Dawn arrives and Sanryu wakes up with a heavy yawn. "Good morning, Lurue, is everything safe?" Sanryu gets up from her sleeping bag and greets Lurue.
"Good morning, nothing happened last night, just a terrible boredom." Lurue seems quite calm. "So, shall we leave?" And she can't wait to head to this city.
"Let's have breakfast first, then we'll move." Sanryu's stomach growls, begging for something to eat.
"True, I forgot that you humans have to eat." Lurue has yet to fully get used to the ways of humans.
Sanryu prepares everything needed to cook breakfast and the scent of eggs mixed with bacon begins to pervade the entire area, also infiltrating Lurue's nostrils, attracting the latter's attention. Of course, Sanryu also prepares a portion for the goddess, so that she tastes more and more types of human foods.
"Okay, I think it's time to leave, are you ready Lurue?" Sanryu turns to the goddess, getting a positive response as a response. "Lurue, weren't you cold last night? It's okay that you don't need to sleep, but at least you could lie down in the sleeping bag I had prepared." Sanryu had also thought of Lurue, preparing a sleeping bag for him to lie in.
"These temperatures are not a problem for me, I have lived in worse places." Lurue didn't feel any cold shivers, apparently the physiology of the gods is completely different from that of humans.
"If you say so..." Sanryu feels a little guilty about leaving Lurue alone tonight, but she can't help it, humans need rest and sleep in order to have enough energy to face the day. 'I have to find some clothes for Lurue immediately, for now when there is no human around it's fine, but when we are in the middle of a city or town, she can't go around with a cloak.'
The duo starts following the path again, but after an hour of walking, they found an unpleasant sight. An almost entirely destroyed caravan is found in the middle of the path, with all its goods stolen. But the worst thing is the presence of traces of blood in some parts of the caravan and also in the path, which lead to the forest.
"Gnoll...I'm sure they're the cause. And almost certainly, the coachman along with his beast of burden are now lost." Sanryu already begins to assume something, most likely, the gnolls they met last night, found food for their dinner. 'I feel sorry for this person, if I had been stronger, maybe there would have been no victims.'
"You can't do anything about it, these things happen every day all over Ethia, it's the law of the strongest." Lurue doesn't seem to feel anything, watching this scene. "Come on, let's go." The goddess doesn't want to waste any more time, she retraces her steps.
"True..." Sanryu knows that Lurue's words are true, she is certainly not the type of person who would want to become a hero or a champion of justice, for those roles there are already many humans to interpret them. 'But it bothers me a little that those gnolls ran away yesterday.' Sanryu feels an annoying feeling of emptiness inside himself.
"However, as your first encounter you encountered gnolls, a good enemy to test your skills. They are not weak like goblins or kobolds, but not as strong as orcs or trolls, how did you feel killing those gnolls?" Lurue seems curious to know what the boy felt after killing his first victims.
"Mhh I can't tell you exactly what I felt, but I only know that my body reacted instinctively. I always thought that in my first fight I would have hesitated, but instead I was timely in taking the lives of those creatures... Maybe because they weren't human." Now that Sanryu thinks about it, he is impressed by how he took the lives of those two gnolls without thinking twice, he deduces that it is thanks to the primordial instinct of survival.
"For now I'm satisfied with this answer, I'm sure that later you will find a clearer answer within yourself." Lurue was interested in knowing how Sanryu felt about killing other creatures, but for now, the boy doesn't know what he felt. 'He'll find out soon.' Lurue is convinced that Sanryu will find the answer very soon on this journey.
The pair continues to traverse the path, unaware of the machinations currently taking place within the darkness of the forest.
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In the middle of the forest, there is a small primitive camp, with only a few tents scattered here and there, and some totems around. A flag, made of fur, has a symbol engraved on it, the coat of arms of the god these creatures venerate, Yeenoghu.
"Chief, the food supply we plundered yesterday is already running out, soon our tribe will be hungry again. We have to go hunting for something again, otherwise we will lose our minds." A dark brown furred gnoll goes to talk to another black furred gnoll, who appears to be the leader of this tribe.
"I know, idiot, there's no need for a scoundrel like you to tell me that." The gnoll leader growls at his subordinate, he knows well that the caravan they plundered yesterday will not feed his tribe for too long.
Gnolls are known for various reasons, but one of these is their hunger, in fact their stomachs are almost always empty, a tribe of gnolls, which is usually made up of around twenty members, can consume as much as a village of human beings which can include a hundred people. It is said that Yeenoghu himself instilled this hunger in his children, so they are always driven to hunt and plunder other races.
"Did you recover the bodies of the two idiots who died yesterday?" The boss tells his subordinate, receiving a hint from the latter. "Well, feed on them too, so we will have more food for our stomachs." It is not strange that gnolls practice cannibalism, especially in times of famine.
"What are our next moves, boss?" The subordinate wants to know what the people of their tribe will have to do in the future.
"We will abandon this camp, and we will head east, all the tribes in this area, they are gathering there, I smell looting." The leader shows a kind of dog-like smile, typical of hyenas.
"Looting! Yes yes yes, I can't wait, I'll go and report to the others straight away." The subordinate seems very excited by this news, and is looking forward to sacking some human settlement or city.
