Chapter 7 - Meeting (1/2)

One year had passed since that day on the lake. A lot of things happened at that time, and in the end, Bao Bei had no other choice but to reveal the truth about the humans to her son Hei, and she had to agree to let him get in touch with them.

But, despite her son's great desire to know his species and broaden his horizons beyond that familiar forest, Bao Bei decided to extend the wait as much as possible.

There was a valid reason for that choice. She wanted Hei, Xing, and Ye, to learn all that was needed to interact with humans to avoid troubles and misunderstandings.

She didn't know how much had passed. And she knew that if she sent them as they were, without proper education about human society, they would only get unwanted attention. In the end, that attention could bring danger to all of them.

Therefore, she spent this year scouring the area outside the forest to understand the situation better, as well as teaching her children about human culture.

Since she would frighten anyone if she showed up directly, she could only moved at night when Hei, Ye, and Xing were sleeping. This was only after reinforcing their home-like spider web with new spider web's defensive layers.

Although she was worried and anxious about leaving them alone, she knew that the forest around didn't contain monsters that were strong enough to break the spider web. She also moved away only up to a distance where it allowed her to monitor their refuge from far, and return quickly in case of need.

Of course, this was true as long as they stayed inside their home without leaving since she created a secret passage in case they needed to escape for any reason. But fortunately, after the lesson received that time at the lake, the three of them had promised never to disobey Bao Bei again, and therefore, they remained in their home to sleep.

The first few nights, because it was the first time Bao Bei wasn't present with them during the night hours, they were a bit afraid, and they struggled to sleep. Fortunately, they had each other to keep each other company and to face the loneliness of the night.

But, as the days went by, they soon got used to this feeling, not to mention that Bao Bei would always leave after they fell asleep and when they woke up, she would be present with them with a pleasant breakfast.

However, thanks to her patrols, Bao Bei was able to understand the situation better, and she was able to find the answers to some questions she had.

She had thought of doing something like this several times, but the tender age of Hei, Ye, and Xing didn't allow her to go too far from them. Moreover, as the days passed in their company increased, the desire to know the outside world diminished within Bao Bei.

After all, before she met Hei, Bao Bei had lived a period of constant struggles and fatigue, so she had become so absorbed in this peace that she wished it would last forever.

However, it wasn't possible to stop the passage of time, and she had to recognize that it wasn't healthy to limit the future of her children only by her selfish whim.

Thus, she decided to do a reconnaissance despite the risks involved.

In doing so, she discovered that they were on an island called Rainbow Island that was divided into three kingdoms. At the time, they were in a forest on the eastern part of the Rainbow Island that was called Multicolor Leaf Forest.

Both names sounded unfamiliar to her, and they couldn't make her recall anything. However, it wasn't strange as it could happen that the people occasionally changed the name of a place, especially when it had passed a long time. And a lot of time had passed since the year she remembered.

One hundred thousand years had passed since the era in which she lived.

Although the spirit beasts that had developed spirit power had a longer lifespan than humans and demons, they couldn't live that long. However, by performing a special technique, they could go into hibernation and thus preserve their life in exchange for absolute inactivity during that time frame.

Unconsciously, Bao Bei had activated this technique after she was teleported on the Multicolor Leaf Forest. Therefore, she had managed to live so long, even though she would have to be dead by giving up living for 100,000 years.

This discovery brought enormous amazement to Bao Bei. She hadn't expected that it had passed so much time and that she had unconsciously activated this particular technique. She didn't know whether to be happy about this time gap, but she decided not to dwell too much. From the beginning, she had a hunch that it would be like this. And instead of thinking about the past, she decided to focus on the future brought by her three cubs.

Apart from these discoveries, she also found that the nearest city was called Leaf City since its proximity to the forest, but because it was a city full of people, she decided to discard it.

For their first interaction with humans, a city could be too much to handle for Hei, Xing, and Ye alone.

Fortunately, near the outskirts of the Forest eastern side, there was a village of humans who had settled there. They had build the village there to take advantage of the sources of water passing by and the abundant supply of timber. Since it was only the outer edge of the Forest, the creatures present inside weren't a significant problem for humans, as long as they did not go too deep and attracted the attention of dangerous beasts.

This village was probably the place where the girl, who Hei had seen that day, came from. It was in the same direction that Hei had followed and, since there weren't any other settlements nearby, it was the only possibility unless she was a passing traveler.

Regarding the language, she discovered it was a different language from the one she remembered. But this year of reconnaissance let her understand that new language.

Despite being a spider, she was still a high-grade spirit beast. Creatures like her had an intellect equal to or superior to human beings. Moreover, with her years of life, she knew how to use glimpses of fragments to understand the language slowly.

Of course, it wasn't a process that could be done in one day, and it took her several months to start making sense of those words, but in the end, she succeeded.

She then taught Hei and his sister the ancient language of humans that she already knew and the new one she learned on her reconnaissances.

Since it was a language learned without proper education, there were likely to be errors. But that didn't matter too much. After all, Hei was only about seven years old, and he wouldn't seem strange if he made some mistakes.

Furthermore, Bao Bei trusted Hei's ability to learn, and she knew he could improve and fill his gaps, not to mention that he could benefit from the help of his two little sisters who had undergone the same training.

So once they were assessed as being at a passable level, Bao Bei finally gave Hei, Xing, and Ye permission to go to the human village and let them experience the outside world firsthand.

They set off in the morning at dawn and, having them climb on her back, Bao Bei soon reached the eastern outer border of the forest. At that point, she stopped and had her three children come down to tell them the latest recommendations.