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An hour of moving at superhuman speed later, Professor Sageira and I came upon the first fresh tracks. "Too small and wrong shape to be anything close to human. But it is bipedaled." I said as I traced the outline of the footprints we found.
"And from the depth and spacing of each footprint, the tracks belong to something short and light. I think we may be dealing with some form of Kin folk." Professor Sageira said. (See Chapter 62 for reference to "Kin")
A few seconds into following the tracks, we noticed that those who were leaving them for us to follow had no notion of fieldcraft to ensure they did not leave behind any traces of their passing. Or maybe they simply did not see the need to use it.
After an hour of following the tracks that nonsensically wound up and down the mountain, I saw Professor Sageira suddenly come to a stop, sniff the air, and then telepathically told me to quietly follow her.
We once again took to the trees and conjured silencing barriers around ourselves so our passage would not make any noise, not that it mattered with the sound of O'zet's snore rumbling through the area.
Soon, Professor Sageira landed on a tree branch, and I landed beside her. She then pointed out to me three small brown figures walking between the trees, each of them had tree branches and sacks strapped to their backs, or more accurately, upon closer inspection, their shells.
{So that's where all the dead fall has been disappearing to, these guys have been cleaning the mountain grounds.} I telepathically commented to Professor Sageira.
{Indeed, they were not here the last time I visited O'zet's mountain, but that was a few centuries ago. And what's more, this is one of the few times in my long life that I have seen tortoise kin. They are very rare, and I have only seen them in ones or twos a handful of times. Let's follow them.} she replied
For the next two hours, we trailed behind the three tortoise kin from a respectable distance, and always with some form of foliage in the way so we could hide if they happened to look back. In that time, we watched them harvest berries, fruits, and some roots, all of which Professor Sageira told me were mana-rich due to the environment they were harvested in, but ultimately mundane.
As for the valuable things they harvested, like natural treasures and fallen branches from evolved trees, they only harvested one or two natural treasures, leaving the rest alone, but picked up every fallen branch they could find.
Eventually, it seemed like their gathering mission was finished, and they led us back to their home. That home turned out to be three-quarters of the way up the mountain, where there was a small clearing sheltered by the thick canopy of old trees that would have easily blocked anyone from seeing them from the air.
But unlike the bunch of small houses I expected from these small tortoise kin, I had forgotten that they were, at the end of the day, related to tortoises, so of course their homes were burrows, and the clearing was simply a common area.
In that clearing, I counted around fifty tortoise kin, men, women, and children, going about their day like any other village I have seen in my travels. The only difference was that there were no walls to protect them and no one on guard to keep a lookout for danger. It was as if they had nothing to fear.
And come to think of it, they really had nothing to fear. These tortoise kin had somehow made a home on O'zet's back, and what predator with a shred of self-preservation would come near O'zet?
I was about to jump in closer to get a closer look, but Professor Sageira put her hand on my shoulder to stop me. {Wait}, she telepathically told me, {Extend your senses.}
As I did so, I noticed it. {An array surrounding the tortoise kin village, and a huge one at that, but I cannot see it?} I said as I looked around. I could see the boundaries of it no less than ten meters before me, but I could not see the runes that make up its structure, so I had no clue what the array was supposed to do.
{That is because the array is underground. As for what the array does, I will need a few minutes to figure it out.} Professor Sageira said with glowing eyes
As I studied the environment, I noticed something and nudged Professor Sageira. {No need, I think I know what it is.} I pointed to the leaves in the tree we were in and then to the leaves in the tree just beyond the array boundary. {The leaves in our tree are trembling at the sound of O'zet's snoring. Those leaves are just naturally swaying in the breeze. It is a massive sound barrier like the one we conjured while getting close to O'zet.}
{Hmm… makes sense. O'zet is a horrible neighbor to have when he falls asleep. Still, it is always wise to check if the array would trigger anything harmful.} she replied.
We got down from the trees and walked to the edge of the array. Professor Sageira infused her hand with mana and slowly pushed it forward into the array's influence… and felt nothing. After ten seconds of no reaction from the array, she deemed it safe, and we advanced forward to get a closer look at the tortoise kin village.