Chapter 219: Another Type Of Food

"Serena, do you know this Heavenly Maiden?"

Henry narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked at Serena.

He had noticed the strange familiarity in her voice the moment she heard the name Kaelira.

Serena’s heart immediately skipped a beat.

She quickly shook her head and forced a calm expression onto her face.

"How could I possibly know her?"

She couldn’t let Henry discover that she had once been acquainted with the Wolf Tribe.

If he found out that she had connections with them, there would inevitably be questions she didn’t want to answer.

Besides, she had already been away from Sora for such a long time.

Yet somehow, that woman had actually become known throughout the Beast World as the Heavenly Maiden.

Serena couldn’t help feeling complicated.

She had once believed that becoming the Chief’s Wife would finally allow her to live a better life than Sora.

She had imagined herself standing above Sora, enjoying everything Sora could never have.

But now...

Even after moving to another Tribe, she was still living in Sora’s shadow.

The thought made Serena’s expression darken.

At that moment, Henry suddenly spoke.

"Serena, I’ll leave the matter of collecting the Flower Rats to you. I’m going fishing with the others."

Serena was still lost in her thoughts when she heard his instructions.

She immediately nodded.

"I understand."

Henry didn’t say anything else.

He turned around and left with several Black Pig Beastmen.

After watching him disappear, Serena’s expression gradually became cold.

She turned toward several Female Beastmen nearby.

"Come with me. We’re going to find Flower Rats."

The Female Beastmen looked at each other.

Although they followed her, their attitudes were far from respectful.

Over the past few days, whenever Serena had been asked to find food, the only thing she could think of was picking wild fruits.

Naturally, this had caused the Tribe members to develop a poor impression of her.

Fortunately, she eventually discovered that fish in the rivers could also be eaten.

That discovery had reduced some of their resentment.

But Serena knew that wasn’t enough.

If she wanted the Tribe members to truly respect and listen to her again, she had to do something impressive.

She needed to regain their support.

And she already knew exactly what she could use.

The Salt Well.

That place was an excellent opportunity.

Martin was currently busy dealing with the plague toxin.

He probably wouldn’t expect her to lead people to fight for control of the Salt Well.

A faint smile appeared on Serena’s lips.

_ _ _

Although the plague toxin problem had temporarily been resolved, the food crisis hadn’t disappeared.

The Tribe members still couldn’t eat wild beasts as freely as before.

No one knew whether the plague toxin would continue evolving or whether another dangerous change would occur.

Food remained a serious problem.

There were simply too many mouths to feed.

The cassava, sweet potatoes, and potatoes that Sora had previously led the Tribe members to discover were almost completely consumed.

If they wanted to survive, they had to continue searching for other sources of food.

While the Tribe members were busy dealing with the plague toxin, she had called her Beast Husbands together and taken them farther away from the Tribe to search for food.

Most of the edible plants near their settlement had already been discovered.

They had no choice but to explore farther.

Sora had originally thought that traveling farther into the forest would make it easy to find more cassava, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

But reality quickly disappointed her.

Even the land farther away had already been thoroughly searched.

The ground was practically bare.

It seemed that the plague toxin had frightened Beastmen from many different Tribes.

Since they were afraid to hunt wild beasts, they had all begun digging through the earth for plants and roots instead.

Lucas crouched down and examined the disturbed soil.

His brows furrowed.

"It seems everyone is almost out of food."

Ryan also looked serious.

"If we can’t find anything else, I’ll search for more rivers. We can continue catching fish."

Ace nodded in agreement.

"That sounds like a good idea. Kaelira knows many ways to cook fish, so eating fish isn’t a problem."

Sora stood at the front of the group.

The moment she heard the suggestion, however, her expression became slightly strange.

More fish?

She was going to throw up if she ate another fish.

During the past several days, their meals had constantly rotated between fish, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava.

No matter how delicious those foods were, eating the same things repeatedly had already made her tired of them.

Especially fish.

She couldn’t look at another fish without feeling a little nauseous.

"No."

Sora shook her head.

"If the east doesn’t work, we’ll go west."

She wasn’t going to give up that easily.

She secretly activated all five of her Supernatural Abilities and began searching the surrounding area.

She refused to believe that there wasn’t another source of food somewhere nearby.

The group continued walking.

After they had traveled several hundred meters farther, the detection ability associated with her Earth Element suddenly reacted.

A red warning appeared in Sora’s perception.

Her eyes immediately brightened.

She quickly checked the location.

The discovery nearly made her jump for joy.

Rice!

There was actually rice growing here!

Heaven knew how much she had missed cooked rice.

As someone who had lived through the Apocalypse, Sora had survived countless difficult days.

She had eaten whatever she could find.

She had made flour and noodles.

She had cooked potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, and fish.

But there was something she could never truly replace.

Rice.

The craving for cooked rice was deeply rooted in her.

No matter how delicious noodles were, they could never completely satisfy the rice-loving part of her soul.

Sora immediately pointed toward the direction indicated by her detection ability.

"Let’s go there!"

Xavier looked toward the area she was pointing at.

All he could see was a large patch of withered yellow grass.

