Chapter 157: Carl’s plan

When Kanan and Nyalok returned to the village, they went to inform Loknya about everything they had uncovered.

The chieftess wasn’t too pleased about being woken up in the middle of the night, but after learning about her scout’s deaths and everything else, she quickly washed the sleep out of her face.

“And you’re positive that it’s Carl?” She asked, not wanting to jump to any conclusions.

“Either it’s him, the plant is controlling his actions, or he has an accomplice.” Kanan’s eyes darted between Loknya’s face and boobs as she was topless.

It didn’t seem like she even cared, as she had spotted him looking at her chest multiple times.

“I will have members of our stealth team keep watch over Carl. If he does anything suspicious, then we’ll know. For the time being, just keep an eye out for anything suspicious, and whatever you do, don’t engage Carl.” Loknya looked at Nyalok specifically.

“Whatever.” Nyalok shrugged her shoulders and went to her room.

“Thank you for informing me about this, Kanan. Your help means more than you know.”

“It’s my pleasure. I don’t wish to see another tribe suffer and the…hands of this abomination. Just call me if you need help; I’ll be there. For now, I’m going to get some well-needed sleep.”

Once Kanan returned to his lodgings, he quietly snuck back into his spot and closed his eyes. It didn’t seem like anyone had noticed him leaving; that was until he felt three bodies squish against him.

“Where did you go?” Lopis asked, wrapping her body around his arm.

“And why didn’t you tell us you were leaving?” Fera placed her head on his chest, the beat of his heart pulsing through her ear.

“We almost went after you, you know. But Lopis said not to.” Even Reda joined in, crawling between his legs until she was at his waist.

“Were you guys up this whole time waiting for me to come back?” He asked

When they all nodded, he sighed and even chuckled a bit.

“I’ll tell you later. For now, I wanna sleep. And no, we did not mate.”

That seemed to ease their worries, as they didn’t ask any more questions and went to sleep with him.

A whole week had passed, and nothing was out of the ordinary. None of the plants were found, and Carl didn’t do anything suspicious, even cooperating with the Chieftess whenever she needed him.

He was even asked why he had Seejuk’s harpoon, especially after her death was confirmed. His response was simple and hard to refute. He said that she was infected by the plant and had to kill her.

That would have been enough to incriminate him; however, when Nyalok had asked him why he didn’t come to her with this information, he had told her that he informed Elder Riklok and assumed he would tell her.

After confirming this with Riklok, Nyalok had no choice but to stop questioning Carl, as all of his bases were covered.

If his system wasn’t constantly buzzing in his ear, telling him that Carl was evil, even Kanan would have believed his words, though he’d still be on alert as Carl’s presence made Kanan uneasy.

“I don’t know, Kanan, Carl seems clean to me,” Terin said as he and Kanan patrolled the area. They had decided to take up some work to help out with the shortage of able bodies.

“Lord Nemean says otherwise.”

“Wait, really?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, then he’s guilty! Let’s kill the guy!” Terin, just like anyone from the Nemean Tribe, took their god’s words as law and never questioned them.

“No, Terin. This isn’t our home. We cannot enact our laws in another tribe’s home. All we can do is wait until we find something that gives us the authority to act.

“Lame! If it were up to me, I would have launched that guy into the sky and watched him splatter on the ground.”

Kanan chuckled. He liked Terin’s imagination, though in this case it wouldn’t have been of any help. “Yeah, and we’d be chased out if you did something like that. This is why I’m in charge, and you aren’t. And stop eating that poison!”

“Oh, man. Kanan, listen to me. These herbs are good! Like, really good. You can find these underneath the swamp. It’s making me itch, but I can already feel my tolerance for poison going up.”

“You went underneath the swamp to find more poisonous herbs? Are you crazy?”

“I don’t know, but Alue asked me the same question. Though he said that the swamp is filled with monsters and suggested I be careful. When I swam underneath the water, it wasn’t too bad, but I did find this massive tentacle. Ha, it was so cool!”

Kanan paused. “Wait, what did you say?”

“I said that the swamp is cool. I really like how different this place is compared to our tribe and the Typhon–”

“No, no. Before that. What did you say before that? You saw a tentacle?”

“Oh, that? Yeah. It was huge! I thought it was tree roots at first, but then I saw it move. Besides, when I got close, it definitely didn’t look like roots. It was all squishy and had these weird circles on its tentacle.”

“Terin, did those circles look like cups, or bowls?”

“Hmmmm, yeah, more like bowls than cups. They were sticky as well. I had to pry my hand off that thing to set myself free. Ha! I nearly drowned!”

Kanan placed a finger on each of his temples and began rubbing them, trying to uncover a memory that was on the tip of his tongue.

It was something that Carl had said to them when they had first met, after he had rescued them. It was in the heat of the moment, so Kanan wasn’t really paying attention too much, and the thought moved to the back of his mind.

But now, Kanan tried digging up the memory.

“If you stay any longer, you’ll be in danger!”

Kanan shook his head. ‘No, that doesn’t sound right.’

“If you stay any longer, the beasts will overwhelm us!”

“No, no, that doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Uhh, Kanan, what are you doing?”

“Shh. I’m thinking.”

“Out loud?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, cool. I thought I was the only one who did that, heh.”

Kanan reached deeper, trying his hardest to remember what Carl had said that day.

“If you stay any longer, you’ll awaken the Mother Beast!”

Finally, Kanan remembered what Carl had said, and after a brief celebration by jumping into the air with excitement, he quickly realized that this wasn’t the time for that and demanded that Terin take him to where he found the tentacle.

“I think I know what Carl’s plan is.”