lack of bulls.'"
Vikir now saw why Aiyen had said this.
Vikir and Aiyen were currently lurking before a cave deep in the jungle.
The cave they were observing closely contained a large female oxbear and a small male oxbear.
The two oxbears had been mating relentlessly for three days.
The female's strength and desire were immense.
She blocked the entrance to the den with her massive snout and pressed down on the exhausted male to prevent him from escaping.
He, too, had good seeds and was able to satisfy her deep hunger for several days, but by the third day, he was running out of strength and often made dying noises.
Females were the strongest of their kind, and their cravings were curiously unquenchable.
She had a long hibernation ahead of her, so she didn't release him for a moment to ensure she was ready to get pregnant and hibernate.
When he gave everything out and spread out, she got on top of him, groomed him all over, and helped him back to his feet.
And then she'd do it all over again, over and over.
Vikir murmured softly.
"I don't know what I'm doing."
Vikir's arms were filled with the carp, salmon, berries, mushrooms, and other items he had just gathered.
Aiyen, too, had gathered various supplies and spread them out before the cave.
These were not necessarily for Vikir and Aiyen to eat. They were for the oxbears mating in that lair.
They had been assisting the oxbears in mating for the past three days.
When a hungry female emerged to look for food, Aiyen and Vikir would give her these small pieces of food so that she could mate as quickly and as frequently as possible.
The female oxbear would carefully inspect them for poison, then return them to the males and feed them to restore their strength.
Aiyen grinned wryly.
"Those berries and mushrooms are a temporary boost. But in the long run, they're terrible for you. They raise the body's potency rapidly and then drop it rapidly again."
Vikir knew the benefits of those ingredients.
Taking them made you temporarily stronger, but it drained and burned your life force, which wasn't good for your health.
And the female Oxbear seemed to know this yet still consumed them.
The male Oxbear also seemed to recognize the benefits of these mushrooms and berries, but he couldn't do much to satisfy her needs right now.
He could only eat.
Sometimes during the feeding, if Vikir accidentally left a scent or a trail, the female oxbear would emerge from her cave, alert and vigilant.
She was old and had poor eyesight, but her ears seemed to make up for it.
[Crouch!]
She tore at the thick logs around her with her paws and pulled rocks apart.
A giant tree that had likely been hundreds of years old was snapped in half, and the stones that supported the small hill were shattered.
After ravaging the area for a while, the female, satisfied that there were no more signs of intruders around her, returned into the den and got on top of the exhausted male.
Vikir, hiding behind a bush, murmured quietly.
"I couldn't say whether it's a warning to the intruder or the male."
Such a display of strength would drive away the intruder, but it would also make it impossible for a feeble male to escape.
Vikir now understood the reason why Aiyen had chosen a large, powerful female to pursue first.
The stronger and larger the female, the more likely she was to be able to resist the male's advances.
Meanwhile...
Hunting trackers needed to eat, too.
Aiyen calculated the direction of the wind and set about making a meal that wouldn't carry the scent to the oxbears.
Clear water boiled in a coconut shell with crawfish from the waterfall. The only other additions were a handful of salt and plenty of dried seaweed.
Aiyen offered Vikir some of his clear water.
He pushed all the lobsters, even the full ones, towards Vikir.
It was a sight that made it difficult to tell who was the master and who was the slave.
"Eat a lot, so you can feel better."
Aiyen pushed plenty of food before Vikir's nose.
Vikir thought she sounded like a bully.
...Pow!
The red lobster's body snapped in half.
The hard shell cracked open, revealing plump white flesh.
The yellow and blue entrails were steaming hot.
Vikir bit into the lobster's head.
"By the way, they mate like there's no tomorrow."
For three days, the oxbears barely left their dens.
The constant vibrations of the den and the mixed groans of the males and females inside must have been exhausting for those who had been watching for three days.
Aiyen's eyes lit up mischievously at Vikir.
"Isn't that what you deserve?"
"...what?"
"I thought all Balak men should do that, but not Supreme men?"
Vikir grimaced.
Aiyen's words were so insincere after what had happened.
Hadn't he once trusted her and peed in nowhere and been embarrassed by his tribe?
But Aiyen continued to tease Vikir.
"You can't do that?"
"...."
"Well, maybe you can't because you come from the land of the sandman."
"Who's a sandman."
"Then, could you ever do that?"
"...."
"Would you ever make it happen? Could you ever make it happen?"
Aiyen was getting annoying.
Vikir knew that getting caught up in her teasing would be a headache, so he chose to completely ignore her.
What an arrogant slave.
...Suddenly.
[CRACK!]
A cry unlike any other erupted.
"...!"
The playfulness drained from Aiyen's face.
She bounced to her feet, quickly grabbed her bow and arrow, and began to peer over the bush.
The spirited seventeen-year-old girl of just minutes ago was nowhere to be seen.
Only the sharp-shooting tracker remained.
[Grrrr... ... ]
Baqira, Aiyen's companion wolf, had bared her teeth too.
Vikir, too, dropped his lobster claws and rose to his feet, crouching next to Aiyen.
A disturbance was from the cave containing the two oxbears.
[Gwooow! Gwooow! Gwooow!]
The female, who had been gentle with the male so far, choked a few times and suddenly changed her demeanor.
She bared her teeth at him and threatened him with her sharp claws.
The male was startled by her sudden change in attitude but remained lying on the ground, evidently trusting his bond with her.
He seemed to want to stay in his big, comfortable den for a while longer.
But she wasn't going to let him keep wriggling and squirming against her.
...Bam!
A dull noise.
The female slammed her front paw with the force of several tons.
Teeth snapped, and blood spurted.
A slap on the ear jolted the male to his feet.
He scrambled out of the den on unsteady legs.
Aiyen called out in victory.
"Looks like the female is convinced she
's fertile."
Now that she had successfully conceived, she didn't need to extract the male's seeds.
It was a world of carnivorous bears.
After mating, the other gender was essentially a competing hunter that had intruded on their territory.
[Boom!]
The female roared again at the fleeing male. The male was confused and scrambling for his life.
He hurried away from the female's den in a daze.
To avoid being eaten, he had to flee as fast as possible while she wasn't feeling vicious.
His legs were shaking, and his movements were sluggish and slippery.
His fur was matted and had lost much of its shine.
His nose and eyes were dry, and all the fat that had once filled his back, belly, flanks, and thighs had been burned off.
His cheeks were already visibly swollen from the slap he had just received.
And at the sight of such a male oxbear, the eyes of Aiyen, the tracker of the Balak, gleamed.
"Follow me, slave."
"...."
Aiyen, a male oxbearer, and Vikir, a captive to his mistress.
This was the beginning of the real hunt.
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