After three weeks, I found two things I had been missing.

First, I came across a rather large and angry bear, the first animal I had found while in the forest. Well, normally I would recognize it as an animal, but at the time, I only saw a walking and breathing hunk of meat. And, you know, meat isn’t supposed to be walking or breathing.

I corrected this situation after a hunger-induced bout of combat.

You would think that me being mostly starved would have made my blows weaker. Looking back, they had become far more terrifying; with most of the mental blocks I normally put on my power having been removed due to the hunger.

In short, for a brief moment, I pretty much became a wild beast, and completely lost all control of myself. I gave into an instinct I wasn’t even aware had remained from that life.

I only regained my faculties after eating quite a bit of the bear. I didn’t miss that its neck had been snapped, and that I had pulled out its spine while it still breathed.

Nasty business, that was.

Even nastier once you consider that I had eaten the bear raw, and didn’t even stop to cook the meat. Man, I was really hungry, wasn’t I? 

I was considering making a small fire while munching down on some more of that bear meat, when I heard horse hooves behind me, and saw the second thing I had been missing.

There were five horses, and four of them were occupied by rather hostile looking people with unsheathed swords in the style of my own katana, but larger and thicker, like a thickened Odachi.

Then, the rider of the fifth horse bore no weapons besides that of a small bow, and wore elegantly crafted riding leathers. Moreover, she had a delicate circlet adorning her brow.

However, what drew most of my attention was the fact that they weren’t Human.

Nor Elven. Or Demonic. 

They were something that hadn’t existed on the continents, whether it was due to the World Seal, or something else.

These people were Beastmen.

I guessed that four of them were guards of some sort, for the lady. They were all distinct, with one having bright red hair, two with brown, and the last with grey. The grey-haired one had triangular ears sticking out of his hair, and had a distinctly wolfish cast to his face. One of the guys with brown hair had rounded ears sticking from his head, and the other had floppy ears. The last one had cat ears.

Ah, and most of them had tails.

Including the noble looking lady. Though, she had two tails, and pure white hair—or fur?

And while everyone else has a distinctly animalistic cast to their faces, she looks completely human, besides the tails and ears. Which, by the way, were the longest among the group, and looked precisely like fox ears.

If I could go so far as to venture a guess, I would say that she was a member of one of the rarest sub-casts among Beastmen—a nine-tail.

I got up from my kneeling position on the ground, and it didn’t escape my notice that the four guards leveled their weapons at me, and subtle made to intercept me, should I make a move for the lady.

I hold out my hands in a non-threatening manner. Nightfall was somewhere behind me, still stuck inside the bear. I had used it to cut it open, though, even with my hunger-induced bout of craziness, I still had enough sense to avoid cutting open the bear’s stomach and digestive tract. That would have been bad, and possibly gotten me very sick.

The fact that I was unarmed seemed to do me no favors in the eyes of the guards, though.

They still bristled at the sight of my hands going up.

“I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, I have no idea where I am.”

The five people opposite me tilted their heads in confusion.

Oh no…

I should have considered this.

One of the guards replied to me, and confirmed my thoughts.

“#$^$&   #@%  # @#$%  ^^$&*@  #%$!”

Crap. We don’t speak the same language.

I’ll have to resort to more…primitive means of communication.

Still holding my hands up, I went up to one of the trees nearby, and broke off some of its lower branches. I gathered a quick armful of them, and placed them next to the bear.

After lighting them up with a simple fire spell, I take Nightfall and carve out strips of bear meat, and skewer them on some of the thinner branches. Of course, I begin to cook the meat by holding these skewers over the fire. A mouth-watering scent came 

from the meat, combining with the smoke from the fire.

Those five beastmen stayed where they were while this was happening, curious about what I was doing. Then, once they realized that there were far more skewers then I would be able to eat single-handedly, they understood my intentions.

The skewers reached a point where I felt them to be at their peak, and I pulled them off the fire.

The beastmen were watching me intently. I knew that they typically had heightened senses, among which was smell. So, these strips of meat, which were releasing heavenly smells for me, would smell very appealing to them.

