Kapitel 136: Meeting Young Beasts

Hey, Shun here!

I remember going to a zoo during my childhood and becoming fascinated by the many animals living there. At one point, I thought becoming a zookeeper might not be a bad thing at all.

That's until society hit me with slap on the face. In most of the Asian families, it's either you become a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer, especially when you have older siblings or family who are one.

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(Shun's POV)

Curious, I continued looking at the grass which seemed to be the place where the girls are looking at with rapt attention.

As I looked at that particular location more intensely, I saw it. There they were… the young animals that our quest wanted us to befriend.

"Haa, haaa, haa, wafu!"

"Nyaaow~?"

"Nyaa—, nyaa~!"

"…"

There were a total of four small beasts that were eyeing our hamburgers as if they were something very precious. However, it seems like Rikka-san have mistaken the young ball of fluff's gaze to something else.

"What? You are very amazed at my amazing [Tyrant's Eye]? For such a young puppy like you, you sure have some nice eyes…" Rikka-san even flicked her hair to show off her heterochromatic eyes.

"We met so many of them so early… Hey, why don't you try and record them, Rikka-san? Maybe take some screenshots so that we can show them to the others?"

"Ohh, that sounds like a good idea! Wait, how do I do that, again?" While she was looking for a way to do a screenshot, she placed her hamburger on her lap.

A light blue-silverish fluffy and round puppy was looking at the hamburger expectantly with a glitter in its eyes. It followed the hamburger with its eyes wherever it goes.

Eventually, when Rikka-san placed it on top of her lap, the puppy fell over. Is that little guy okay?

"Hawa! So many little friends nodesu! Come here kitty kitty cat nodesu! Pochi will give a liiiittle bit… Uhm, Master!" Pochi called out to the little white kitten to try and give it some of her hamburger but it was already eaten by her. Thus, she looked at me as if saying that she needed help.

Meanwhile, Tama is busy petting the black cat. She's feeding it with a piece of her hamburger with no more patties in them.

Hey, don't think I didn't notice that you're feeding the vegetable that you don't like to that kitten.

As for the last one, well, it's resting on the lap of the most unexpected person on this group, Fenny. She seems to be happily feeding the little blue chick. Tsuka is also giving the little chick some food from time to time but it seems like she'd rather eat it herself.

Since Pochi couldn't give the white cat some food, it has come to my feet and pressed against them while letting out sweet meowing sounds.

"Nyaow~?"

"Master [Admin-sensei] nodesu! The little kitty kitty cat wants food nanodesu!"

"MiiMii, too~?"

"MiiMii? You mean the little black cat?"

"Ai~!"

"Alright… Here are the hamburgers, give them one each."

I took out more hamburgers from my inventory and gave each and everyone of us one each. For the young beasts, I placed in down on the ground so that they could eat it themselves.

"There you go. There's one for all of you."

Without further ado, the puppy dove straight towards the burger and, while holding onto it with its front paws, munched on the hamburger with gusto. The black kitten followed suit after seeing the puppy eat the hamburger so deliciously while the white kitten and the blue chick waited until the two were finished halfway through before eating their own hamburgers.

The three four legged animals didn't have any problems moving around but the blue colored chick had difficulties moving around. Since it was moving very unsteadily, Tsuka picked up the hamburger while Fenny took the chick within her arms, before plopping it right back on top of her lap.

"I finally found it! Recording's on... Everyone, say hi to the camera!"

Flustered by the sudden noise, all of the young animals looked at the source of the sound in surprise.

"Waa—! Where is it nodesu??"

"Ello~?"

"Ca-me-ra? Where is, camera?"

"He…llo?"

"Ooh, that's a good pose right there! Stay like that for a sec! Aaaand, alright! That's good!"

Once the young animals saw that it was Rikka-san who was making the noise, they got back to eating, eventually finishing up their food.

Once they finished their own food, they started looking at us again. It seems like they liked the hamburgers, because when they saw that even our own hamburgers are all eaten by us, they started licking on our hands. The chick was even sweetly pecking on the leftover ketchup on Fenny's cheeks.

"Alright, alright. No need to do that. I've got more in here."

As if they understood my words, the four of them stared at my face intensely.

"Wafuu~n?"

