Kalla wasn't the only person Vaien cared about back at Red Mane tribe, either, but he'd been stubborn towards her. Some part of him rejected it when someone from his tribe begged him to come back, but when it was Zhang Han who gave him an impartial view on the matter...
Most of all, Vaien knew his dad would not have wanted Vaien to sit by as Red Mane was destroyed.
"Fine. We're going back," he said.
"N-No way…" Kalla stammered, her eyes wide like bells, "really?!"
"Yeah."
"Seriously, you're agreeing just like that? This easily? I've been trying to talk you into it forever…"
This time Vaien turned to her with slight red ringing his ears. "So what? I won't repeat myself again."
Zhang Han exhaled a breath upon seeing the scene.
Although he didn't believe Vaien would lash out at him for his bold suggestion, he couldn't help but be slightly afraid. In the end, Vaien had quietly listened. Great. He could go to Red Mane and find out more about the flowers now, too. Perfect.
"Looks like it's going to be closer to soup than stew," noted Vaien, stirring the thin liquid. Just like that the conversation was back to complete normalcy. Nothing was strange about it even though they'd just made another major shift in their future plans. "No helping it, I have nothing to thicken it."
"Soup?" Zhang Han asked. Between stew and soup, is there any difference at all?
"Yes, soup is less dense than stew."
Zhang Han was even more confused. Having food in a liquid already seemed strange to him, and now he was being told that there is a version that's even more watery. Such a thing sounded almost repulsive, but he was not going to brush it off and assume it to be so until he gave it a try, and awaited his chance to devour the soup.
But still, why make it more watery? What strange customs.
As they waited, there was some casual conversation about what animals were the easiest and hardest to skin. Vaien complained that the ears of the tibbar made for difficult work, but Kalla countered that anything reptilian had tough and bumpy skin. It took raw power to pull off the muscle from the bone and pelt.
Zhang Han found nothing strange about this gruesome conversation given the setting of the planet, and in fact, actually found it conversation to be interesting. On a practical level, it was good to learn about anything in regards to this planet. He never knew when the information might become useful.
The three gained a harmonious atmosphere as the stew's savory scent wafted over the forest.
Kalla, in particular, seemed to be in a great mood. Before she was brusque and a bit loud-mouthed, now an air of cheeriness now settled in her actions as well. She was clearly ecstatic that Vaien agreed to return even if she didn't voice it aloud...she was still happy even if it was unfair that Zhang Han had been the one to convince him to easily!
Well, they say some siblings are destined to bicker for eternity. There was no helping it.
The soup finished in about an hour.
Zhang Han sniffed it carefully then nodded, ladling a portion out into a very broad and thick leaf he'd plucked in the forest. One with orange dots.
"This leaf isn't poisonous?" asked Zhang Han, ever wary.
"Used it before, so not that I know of."
"Hm…" Zhang Han really wished his scanner hadn't been ruined in the landslide. He could still check things for toxicity. But...a lot of plants were only toxic if one ingested the leaf. As long as he didn't break the surface of the leaf while eating, just touching the outside of it shouldn't hurt him.
Besides, the soup smelled good. It was a milky brown color with dots of oil from the tibbar floating along the surface, hints of green from the herbs. He took the hot leaf bowl from Vaien, holding it with one hand as he tilted it up to take a sip.
He burned his tongue, but he didn't miss the flavor of the soup.
Herbal and savory, and the meat in it was moist and tender. Zhang Han lifted it up to his mouth and starting drinking it down more quickly.
Vaien plopped down right next to him with his own bowl. "Good, right?" he grinned.
Zhang Han nodded once. Somehow the liquid let the flavors of meat and herb blend together, adding a kind of warmth and medley of taste as each bite settled in his stomach.
Kalla had already downed one bowl and went for another.
"Ughhh I missed your cooking!" she shouted.
Vaien immediately switched from the doting and grinning expression he showed to Zhang Han to an annoyed one. "Quiet down. Sheesh."
Kalla's hair puffed up around her in indignation.
"What? I was complimenting you, but you don't even like that?"
Vaien bluntly said, "Not when you do it so obnoxiously."
"Well I-" she was about to retort, but the ground started trembling.
Zhang Han was only halfway done with his soup. The earth beneath their feet was shuddering as birds and animals jumped out from their hiding places and began to flee. Alarm flickered in him. He didn't understand what was happening for a few good seconds, simply because the atmosphere had been so laid back prior to this.
Trembling? What? He glanced around in confusion, then felt Vaien wrap an arm around him and pull him off the ground, pressing his body against his.
"Um!" Zhang Han coughed, dropping his soup. No...not the soup… "Vaien, what are you doing?"
But Vaien was already carrying him off with one arm. His red hair blew in the wind with each step, and Kalla was following close behind him. Zhang Han was just being carried like a pet dog or something, his ability to run far inferior.
"Grab one of the snoufle!" Vaien snapped at Kalla.
She took a turn in her path to pull the reins of Russel and brought the beast along with them.
Zhang Han was still somewhat woozy and shocked by the turn of events.
They were running…? Then he realized; the ground shaking.
It had to be goliath killers.
He'd be comfortably enjoying the other two's company and forgot that at any moment things could go wrong out in the wilderness. There was nothing that made it so that peaceful moments had to stay so, everything was up to chance.
Vaien found a dense cluster of vegetation, thin and reedy saplings that were growing close together, and pulled himself and Zhang Han inside. Kalla followed soon afterward, and the snoufle crushed a few of the trees. Once deep inside Zhang Han hunkered down, but could barely see through the gaps in the trees to the grassy plains beyond.
Nevertheless, the earthquake-like trembling increased, it became uneven in tempo, until several large reptilian bodies came into view from around the other edge of the forest. It was a group of four goliath killers that were running in.
Russel the snoufle was with them...but one snoufle had been left behind; Fatty.
Fatty who was actually not that fat, but covered in thicker fur!
Zhang Han frowned. Since snoufles came from a different region, apparently they weren't used to forests. They wouldn't go too deep inside of them unless being ridden and controlled to do so. So Fatty, who was left on the border between the edge of the forest and the plains with the goliath killers approaching, choose to run along the grasslands in plain view.
"Shit…" whispered Vaien. The goliath killers were still too far off to overhear them. "Why are there so many outside the forest?"
Kalla gave an annoyed groan. "I keep telling you that this year has been bad, there's less prey, so the goliath killers have been leaving their usual territories to find food elsewhere. Even if they'd usually prefer to hunt within the depths of the forest, now they go through the plains as well."
They quieted as the goliath killers came closer.
The beasts had spotted Fatty and were honing in on the long-snouted beast. Even if a snoufle was as large as a single-passenger space ship, goliath killers were three times that size.
Fatty did not have the best chances of survival.