After Sane finished blocking the rear exit of the cave, the group left the valley, heading towards the temporary residence of the Crimson tribe.
Along the way, the air pressure around Sane dropped to the lowest point, almost freezing the surrounding air. The surrounding beastmen kept stealing glances at Kaelen from time to time; even the pressure of a level-three beastman warrior being released did not make them falter.
Sane grabbed Kaelen's hand, gritting his teeth and saying: "What did you usually use to smear on your face? I will go get it for you right now, you smear it on your face immediately for me!"
Kaelen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He didn't expect Sane to have such a cute jealous side; if Sane were a cobra, his hood would probably be fully flared out by now. He scratched Sane's palm and said: [No need, anyway, my body is full of your scent, they won't intervene. Letting them take a look or two won't make me lose a piece of meat.]
Sane only felt his mouth go sour, unable to resist taking a bite on Kaelen's neck, leaving an ambiguous mark: "You are forbidden from erasing it. If you dare to erase it, I will... I will ignore you!"
Blech~ So cheesy... The people walking next to them shivered in unison. Kaelen unnaturally used his tail to whip Sane once. This stinky snake didn't even know what shame was.
The Crimson tribe was not far from here; passing two slopes led to a not-so-large grassland, upon which animal skin tents were pitched closely together. Because it was cold, not many people were outside, mainly the beastmen responsible for guarding and preparing supplies. Walter exclaimed in astonishment: "Wow, no wonder your tribe is called Crimson, everyone's hair is all red."
Barton nodded and said: "Our clan is mainly of the striped tiger bloodline. Normal tigers have orange-red color, while our clan has deep red."
The beastmen from the Obsidian tribe looked down from the slope, unable to distinguish who was who. Quinlan said in surprise: "Walter, you can see even from this far? Your eyes are even sharper than Uncle Hugh's."
Walter was slightly stunned for a moment, then remembered that he still hadn't shown off his special ability to his cousin. He then picked up a small stone and pulled out the slingshot tucked at his waist, saying: "Cousin, look at this!"; afterward, he adjusted the slingshot pointing to the sky, squinting one eye to aim and shoot.
A crisp "thwack" sounded out; from the flock of white-necked cranes flying past, one immediately fell down, tumbling a few times in the air before smashing into the ground, creating a shallow crater. This scene just happened to fall into the eyes of Andre, who was running over to receive the guests. He subconsciously swallowed his saliva with a gulp, raising his hand to hold his forehead.
Seeing Andre, Walter felt a bit guilty, hiding the slingshot behind his back.
Everyone in the Obsidian tribe was left gaping in shock; Quinlan constantly hovered around Walter, wanting Walter to teach him how to use stones to shoot birds. Sane leaned into Kaelen's ear, whispering: "Is he like you?"
Kaelen nodded, saying: [He awakened an eye-related ability, able to see in the dark and see as far as from here to a height higher than the cliff over there.]
In this era, there was no concept of mathematics or physics, so Kaelen could only use direct descriptions as a substitute. Roughly speaking, Walter's current special ability was only at level one; his visual range fluctuated between six to eight kilometers. The fact that Walter could shoot the White-necked Crane was entirely due to the flock flying quite low and his pinnacle aiming talent.
Having been in a bad mood these past few days, Kaelen had not thought about creating a suitable weapon for Walter; now that he was clear-headed, he had the intention of crafting a bow for Walter. He didn't know how to make a bow, but in his past life, a pine wood bow was displayed in the orphanage director's study; he had also looked at it many times, so he remembered its structure quite clearly. He could draw a blueprint and then give it to Uncle Cassian to study; in this aspect, Uncle Cassian was a true genius.
Stepping into the Crimson tribe, everyone stopped the work in their hands to greet Collins, also seemingly casting subtle glances at the group of unfamiliar guests. Their gazes lingered on Kaelen's face a little longer than on others, then they were coldly swept over by the beastman next to him; the gaze carrying a murderous aura made them not dare to look any further. Must be joking, that was a beastman warrior; based on this level of pressure, he was definitely not below level two. Even giving them ten more guts wouldn't make them dare to peep at someone else's Sub-Beast.
"These are friends belonging to the Obsidian tribe, they came to visit our tribe and will stay for about two days, you guys go clean up a few empty tents for them."
Barton spoke up on behalf of Collins; the group of beastmen beat their chests and bowed their heads in compliance, then dispersed to prepare. A few Sub-Beasts and beast cubs avoiding the cold in the tents also curiously poked their heads out to look, but no one stepped outside to disturb them.
