The two reached their target and Hara wandered into the clearing filled with tall grass, even the dirt path they were walking on had nearly disappeared, as not many would take the initiative to go to an area invested with high jumping grasshopper beasts.
Hara even caught one of the beasts as it dropped down from the tree she was walking under, it landed in her hair and she squished it in her hand, earning a flat stare like feeling from her beasts as if saying "I'm the one supposed to kill these things." and "Don't take my job."
Smiling at her little partner, she let her settle on a rock large enough to sit on and then, after Lyth had given her the okay, proceeded to kick the tree trunk with full force.
She regretted not pulling her hood up as about a hundred things fell on her head and she had to take a hasty step back to avoid them falling in her face, not that it did her much as she had to shake her head and hair out afterward anyways.
Lyth was laughing at her while she killed the beasts that fell down to her, they easily numbered in the hundreds.
She didn't manage to kill everything, but in the end, the stone was covered in grasshopper beast corpses, mantises were swift killers.
Her partner soon showed her what Hara was incapable of understanding, how to extract the Miasma from the beasts.
The small beast stuck her sickle in the corpse, and while nothing changed appearance wise, because of her sharp focus on her partner she saw that, for a moment, her sickles glittered unnaturally.
This repeated again and again as Lyth sank her sickles into the dead beasts and extracted the energy from their bodies.
Looking at Lyth, Hara sent her a question.
She wondered, and soon Lyth sent a message back, it was a yes, but also a no.
She received a longer message, composed of feelings and concepts, as always, and took quite a while to decipher it, she absentmindedly kicked the tree again and beasts came falling out, luckily less than before.
From what Lyth had sent her, she figured that beasts could form something inside them to keep the energy condensed, this condensed thing made them stronger, so most beasts would have this, but because the beasts right now lacked the energy, and intelligence to build these things, her partner needed to extract the essence per hand.
Hara really wanted to write all of this down, but lacked the paper and pen to do so.
The woman soon sent her beast another question, how many beasts did she need to kill and absorb to become stronger? Or, as her partner had hinted at before, transform.
Lyth didn't answer her for a while and focused on extracting the Miasma from the beasts before responding.
It translated into, or
Lyth sent her another message, and once again, Hara had to play translator, it went faster than before, as the woman got used to the feelings and emotions her partner sent her.
She told her that she was getting stronger with every beast she consumed, but the effects were minimal and easy to miss.
"Slow but steady." Hara muttered and her partner chirped, the hunter shook her head and took the jar, telling her partner to stop killing them as they needed a few beast grasshoppers to feed the other mantises they kept.
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Soon a glass was filled with grasshoppers and the two left as it was nearing 1 pm, as they walked, Hara noticed that Lyth was easily holding on to her, when before it had presented a bit of a challenge, her partner would still be blown away if they rode the bike, but it seemed that she was a bit stronger than before.
Her partner sent a happy wave of emotions over that proudly proclaimed,
The two of them left the mountain and climbed on the bike, her partner now hidden in her breast pocket, where before Hara had worried about Lyth falling out of the pocket, now she was sure her partner would be fine.
They drove to the school and Hara was bombarded with happy and exciting waves of emotion coming from her partner, she was enjoying the ride.
The scene blurred past as Hara sped to the school.
______
Hara parked her bike near her wagon and stepped inside the school, walking to class 5A, only to find a sign that read.
-We're in the greenhouse!-
The forester was a bit confused at this, as she had no idea where a greenhouse was, or that the school even had one, as such, left with no idea where she was supposed to go, she knocked on another class door and was soon called inside.
A raven-haired teacher waved at her with a white smile as he introduced her to his class.
"Class, this is the forester, Hara, she's watching over the Emerald forest, give her a greeting everyone."
"Hello, Miss Hara." The class called in unison.
"Hello everyone, sorry to interrupt you, but can anybody tell me since when we've had a greenhouse and where it is?" She asked and the teacher to her right answered her, dusting his hands off that were stained with white chalk.
"The new greenhouse? It's in the back next to the vegetable garden, you know where that is, right?" He explained with a soft, but loud, voice.
Hara gave a nod, "New greenhouse? So I didn't just forget that existed?" She tilted her head and a few snickers came from the class.
The teacher gave an odd smile and shook his head.
"No, it's brand new, they're not even done with the complete building yet, but the Chief wanted it done as soon as possible, research project, he said." The teacher looked about as confused as she was.
"Alright, we're about to end the day anyway, why don't we all visit the new greenhouse," He broke off as the class cheered and gave a helpless smile, "They've been wanting to see it for the whole day."
She nodded and left with the class as they walked along the colourful halls and left via the backdoor.
The school had a large outdoor area filled with play equipment and patches of grass, near the back, was a field full of student-grown things, flowers, vegetables, grass, anything the students wanted to try planting, they did.
As they arrived, Hara saw that, just as the teacher had said, the building was half-finished but already started to look like a medium-sized greenhouse.
They stepped inside after knocking, finding a complete class, plus a demonic teacher, already inside.
Angelica had just opened her mouth to speak as she spotted the forester in the crowd and waved her over.
"Hara, great news, the beasts will be staying here now!" She cheered and pointed to an older man in work clothes.
"This is one of the people who will watch them after school hours~."
The man took a step towards her and offered his hands, Hara knew him, he was a retired hunter, he had taken a nasty fall that gave him back problems a few years back.
"Hello, Jack, good to see you're doing well." She greeted and shook his hand, he grinned at her and nodded.
"You know each other?" Angelica chirped, "That's great~."
The female teacher took Hara by the arm and dragged her with her to two large tanks filled with flower-like beasts.
"Chief sure was generous, wasn't he?" She said dryly and Jack snorted a step behind her, "Sure was, 'wonder why he's so interested in the little freaks now." He said, not looking at her as he inclined his head to her.
"Yeah, wonder why..." She mumbled, knowing exactly why.
Seth sprang over to her side and pointed at a sandy-colored mantis beast, "That's Sandy!" He chirped, "I named her!"
"That's a pretty name." She smiled at the child at her feet.
"Yeah." A blond girl chirped, " We all got to name one." She pointed to a male one in light green "That's Reef." She explained, "He's mine!"
"That's Corry!" A boy chirped, pointing at another male, and soon names and fingers were thrown around as the children introduced the named beasts to the crowd.
Hara didn't know why, but an uneasy feeling settled in her gut as the kids were looking at the beasts.
"They are very well named, now how about we feed them with something special I brought." She asked, holding the jar bursting with bug beasts up.
"Yay! Feeding time!" The children cheered, and the class Hara had come with cheered along.
"Oh, dear," Angelica said and the other adults nodded along, this was about to get gory.