The little flesh moun—ahem, the little red goat was playing around as the other goats ate the berries to fill their big bellies. Sometimes they would give some to the little goat, and it would put the berries in its mouth and start running around again.
Soon it got tired from its antics and crouched down under a tree to rest. The fierce goat looked at the child once before ignoring it. Someone has to be mad like that gray wolf to attack someone from this group of red goats.
As the little goat was lazing around, it heard a soft sound from behind it.
It stood up and looked warily in that direction. But all it saw was a yellow pear dropped on the forest floor.
The little goat became excited and salivated when it remembered the sweet taste of the pear. It ran forward excitedly but stopped when it was just about to reach it.
It warily looked around to check for anything suspicious. Founding no problem, it started moving.
Just as it reached its head to grab the pear, the pear slid far away as if it were alive.
The little goat was startled as it backed off. It became wary and looked at the pear with a gaze full of caution.
It saw the pear moving again, drifting away from him. The little goat hesitated slightly, but when it remembered the pear's divine taste, it gathered its courage and chased after the pear.
It followed the pear like a hunter and began enjoying this game. In its amusement, it failed to notice a thin thread connected to the pear.
The pear continued drifting before finally disappearing inside a bush.
The little goat became anxious and afraid when it saw this and charged forward, disregarding everything else.
"Yeeee~…" A loud scream of fear alerted the red goats.
The fiercest goat looked under the tree and found that its child was missing. It bellowed angrily and charged in the direction of the scream, followed by the group of red goats.
The group of red goats chased them, with their leader at the front. The fierce goat was looking around with its furious eyes, searching for any signs of its child.
"Yee…" Another scream echoed in the distance, making the leader of the goats anxious. It changed its direction and moved toward the voice once again.
They continued like this for a while until...
"Nguoo!" "Nguoo!"
Some of the goats let out a voice of surprise and disappeared from the group. The leader also realized that something was wrong, but it continued following after its child.
They continued like this for a while before arriving at the place where it started. The leader looked at the little goat, who was sitting among the red berry shrubs and eating the yellow pear, with a happy expression in its eyes.
The leader came near and found that the little goat was alright. It felt relaxed and turned towards the group to command them. But it was stunned when it realized that five of the red goats were missing from the group.
It let out an angry roar and commanded the group to move back to the place where the commotion first happened.
Suddenly, he saw the little goat lying down lazily while ignoring his command.
With so much anger piled up, he gave the little goat a rap on the head, making it cry pitifully.
Soon the group arrived at their destination. They looked around and found some pits dug in the ground. The leader stepped forward and noticed some blood inside the pits. Its eyes became red, and it let out a roar that frightened many beasts. It was intelligent enough to realize that all of this was a trap.
But it couldn't do anything now that it had already happened. It stopped its foot, making some dirt fall inside the holes, and left the place, followed by its group.
…
Meanwhile, at the residence of the soul-sniffing devils...
"Chi Chi Chi!"
"No! Let me roast it a bit more! It will taste better then."
"Chi Chi…"
"I don't mind if you eat it raw, but don't expect to get the roasted pieces after that."
"Chi Ch-...ggkKH!"
"Damn it! Who told you to swallow it? It was the only herb I recognized in the forest. It would have made the roasted meat taste even better. Now eat fruit for the rest of the meal. No meat for you today."
Anom and the Little Devils were having a born-fire party in the middle of the day. Around them were five dead red goats, with one of them missing more than half of its body.
Anom tore a piece of flesh, and a satisfied smile appeared on his face.
"This meat would be classified as top-quality meat if it were on Earth." Anom sighed and looked at the little devils, who were devouring the meat like it was their last meal.
Anom had fun hunting the red goats. After they fell in the pits, Anom made short work of them with his trusted blade. Though he encountered a few problems at the start.
The first was that the beasts here were powerful. He estimated that even the weakest adult red goat was not much worse than the tigers of his world in terms of strength. If not for his fast reflexes, he would have suffered greatly.
The second problem was that their bodies were too hard for his blade to cut through. By bodies, he meant their flesh and bones. Although the flesh was cut easily, Anom still found it harder than the one he had dealt with before. Not to mention the bones. They were so hard that he failed the first few times while trying to pierce the first goat's chest. He had to cut its throat before he killed it. The same strategy was used on all the other goats.
After this hunt, Anom realized that he had to increase his strength quickly. Or he will end up in a difficult situation sooner or later.
Anom shook his head as he looked at the remaining meat. He asked the sniffers if they knew something about preserving meat.
Surprisingly, they knew about it. To be precise, they heard stories that their ancestors used a special fruit found in the forest to coat the raw meat, which preserved it for a few weeks.
When asked about the fruit, they replied that they only heard the stories and that they learned about it from humans.
All of them looked at him as though they thought Anom should know about it as he was also a human. Anom wryly smiled at their simple logic.
It wasn't that he didn't have any solutions, though. In fact, he had an even easier and better one.
Anom then asked them if they knew where they could get salt and also described what it was if they didn't know.
Fortunately, they knew what salt was. Although there was no sea salt available in the forest, the Little Devils said that some humans collected some rock salt from a place near one of their fruit collection areas.
Anom nodded as his eyes shined. Not because of salt, but because he got a clue about getting into contact with other humans.
It was not like he was starving because of interaction with humans; it was just that it was a necessary step in his journey. In fact, if he wanted to understand his strengths and weaknesses better, then it was necessary for him to interact with other humans.
He let out a sigh.
"Humans, huh? What troublesome creatures." Anom lamented without minding that he was also one of those troublesome creatures.
…
Anom arrived at the place where the salt was harvested. It was a group of small hills. The area around here was open compared to the dense forest.
The hills in the front exposed some dug-up surfaces, which were where the salt rocks were condensed.
Anom and the Sniffers team arrived at the site and started digging.
They collected enough salt for preservation purposes and got ready to leave. Anom was disappointed, as he didn't find any humans around there. Maybe they only come here at fixed times.
Anom could only return helplessly.
Though he had to admit, the quality of the salt was good. It was perfect for preserving meats and making pickles.
He was only going to use it for dry preservation, though.
The team got to work and made some hollow pots using tree trunks. Anom was stunned at the sharpness of these little creatures' claws. Although they were not strong, their deadlines were greater than their size should have allowed.
Soon the meat was divided into small cuts, rubbed with lots of salt, and then packed in the wooden pots.
Anom was sure that they could use it for a few weeks. He was unsure if it would last that long after seeing the hungry looks on their little faces, though.
At the moment, Anom was sitting inside his room in the large cave. Night had fallen, and he was finished with dinner.
But Anom didn't contact Della today as he was thinking about doing some experiments.
He took a deep breath as he closed his eyes.
"It's time to end the slow life!"