His expression became indifferent.

"That’s just a bunch of dead grass."

He glanced at it again.

"It’s so prickly that you can’t even lie down there comfortably. Why are we going there?"

Sora gave him a look.

She couldn’t be bothered to argue with him.

"You’ll know when we get there."

She had only pointed toward a direction.

She hadn’t even explained what was there.

Why was Xavier already complaining?

Lukan looked at Sora.

"Should we run there, or can we just walk?"

Sora secretly calculated the distance.

The rice field was still quite far away.

She couldn’t tell them that she had detected it from such a distance.

If she did, they might start wondering how she could know about something that far away.

That could expose the fact that she possessed more Supernatural Abilities than she had admitted.

So Sora nodded.

"Let’s run over and take a look."

She quickly added,

"I just used my Vines to detect the area. There should be plenty of fruits there."

Lukan nodded.

"Then, Kaelira, come sit on me."

Before anyone else could react, Lukan transformed into his wolf form.

The forest terrain was rugged and uneven.

A snake’s movements weren’t exactly ideal for carrying someone across such terrain.

Xavier was slightly annoyed by Lukan’s eagerness, but even he knew that arguing would be pointless.

Ace and Lucas, however, weren’t willing to let the opportunity pass.

"Kaelira, why don’t you sit on me?"

"Kaelira, come with me."

Their voices sounded almost at the same time.

Sora didn’t even turn around.

She simply said,

"I’ll sit on whoever spoke first."

Then she climbed directly onto Lukan’s back.

The decision was surprisingly effective.

The light in Ace’s and Lucas’s eyes immediately dimmed.

They couldn’t blame anyone.

They had simply been too slow.

Lukan had won because he had spoken first.

The others could only silently blame themselves.

Sora had learned her lesson from their previous arguments.

There was no need to choose favorites or get caught in the middle.

She would simply follow the order in which they spoke.

That way, nobody could complain.

The group quickly headed west.

They ran through the forest for nearly twenty minutes before finally reaching a low-lying area.

When Sora saw the golden expanse before her, her eyes widened.

She immediately jumped down from Lukan’s back.

Then she rushed toward the field.

She bent down and grabbed a handful of the grain.

After rubbing it between her palms, the outer husk came away.

When she saw the white rice grains underneath, her face lit up.

"Everyone!"

Her voice was filled with excitement.

"I found food!"

The six Beastmen looked at the strange golden field.

Then they looked at Sora.

She was holding several tiny white grains in her hand while smiling as though she had discovered treasure.

Compared with the large potatoes, cassava, and sweet potatoes they had previously collected, the grains looked incredibly small.

How could something so tiny fill anyone’s stomach?

Ryan stared at the field.

There was something familiar about it.

"Is this the same as the wheat we found before?"

He pointed toward the golden plants.

"Is it also ground into powder before eating?"

Ryan remembered the first time he had seen Sora collect what he thought were weeds.

He had even laughed at her.

But after watching her turn those "weeds" into flour and then transform that flour into delicious noodles and other foods, he had learned not to underestimate anything Sora discovered.

Sora looked at him appreciatively.

As expected from someone who loved researching and understanding new things, Ryan had immediately noticed the similarity between rice and wheat.

"That’s right."

Sora nodded.

"It’s somewhat similar to wheat, but this is called rice."

She held up a grain.

"It doesn’t need to be ground into flour before eating. We only need to remove this golden outer shell."

The others listened carefully.

But they still looked confused.

None of them had ever eaten rice before.

Ace suddenly looked toward Sora.

"Did your Black Bear Foster Mother teach you how to eat this too?"

Sora’s body stiffened slightly.

Her expression almost froze.

She absolutely couldn’t answer that way.

Especially not with Damien standing behind her.

If she said her Black Bear Foster Mother had taught her about rice, Damien might immediately start asking questions.

Sora quickly shook her head.

"No."

She tried to make her explanation sound natural.

"I discovered it myself."

She paused before continuing.

"Once, when I was out playing, I became curious and peeled one open. I boiled it and unexpectedly discovered that it was delicious."

Sora spoke calmly.

Ace didn’t seem to suspect anything.

He nodded.

"If you say it’s delicious, then it must be."

He looked toward the enormous field.

"Should we harvest all of it like we did last time?"

"Exactly."

Sora immediately nodded.

"You need to cut off the rice paddies and arrange them neatly just like we did before."

She looked over the field again.

Even though this was wild rice, the area was enormous.

At a glance, there were at least a dozen acres.

If they could harvest all of it, the Tribe would have enough food to last for a very long time.

The Tribe’s food supply would become much more secure.

They would no longer have to rely entirely on fish, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava.

Rice alone could provide a huge amount of food.

The Beastmen finally understood how valuable the discovery was.

Without wasting another moment, they immediately began working.

The golden rice field stretched before them under the sunlight.

Sora watched as the others moved into action, a bright smile appearing on her face.

After surviving the Apocalypse, she had thought she would never again experience the simple happiness of seeing a field full of rice.

But now...

She had found it in the Beast World.

And this time, she wasn’t merely finding food for herself.

She was finding enough food to feed an entire Tribe.