Volume 1 Chapter 6: When the World Says NO to You
It was the height of summer, the temperature in the mountains climbed step by step with the height of the sun. Even walking in the shade of the trees, the Prince is still dripping with sweat, keeping saying, "I, I can't move. I'm dying" on the road… so the small group had to stop to rest for a while.
Claiming to be descended from ancient elves, Nayimei people have a special sense of belonging to the forest. The old Empire is also one of the largest green areas in the industrialized countries, and still retains a sizeable amount of virgin forest - some of which is believed to be hundreds of thousands of years old. For the same reason, Nayimei people are very good at trekking through the forest, which for them is like a walk in the park.
Leiya doesn't really feel that, but after a few hours of walking, she really didn't even take a breath.
And Su'er, as a Dragonfly Girl, has the physical strength to fly a thousand miles a day, so no matter how you look at it, the speed of the three people is determined by Kukur.
"I … I really can't …" he kneeled on the ground, panting, "How much further… …"
Leiya raised her eyes farther, "You want to hear the truth or a lie?"
"Please … just say how much further …"
"At the rate you're going, we'll be there at dusk today almost."
"Oh…"
As if completely collapsed, Kukur lunged forward and threw his body to the ground, "It's finished … really bad … I can't walk anymore … "
"Nah, I have an idea," Su'er came over and picked up the Prince's right hand, "I'll carry you away."
"You …"
The delicate young girl, speaking such words to the not-so-tall boy, was naturally more or less surprised, but this sense of discord dissipated after a brief moment of reflection - she was a Dragonfly Girl, whose strength was enough to match that of the strongest domestic animal … No, to be precise, it has basically reached the level of a farm tractor.
At this perfectly logical suggestion, the Prince hesitated for a moment.
But after some agonizing, he shook off Su'er's hand and stood up violently, "I … I'm fine …"
In any case, letting a girl carry you around is unacceptable to his self-respect.
When the sun was almost climbing directly above their heads, a small stream appeared in front of the three. The stream was shallow, just above her ankles, and Su'er had only just put her foot in the water when the cool sensation awakened a certain demon deep inside her.
"Nah! I seem to be hungry?"
With a posture like a hibiscus but having a dumbfounded look, Su'er seemed to be a different person at that moment, and even her eyes had become a bit abnormal … to be exact, completely abnormal.
Few people understand how great the influence of "hunger" on the Dragonfly Girl. These cute, light-skinned little monsters have a powerful power comparable to that of a "crane", and the support for this power is certainly not magic or any other mysterious things.
It's just the simplest biology of converting "food" into "energy".
Because of this, Dragonfly Girls eat a lot, and when they need to replenish their "food", their rationality will be swallowed up by the intense hunger, and their intelligence level will fall back to the level of insects.
"Yeah, I can't do it either …" only heard Su'er's own words, but did not notice Su'er's different state, the Prince lay down on the ground, covered his stomach and rolled, "So hungry! … so tired … so uncomfortable."
"I really want to leave you guys here and leave alone," Leiya sighed lightly and murmured up as if complaining, "Yeah … why do I care about you guys? What does world peace have to do with me? What does it matter to me if you guys are dead or alive?"
She doesn't know what finally convinced herself, but she finally pulled out a cloth bag from the inside of her uniform and threw it on the ground.
"This is dried bread, you take it and eat it."
The Prince grabbed the cloth bag, opened it, fished out the only piece of bread from it, and bit into it sharply, "… Only one piece, huh?"
"Who would carry a big meal around with them for nothing?"
The boy hesitated for a while, but finally put the piece of bread on top of the bag.
"You guys eat first, ladies first."
"Wow! Wow wow wow wow wow!" Leiya's expression was almost as if she had seen a demon, "I didn't think you bastard would know how to be a gentleman!" She shook her head, "In the battle, I often do not eat all day. You just share to eat this piece of dried bread I have carried on for three weeks. Do not be polite."
While Leiya was busy flirting, she didn't notice the change on Su'er's face.
Green veins and meridians spread from the root of the neck to the front of the head, and the emerald pupils, which were originally clear and lovely, were now filled with a warlike and ferocious gaze. From the gaps in the teeth, a drop of white oil oozed down the corners of the lips, and the moment it came into contact with the water, it made a terrible sound like sparks igniting, turning into a thin wisp of smoke.
"Aren't you a veteran? You should know how to survive in the wilderness, right?"
While the other two were still facing each other, continuing the conversation caused by a piece of bread.
"You've even heard of 'wilderness survival'?" Leiya shook her finger, "Unfortunately, my Prince, the current situation makes it impossible for us to either cook over a fire or hunt, so if you don't mind eating something raw, I can go dig up some fat maggots and mushrooms for you."
The Prince opened his mouth wide with surprise, imagined "fat maggots" in his mind, and could not help but shiver, "No, not worms… but I can eat raw fish."
"My God …" Leiya covered her face and sighed, "Why don't you say a roast suckling pig?"
Su'er propped up the wings on her back, and even the resonator followed - yes, this time it wasn't saying something about "Gracious archaism", but rather a real spasm from hunger, which in many horror novels, this sound is equivalent to the harbinger of death.
At this time, Su'er is close to the edge of losing consciousness, and the part of the body belonging to the "dragonfly" amplified the feeling of "hunger" to positive infinity, and the few parts belonging to the human part are disappearing.
Want to eat … I want to eat very much!
The extremely simple thinking filled up Su'er's brain. In her green pupils, everything in the world is strictly distinguished into two kinds of things: the edible and inedible.
