Chapter 264: Small Hands

Ermin’s uncle was buried early the following morning.

Her grieving mate didn’t say anything, and Tera found herself missing his voice, even if it was just one word.

Tera did not go back to the wolf territory. She couldn’t yet, at least, even if the task timer was still running. The flooring could wait a few more days. She needed to take care of Ermin for a bit.

Her clan could handle things without her, which she took a quiet amount of pride in. So she had more time to spend with Ermin.

He shouldn’t be left alone during that period.

At some point, Tera considered maybe her being with him was hurting him since he had been exiled because of her in the first place, but when she tried to leave, Ermin had begged her to not leave him.

He slept a lot, which led to him missing out on food.

The cubs were the most worried.

They did not fully understand what had happened, but they knew Ermin was not fine.

Nadia and Althea started with patting.

They had seen Tera do it. When one of them was upset, she would stroke their head until they settled, and so that was clearly the correct procedure, especially since they saw her do it to Ermin.

The twins climbed into Ermin’s lap on the first morning, reached up, and patted his head.

They were not gentle about it. They did not know how to be. Four small hands came down on their father’s hair over and over with the force of beasts who had decided that more was better. Even Ermin smiled slightly because of that.

It was a cute sight to see despite the circumstances.

Then came the food.

The cubs had worked out, somehow, that their father was not eating. Even though he did wake up to eat most times, Xavi woke him up, but the cubs still decided the problem was the quality of the offering.

So they went and found better food.

Althea would snatch fruits from other adults that had clearly been eating and would race to her father’s shelter to shove it down his throat, nearly choking him out of his sleep at one point.

Nadia brought him a strip of dried meat that she had clearly been saving for herself, because she handed it over with visible difficulty. She would also bring her fruits she had already taken bites out of.

Ermin’s smiled a little more, and he would eat whatever they gave him.

All in all, the cubs did not leave him alone for a second.

They climbed on him constantly. Althea worked out that if she lay across the back of his neck, he could not get up without taking her with him, and so that became her position. Nadia preferred his lap. They took shifts without discussing it, and at no point in those days was Ermin without at least one cub attached to him somewhere.

Tera would lay down beside them and watch the three of them breathe.

She reached over and put her hand flat on Ermin’s chest, in the gap between the two cubs, and without opening his eyes he covered it with his own.

’Everything will be okay.’

- ※ - ※ - ※ –

Xavi lingered around to check in on Ermin too and tend to him.

The pink panther was being cared for from all sides, including the whole clan, which overwhelmed him with surprise.

The evening of the second day, Tera had sent Xavi to update Calis’ pack on this matter, and it was the morning of the third day that the tribe members came back.

When the system alerted her to this, Tera rushed to the edge of the farm where she truly did see those beasts coming.

Somebody at the front spotted her, and the whole group stopped moving.

Naiya was in that group somewhere. Tera did not bother looking for her.

She did not give two shits.

There was nothing she wanted to say and nothing she wanted to hear. Before they took another step, she transported them back to the bottom of the plateau.

[(°〇°)]

[Host!]

[Host had used 60 passes]

[You only have 39 remaining this week!]

’Take from the following week.’

She was going to keep sending them back until they grew tired of it. And she knew they were going to keep coming. They had nowhere else to go, and they had already decided this was where they were going to end up.

She would make that hell for them.

Tera knew she needed to go back to the wolf pack and continue the construction work.

But now, she knew how long the walk around the plateau took. Two days, give or take. So she would be here. Every single time. She would come back from the wolf territory at roughly the right hour, stand at the top of the approach, and put them back at the bottom before a single one of them got close enough to open their mouth. Over and over. For as long as they wanted to keep doing it.

’If they had any sense at all, they would not come near this place again.’

[They do not appear to have any sense, Host]

Ermin started to feel a lot better by the fourth day, and Tera had explained to him she needed to finish what she started, but she would be checking in every two days. Ermin did not mind, and he was very thankful for Tera staying behind just for him.

When Althea and Nadia smothered his whole face with kisses, Tera smiled and knew he was in good hands.

And of course, shortly before she prepared to return to the wolf pack, she noticed that the tribe members had taken a different approach.

Tera looked out into the night, watching them with a low chuckle.

They had split up.

There was no long line or gathered group this time. Instead, there were three separate groups, well apart from each other, and they were not coming from the same direction.

They had spread themselves out so that no single spot could catch all of them.

Tera laughed.

These idiots. None of that mattered to her.

At least they had decided to use their head this time, as futile as it might be.

She promptly used the system to mark down their locations, and group by group, she sent them all back.

The following week turned out to be quite an interesting one.