Mama Bloodcat seems to be obsessed with carrying me. Except for when we sleep or hunt, she has pretty much been carrying me more often than not. While traveling, she'll just pick me up whenever she feels like, and she won't put me back down unless I ask her to.

And so after a few days like that, we arrive at the next city. It's smaller than the last two cities we've been to, and doesn't even have a wall, but it still seems pretty lively. I'm honestly surprised though. I thought that everyone would be afraid of us, that we would be banned from entering cities, but nobody seems to even recognize us.

'Maybe word hasn't spread yet?'

Almost as soon as we enter the city, my nose is assaulted with delicious smells. The smells get stronger and stronger as we travel through the streets, and eventually we happen upon the source. There's a wide-open area, seems to be some sort of town center, that's packed with stalls selling all kinds of street food. A lot of them are selling different kinds of wraps, while most of the rest are selling soups, breads, and one is even selling entire roasted animals!

I prepare to ask if we can get some food, but I notice that Mama's already staring intently at a certain stall. The stall that she's staring at is run by a bald man, and is one of the only ones that actually has a line of people in front of it. He's selling some sort of wrap, like a lot of the other stalls, but his wraps are rather... unique?

He takes entire hand-sized steaks, which he cooks on a grill built into the stall, pours sauce on them, and then wraps them in some sort of leafy vegetable. Then he wraps them in flatbread, submerges them in some sort of liquid, and puts them back on the grill. After he takes them back off of the grill, he covers them in thin sheets of transparent yellow... something. The sheets stick to the wraps, making them look shiny, and then he gives them to people just like that.

I was so transfixed by the process that I didn't even notice when we got in line, and suddenly we're directly in front of the stand.

"Never seen you before, how's it goin? Did you just happened upon my stall, or did you hear about my food from somebody?"

He leans in and whispers, "My food's pretty famous, you know." and gives a proud grin.

Mama smiles, "I smelled your food while walking down the street."

He looks slightly disappointed, but then perks up almost immediately, "That so. Anyway, one sheen wrap is 8 quotes, two for 15 quotes!"

Mama gives an 'ah', "We do not have money. Do you know where to get some?"

The man rubs his chin, "Hmm... you look like a strong lass, do you have any experience hunting?"

Mama nods her head vigorously, "Yes, I am very good at hunting."

"Well it's like this; I used to have somebody who hunted round bears for me, which is what this is," he holds up a steak, "but they moved to another city with their family not long ago. So now I have to buy them at the market, which is a pretty unreliable source."

"So you need someone to replace your missing hunter?"

The man nods his head, "Yep, that's the situation. If you decide to work for me, I'll pay 100 quotes per adult round bear you bring me."

"I accept your proposal. Do you have...?"

"Right, just a sec." he bends down and reaches under his stall, then stands back up holding a piece of paper.

"Here you go, you can have it."

He hands Mama the piece of paper, which has a picture of a round bear on it as well as several lines of text. The round bear looks like a fat brown bear, except it has horns on it, just like those red horned-bears.

As Mama turns around and prepares to walk away, the bald man calls out, "Hey, I'm sure you know this already, since you said you're good at hunting, but the forest can be pretty dangerous. Just the other day a couple people came back from the forest injured, and one of them almost didn't make it. Just be careful, kay?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After he finishes talking, he hands Mama the sheen wrap that he just finished making, "Here you go, on the house."

"Thank you, Mister..."

"Oh, my name's Bark."

"Mister Bark, how many round bears would be too many?"

Bark doesn't seem to understand, so Mama explains, "How many round bears can you use a day?"

"Ah, I can use four bears worth of meet on a good day, but I usually don't have that much. Four a day would be more than enough if you got that many."

Mama nods her head, and as we walk away, I hear Bark greeting his next customer.

"Shall we hunt for round bears right now?"

While she's talking, Mama rips the sheen wrap in two and hands half of it to me. Since I'm being carried, I'm able to grab the sheen wrap with my front paws.

"Yeah, let's go! When we get some money, what do you think we should buy?"

"More of these." blurts out Mama with a full mouth.

"Are they really that great?" I ask as I take a bite.

