Isabel was dead tired after the sparring with Loren in front of the small warehouse, and top on that even she barely caught her breath Loren asked her boy scout's questions. How to knot a rope, start a fire, search and follow track and so on. She tried her best to answer them, but it only raised more questions, like what is a lighter or a matchstick. By the end of the quiz, Loren did not seem satisfied and Isabel already could see what was coming. More training.
The Hour-long lecture only resulted in bruises, blisters and headaches when it came to repeating what she just heard minutes ago. But as they reached the end of survival for dummies 101, a particularly Isabel-interested topic came up. Finding food.
But as all the other lessons before this one became boring as well. Isabel's enthusiasm faded word-by-word as Loren talked about the countless ways on how to find food, such as observing the freshness of animal footprints and matching it with the animal's eating habits to determine that if it is worth it to backtrack the footprints or not.
Isabel tried to speed the process up, but each time she asked the plain oblivious like 'why not we follow the animal footprint to hunt it down?', she usually got a death glare and an overused answer like 'And with what bow?' or 'And with what trap?'. After getting a few of these answers and seeing that it only stretched the already unnecessary long explanations, she just gave up on Loren's teaching capability and challenged her head on.
They already wasted most of the day already, and Loren was most certainly against the idea to begin their journey towards the mountain pass to leave this enclosed valley this late. And for Isabel's surprise without any shouting and further explanation, she accepted the 'Who gets more food before dusk wins' challenge with a cocksure smile.
But what a challenge would be without a proper bet. Even if it was oblivious to each other what the other wanted as a prize, it had to be told. If Isabel won she can eat all the food they gathered as pleased, but if Loren won, then Isabel had to carry both backpacks until the next settlement and her diet would be updated with fasting as well.
The preparations were made, each of them had their empty backpack and a spot where they would collect their food. Loren counted back and once she hit zero, the race began. Loren ran into the wild, back to the spot where she explained the mysteries of tracking on a few footprints to Isabel and followed them where she thought the animal’s food source would be.
On the other hand, Isabel was not in a hurry, she casually watched as Loren disappeared in the dense forests and went back into the warehouse to pick up a bedroll.
Finding food in the forests are never an easy task. Animals roam the wild day after day and they live up everything they can reach and if they have the time to do it. Also finding the food is just one part of the problem, one wrong turn could lead to a deadly encounter against a predator or in a better scenario you just get lost. Loren was on her third trip and Isabel's spot was still empty, an hour or so left before dusk. She felt this petty challenge in her pockets and now all she had to do is wait and come up with the new ration sizes that Isabel is going to use.
Loren lied on the grassy meadow that surrounded the warehouses and watched the clouds passing by, but all she could see in the sky was the food that Isabel going to miss.
The sound of a leather sheet as it was dragged on the grass became more and more audible as Isabel approached. Loren didn't look up, she could see the scene before her eyes, it was Isabel frowning and she dragged her bag on the ground, defeated, just listening to the noises made her smile.
"Are you ready to hear your new diet?" Asked Loren with great confidence.
"Don't bother, I just eat what I want." Isabel responded casually and walked past the laying Loren.
"Ha! You wish. I'm sorry to burst your bubb...le..." Loren stopped, she just saw something that went beyond her wildest imagination. It wasn't Isabel with her large bouncing breasts, but what it followed her. Loren had to get up to take a better look at it.
Behind the sizeable men-luring bums, there was it, a food stand's worth of various fruits in a pile that she dragged on a bedroll. Loren was confused and amazed by this achievement at the same time, Isabel just brought more food under a few hours than a large sized party could eat. And for Loren's best knowledge she did not possess any viable class or perk at all.
She was spaced out and watched her with an open mouth, not knowing what to say, as she put the bedroll into her spot and hopped down next to it.
"Victor goes the spoil, Loren." Isabel said it with a big smile while she took the first fruit and toasted toward her.
The scene was just too surreal for her, she couldn't hold it any longer, Loren bust out laughing and lied back to the grass. She let Isabel have a 'cheat day' as she called it, knowing the fact that they only had two bags to carry.
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Yesterday became a nightmare for Loren, letting Isabel eat freely was a grave mistake, the curse of hers knew no bounds. Like a hardworking bee, she constantly returned to the ever-shrinking pile of food only to add its mass to her ever-growing middle, and no matter what they did the rest of the day she always took a bite every so often or if she had nothing else to do she just sat there and worked hard on her future frame. It looked entirely hopeless that she would just get sick or too full which would stop her stuffing herself, as each time she checked, the only difference there was that her belly looked rounder and rounder as time passed. By the night she decided to spar with her just to keep her away from the food and to tire her until she fallen asleep with her newly grown food baby.
Loren could swear she still heard her chewing after the morning feast of hers when she realized they had to leave the rest of it behind. Just the sight of the amount she saw her consume made her sick and swore under her breath to never bring the wrath of a god on herself.
It was around late afternoon when the narrow mountain passage appeared in their vision as the dense forest grow thinner. The path in the distance didn't look wide. Any caravan that would use it had to break their favoured formation and form a straight line to pass. And once a wagon entered between the cliffs it would block the two sides of the valley. She wished she had such a luck back then to work with a death trap like these in her golden days. But her drooling on such working conditions came to an end when someone had to ruin her mood.
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"Loren. Your diet is not working, I am hungry again." Isabel crossed her arms around her middle as they walked.
"How can you be hungry again, it's only been an hour or so you had a meal."
"Yeah, like a few bites."
"It was half of a normal sized meal a human eat!"