""Nyaaow~!""

"Chirp, chi...."

These expectant gaze reminds me of Pochi, Tama, Tsuka, Ikumei, and Zenko when they want to eat food. I calmly took another batch of hamburgers out of my inventory, and put them in front of the young animals.

"Look, here it is. Go on, eat them."

In response to my words, the young beasts started to eat the hamburgers innocently. It came to a point where they couldn't even eat any more with their rounded stomachs, but they were still begging for more.

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Our meal plans took a longer time that we initially anticipated. It's already too late to head for the river for a fish so we just chilled for a while since we plan to go back to where we came from and hunt more monsters there for their meat.

The young fluffballs seems to be satisfied after the meal as; the puppy exposed its stomach by lying on its back, the two kittens were laying down on Pochi and Tama's laps, licking their own paws to taste the lingering flavour of the hamburger while the chick is already fast asleep.

"Heere *tickle* *tickle*. Haha, how cute…"

Rikka-san became quite fond of the puppy so she is currently playing with it, lightly stroking it's exposed belly. This made the puppy writhe on the ground, feeling ticklish.

It's foot was moving uncontrollably as if it wanted to scratch something in the air.

"Them being this quiet is cute too. I'll take a picture of this as well then I'll send it to Kaede-san and the rest."

"I'll be taking one as well. I'll send them to Miu, Rokuko, and everyone else. I'm sure they'll be surprised."

Rikka-san took pictures of the young beasts close up, focusing on capturing their images alone while I focused on taking pictures of the kids and the young beasts together. Pochi and Tama seems to be having fun with the two kittens, even going as far as putting them on top of their shoulders during the time when I was taking pictures of them.

"Like [Admin-sensei]" they said.

"So, what do you think, Rikka-san? Should we bring them with us?" I asked Rikka-san while looking at the four kids playing with the four young beasts. It was such a heartwarming sight.

"Of course we will! Kaede-san, Mutsuko-san, Satania-san and the others said that we should bring them back no matter what. Besides, isn't this a part of our quest?"

"Uh-huh, I'm just making sure that we're on the same page."

"Ohh… Is that right? Well, anyway, what should we do now? It doesn't seem like the kids will stop playing with the young animals anytime soon." Rikka-san was smiling wryly as she looked at Tsuka, Fenny, Pochi, and Tama who's having so much fun playing with the young beasts.

"It's fine. Let's leave them be. Let's just go and kill some monsters that are around. It wouldn't hurt to have too much ingredients."

And so, I and Rikka-san began hunting monsters while leaving the kids at our resting spot. Every three or so minutes, we'd encounter Wild Boars and some Forest Lurker Cow.

As the sun was only an hour or so away from setting, signalling us that we already have to go back to our base camp, we checked up on the kids and found them fast asleep, cuddling with the young beasts. While that was a cute sight, we still have to take care of the monster that has been following us inside the forest.

Yes, we encountered something that we weren't really searching for. It was a black creature with long thin legs, covered with spiky hair, it had something like a yellow powder on its mouth and six red eyes that were glaring at us.

The monster's name? Well, it's got a funny name like Spice Spider. I wonder if it brought the other members of the group with it?

While you would expect a creature with such a name to start dancing and singing with their infectious melodies, this particular spice something isn't so kind.

"I-I'll leave it all to you, [Admin] Shun. I'm not very good with scary insects so…"

"No problem." I responded to Rikka-san's words and sent an arrow towards this black and overall eerie looking creature.

""Bow Skill — Homing Arrows", "Lower Matter Conversion", and "Rapid Fire Bow - Shotgun Barrage"! There, all done."

Since it's getting late already, I ended the battle before it even started. Rikka-san was looking at me with a dumbfounded expression on her face but I decided to ignore her. She'll recover at some point.

"Oh, sweet. I got something called [Set of Magic Seasonings]?"

The description only said 『The seasonings that do not deplete despite being used. The seasonings alone do not recover satiety.』.

"Alright. I'll take it. This is better than getting some suspicious food stuffs that may or may not be poisonous."

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ Another chapter down. Gee, this took some time. After this, I'll probably skim over a few things that happened before going straight to the point? Or maybe I should just continue and make it a long quest? After that, we'll go to another one in between some slice of life action.