The Vote (1)

Now that the core—which had been teetering on the edge of becoming a giant white elephant—was sorted, it was high time to prepare lunch.

Lunch, however, meant nothing more grand than heading up to the river to inspect the fish traps. If nothing was caught, I'd make do with smoked jerky; if there were fish, fish was on the menu. I had no idea how many might have wandered in while we were locked in that frantic life-and-death struggle with the Earth Guardian.

If our luck holds, two at best, right?

Wonmo had just blinked awake, so the whole crew trudged up toward the riverbanks together. While the Fast Tree Sloth had made this trek before, bringing Wonmo along was a first. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Still, as long as the little guy stayed glued to my hip without causing trouble, there shouldn't be any issues.

Splash! Sploosh!

"Kkyuu! Kkyu-kkyu!"

"Yeah, yeah. Hold your horses for just a second."

Fortune favored us: two fish thrashed vigorously inside the woven trap. Those crimson fish were a marvel every time I laid eyes on them—not only massive in scale, but absurdly delicious. As I hauled the contraption from the water, I kept a razor-sharp eye on Wonmo, wary that he might dive headlong into the river. If he tumbled in, the Golden Poison Frog clan would swarm the surface in a heartbeat, meaning absolute vigilance was required.

Rustle—

The trap was almost entirely out of the water when the crisp sound of trembling foliage reached my ears. For a second I wondered if Wonmo was rummaging through the grass, but the cub was right beside my boots. In other words, the odds favored another beast entirely.

Feigning complete ignorance, I continued dragging the trap onto dry land. Just as the cage cleared the bank and the fish began violently slapping their tails against the wicker—

Rustle! Rustle!

A rustling far louder than before drove straight into my eardrums.

In a single fluid motion, I drew my sword, raised my shield, and pivoted toward the source. Wonmo must have sensed the shift in the air, his fur bristling like needles as he dropped into a defensive crouch.

"Kiying. Kiyik."

"Kking. Kking."

The creature emerging from the thicket looked oddly familiar. Soaked in river water, its body was a sleek, deep charcoal gray. Its face possessed an uncanny blend of deceptive cuteness and raw predatory malice, stretched over an elongated frame tipped with wicked, curved claws.

"...Otters?"

A pack of otters had slinked out into the open before us. Not just one, either—an entire squad. With their sharp features and vaguely charming looks, my guard almost slipped for a fraction of a second. But where was I standing? This was the Forest of the Four Seasons, a death trap where even a tiny frog packed enough venom to drop an army.

Snapping my guard back to full alert, I sized up the pack. By head count, there were roughly five or six of them.

Why the hell are they so damn big?

They were on an entirely different scale from the otters of Earth. Even accounting for the way they reared up on their hind legs, their heads cleared my waist with room to spare. Armed with grotesque talons and moving as an organized unit, they were more than enough to set my nerves on edge.

Flap! Slap!

In the tense standoff, only the trapped fish continued to thrash. At the wet slapping sound, one of the otters snapped its gaze toward the cage, its eyes burning with undisguised greed. They had clearly smelled an easy meal and ambled over to hijack my catch.

Look at these brazen highway robbers.

Like hell I'd let them take it. Over my dead body. I willed the mana inside my core to circulate. The energy drained during the scuffle with the Guardian had already replenished to the brim—a luxury made possible by the absurd atmospheric mana saturating the Forest of the Four Seasons.

"Kkyek? Kkek?"

"Kiyiiing."

As my aura swelled, the otter pack adopted an aggressive formation. Two remained stationary in the rear, while the three vanguard beasts dropped low to the turf.

"Kyaaaaargh!"

The beast that appeared to be the alpha bared its dripping fangs in a vicious hiss. Normally, otters carried an adorable, playful reputation, but this thing was shaped more like a giant South American river wolf on steroids. The moment it exposed that serrated maw, any illusion of a cuddly critter vanished into thin air, replaced by the sheer savagery of a high-tier carnivore. Well, considering their diet was pure meat and fish, carnivores was exactly what they were.

Everything I've fought so far was a lone predator, but these bastards hunt in a pack. I have to be careful.