"I would have liked to kill that male from yesterday, but there are more important business to attend to." The boss remembers Sanryu killing two of his subordinates, and he hasn't forgotten him at all, he still longs to take that boy's head off, and feed on his tender flesh. "There will be another occasion, I'm sure." The gnoll leader chuckles as he imagines his jaws feeding on that boy. 'But that woman who was with him... she is very dangerous, my henchmen ran away as soon as they felt her aura this night. She is not a mere human, I sense it, I don't want to meet her again.'
"P-please, l-let me go...I'm a simple coachman...I-I can't offer you anything." A few steps away from the worthy gnoll leader, a human is sitting on the ground, tied to a stake stuck in the ground. This human has various wounds all over his body and part of his clothing is ruined, he is sweating a lot because he knows what these creatures are, and he is scared because he does not understand what these gnolls are saying, since they are conversing in the demonic language .
"Hehe do you really think we'll free you human? Well come to think of it, I'm pretty good today, so I feel like being nice." The gnoll leader approaches the human, the latter is scared, given that the being is just over 1.80m tall. "Here you are, now you are free, run! Run to get out of here, it's to save your skin, if you have the ability." The gnoll leader unties the poor man and shouts at him to leave, the human doesn't have to be told twice, he immediately runs away from this camp, but he is unaware of the cruelty of the gnolls, it is just when he passes the first bushes, cries echo in the middle of the forest. "Aahaha amazed human, he actually thought I would let him go."
Chewing and scratching sounds can be heard from the camp, splashes of blood paint the leaves and trunks nearby a bright red.
"There is nothing better than the meat of a frightened prey, terror makes the meat tastier." Gnolls have the macabre habit of terrifying their prey and then chasing them away, for them fear is like a seasoning for their food.
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"These are already weaker enemies, I'm sure you'll get away without any injuries." Lurue speaks to Sanryu, who is currently busy facing a trio of direwolves, simple wolves, but twice as big.
'I don't know how, but the wound on my leg has already almost completely healed, but it's good for me.' Sanryu finds it unusual that the wound on his thigh is already almost healed, but he doesn't think much about it, and focuses on his enemy. 'These aren't gnolls, so they're easier to deal with.' Sanryu doesn't think much about it and launches himself against the three rabid wolves.
The fight doesn't last long, it's not even five minutes later, the three wolves are lying on the ground, lifeless.
"If those wolves had managed to hurt you, I would have killed you with my own hands." Lurue is not impressed by this confrontation, and without wasting any more time, he starts walking again.
'Good thing I didn't get hit.' Sanryu breaks out in a cold sweat at Lurue's words, but he doesn't think much about it, and before he starts walking again, he stops the goddess. "Wait, Lurue! I'll skin these wolves, their skin isn't that high quality, but it might still bring in some money." Lurue snorts dissatisfied with what Sanryu says, but she doesn't reply, she simply sits on a bent log, waiting patiently for the boy to finish his job.
After about ten minutes, Sanryu finishes skinning the wolves and carefully places them inside her backpack. "Good, we can go now, Lurue, sorry for the wait." Sanryu puts his backpack back on his shoulders and warns Lurue that his work is finished.
"Finally, another few minutes, stop here, and I would have put down roots." Lurue gets up from the tree and continues walking with Sanryu.
"Lurue, have you ever met gnolls in your life?" Sanryu is curious to know if the goddess has faced gnolls before.
"Obviously, gnolls are very numerous in the middle of the forests or jungles, I have met them many times, but killed few... after all, as soon as they saw me, they ran away with their tails between their legs." Lurue has met gnolls in the wild before, after all she has lived most of her life in wild places. "But I have never met their lord, Yeenoghu, though I would have liked to face such a being."
"Aren't you afraid of dying, Lurue? If you want to face such beings, don't you risk being killed?" Sanryu wants to know the goddess's fate.
"Dying? Haha, death is part of life, kid, but we gods can't really die. Once killed, our body disappears and the astral energy of our bodies flies away, reaching the Coelestis cunabula, it's when our energy reaches that place, after several years, we are reborn again." Lurue explains to Sanryu how the death of a god works. "I only know two ways to have a god permanently killed; One is to no longer believe in him, no matter how much we consider ourselves superior to the mortal races, if not even one human being believes in us anymore, our existence ceases to exist, the second way it is self-destruction, we gods are capable of self-destruction if we channel our divinity into the center of our body, until it explodes." Lurue explains the ways in which gods can actually die.
"But it's a comfortable life." Sanryu thinks that the gods are lucky to have these advantages.
"On the one hand yes, but on the other no... we must always think of our believers, if many of them stop worshiping us, we will end up in big trouble, and we must also prevent your extinction, otherwise we will follow you immediately afterwards. " Lurue explains the work of the gods.
"Where are your believers, Lurue?" Sanryu wants to know where Lurue is worshiped.
"Around Ethia, they have no homes, as they are the embodiment of man's natural life, but mostly live in the middle of forests or jungles." Lurue doesn't seem too worried about her believers, after all she's sure they'll be fine.
Sanryu is learning more than he thought about the nature of the gods, which is great for him, since the more he knows, the better for him.