While waiting for the guest tents to be set up, Collins invited everyone to the tribe's communal tent to sit for a bit. Guessing that Kaelen would not be able to eat greasy roasted meat, Collins instructed his disciple to go tell the clan members to cook a little more golden grain porridge along with wild vegetable soup.
"These are a type of wild fruit that pregnant Sub-Beasts of our clan really like to eat, you try eating them to see if you feel any less uncomfortable." Collins took a wooden bowl containing a few light green fruits and handed it to the two Sub-Beasts. Walter took a bite and immediately spat it out. He found it even sourer than the red fruit Kaelen had brought back a few days ago.
Kaelen picked up the green fruit to take a look, discovering that apart from being only as small as a thumb, it looked very similar to the Indian Jujube. Taking a bite, the familiar sour and crunchy taste flooded his mouth. If it were before, Kaelen would have stayed far away from this kind of fruit, but now he felt it was very appetizing. If a plate of Tay Ninh chili salt was added here, it would be even more wonderful.
Walter watched Kaelen eat one fruit after another, feeling his own jaw ache slightly. Sane, seeing Kaelen eating continuously like that, felt nothing but heartache. He must have starved for several days; otherwise, how could he eat so heartily a dish that even Walter disdained?
"Everyone, rest up, I will go hunt some beasts to bring back." He decided to hunt for prey himself to bring back to nourish Kaelen.
Barton hurriedly said: "No need, we just hunted quite a lot of prey, enough to eat today. It's late now, it won't be safe for you to go hunting."
Collins also nodded: "Everyone has had a hard journey from far away, just eat, drink, and rest well today. Whatever it is, we will talk about it tomorrow."
At this moment, a striped tiger clan beastman walked in, saluted Collins, and informed him that the guest tents were ready. Collins nodded, telling Barton to lead the people from the Obsidian tribe to go rest.
Considering that among the guests there was a couple of mates, a single Sub-Beast, and four beastmen, the Crimson tribe beastmen prepared four tents. Sane and Kaelen shared one tent, Walter got one tent to himself, and the remaining four people split the other two.
Sane asked Walter to look after Kaelen, while he himself found a stream not far from the Crimson tribe, submersing himself to scrub off all the dirt and dust sticking to his body. He was certain that if he didn't bathe cleanly, it would be a long time before he could sleep with Kaelen.
---
"You haven't told Sane about your pregnancy?" Walter and Kaelen were sitting beside the fire, using animal skins damped with warm water to wipe their faces and hands, planning to boil a large pot of water to bathe tomorrow. Walter asked while wiping. Kaelen shook his head; at that time his emotions were not very stable, holding a bit of a grudge against Sane, so he still hadn't told Sane about this matter.
[He wants to be my mate, but I haven't agreed yet.]
"Huh?" Walter was shocked: "You two already have a child and you still haven't agreed, what does that mean?"
Kaelen curled his lips: [Hmph! That bastard initially had no intention of being mates with me, just thinking about it makes me unbearably angry!]
Walter originally intended to justify Sane with a few words, but after thinking it over, he still felt he had better keep his mouth shut. After all, his eyes weren't blind; those two clearly had feelings for each other. Kaelen was just throwing a tantrum right now; once his anger passed, the matter of mating probably wouldn't be far off.
He wrung the towel dry and hung it up, poured out the dirty water, and upon returning inside, he said: "I heard brother Quinlan say the situation in the tribe isn't very good. It seems that because of our matter, a conflict occurred in the tribe, and the clan leader and Priest want to abandon the tribe."
Kaelen didn't think so. He wiped his feet dry and placed them on the animal skin mattress, then waved his hands: [It's not entirely because of us. The interior was already fractured long ago, we are just an excuse.]
He had seen through this issue a long time ago, so he had intentions to leave the tribe early on. It was just that he couldn't bear to leave the clan leader and a few others, dragging it out until now. He cherished the tribe, but he did not cherish those with impure intentions. He even planned to impart the knowledge he knew to the tribe and then take his child and leave.
It was just right on time. This time returning, he wanted to see whether they were still worth him putting effort into or not. There was no need for Sane's group to tell him in detail what had happened in the tribe during the time he was missing; Kaelen could guess for himself how overjoyed that group of clan members must have been when they assumed he had been buried in the belly of a magical beast.