Chapter 204: What The Rain Left Behind

Xavi appeared next, and the sight of him made Tera’s breath catch. He looked exhausted. His usual steady demeanour was still there, but the shadows beneath his eyes and the tension in his jaw told her he hadn’t slept properly since the storm.

He didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arms around all three of them, pulling Tera and the cubs against his chest.

"Are you alright?" Tera whispered against his collarbone.

"We are fine." His voice was rough. "The shelters held. But only barely."

Ermin joined them shortly after, and the relief that flooded his face was so raw it hurt to look at.

The clan members were happy to see Tera too.

But Tera could not share their sentiment.

She might not have been able to do anything urgent to help, but she would have been there with her cubs, at least.

She held her family, and pressed kisses to every head she could reach, before gently extracting herself to look over the clan.

She carried her babies in her arms as she moved around.

Almost everything was destroyed, including the smoked meat rack, which some males were salvaging.

The water channel had barely been affected, thankfully, partly due to it being an artificial stream and the fact that the system had reinforced it.

The same thing had happened with the first common shelter.

But Tera was stunned it remained standing when the other silk leaf shelters had been ripped through by the hail.

Water had actually seeped into the flooring of the common shelter, even affecting a lot of the stored tubers and herbs, but that was it.

’Why didn’t you let me know that a storm was coming?’

[(°ロ°)]

[This system swears it wasn’t an act of incompetence!]

[This system checks for drastic weather suggestions around Host’s vicinity and a few miles beyond]

[Host was so far away that the system had only registered normal rain for Host’s last checkpoint]

[It didn’t think it was worth noting and...]

[When Host was preoccupied with Calis, this system hadn’t wanted to intrude when it sensed the... severity]

Tera’s eye twitched.

’So you had a grasp of the situation when I was in that cave?’

[(ó﹏ò｡)]

’How could you?!’

[This system did not want to intrude—]

’Intrude for fucks’ sake! My cubs could have died!’

[They were safe. If Host’s clan members were in any mortal danger, this system would have alerted Host at that very moment]

[They are registered in Host’s stats, so this system has a backlog of data on the Dow clan members]

[Host will barely have been able to do much in the midst of the storm]

[And you would have been in danger from the elements]

[\("˚☐˚)/]

[This system apologises]

[(ᗒᗩᗕ)]

[But Host is my utmost priority]

Tera still felt slightly irritated. The system had no issue predicting the flood it had made her prepare against when she had first come into the world, so it made no sense that it wouldn’t have predicted this weather when she had gotten to the Glimmer pack.

But she forced herself to stay calm, and while she understood the system a lot more, she felt unsettled.

That last sentence it made did not reassure her in any way.

Did that mean it would even prioritise Tera over her own cubs?

Saddened, she hugged her babies tighter, and they both looked up at their mother, saddened by her worried face.

Tera hoped it never came to that, but she hated that the system had made that statement.

Most of the beasts had run to seek shelter in the common one, and they had taken the animals into the shelter too. Though they had been worried and afraid that this shelter would collapse too, much like the others.

And the water seeping into the flooring didn’t help matters.

The farm The clan members had tried to make light of the situation, bringing smiles to each others faces, and Tera had appreciated that.

One of the animals had apparently attempted to eat a sleeping cub’s ear during the evacuation, and the cub had bitten the animal back into submission.

With Tera here, the clan members had hope of Tera rebuilding things, but Tera was not so sure anymore.

The materials had reached their functional limit.

Making another silk roof shelter would be a waste. It would not hold up against strong weather, and they needed to be prepared for that.

Tera needed something sturdy that would be able to protect her clan members when she wasn’t there.

[Silk-leaf roofing cannot withstand ice-based precipitation]

[Bark-and-branch framing lacks the flexibility to absorb sustained high winds without cracking]

[These materials were adequate for light rain, not this]

[(っ◞‸◟ c)]

Tera stood in the middle of her settlement, watching the beasts try to put things together as best as they could.

Tera made her way to the farm. A lot of plants had been affected, but a lot surprisingly stood strong. It helped that the ground was solid enough not to have been washed away like the Glimmer pack’s farm had been.

The lands ahead were lightly flooded, and Tera could not help the passing thought that went through her mind.

Were the Jackdaw tribe members able to survive this?

Maybe yes, since theirs was up a hill.

"Mama..." Althea whispered, tugging on a strand of Tera’s hair.

Tera smiled gently at her baby and hushed her, patting her back. Nadia was silently staring out at the waters.

Her hold on her babies tightened.

She needed stronger materials. Flexible enough to absorb wind without snapping, dense enough to resist hail and similar objects, and lightweight enough to work with the existing framework.

That bamboo forest was fitting for this.

And that corrupted beast was in the way.

She had told Xavi and Calis that hunting corrupted beasts was necessary. They had talked her out of it. She had let it go because there was no immediate need.

The need was here now.

And that dirty, disgusting thing was in the way of her goals.

A slow, burning anger settled into Tera’s chest as she turned back to her pack.

That corrupted beast was sitting on the one material that could protect everything she loved and was working towards.

It had been allowed to exist there for far too long.

Nothing was going to stand between her and its death.