A single miscalculation could lead to an orchestrated pincer attack. Getting shredded by those talons or caught in those jaws would spell disaster.

"Bbarmbo. Guard Wonmo. I'll handle this."

"......"

The most dependable comrade on the field was none other than the Fast Tree Sloth. At my quiet command, Bbarmbo slithered languidly down from my shoulders and draped himself atop Wonmo's back. With my shield, I could weather any frontal assault, but Wonmo was still an inexperienced infant who needed veteran back-up.

"Kyaaaah!"

The massive alpha kicked off the dirt, fangs bared, hurtling directly toward me. For a creature of that bulk, its acceleration was frighteningly explosive. Closing the distance in the blink of an eye, it slashed down with its vicious claws.

CLANG!

Not a chance. My golden shield, courtesy of Praise the Sun, stood firm. The instant the beast's talons bounced harmlessly off the radiant metal, I drove my sword forward in a counterstroke.

Whoosh!

"—?!"

A whistling sound sheared through the air near my temple. Acting on raw survival instinct rather than conscious thought, I jerked my shield upward.

TINK! THUMP!

A solid projectile ricocheted off the brass face. The force behind it wasn't earth-shattering, but the mere fact that something had been fired was alarming. I glanced down at the projectile bouncing onto the grass.

A stone?

It was a rock, roughly the size of my clenched fist. Before I could even wonder who had hurled it, the alpha vaulted back into the fray. Leaping high into the air, it dove straight toward my face, clearly intending to rip my throat out with those hooked front talons. A brutal gambit, but entirely too telegraphed.

BAM!

Snapping the shield upward, I deflected the airborne alpha with ease. Rather than stopping at a passive block, I put my shoulder into the motion and bashed forward before the creature could twist away. No matter how dense the overgrown otter was, catching a full-body shield bash mid-air meant there was only one trajectory left for it.

"Kyeeek!"

Emitting an undignified screech that completely undermined its ferocious visage, the alpha sailed backward through the trees. Before it could recover and scramble back, I needed to thin the herd. Wheeling around toward Wonmo and Bbarmbo, an extraordinary spectacle greeted my eyes.

"Kkyu-kyaaah!"

"Ke-e-e-k!"

One of the vanguard otters had already been cleaved into three distinct, bloody sections, spraying gore across the ferns, while another lay pinned under Wonmo's stocky bulk. Every time the pinned beast squirmed to resist, Wonmo buried his beak into its snout and raked its ribs with his baby claws. A total, one-sided beatdown. Bbarmbo, meanwhile, had clearly done the heavy lifting.

Swish! Slash!

The sloth was casually snatching hurtling stones right out of the air or slicing them in two with casual flicks of his claws. An utterly absurd defensive display. But wait—were those rear otters actually chucking rocks?

"Ke-eng! Keng!"

"Kya-a-ang!"

They really were throwing rocks. The two otters lingering in the rear were winding their forepaws back and slinging stones with uncanny precision. Did wild otters possess artillery tactics? I pushed the bizarre zoological question aside—this was my opening. As the two otter grenadiers wound up their next volley, I surged forward.

Startled, the slingers frantically pitched their ammunition, but every rock clattered harmlessly against my shield. Closing the gap until their panicked breaths brushed my face, I whipped the Heavenly Demon's Sword from left to right, its edge rippling with concentrated aura.

Shhhhk!

There wasn't even the visceral crunch of bone or cartilage—only the crisp hiss of parting wind. The combination of the Heavenly Demon's masterwork blade and pure aura could sever virtually anything in the mortal realm.

Thud! Plop!

Standing upright on their hind legs as they were, their torsos slid cleanly off their lower halves. With the ranged artillery eradicated, I glanced back to see Wonmo finally finishing off his mangled opponent with a decisive peck. That left only the alpha, whom I'd launched into the undergrowth with my shield. It hadn't rejoined the fight yet.

Rustle!

Speak of the devil. The alpha burst through the brush, wildly late to the party. But arriving now was utterly meaningless. Its pack had already been reduced to neat cross-sections or shredded meat.

