Chapter 477: Hunting Habits

Sitting inside were none other than Octavia and Vance. They were both pretty much just chilling on the dirt floor, sitting across from each other and talking quietly.

Seeing Adrian suddenly appear in the doorway, both of them quickly scrambled out of the small hut and stood up completely straight at attention.

"Get your things ready," Adrian said. "We need to start moving right now. There are a lot of things left to do and don’t ask about my daughter and the other two, they’ll be staying back here."

The two of them just looked at each other before Vance quickly turned back to Adrian.

"My Lord, everything is ready. We don’t really have too many personal belongings, and most of them, if not all, are already stored inside our spatial rings."

Adrian nodded firmly.

"Good. Let’s start moving then."

As they started walking away from the tribal camp, Adrian peered into his dungeon interface to look at exactly what the three of them were doing in the open fields.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all to say that Adrian was deeply worried.

This was technically the best-case scenario for their safety, at least according to his mind, but it was also one of the worst-case scenarios for his personal life.

’I wanted to calmly talk about it myself. When I actually had the time, and when the circumstances allowed for a proper conversation.’

He sighed heavily.

’But this Aria... she is just...’

He didn’t even finish the sentence. He just shook his head.

’And she is actually fucking telling them about it right now. I should have probably told her that those specific quests are literally just for show and hold no actual punishment. But whatever. I guess I will deal with the aftermath myself.’ he thought before clicking his tongue, ’Me and my fucking hot bloodedness... ugh. If only there was a skill that helped me keep my emotions and feelings in check.’

He closed the window.

’System, give me a reminder when Aria is fully done telling them everything.’

[Affirmative.]

As Adrian continued walking through the dense jungle, Vance looked over at Octavia. Octavia glanced back at him. They shared a quiet look before both of them nodded slightly at each other.

Octavia turned her head to look at Adrian’s back.

"My Lord, do you know why the tribesmen suddenly left today?"

Adrian kept walking.

"What do you mean?"

"All of them left together," Octavia explained. "Yesterday, only the men and the kids went out to hunt. But this time, even the women left the camp. They didn’t even bother cooking breakfast before heading out."

Adrian casually glanced back at the two of them.

"Well, unlike us, they don’t really have a specific method to accumulate mana on their own accord. They don’t possess the freedom of choice on exactly when to train either. The nature of this continent handles it entirely for them."

Hearing this, Octavia and Vance frowned in confusion.

"What does that mean?" Vance asked.

Adrian smirked slightly.

"Well, you know the rainfall yesterday? That rainwater is filled with a lot of mana. Everyone in the tribe has their own specific stone containers, right? Just like the massive bottles I spread out all over the camp, where ever there was space."

Vance nodded.

"Yeah, we did notice that. Almost every single family has a few crude bowls placed directly on top of their huts."

"Yeah," Adrian agreed. "These bowls are made of a specific natural material that can hold that liquid mana. The rainwater, whenever it falls anywhere else like the dirt or the trees, the mana inside the water droplets instantly dissipates into the atmosphere. And it miraculously doesn’t stay in the atmosphere. It completely disappears and no one knows where it goes."

He swatted a massive leaf out of his way as he continued. "But the mana inside the water that is accumulated by those specific bowls and containers? That can be directly consumed. So what do you think happened?"

He glanced back at Vance.

"Now tell me, why do you exactly think they left right after? Why do you think they left the very next morning?"

This time, Octavia answered first.

"Because they completely drank the water. So now that their bodies have mana accumulated, they can perform exceptionally well today."

Adrian nodded.

"Yes. I talked to the Demon Chief, and he told me that a few hours after the rains, the entire tribe moves out for a massive communal hunt. On regular, dry days, they mostly just rely on small traps to get their basic food. But whenever they finally get a heavy rainfall, they head out for active hunts, and they specifically go for much bigger game."

He stepped over a massive tree root.

"In fact, a lot of the coastal tribes have an entire tradition of heading straight into the ocean to catch huge fish after a storm."

Octavia thought about it deeply, and then, she looked thoughtfully at Adrian.

"But My Lord, why don’t you just hunt the bigger game for meat?"

"Well, the big game in this forest are basically just highly dangerous carnivores. There are no massive elephants or peaceful grazers here. Most of the bigger creatures in this place are the giant big cats, boars, deer, and things like that."

He shrugged.

"And while some strong tribes do hunt the massive carnivores, like jaguars and tigers, these specific animals aren’t really consumed for their meat. They are basically just harvested purely for their hides and bones, which are mostly used for decorations or for crafting weapons."

He held a hand up before she could ask.

"Don’t ask me why. I’m just like you, I am not a native to this weird place. And even when I asked the people about it, the tribes don’t really know exactly why they shouldn’t eat carnivorous meat. They just tell you that it is bad, and their ancient ancestors did not eat it, so even they shouldn’t eat it."