Let us return to the time when Kuro had separated itself from his mistress.
At the beginning, Kuro had established itself as its mommy's guardian. From the moment it acknowledged Hana, it would not leave her side.
However, now Kuro was distraught by its own feelings. Last time, it left Hana unaccompanied just for a short while to hunt for a gift (In case you don't remember, it's the tiny egg).
But since it has eaten the delicious but too little meal, Kuro had a new aspiration in life; it must find all the delicious things that was known to it for its mommy to turn it into more delicious meals (Author: Seriously Kuro 😊).
This was a contradictory towards its initial goal; be a guardian, keep her safe.
It never realized it was such a glutton.
All this while it thought of practicality; eat until you're full, then stop. Hana's food opened its eyes to a new discovery of enjoyment.
Poor child. This little one didn't know the egg drop soup Hana whipped up last time was the most bottom tiered basic dish every Malaysian housewife would've known. It was even lacking proper major ingredients. In the end, it was due to animals never know how to cook no matter how clever they were.
After a few minutes of indecision, Kuro's stomach grumbled. Kuro was reminded of the delicious soup from yesterday. Although it had eaten quite lavishly during the time Hana became a beacon last night, it still couldn't stop itself from wanting for more of the soupy goodness. The hunted intruders were a far cry to its mommy's cooking in terms of taste and flavor.
Kuro wondered, if it managed to obtain a sizable harvest, would Hana give it a bigger portion?
Simmering in those thoughts, Kuro made an unswerving decision! Today it has one and only one goal. That was, to hunt for more and more eggs! The larger the better!
The large omega AA sized eggs really hurt its pride. It must find a larger egg than that! If not, it will strive to win in quantity over quality.
Kuro moved haphazardly between the bushes along the winding stream to look for wild chickens' nests or even for the tiny quail's nest. It planned to collect as many eggs as possible.
Different from Hana, this lush undergrowth was like its own backyard; it knew every single residents' ins and outs. The bushes were only thick near the stream as the tree canopy above thinned.
A little further in the rainforest, the floor was damp and full of rotten leaves. Since sunlight could not penetrate deep, the land became bare; only hardy vines and small trees able to survive in such an environment where sunshine was lacking.
It was hard to get harvest deeper in rather than along the embankment.
Kuro stalked a small hen busily pecking between the bushes. It was brownish black with a maroon comb on its head. As it returned to its nest, Kuro appeared and swallowed all three eggs!
The hen was dumbfounded! [What the hen??]
It angrily pecked Kuro's sleek body multiple times, disregarding its own safety. Kuro made a twisting maneuver noncommittally, but still got pecked a few times on its body here and there, though the damage was negligible as it could not even tickle it thick scales.
[I will let you go this time! Wait till you lay more eggs! I'm gonna steal them again!]
Kuro was brimming with anger towards the little fowl. What's the big deal? They're not even half the size of the eggs in its mom's possession.
It slithered fast inside a dead tree trunk and spit out the three eggs inside a soft mound of loose leaves. It planned to give a surprise to Hana.
Like this, the same fate fell upon a number of female fowls inhabiting the stream embankment area.
What's weird was that, all the birds were not harmed. Little did they know, they have become egg producers in Kuro's eyes. If not, it would've swallowed them all without fail. It had eaten much larger preys all this while, and all these little animals could not even enter its eyesight.
Two hours passed.
The sun was getting more intense as the day got brighter; Kuro could sense it while it busily acting like a bandit, ferrying eggs to and fro.
It activated its new telepathic skill, sight sharing, just to check on Hana. It was quite worried about its mommy. She had very low sense of danger. Although this area was its territory, accidents could've happened. Multiple breeches had occurred, especially by the clueless non-intelligent beasts.
It started its rhythmic movement to activate its skill while bitterly being reminded by Hana's incomprehension of its mighty skills.
[Ahh. Everything looked just fine. She was busy playing with a long hollow green tree.] Kuro heaved a relieved sigh.
Kuro looked at the eggs he collected. There were fourteen of them. They were of different colors and sizes. However, none were as big as Hana's AA omega eggs. It was extremely unsatisfied.