Ah, I can see a bit of drool from one of the guards. I’m guessing they haven’t had dinner yet.

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Sitting down, I leave a good portion of the meat on the other side of the fire, where the beastmen could easily grab them. I took quite a few of the meat strips for myself, and began chowing down on the cooked strips of deliciousness. I hadn’t put any sort of sauce or spices on it, but when you’ve starved for the last three weeks, anything would taste amazing.

The beastmen were shifting uncomfortably in their saddles, and I could hear stomachs growling from where I was.  

Gesturing at the meat, I made it clear to the beastmen that they could eat the skewers I’d left to the side.

After a moment’s hesitation and a few short words, one of the guards hopped off his horse, and approached the meat.

He tenderly took a bite, and when it was clear that there was nothing added to the meat that would be harmful to them, the others also hopped off their horses.

We all ate together, in relative silence.

However, they now knew that I wasn’t a threat, and meant no harm to them. 

If two people can’t understand each other, then the only way to communicate is through actions and intentions. I needed to show these people that I wasn’t going to hurt them somehow, especially since they came upon me feasting on the raw remains of a massive bear. Not exactly a peaceful first impression.

I felt that I was fairly successful, too. When first they saw me, all five of them were wary to different extents, from slight curiosity to open hostility. Now, they were all concentrated on the food, and will be able to revise their opinions on me.

I finished my skewers well before they did, even while consuming twice as much as one of them. Near starvation is a scary thing.

After finishing, I reached up to rearrange my hair, and was slightly horrified to find that it was sticky and damp with nearly dried blood. No wonder they had felt so threatened, when my hair was covered in blood.

I quickly cast the same spell that had kept me from dehydrating all this time, and summoned a globe of water which combed through my hair, removing the blood, while keeping the rest of me dry.

Then, it was a simple matter to remove the residual water through a similar spell, drying my hair completely.

A few of the guards were looking my way as I was doing this, along with the lady.

I turned back towards them with an inquisitive look, and a few of them actually started blushing.

Huh.

I sat back down, and stared at the lady, who I felt to be the one in charge here.

I pointed at myself, and spoke slowly and simply.

“Kai.”

The lady looked confused for a moment, before realizing what I was saying.

I expected her to reply back with her own name, but on the contrary, she looked a little panicked, and gestured to the nearest guard. He seemed to understand something, because this guard pointed at the lady, and replied for her.

“@#$^&## Anhara.”

The first word, I think was a title, while the second was her name. The guard had uttered the first word with a reverence only given to people of high standing, so I expect it to be something like ‘Countess’, or ‘Duchess’. That would explain why she has guards with her, though not why she’s refusing to talk to me.

Maybe it’s a status thing?

Well, thought that for a brief second, before noticing that the lady, Anhara, seemed a little nervous, and slightly sad. I don’t think she’s staying silent for some petty reason like her being nobility of some sort, and me being some person she’s just met in this odd forest. I wonder what could be causing her to stay silent?

Beyond introducing ourselves, not much else was said. Nobody would be able to understand me, and I certainly didn’t understand their language yet. There was no point.

After a few minutes of sullen silence, the lady stood up from her crouching position near the fire, and the guards followed suit.

I was planning on discreetly following them out of this damnable forest, when Anhara turned back towards me slightly, and gestured for me to follow. I shrugged mentally, and walked behind them, as they led their horses by the reins. It looks like they don’t want to outpace me. A touching thought, but wholly unnecessary, since I could outrun those same horses.

I could tell that they were following their old tracks to where they had come from. I hoped they had come from a town or something. I really need a bed right about now, and a bath would also be nice.

However, they didn’t go to a town. No. We reached an area where a great number of horse tracks and wagon wheels had passed by sometime earlier, and one of the guards broke away from the group after a long discussion amongst themselves. It was the youngest guard, the one with the floppy dog-like ears, that went. As far as I could tell, he began traveling in the direction that the tracks had headed.

As for the rest of us, we went the opposite way.  

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Author's Note:

Ugh. I'm feeling very listless at the moment, so I'll keep this short.

No chapter tomorrow.