Thud.

Awooooooooo!!

Last one.

I ignore the howls echoing out through the forest as Greenie drops the last wolf into the Ice Cavern. He’d had some difficulty carrying them all in through the narrow entrance of the Ice Cavern, but we’d made it.

A small sense of relief warms my chest as I stare at these bloodied wolves. Confirming that the meat supply that I’d checked while Greenie gathered the dead wolves were untouched, there was enough meat for us to last the three of us meat-eaters a month, maybe a month and a half.

Greenie, no.

I remind the goblin when he wipes a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth seeing the exposed fresh red wolf meat lying there.

Andvari would eat the older, untouched meat while I would figure out a way to feed Greenie and I the wolf meat without accidentally poisoning ourselves to death.

The nice thing about the Ice Cavern was that it was cold enough to keep the corpses good for a while, and Greenie and I could process them bit by bit.

All three of my Unkindness weren’t good with the cold. For Andvari, nights were fine since we had the fire going that Andvari could lie in, but if this world had 4 seasons, it would be dangerous for him when winter came. And Greenie too. He didn’t have any feathers like I did to keep me warm.

Crixus had said he was fine too, but he only had a large loincloth tied between his legs.

I would have to ask him how to process the wolf furs. Skinning the wolves like this with bits of raw flesh attached wouldn’t do if we were going to make clothes for the three members of the Unkindness.

We hadn’t had the luxury of doing that with the rats. Yes, the Siphon Bush sucked out the blood from the rats keeping them from rotting immediately; but the vines also pierced into the skin and widened opened wounds. It made the fur taken from the rats harder to use.

I’d never realized how big of an importance the invention of a refrigerator held in my own world.

Leaving the wolves here should preserve them in a relatively fresh condition.

Having this Ice Cavern available was a better boon than I’d ever imagined. I could only think it was a result of his luck..

I look at the goblin before me who throws a large block of loose ice at the large door embedded in the back of the cave and giggles.

Yep, he was a lucky goblin.

Bad meat wasn’t an issue for Greenie and I, but for Andvari who didn’t have Rot Resistance, I had to make sure the meat we ate was fresh.

Hopping out of the Ice Cavern, I cock my head towards the sounds echoing between the trees.

Sniffing the air only gave me the sense of the scent of blood, wafting from random directions. The skill wasn’t strong enough to tell me whose blood it was.

It could be a random tussle between the creatures of this forest. Or it could be the dead wolves, bleeding to death out of their eyes, mouth and ears like the ones we’d seen.

Scritch-scritch.

My talons kick up loose clods of dirt outside the entrance of the Ice Cavern. Using a combination of Razor Bite and Peck, the hardened clumps break down until they’re good to go.

It was better not to trust 『Hide』too much. The wolves had some sort of scent perception ability, and the possibility of them smelling the dead wolves’ blood on us was high.

Greenie ambles up next to me, clenching and unclenching his hands that were chilled from the ice that he’d been playing with.

Without exchanging any words, Greenie and I begin our usual ritual.

I called it scent bathing. Just in case, I’d come up with ways we could better mask our scents. Greenie and I did this every morning now, before we left the cave.

Andvari was pretty confused until I’d explained it to him, why I would go to the trouble of wiping Greenie and I clean every night and then going back and ruining it in the morning.

My job was breaking up the dirt on the ground, and Greenie’s job was rubbing it all over both our bodies. No, I was not trying to be lazy by making Greenie do all the work. There was no way I could do it with only one wing working. Also there was the fact that I had no hands..

The dirt did a good job of sticking to the wet bits of nasties and rubbing them off, also adding what I imagined was a “earthy scent” to help us hide in the forest better.

I couldn’t help shaking my body, much like a dog after a bath when Greenie finishes rolling and rubbing dirt all over me. He did it with care, massaging the dirt gently into my feathers like a turkey being prepared for Thanksgiving.

He’d done a good job, rubbing down me with care but then going to town on himself roughly scrubbing away at his skin. Grunting, it took him half the time to rub himself down compared to when he’d “cleaned” me.

The larger bits of unknown blood and other gore did come off.

Now for part 2 of our dust bath. This was an extra step we rarely did.

Scrunching up my face into a hard grimace only allows me to tense the muscles around my beak, but I do it anyway.

Ugh. I don’t wanna do this. I was a lady!

I only used this trick because it was the fastest way to mask our scent on top of the blood smell that might get on us from hunting.

It was one of the main tricks, in combination with 『Hide』, that was good enough to trick even the wary Antoras.

I’d learned it from my phone, browsing the net while riding the train to work: very basic hunting information gleaned from a tv show in my old life about a family that hunted ducks.

Using urine/feces to mask your scent.

