155 Entrance (1/2)
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Elyion had been having a rather stressful moment in his life.
He was pretty sure that the forest they were in had been quaking fiercely for an entire hour before stopping. Forget about maintaining vigilance, Elyion had to make sure that he stayed as far away as he possibly could from the falling trees thanks to Raven's heist.
Elyion had been running around and collecting the fallen trees during this time as well. Though his task might be simple enough, he was feeling a bit tired from all of this.
Thankfully, Raven stopped after that and only asked him to count how many fallen trees they have gathered so far. Elyion had a rough estimation of a hundred trees, but he himself wasn't so sure since he stopped counting when it reached that number. Fortunately, the density of trees around them was bountiful or else Raven might've already dismantled the entire forest all on his own.
Even so, Elyion knew that Raven wasn't satisfied just yet. It was because before he went ahead to count how many trees they have, Raven asked him if he had some water jugs in his storage pouch.
Elyion had 20 water jugs, which greatly disappointed Raven. It was too few for his liking. Nevertheless, he can't do anything about it since that's everything he had. So while Elyion was taking inventory of how many trees they gathered, he went ahead to the nearest pond and filled the jugs with water.
Unknowingly, he stared at the water jug he was holding while he was filling it and a brilliant idea flashed onto his head.
'That's right! Since we don't have enough, then we should make one!'
Raven inspected the water jugs in details and found out several things that he could take advantage off. First, though they call them water jugs, they were in fact, water pouches. They are made out beast skin that were cleaned and sterilized, it was stitched tightly in order to become a suitable container for water and it also has a wooden mouthpiece and a wooden cork as well.
Raven was confident on making these, so without any further ado, he quickly filled the jugs that he had and proceeded to look for some stray beast.
Due to the chaos earlier, the peace of the forest was disturbed, which worked on Raven's favor since he spotted several beasts nearby. He quickly made some traps and placed them on the path of these stray beasts.
He didn't need to wait for a long time before a beast fell under his traps, which made his work easier. After dealing with them, he set up a camp and called Elyion over.
The young wolf was dumbfounded to see several carcasses of beasts beside Raven upon his arrival. He left for half an hour and this is what happened, just what is this guy even?
Being reminded that Elyion was actually a beast himself, Raven felt a little weird and Elyion obviously figured this out. Unexpectedly he said...
”No need to consider my feelings, Sir. We and the rules of nature are very well acquainted. Since we started walking these lands, we already accepted that fact that if someone stronger comes, we would have no chances of escaping. Plus, it is with humans where I wanted to be, not with them so it's fine.”
Elyion's words had Raven thinking: 'What a fucked up thought process. It's almost as it seems that someone tampered on his mentality when he was born.'
Nevertheless, Raven said nothing and continued his work. In the end, he managed to make at least thirty more water jugs, totaling to fifty adding those they have earlier. Elyion also finished counting and reported to him that he had taken down at least 130 trees in total. Adding the 15 skinless beast carcasses he managed to gather, they for sure won't have any difficulties entering the city now.
”Our work is done here, lead me to the Thorn City.” Raven announced as soon as he finished filling up the remaining water jugs. Elyion nodded and led the way.
It turns out that they weren't too far from the city anyway. It only took them a couple minutes by foot until they saw the stone walls of the city. Elyion must've chosen that spot to morph since it was on a safe distance away from the city and thought that there shouldn't be any human around this part of the forest. Unfortunately, his luck was somewhat bad.
On their way, Raven was strangely silent. He wasn't relatively nervous about entering the city since there was no reason to. He had a mission and he knew that whatever arises, he had to eventually face it.
What he's worried about, is about how long would it take for him to actually finish the challenge. This is different from his regular training. He wondered if the time ratio changed for this specific event.
Suddenly, he felt his thoughts buzz, waking him up from his stupor. The source of the buzz was from his psyche. He focused on it and saw a new information which greatly relieved him.