章 14: Mutated ducks
Anytime the soul gourd rattled, a soul was close by. This rattling today was quite stronger than the previous one so she guessed that perhaps there was more than one soul close by.
She turned to her older siblings and said, "I think we should head in this direction, teacher told me that there was something but I can't quite remember what it is."
Adler came forward to lead the way even though he had no idea where he was going. He had a weapon in one hand which looked like a long battle axe. He was using it to cut down any tree branches and roots in the way.
Carolyn and Beord were shielding her in the middle so that in case of an attack by a mutated beast, they could protect her better.
Scarlet wanted to push her way through and go ahead of them but every time she did, she was pushed back by her older siblings.
"I am not weak and helpless you know." She mentioned.
"You have no mental strength." Beord replied in a rough voice. "We can defend ourselves physically while attacking any beast with our minds but you are defenseless."
She rolled her eyes at him playfully. He was the largest of all her brothers in size; he was built like a quarter back, just like her father Dorian. She was beginning to notice that he also had a savior personality; he was prince charming who always battled the dragon to protect the princess. If you added his height in the equation, he was like a gentle giant although he was not actually gigantic.
Any time something moved or shook, he would push her behind his large body and then pull out a very large metallic sword.
"Why are all of their weapons extra-large?" she asked herself. They looked to be really heavy and yet they were swinging them around with ease. Was this one of the benefits of having mental strength?
As the rattling became louder and more intense, she knew that they were coming closer.
"Don't move." Adler shouted and they all came to a standstill.
As always, Beord pushed Scarlet behind his body and armed himself.
"What do you see?" he asked Adler.
Scarlet who was at the back kept craning her neck to see what Adler had just discovered but she was also disadvantaged when it came to height. She could see nothing all from where she was.
"What's there?" she asked.
"Mutated ducks." Carolyn answered.
Scarlet wanted to curse, how deadly could a duck be. Suddenly the ducks let out that terrible quack which had woken her up in the morning.
Ducks were some of the most harmless creatures on earth, they never attacked unless they were attacked first and their ducklings were the cutest little things.
Adler, Beord and Carolyn were making an attack plan and she used this chance to tip toe away slightly and get one look at the ducks. According to the forum of grim reapers, if something was dangerous, it would have black smoke emitting from its body just like an overdue soul. The more the black smoke, the more deadly the soul or creature was.
She noticed however that these weird looking black, blue and white ducks had not have even one bit of smoke around them.
"Don't kill them, they are harmless." She shouted. She raced from behind where she was supposed to stay and stood in front of the ducks.
"What are you doing scarlet, move before those mutated ducks bite you." Carolyn shouted while all three of them run toward her.
"No they won't, look at them they are harmless. I think some beasts perhaps mutated only in color but are not deadly. There must be a way for you to differentiate the two types."
"We cannot know for sure right now, it's better to kill them than risk it." Adler suggested.
Scarlet put on a fierce look and said "I thought you trusted me and that's why you came with me. Does my opinion not count anymore? My teacher taught me how to spot the differences between a mutated deadly beast and a normal one. These ducks are very normal."
She didn't stop at explaining she reached down and carried one of the ducks in her hands. The rest of them started quacking from down below.
"Put it down." Beord barked sternly.
"No," Scarlet replied stubbornly.
"I knew this was a bad idea, she doesn't listen to anyone." Beord complained.
Scarlet wanted to prove a point however her soul gourd was shaking as if it was running along a train track so she had no choice but to put the duck down.
"We should take them with us." She told them. "Do you have any means of transporting them back?"
She was so determined that Adler knew she would not be leaving without these ducks. He took out an oval shaped white from his mecha suit and said "We can put them in the storage pod, but they can't be in there for more than five hours they will suffocate."
Storage pods were used for transporting captured alive or dead mutated beasts to collection centers and from there, they would be sent to the star laboratory in the capital where they would be studied. It was a requirement for everyone in the empire to carry a storage pod.
The sizes of these pods varied because the empire provides pods which kept only five animals. Private companies sold pods which stored up to fifty animals. These were mostly used by beast hunters.
The pod Adler was holding stored fifteen mutated animals and these were ten ducks. Scarlet did not forget to take their eggs as well.
"Now can we leave?" Beord grumbled.
"No." Scarlet responded. "We are almost at the location teacher told me about." She knew that if they take just ten more steps ahead, she will be where the souls are.
Reluctantly, they followed her with Beord trying to pull her behind but she kept slapping his hand away. In exactly ten steps, they found themselves in a field with overgrown green weeds that were almost covering a black space ship.
She saw around three souls moving around the space ship and she opened her soul gourd and sucked them in. Her soul gourd was still rattling and she curiously moved closer.
"What the hell! Scarlet, stay back." Adler shouted and yanked her back with so much force that she felt as if her body was flying in the air.
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