With a low, terrible muffled hum, she slowly scanned the surrounding.
The food closest to her is undoubtedly the two "human" objects standing in front of her - obviously just meat sticks, but also covered with cumbersome fabric packaging. It made her feel troublesome to eat them.
So her eyes drifted a little farther away, and by the stream, a small moose-like animal was drinking water, and as if it sensed the evil light that suddenly swept over it, it raised its head and met Su'er's eyes.
At the very moment when the eyes met, Su'er catapulted down, braced her wings to the maximum angle of elevation, and then leaped up.
As if something had exploded, the splash in the stream was as high as a man, and the Dragonfly Girl, who had risen into the air, made a long curve at an incredible speed. Floating only two or three meters above the ground, she landed precisely on the fawn, knocking the animal, which was similar in size to Su'er, to the ground with a dull and horrifying sound.
Su'er was not bragging. She really was a master at using "Float" - this time the speed of "Float" probably broke the observation record of the civilized world. As she completed the kill, the water splash at the start of the jump has not yet completely fallen to the ground. She seems to have crossed the distance of 30 to 40 meters in a split second.
The long hair that Leiya had carefully coiled up was also broken up by the disturbed airflow, following the direction of the Dragonfly Girl's flight and spreading into a golden waterfall. While covering the back of her head with her hand, she looked at the scene of the murder not far away with a shocked gaze and her mouth wide open.
"Just now …" Kukur, who was still sitting on the ground, pointed at Su'er's slumped back, "What happened?"
"Sit still." Leiya quickly calmed down. She unloaded her rifle from her back, crossed it at her side, and said to the Prince with a serious expression, "If I die, you must remember to follow the route I told you."
"What … are you going to do?"
Leiya did not answer, but picked up her rifle and moved step by step toward Su'er, finally stopping only five steps away from her.
Dragonfly Girl was an omnivorous beast that would attack and feed on humans when hungry - "common knowledge" written into textbooks in the civilized world - and Leiya couldn't help but feel chagrined by her own negligence. She had been so deceived by Su'er's harmlessly cute appearance that she had almost forgotten what it really was.
"What are you … doing?"
The Dragonfly Girl didn't seem to hear her question, still lying on the deer's carcass. The critter apparently died on the spot - the head wound was horrific, with brain matter and blood bursting out 3 meters away, nothing less than a direct hit from a shotgun loaded with dumdums.
Leiya could not help but gulp - there is no doubt that the damage caused by Su'er's one "float" is enough to kill most of the creatures on this island, and considering her abnormal speed, she feels that even herself can't dodge it… The most frightening thing is that Su'er has done all this with her bare hands.
Thinking of this, Leiya quietly pushed open the safety on the gun mechanism.
Su'er's eyes are tightly closed as she "vomited" digestive juices. These white viscous slurry soon dissolved the deer's fur and muscle, condensed into many gels of different sizes and colors.
Without personal experience, ordinary people wouldn't know how hard this process could be, but this is the most basic survival skills of every Dragonfly Girl. Only after the processing of digestive juices, food could be absorbed by their bodies.
After five minutes of vomiting, Su'er returned to her normal state, wiping her lips with the back of her hand and standing up contentedly, looking at the prey that had been melted down one-fifth - as if she had just finished a masterpiece.
And as she looked back, she saw two dumbfounded people, one of them with a parachute gun raised at her head.
"Nah? What are you guys doing?"
"No, that question should be asked by me," looking at Su'er's innocent eyes, Leiya countered with a cold, expressionless look, "Girl, what are you doing?"
"Eating!" As Su'er said, she stooped to pick up an apricot-yellow "egg" from the corpse, stuffed into the mouth. Because the diameter of the "egg" has been close to the limit of the mouth, she took a lot of effort to swallow it, and even tears were squeezed out.
"You …" Leiya had heard about it, but she still felt hard to accept it, "You eat it raw like this?"
Before answering, Su'er swallowed another "egg" and held another one in her hand, gesturing towards the two, "You can eat it too, this one is already equivalent to cooked!"
Leiya put down the rifle and ruffled her long hair, "Eating a piece of raw venison covered in bug vomit? Thanks, I don't have such special addiction."
The Prince's reaction was the opposite, as if he had seen some treasure, he stepped forward and took a handful of the doughy gel in Su'er's hand, and carefully bit into it.
"Wow! The taste is still a bit different from the chef's, but it has an original taste," Kukur said while chewing, "and it's still hot! Oh my God! It's still hot!"
"My Great God …" Leiya said with horror, "Are you crazy?"
"This is much higher grade than sashimi," the Prince took another "egg" from Su'er and brought it to Leiya, "Dragonfly Girl's bug food is called 'Girl Sundae' and is one of the most delicious ingredients in this world."
"You Chenai people really dare to put anything in your mouth," Leiya shook her head, still in shock, "It's unbelievable that the old empire would be defeated by you foodies."
"Taste it, it's really delicious," the Prince weighed the gel in his hand, "It's strawberry-flavored, excellent!"
Suddenly, a small crack appeared in Leiya's impenetrable mental defenses.
"Strawberry-flavored?…"
And so, at noon one summer day in the year 250 of the new calendar, a high priest of the Sisterhood, a Prince of Girigia, and a Dragonfly Girl, sitting around a babbling brook, shared a poor little deer - strawberry-flavored.
"Well, um, oh … not bad … girl, you're quite good … even the saliva is strawberry flavored. "
"Nah! Do you like it? I can also spit curry flavor and mustard flavor, want to try together?"
"… strawberry-flavored would be fine, thanks."