[Not good enough!]
Kuro knew it needed to take drastic steps if it wanted to step up.
After hardening its resolve, the hardworking little snake slithered as fast as it could towards the territory of the Silver Banded eagles towards the west.
The flying predators inhabited a couple of dormant mountains at a mountain range, quite far from their cave. Their eggs must've been larger!
It seemed that Kuro forgot that it was a little snake, a perfect prey for the mighty eagles.
....
It took Kuro two hours to reach the mountain range. At that time, Hana was still busy with downing a big bamboo tree. The little black snake was surprisingly fast.
It had traveled for more than 30 kilometers in a straight line, pushing itself as much as possible. En route, it moved between trees as it slithered and sometimes shot through the branches at the top layers of the tree canopies, akin to a flying arrow!
As it reached the fringe of the Silver Banded Eagles' territory, Kuro slowed down and sneakily moved a little at a time; its color was black. Obviously, its body was quite contrasting compared to the grayish stony surroundings. Surprisingly, most adult eagles were not at their nests. Maybe they went out to hunt for food.
The nests were numerous; Kuro knew there was a hierarchy between the birds. The higher the nest, the stronger the birds occupying them. The Silver Banded Eagle Monarch sat at the summit of the mountain range.
Although most birds will fly out to hunt for food daily, the big boss will usually stayed inside its own territory. The other birds will give half of their prey to the bird king every day, relieving it from needing to go out. Kuro knew it will only went out at certain time during mating season or when a powerful enemy tried to encroach on its territory as it needed to defend it.
Kuro randomly selected the lowest nest.
It was smart enough to avoid the bird king and risk his life for an egg.
It slithered closer and closer to the nest of its choice by blitzing itself through the shadow of rocks and cracks in a very fast pace. When it reached the nest of his choice, it slithered in silently.
The nest was large and a little smelly. Woven dried tree branches were the main part of the nest. The rest was large feathers, peculiar-shaped animal bones and some colorful energy stones the size of quail's eggs or smaller, inserted between the woven branches. They looked like decorations for the nest.
Kuro sniffed one of the smaller colored red energy stone curiously and bit on one of it. It was quite hard. It sensed the low energy emitted from the stone.
Glup!
Kuro simply swallowed the tiny dark red sparkly stone. If his mistress likes it, he will hit the jackpot! Kuro remembered Hana did took a liking on the red energy core on its forehead. Maybe after this, she will loved it more than the stupid bushy fox with enough presents.
So small yet already clever enough to know how to bribe! It has a talent to become a government official! (Author: Coughhh, not related to any cases in Malaysia)
There were four large dark brown eggs at the center of the nest. The eggs were around the size of an unpeeled coconut fruit of the generic variety (1). They were slightly different in size with some had less silver dots while the other had more. Kuro was satisfied with his findings.
But right now, the little snake was in a dilemma. How can it transport the eggs out? Is it possible for it to take all four?
It knew Hana will be delighted with the size of the egg this time, especially if he could haul all of them back.
The little snake made a very human-like sigh.
It inadvertently copied Hana's bad sighing gesture since it has seen Hana sighing all the time on every little thing. Children will always copy what their parents do whether it's good or bad!
After contemplating between ideas, it finally chose one it thinks best.
Kuro coiled its lower body on one of the largest egg between the four and moved its upper body very slowly while dragging the egg together. It tried to make the least amount of noise possible.
This time, there was no way it could dash between the rocks and cracks. The little snake decided to roll it off the side of the mountain and covertly follow the egg down while correcting its path slightly so that it won't hit anything hard directly. It needed to look natural though.
Kuro believed that most likely the bird king won't care if one or two eggs from the lowest level rolled off since its dwelling was very high up. The naive (but sweet) snake hoped that the bird king would not even notice.
Author's note:
(1) unpeeled coconut fruit of the generic variety = around 15cm in diameter, or about 7-8in. These coconuts were not as naturally sweet as the smaller pandan coconut variety (kelapa pandan) but has more water inside. Well, the ones you guys tasted was obviously added with sugar haha.