"Kkkyeeeeeeek!"

Taking in the carnage before it, the alpha let out an agonized roar of disbelief. Its bloodshot eyes locked onto me, and with zero regard for self-preservation, it charged headlong. Its sheer momentum was astonishing for an animal of that bulk, but it posed no real threat. An attack fueled entirely by blinding rage was the easiest thing in the world to evade; I didn't even need to raise the shield.

Whoosh!

The alpha leaped, sweeping its claws out in a wild, desperate swipe. Just before pivoting to dodge, I flipped my grip and planted the Heavenly Demon's Sword blade-up directly in its flight path. With its paws off the ground, the beast had no way to alter its trajectory in midair.

Slice.

Precisely as expected, the alpha's momentum carried it clean through the upturned edge. It crashed heavily onto the soil, neatly bisected down the middle from chin to tail. Charging in with such reckless velocity had turned its final offensive into an assisted suicide.

That's what you get for trying to steal another man's lunch.

Snorting derisively, I set about cleaning up the scene. Leaving bloody carcasses out in the open was an open invitation for every apex predator within five miles. I dragged the severed otter parts and pitched them into the rushing river, then hastily kicked dirt over the crimson puddles on the grass. Since most of them had been cut into tidy geometric shapes, the disposal didn't take long.

"Let's head back."

"Kkyuu!"

"First thing we do back at camp is wash those paws of yours."

Both Wonmo and Bbarmbo were sporting bloodstained claws. Though a river flowed right beside us, the ever-present threat of Golden Poison Frogs made scrubbing down back at the shelter far wiser. Hoisting the trap with the still-flapping red fish, I led the march back home.

Now, only the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glorious feast remained. I tossed one of the massive fish directly to Wonmo, taking care, of course, to carve out the Neidan buried deep within its entrails beforehand.

"Finish this, and I'll give you some honey afterward. Deal?"

"Nom, nom, gulp!"

My words went in one ear and out the other as he tore into the raw flesh with savage enthusiasm. Chuckling, I patted his fluffy head and turned to prep my own portion.

Man, when am I ever going to burn through all these cores?

The Elixir bottle was steadily filling up with Neidans. At this rate, I wondered if I'd ever use them all. While I planned to ingest one every two days, taking too many too fast felt like an easy way to overdose on internal energy.

Guess I'll fire off a post to the Gallery first.

Reporting the sudden otter ambush felt like a solid idea, and I genuinely wanted an explanation for those rock-slinging grenadiers. Anticipating this, I had snapped a few photos of the battlefield earlier, thoughtfully cropping out the most gruesome viscera.

Well damn. Turns out otters were just naturally terrifying killers.

Had I ventured down to the riverbank alone, my only choices would have been surrendering the fish or being carved into ribbons. If not for Wonmo's presence and Bbarmbo's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠supernatural coverage, things could have gone south very quickly.

Nothing in this damn place comes easy.

Setting aside the supernatural absurdities of the Four Seasons Forest, primordial wilderness was inherently lethal. Sighing inwardly, I set about cooking my cleaned catch. Sizzling over the broad cast-iron skillet, the fish flesh quickly turned a mouthwatering golden-brown. Because the river monster was so gigantic, the pan itself had to be an absolute behemoth to accommodate it.

Envy radiated off the forum thread. I knew the feeling all too well. Back on Earth, I would sometimes catch outdoor survival clips on NewTube—people catching fresh game or fish in the wild and cooking it right on a hot stone over an open fire. Those videos carried a hypnotic allure, and I used to lose hours binge-watching them late into the night.

Granted, all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm doing is searing it on an iron skillet, but the scale of these fish turns it into an event.

Even so, a twinge of regret lingered. It was virtually impossible to share a piece with everyone who wanted a taste. Completing a single direct trade slapped both parties with a merciless twenty-four-hour cooldown, which severely tied our hands in multiple ways.

Might as well hit up the Juddak and see if we can get an exception.

I promptly posted a query tagging the head manager.

I was reminded once again that our orange-badge Head Mod was a quintessential young boomer—stubborn, bureaucratic, and impossibly rigid to the bone.