As soon as the sheen wrap enters my mouth, I'm assaulted with a myriad of delicious flavors, but it's not just the taste. The outside of the sheen wrap is super crunchy, and somehow the leafy vegetable it's wrapped in is still crunchy as well, while the steak inside is so tender that it almost melts in my mouth.

After scarfing down the rest of my half, I don't feel satisfied at all.

"We definitely need to buy more of those!"

"Yes, I agree."

"Wanna split up and hunt?"

Mama thinks for a second, "Yes, that would be good, but we should not hunt more than two round bears each. After catching two, we will wait for each other at the city entrance."

After agreeing to Mama's demands, I take a good look at the paper, which lists the habitats and behavior of round bears, and then we split up to scour the forest.

While traveling through the forest, swerving between trees, I happen upon a pack of dogs. They almost fit into Earth's standard for a dog; I could even see people owning them as pets, if not for the fact that they're about five feet tall when on all fours. Coupled with the fact that they're built much sturdier than most dogs, they'd probably get the label of 'dangerous predator' rather than 'dog'.

I continue through the forest, enjoying the scenery. Somehow the strange, bizarre creatures throughout the forests have started feeling normal to me, it almost seems like I'm traveling through a forest on Earth.

"Ahh, this is so nice."

After a few more minutes of running, I happen upon a grove of trees which are so close together that they create a canopy above the forest. According to the paper that Bark gave us, these should be the areas that round bears usually hang out at.

"Lucky! Now let's see what we have here..."

I quickly climb one of the trees and start traveling by jumping from branch to branch. I decide not to use my soul to search, as that would be unsportsmanlike.

"Now where are you. The paper said you like living in a certain type of bushes... ah! That's one right there!"

I climb down the tree and approach the bush, poking my head in as soon as I get close enough. The way the branches grow causes the inside of the bush to be rather spacey, and the leaves provide surprisingly good shelter.

'No wonder they live here, it actually looks pretty comfortable.'

After a couple more glances, I confirm that there are no round bears here, so I move on. After looking through several more bushes, I finally happen upon a round bear. Or should I say, I happen upon two round bears.

They're smaller than I thought they would be, at merely four or five feet tall upright, but they seem vicious enough to make up for their size. The two round bears are current locked in combat right outside a bush, growling and slapping at each other.

One bear is obviously losing the fight and, after receiving a particularly nasty slap, drops to the ground and rolls up into a ball. The other bear seems to lose interest as it turns around and walks into the bush, leaving the battered bear on the ground.

'What are they even fighting over, the bush? But there are so many uninhabited bushes, why not just live in one of those?'

With a couple silent leaps, I'm on the other side of the bush. I then stealthily make my way through the leaves and branches, until I find myself face to face with the round bear.

"Oh hello there, sorry if I scared you. I meant to ambush you."

The bear recoils and swings at me, but I easily dodge the attack. With a hearty thump on the head, the bear falls over, though I'm not sure if it died or if it's just unconscious. After putting it in my storage ring, I walk outside and approach the bear that's rolled into a ball.

"Sorry dude, nothing personal."

After collecting the other bear into my storage ring as well, I head to the entrance to the city. From when we met Bark to now, it's only been about two hours. I wonder if he'll be surprised?

The entrance to the city soon comes into view, and I see Mama Bloodcat there meditating.

"Mama, I got two!" I shout.

She opens her eyes and stands up, "That is good. Before we enter the city though, we must first remove the bears from our storage rings where nobody can see. I do not wish for a repeat of the last incident."

"Ah, I didn't even think of that, that's a good idea."

We walk back into the forest and put the round bears on the ground. Mama then grabs two in each hand as we make our way back to the city. As one might expect in such a situation, the looks we get from passersby are rather strange. We return to Bark's stall, but while the stall remains, Bark is nowhere to be found.

Mama approaches a woman walking down the street, "Do you know where Bark is? He was selling sheen wraps right there."

The woman is stunned at first, but after a few seconds she starts laughing, "Looks like Bark got a new hunter! His house is right this way, follow me. He's almost always sold out by the time I get off work, maybe now..."

Her last sentence trails off into mumbling as she leads us to Bark's place.