"Man…. I could really go for some meat right now." Gyro grumbles to himself as we make our way through the rather large orchard we have been in for sometime now.
"Gyro I got some jerky if you want some." I say offering him some but he shakes his head.
"No, I need some real meat, eating the dried out stuff is starting to get old for me, I wish there was a deer or something we could hunt so we can eat the good stuff." He says as he sighs.
"Deer are a bit hard to find in the Plains Gyro, besides with all the movement from the racers most would be well scared off by now." Johnny chimes in making Gyro groan out in response.
"Shit! I guess we will just have to wait until we get to Kansas City for some real food…. Wait… You guys see that?" Gyro says before pointing out at what appears to be the partial carcass of a recently skinned cattle.
"Who just leaves half a cow like this anyway?" I couldn't help but ask out loud.
"Maybe whoever killed it didn't have a cart on them and could only take some of it- Oi Gyro! What are you doing?" Johnny explained before he noticed Gyro cutting a bit into the meat for himself.
"What? Whoever made this kill won't notice if we take a bit of it for ourselves, besides it would look more like some crows ate at it with this amount." He said before taking a measured slice of the meat before storing it in one of his bags wrapped in paper.
"Wait Gyro theirs a brand on that cattle, I think someone already owns that for themselves." Johnny says pointing out the HP brand on the cattle carcass.
"Ehh it's fine Johnny, I mean look at it, some coyotes have already gotten into it, obviously the owner has taken they wanted from the cattle for themselves and left what they didn't need so taking 600 grams isn't really anything to what's already gone in the first place." Gyro says with a shrug as we look between all of us.
"Well let's hope so, people can be pretty territorial when it comes to this stuff after all." I say as we keep on going through this orchard.
A bit later
"Damn, how big is this orchard? It feels like we've been in here forever." Stocking couldn't help but complain as the scenery was all the same around us with many branching paths.
"We should be getting out of here soon, we've barely made any turns so we should get out soon." I say but me and probably her if she remembers this part in the story where we really are at.
Though I do feel like something shifts every so often while I try and realize it without it being mentioned to me in the first place.
"Oi!" We heard a shout as another racer approached us from the front and it was none other than Hot Pants who began to approach us.
Though suddenly Hot Pants tossed out three nooses before hanging them from a tree, "You guys are the ones who killed my cow aren't you? I used my 10,000$ prize for winning the last part of the race to buy that cow so I could eat it later, but it seemed you assholes came along and killed it so you could have the meat for yourself, so you three deserve to hang for that…." Hot pants says with a mean look in his eyes.
"Wait, why am I being excluded from this?" Stocking couldn't help but ask as Hot Pants was pointing at everyone but her.
"You don't come off as the type to help kill a cow in my book." Hot Pants said giving his honest opinion on the situation before turning to look at us while we looked at Gyro.
"Hey don't look at me! I don't know the laws of this country in the-" But as he says that Hot Pants Jumped from his horse towards us, I was fast enough to react but both Johnny and Gyro were too surprised to react in time.
I was able to dodge but Johnny and Gyro were both covered with a spray like substance that begins to fuse their fingers together along with their eyes and mouths shut, some was aimed at me but landed on my horse but not doing anything besides that.
"Mmhat th hmmll is th uff!" Johnny was trying to talk but most of his mouth was covered in this flesh spray stuff making it nearly impossible to talk and to breathe as his nose along with his eyes were covered making him effectively blind and barely able to breathe, same goes for Gyro, however he was already spinning his Steel Ball in order to use his newly acquired Scan ability from his connection with the right eye of the saints corpse in order to see.
I however made distance along with having both of my guns drawn, "I think your jumping to some very big assumptions there Hot Pants, we ain't the ones who killed your cow, judging by the carcass that cows been dead for hours and we only came across it less than 10 minutes ago." I said while I pulled back the hammer on my revolvers, meanwhile Stocking had gotten around Hot Pants with her swords ready as well.
"…. Then who killed my cow?" He said realizing that even between the four of us there is no way we would be able to kill, hang, butcher, cook and eat more than 3/4th of a cow in such a short period of time.
"We don't know, but my estimates say it must have been this morning and since all of us are lead racers in this big ass race means that whoever killed your cow isn't a racer like the rest of us." I explain what I believed to be the case with Hot Pants cow's death.
Hearing that and realizing he jumped to conclusions, he clicked a button on his spray making all the flesh that was used on Johnny and Gyro to disappear and return to his stand before hopping back onto his horse.
"I guess I did jump to conclusions and attacked you without thinking, but I'm not apologizing since you did take some of my cow to eat Gyro, when I find out who did this they're gonna hang for this." He says before turning his horse and leaving while Johnny and Gyro got back onto their horses.
"Hifumi, you should have shot him pulling that shit! But damn, now we got another stand user in this race, he's probably after the corpse parts as well right?" Gyro says coming up beside me while I put my guns away.
"And I was if he didn't listen to reason, but as for the corpse parts I don't think he was after them, it seemed genuine that he was targeting us for killing his cow, but since it obviously wasn't us he left and while the guy has a stand he must have gotten it through the Devils Palm back in the desert unlike how Johnny got his from the corpse part he has." I say before turning to Johnny.
"Oh yeah, I should mention that if you make your connection stronger with your stand by getting a better understanding of the spin and spiral Johnny that even if you lose your corpse part you'll keep your stand." I say making him raise his brows from hearing that.
"Gyro, you have shown him about the Golden Ratio right? It's pretty integral to mastering the Spin along with empowering the spiral." I ask as we keep on moving through the Orchard and past a wood cabin.
"No, I haven't yet as I haven't felt he was ready, but after we get the part near Kansas City then I think it's about time to teach him lesson 4 on the spin." He mentions to me but then we stop and look around.
"Gyro…. We are back at the dead cow again…" Johnny couldn't help but say as we realized we just went in a loop.
"Well…. Shit…."
*****
Anyone who has Read Steel Ball Run would have noticed a mistake I made with last chapter and this chapter as in the story they meet Sandman again after the True Man's World Arc and not before, my bad but no reason to change it now.