Chapter 44

The days stretched on and on into an infinity of repetitions—wake up, sit and wait, dinner, sleep, only to wake up and repeat the cycle. Nicole created a few board games and taught her friends how to play, but it couldn’t kill all the suddenly gained free time. The empty space in their wagon was too small to train throwing weapons without the danger of accidentally hitting someone. All Nicole could do was spare some time at night before going to sleep. At least she felt her aim and precision were getting better.

Even occasional intimacy, be it in the form of the promised blowjobs to Merik or mischief between the girls, quickly grew boring. Once, all three of them spent hours cuddling and touching each other, not caring what the Bee Tribe might think. Not that it was anything surprising or strange to the seasoned travelers anyway. Some of them even tried to flirt with the girls, but none got a real chance.

The tropical forest outside the wagon didn’t change much with either time or distance traveled. Tall trees, bright green grass and bushes, and colorful wild flowers of wild nature were a beautiful sight to behold. At first, Nicole looked through the window with interest, but with time it all started blurring and losing its vibrant colors.

By the tenth day, Nicole, Soi, and Iloe were just scattered around their carriage, lazily exchanging words in an overstretched conversation that continued only to avoid silence. Fuck… I will go insane here. And it’s only around half of the way. Ugh. When I had no time, there was so much to do in the village or in the jungle… Now I have all the time in the world and nothing to do at all.

Nicole was toying with her knife, making shallow cuts in the wooden floor, when the wagon stopped. The girls heard voices and shouts, and after looking at each other, quickly got out with interest. Finally, something was happening.

Looking around, they saw that part of the Bee guards from all the wagons had grouped together and hastily went somewhere. Following them, it didn’t take long before they heard other voices shouting, grunts, clanking weapons, and sounds made by something inhuman. The guards rushed into the bushes, and when Nicole got close and looked through the plants, she saw a terrifying scene.

On a small field, a few carriages were lying on their sides, and one more stood still. Around them, a group of people were fighting off a horde of giant birds with grey feathers with red tips. Every bird was almost as tall as a grown man, and even from a distance Nicole could see their beaks filled with sharp teeth. There were also two Mosshorns fighting, trying to reach the flying enemies. The monsters were flying around and occasionally swooped down to try to bite or scratch their prey. In return, the people were fighting back with spears and swords, aiming for the creatures attacking them whenever they had a chance.

The Bee guards didn’t waste any time. Tall and equipped with heavy weapons, every hit that connected crushed an enemy’s bones. Meanwhile, Nicole and Soi smiled widely. Flying enemy? Perfect to test and train my throwing skills.

Nicole approached the battlefield, transforming into her bone form in the process. Grabbing the first pair of her knives, she waited until one bird got down to attack someone and then threw the blades—one missed the target, but the other one stuck into the body of the flying monster. Yes!

After the partial success of her first try, Nicole quickly started depleting her reserves of throwing knives. When she had only one left, some of the birds noticed her and took an interest in seeing how she tasted.

As two blood-covered beaks came down at her from different sides, Nicole switched to her spear. A quick dodge to the side to get away from the sharp claws, then a slash—and one monster ended up with a bleeding cut and some burnt feathers as a result. But the second one got close faster than she expected. The bird pointed its claws forward, and deep cuts appeared on Nicole’s bone arm.

But the beast seemed to underestimate its enemy too, used to the fact that such a hit made the prey bleed and writhe in pain—but this time it was different. The claws didn’t meet soft flesh but hard bone structure, making the bird crash into Nicole. They both fell to the ground, and from the impact, Nicole lost her spear. Luckily, before the monster could get up, her hand had already found her sword. A few slashes later, the creature couldn’t harm anyone further.

Getting up, Nicole felt the taste of blood on her lips and only after a few seconds felt slight pain from many shallow cuts on her face and head, her only unprotected parts. Glancing down at the bird, she noticed that the feathers on its wings, despite being flexible, seemed to be pretty sharp at the red-colored tips. Tch, fucking overgrown chicken.

While Nicole was helping at close range, Soi and her trusted bow were helping from the back. One by one, she shot her arrows at the monsters from the bushes. To her, it was nothing more than a normal day of hunting, except for the fact that there were way more targets than usual. When Nicole fell, at first Soi almost sent a few shots in that direction but stopped at the last second, afraid of hitting her friend in the chaos of the struggle, so instead she just believed Nicole would win.

It took some time to get rid of most of the aggressors, and seeing the dead bodies of their kin, the monsters that were still in the air retreated. Nicole was drenched in blood, mostly not hers. With a spear in her right hand and a sword in her left, she was sure she had killed over a dozen of them, plus whatever damage her thrown knives had done.