"Yeah. Guess what, A human is not around 7 feet and just for you to know, with a fixed proportional size change represented as percent, the volume of the object changes according to that percent on the power of the object's dimension."
"What?!" Loren had to stop for a moment, it was all gibberish what she heard yet she said it with great confidence.
"A bigger body eats more!" Isabel snapped at her.
*Angry growl*
"Yeah, tell her tummy." Isabel said it enthusiastically as she got the encouragement.
"That's one more reason you shouldn't eat more if you don't want to eat more in the future!" Loren stepped closer and said it directly into her face. Once she finished and she got no response, she turned away and carried on.
Isabel tried to think of a comeback to that, but what Loren said made perfect sense according to her own simplified explanation earlier. And since the argument was over, heavily on Loren's favour, she couldn't do much else but to follow the mad grey fitness dictator and endure the hunger.
A few minutes passed by in awkward silence and the mountain passage was just an hour away when a camp of some sort outlined between the trees with its half-finished palisade around it.
Loren didn't need more, she turned around and put her hand on Isabel's mouth. It was far from polite or understandable, but she rather not risked any chances. She gently led the startled girl off the road and crouched down with her.
"No sudden movements or loud noises. I think we found the village elder's urgent task and by that, I mean there are bandits or thugs nearby." Loren whispered, then looked around to check if there was any movement nearby, and once she was sure it was clear, she took away her hand.
"Bandits? We saw nobody on this road, why are they here?"
"Most likely for the next caravan in fall and until then they prepare themselves."
“How we going to pass them?”
"I don't think we can, they must have a clear vision on the path."
"So, we have to turn back..."
"I had something else in mind." Said Loren with a sinister smile.
"Are you crazy? You want to fight them?" Looking at her, it became oblivious, what she had in mind.
"Of course not. WE are going to fight them, but not head on. We will cherry-pick them. Do you remember what I thought about traps?" Loren asked as she remembered all the basic she taught her and she seemed to be thought about them, but then she shook her head.
"Great..." Loren rolled her eyes, there was no way to retell her all the basics again.
It didn't take more than a minute to find footprints and other signs of men in the forest. It seemed like an often-visited path and the perfect place to set a few traps. The two started to prepare nearby as they hid away from plain sight. It could have been faster, but Loren had to stop occasionally to give Isabel further instructions.
Even before they could have finished the first of many, steps and talking, human noises halted their work. The two nodded each other and carried out their plan. It was simple Loren hid and Isabel stood still near an old sturdy oak tree and waited in plain sight for her new heroes to arrive.
She used a few tricks in her book, to compensate for the half beast folk look she had which in her opinion was anything but appealing. The cheap shirt she had turned it into a tight ill-fitting bra as she knotted and tucked under her cleavage, which made it seem like it could rip open in any moment. Her lower side was a problem, but her pants covered the most of it and she had more than ever to work with. Only using two stings that she tied tight on her legs just under the butts gave her something close to a bubble-butt. The only thing she couldn't change was the little tummy she started to gain recently and without a mirror, she only could feel what she had ongoing.
It was not a great feeling being a bait, even so, she prepared to do so it was for the first time she wished she would not turn the men's head, but she had to play her role because the other one was way worse in her opinion. Isabel nervously waited not far away and without she realised the not well-groomed duo entered her sight and kept going on the path, not taking a notice of her presence.
Isabel's eye twitched a little, this was the last drop in the glass. They took away her perfect life, a crazy deity turned her into a monster and even cursed her, top of that she had to go on a journey with an overly anxious thing that clung to her for God knew what reason, and all for that so she could remove this bullshit or it will force her to completely ruin the rest of her body as well.
She did know when but she had her mace at hand behind her back and she was only a step away from the men as they turned back.
"Hi, guys!" Isabel cheerfully greeted them, but as the two looked each other confused for a moment she swung her weapon towards the left on and restructured his face. The man on the right only could watch in horror as his mate's head twisted into a bloody mess as he dropped dead with spin.
"Don't worry I gonna turn your head as well." She gave him a cheeky look.
He quickly stepped back, with his sword ready in hand, the monster in front of her started her attack from above. He had to dodge it sideways or he would never get a chance to attack due to their reach difference. Her attack missed and it made an opening by her side. He wasted no time, he stepped forward with one leg to give a boost to his weapon's trust and aimed at her middle. The upcoming mace parried his attack, but it was way off to reach him and thanks to its momentum she would not be able to lower it in time to parry and another one.
As Isabel parried his sword she shifted her weight and raised her right leg, while she turned to her side as she let her body to follow the mace's way. That uncultured swine who couldn't appreciate her beauty just pulled her sword away to make a trust again. With a well-aimed powerful kick and full body weight, she folded back the bandit's knee with ease as she stomped on it. The mace was in position, the target was pinned and the only action he could do before the end, was letting out a high-pitched scream as he oddly kneed on the ground.
"Should have worked on your footwork." And with that Isabel job was done as an entertainment.
She put the mace down and readjusted her clothes into a more comfortable position. Loren was on her way towards her with a blank look on her face, she couldn't tell if she was in trouble or not, but in Loren's case she would found it out in a matter of seconds.
"Isabel." Loren stopped before her and waited for
"Yeah?"
"You know that it never was a problem to deal with just a couple of lowlife. But it would have been better if they didn't alert the rest and we could wait them out without leaving..."
"a mess."
"Yeah. There goes one of your rations."
More noises became audible and it sounded like a smaller mob. The only thing that was louder for a moment than the preparing bandits in the distance was Isabel's stomach on Loren statement. *Sad growl*