CH 10

My “installed” knowledge taught me that going to the town will take 2 hours thru the forest to a highway, then another hour from there.

In other words, it will take 6 hours for a round trip. During that time, we will carry things that can fetch some money while passing thru the forest and highway, which were never a safe place. So it’s given to be extremely careful.

I am not alone as I have Samia as my companion. Being with a beastman who has higher physical ability than ordinary humans (here I made an analogy based from the time of meal), will give an intimidating effect for those who are thinking of doing bad things.

As Samia herself said before, it’s probably best not to move intensely for another week or so. For now, I want her to move her body slowly and gradually regain her original reflexes.

While thinking about such a thing, we proceed into the forest. There are a lot of trees here so if we don’t enter while it’s still early morning, it will be a bit dark. This forest gets too dark on a rainy day, so it’s probably impossible to go to the town if I’m planning on a day trip.This is translated by Yume Neiji (yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com)

While I’m thinking that, Samia suddenly stopped.

“Is there something out there?”

“I can smell a presence of something. Though I don’t think it’s a huge black bear…”

As Samia says so, she stepped forward. As expected of a tiger beastman, she doesn’t make any sound even though we’re inside the forest. When she reached a tree slightly far away, she faces here and gently speaks-

“Oh, it’s just a tree deer…. That explains why I don’t smell much. It’s troublesome if we get it angry so let’s just ignore it for today. It’s a different story if we need to hunt it for its meat though.”This is translated by Yume Neiji

“Ok, since today’s goal is to reach the city.”

We detour around the area where the tree deer is. Looking back, it’s a big deer slowly eating grass. It probably gets its name from its antlers that look exactly like the branches of the trees here.This is translated by Yume Neiji (yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com)

“With that figure, I’m amazed how it doesn’t get stuck.”

“No, the bigger ones sometimes got stuck and got broken.”

“Oh, Is that so?”

“Once I become able to hunt it, I’ll show you when I catch one. The bigger ones have one or two marks of being broken. Unlike horned deer, they don’t use it for attacking but as a camouflage so it doesn’t really matter even if they broke.”

“I see, it’s doing well…”

I originally don’t have much knowledge in biology and the “installed” on me doesn’t function like in academic studies so hearing something like this is pretty interesting. It’s like watching a similar TV show in my previous world.

“Instead of that, it’s using kicks and head butts coupled with that huge body and lots of physical strength, so it’s a real pain in the rear during close combats.”

“Hmm. Then I will be careful if I’ll hunt one.”

After bypassing the tree deer, we were able to proceed without any problems so we took a short break. We already cover a long distance, but both Samia and I can still remember the house location. While having a light meal, the two of us talk about such things.

Apparently, beastmen who live in the forest remember the smell and even little differences. As for me, the “installed” knowledge and experience on how to live in the forest is the very definition of an “unfair cheat”. Of course, I don’t plan to say that to Samia or to anyone else. Perhaps even to the future family that I might be able to make.

After the short break we immediately resume our travel. There is basically no more break from here on until the town. Along the way, we encounter many animals that live in this forest, but they’re basically docile and we didn’t come across any carnivorous ones.

Perhaps they sensed Samia’s smell or something. I don’t really understand the age of the beastman, and I wasn’t that old to be told by a lady that “you smell like a beast repellent” so I just kept that to myself.

Eventually, the trees become sparse and the highway passing by the forest come into our view. If we follow it, we should be in the town soon.

However, because there’s only a large forest here with no fields or the like, there’s not that many people passing by. That’s what Samia said.

“At any rate, looks like people can’t pass here. Maybe there’s unli-bandit here?”

“Since it’s still a highway, sometimes guards are patrolling this area.”

“Why do you know that?”

“I sometimes go to buy things in the town.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

No matter how beastmen live in the forest, there are many things that they can’t help but buy. For example, salt. Or if they need clothes (although they are covered with fur), they buy fabrics and tailor them. At that time, they will pay with the animals that they hunted.

“Because the guards aren’t stupid, they don’t patrol at regular intervals and they also adjust their rounds range. That’s why attacking people passing thru here should be quite a gamble. Apparently, most people passing here think like “We don’t know what might come out from the forest…”This is translated by Yume Neiji (yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com)

It seems that the guards here are enthusiastic about their duties. It’s pretty impressive.

If a wolf came out of the forest while a bandit was attacking his prey, his position would suddenly change. Even if such a thing occurs rarely, it would become a gamble of whether to take the risk or not.

While I was thinking of such things, the outer wall of the city in the distance finally comes into our view.

Now, just a little bit more. I and Samia fire ourselves up then walked toward the city with a slightly elevated tension.