Looking around, in the sea of blood and feathers, she saw that both Mosshorns were dead. There were a few human bodies as well. Checking closer, judging by the small ears and long tails, she came to the conclusion that those were members of the Rat Tribe. Right now, the survivors were talking with the imposing Bee guards, who seemed calm and barely scratched. Nicole approached the group, with Soi and Iloe following after.

"Again, we are very thankful for the help, dear mighty Bees." a Rat man said with a short bow. "We would love to pay, but we are just small merchants and don’t have much…"

Then everyone’s heads turned to the catgirls and Nicole. The survivors, a group of nine Rat people, started whispering among themselves and gesturing at Nicole. The man coughed.

"I-I, um, we are thankful to you too, Torakai, for the help as well." He said, avoiding Nicole’s gaze.

The fuck? I’m not asking for a medal and certificate for the assistance, but really? Going to ignore me?

Only a few seconds later did she realize that she was still in her bone form. When Nicole changed back, the scratches and cuts all around her body transferred as well, now onto her flesh. They became less deep, but in many places it was still enough to cause light bleeding.

"Fuck." Nicole muttered under her breath from the sudden pain, then clenched her teeth.

At the sight of her returning to normal, the eyes of the Rats opened even wider.

"What was that?"

"Who the hell is this girl?"

"She is wearing such strange clothes."

"And did you see her spear? It had sparks on hit, I saw that!"

The chatter grew louder, but then the man silenced them with his words. "We are grateful, stranger. Please ignore the rest, they are tired after the battle and can be… rude."

"Yeah, yeah, it’s alright. So, what now?" Nicole asked, waving her hand dismissively. "You guys seem to have a big problem."

Later, Jathun came and talked with the Rat leader, they agreed to help the wounded merchants join the caravan and get to the Hive. Then, as usual, the Bees placed their wagons in a circle and made camp, despite it being only slightly past the afternoon. The Rat people were placed in a tent to rest for now, while the Bees gathered the dead birds. The birds were cleaned of feathers and cut up, part going for dinner and the rest saved for later.

Nicole picked up one of the feathers. The red tips were hard and pointy, and after she cut off the soft feathers using her knife, she ended up with a bolt.

A bolt? Hm… At first, I was thinking about using those as cheap throwing knives. But now I’ve got a better idea.

Hiding in her wagon, she used Tora for help, and after a few hours and some failed attempts, Nicole ended up with her next invention—a crossbow. It was rather small and light, made mostly out of wood with only a few iron details. The string was made from the feathers, since her ability considered them the same as Bonewolf fur, and after absorbing enough Nicole could weave a thin thread out of them. She combined many threads into one, and it proved to be strong enough not to rip in her new weapon.

When Nicole emerged from the carriage, it was already afternoon.

Time to give this baby a real test. She loaded the first bolt and aimed at a tree. Three, two, one—and it barely flew at all. "Huh?" Nicole tried one more time, but the result was the same. The feather is too light and soft.Fuck. I guess I’ll have to stick with wooden ones. She threw the remaining few feather bolts into the fire and walked away.

Hours later, after dinner, most travelers went to sleep. Nicole was sitting alone by the small bonfire, absorbed in her own thoughts, when she was approached by someone. Looking up, she saw a short Tzurai girl in front of her, clad only in a torn, dirty piece of leather holding her ample chest and a skirt made of similar strips of leather held together by a belt. Despite the rather poor clothes, she had a sword hilt on her hip. The ratgirl had grey, straight hair long enough to cover half of her back, with the left half of her face and one eye hidden by sharp bangs.

She looks a few years younger than me, I’d say around twenty. I wonder why she is working such a dangerous job. Maybe she is a merchant’s daughter?

At first, she was simply looking at Nicole with her lime-green-and-bright-yellow-gradient eye, lips slightly parted as if she was ready to say something, but she stopped at the last second to rethink her words. Then she took a step forward and pointed at the crossbow in Nicole’s hands. "Show me."

Her round mouse ears twitched as she spoke. They were so big that each was around half of her face. At the movement, Nicole heard a quiet clank and looked up to see two metal ring piercings on the ratgirl’s right ear. Nicole silently raised the weapon toward the strange girl, who easily picked it up with the tip of her black, leather-like tail and brought it to her hands. The ratgirl started looking at the item from different angles.

Then she suddenly reached into the dying embers and picked up one of the feather bolts that Nicole had thrown out earlier. She loaded it and, in one swift motion, pointed the crossbow at a nearby tree.

Nicole’s eyes widened when the bolt not only shot out properly, like it should have in her initial idea, but also left a big red wound on the surface of the tree. W-what? How?

While Nicole was still amazed and processing, the ratgirl loaded the next shot and shot again. This time, Nicole was watching the tree and saw that when the bolt hit, it seemed to break and turn into red dust on impact, though it still made a deep mark on the target.

"Not bad. Would greatly help in today’s battle." The ratgirl said, handing the crossbow back to Nicole. "I am Limia." She smiled softly.