Seeing people willingly step in cow poop and spray deer urine on themselves, was the kind of random thing that you scroll through on your phone that can leave a mark on you. All so that they could mask their scent when they went deer hunting.

For the Antoras, I’d followed this precedent by using the rat feces.

Hahh..

Heaving a deep sigh, I eyeball down at the brown stuff in a small hole dug into the group, with a layer of leaves underneath it ever so kindly presenting the stuff to me on a natural platter.

Well of course. I’d been the one to take the remains of the ripped apart dead Antora and bury my head in it’s bowels, searching for it’s… well, it’s bowels.

Slicing down the length of the wet tube with a talon (you thought I would slice it open with my beak? No way!!!), it was easy enough to remove the brown stinky crap from the innards.

I heave another sigh, not daring to breathe in.

No! I don’t wanna do this! Let’s just spend the night in the Ice Cavern and hope it rains…

Seriously. This made me want to flip over and throw a whole toddler & tiara style temper tantrum.

Flip over and cry out woe is me!

Wahhh!

Being a bird, I couldn’t cry, but I could feel them. The tears, in my eyes. Imaginary or not, I didn’t want to do this again!

Shaking my head hard a step back, I clack my beak at the poop before me.

What was I, the Poop Princess!!? Why was my new life constantly surrounded by poop!

Poop to clean, poop to hunt, poop to hide.

Poop was a essential part of my life right now!

I hate it!!

A sharp pain pings through my body, reminding me not to move my wing too much but I ignore it and continue to waggle my body in frustration.

Everything revolved around bodily waste!!

That was it! I was going to add creating a proper home with a working toilet to my increasing list of goals in this world!!

A hand reaches out from beside me and globs a big chunk of the brown stuff on my wing, luckily avoiding my backpack.

Master, Greenie help.

The goblin behind me grins as he moves his hands in a circular motion, massaging the poop in over my wings with the same care he’d rubbed the dirt on me.

Shoulders sagging in defeat, I respond.

Thanks, Greenie.

Willing myself to calm, I hold my breath.

Raven, get a grip! I tell myself. Every moment in this world was life or death!

Another slightly warm glob of poop smoothes over my back, making sure not to get on my backpack.

Man, I wish I was at a spa and the stuff getting rubbed on me was some kind of beauty clay.

….wouldn’t that be nice.

Awwoooooo!!!

Another howl, the calls becoming longer and more drawn out. It wasn’t the usual shorter call and response type howls I was starting to become used to.

The lowered, urgent tones of the wolves’ calls told me something was going on.

Maybe they’d eaten the other Antoras I’d prepared? Bleeding out after eating the Antora depended on how long it took for the blood-thinning venom to run through their bloodstreams and damage their brains and insides.

Gritting my beak, I hope it’s the poison that was making them sound so anxious. Maybe they were all dropping like flies, one by one. Maybe the Wolf King was dead after eating a poisoned Antora.

That would be quite nice.

Haaa…

If only I could fly, it wouldn’t take long finding out what was happening with the wolves. Looking down at my wings layered in hardened clay and Antora poop, I heave another sigh.

Calling out: Alright Greenie, are you ready to go?

We needed to go soon and check on the other wolves.

Yes! Greenie have guardian!

Stretching to his full height, Greenie's eyes sparkle like he casually painted his chest in poop all the time.

My head unconsciously pulls back as I reminisce our first days.

Well, he had, before he'd met me.

Rotating my neck to relax the tightness at the point where my chest connects to my wings, I make a conscious effort to loosen the muscles. On my back was the special custom backpack Andvari made for me. Inside were 2 crystals of Caïssa’s Tears. Those were a part of one of the many back-up plans I’d created as I stayed awake every night, listening to the howls of the wolves by our cave.

I'd had lots of time to think because-

I couldn’t sleep much anymore.

The thing with these resistances was…I couldn’t turn them off, like I could 『Berserk』..By gaining Sleep Resistance, I didn’t need to sleep that much anymore. 3-4 hours was enough. Which messed me up. I wasn’t used to having so much time like this on my hands. I missed sleeping, the blank nothingness of empty dreams and bittersweet nightmares.

Without sleep, I had more time to be anxious. So I wracked my brain on how to deal with the wolves, every night. Every. Single. Night.

Nights spent with a sore neck, writing out with a twig on patches of dried mud our Plan B, C, D, so on..

The days were dedicated to carrying the plans out.

…My mind was too occupied with preparing for our short adventure back that I don’t notice the foolish goblin cutting off a small chunk of red wolf meat and palming it in his hand.

Ignoring the stinging smell of Antora poop that emanated from the both of us, the darkening light makes me look up.

It was past noon already. Soon the sun would begin to set.