CHAPTER 524: CHAPTER 515: THE GREAT CHIEF 33

With the daily treat of delicious Tinderbugs, the storage of charcoal is increasing day by day. By the time the people in the tribe have stored enough charcoal to burn until the next cold season, the weather has also become colder. Though it’s not quite the cold season yet, it’s only a few days away.

The arrival of the cold season, like the hot season, sees temperatures drop drastically by ten degrees as soon as the sun sets to just a sliver. At that time, people simply cannot leave the caves, for they would freeze to death.

Although the weather now is cold enough to freeze water, it’s just ordinarily cold, like a typical winter. Despite the cold, people in the tribe can still barely go out by wearing beast skin clothes and wrapping their feet in beast skin.

The Hunting Team’s custom is not to interrupt hunting unless it’s the hot or cold season. Nowadays, the main purpose of going out is more for physical training.

Food and drink are not lacking in the cave anymore, so there’s no longer the anxious heavy feeling before the cold season, desperately searching for prey and worrying about who might not survive through the cold season.

The Hunting Team no longer has these concerns, as they now enter the forest mainly to train new members and feed the Earth King Beast.

Although it’s not the cold season, the leaves have fallen, and the green grass is long gone. The animals capable of hibernating have found their spots to do so. The Earth King Beast, lacking the hibernation habit, relies on its powerful chewing and digestion abilities to eat branches and grass roots.

At this time, all the dry grass that was stored long ago by the people in the tribe finally becomes useful. Every time Yan Shuangshuang goes out, she carries a basket full of dry grass and dried old sweet potato vines to feed the Earth King Beast along with the Hunting Team.

Although this is not enough to completely fill the Earth King Beast’s stomach, it can at least fill up most of it. More importantly, even though dry grass can’t compare to fresh grass, it tastes much better than branches and grass roots.

Especially sweet potato vines, which are practically the Earth King Beast’s favorite. Whenever it sees them, its big black eyes light up, gazing with close affection at Yan Shuangshuang or other warriors from the Hunting Team feeding it.

Thanks to this feeding during the lack of food, the bond between the Earth King Beast and the members of the Hunting Team has improved by leaps and bounds. Recently, the team members no longer have to look for the Earth King Beast in the forest, as it takes the initiative to wait in places the team frequently passes.

Yan Shuangshuang has already started working on leading the Earth King Beast into the cave. Once the cold season arrives, going outside is practically impossible. Even if the people of the tribe wear beast skin clothes and bundle their feet with beast skin, staying warm inside caves with burning firewood is tolerable, but stepping outside quickly becomes unbearably cold.

Yan Shuangshuang’s method of luring the Earth King Beast is very straightforward and coarse. Every day when feeding, she uses food to guide the Earth King Beast a little closer towards the caves. If the beast continues to walk, she leads it further, but she doesn’t force it if the beast doesn’t want to move.

After a few days of persistent tempting, the Earth King Beast seems to understand Yan Shuangshuang’s intention. After a moment of hesitation, it directly follows her back to the cave. Yan Shuangshuang didn’t expect the Earth King Beast to follow her so readily, and she felt a surge of joy in her heart.

However, a small issue arose near the cave. The place where the Earth King Beast lives is full of enormous towering trees, providing large open spaces between them.

Despite the Earth King Beast’s huge size, it can still force its way through. As for some shorter trees and vine plants, the beast tramples through them directly, and the presence of large trees ensures it doesn’t affect the forest’s vegetation.

But the forest surrounding the Power Tribe’s cave is different. Though the trees are large, they are not as massive as the ones in the forest where the Earth King Beast lives. Smaller trees leave smaller spaces between each other, making it impossible for the Earth King Beast to enter.

Everyone scratched their head in anxiety, until Witch Doctor Yu and Leader Ben decided that with the Earth King Beast’s security, there was nothing to worry about in the tribe. They suggested cutting a path directly for the beast to walk through; after all, after the cold season, the Earth King Beast will need to go with the Hunting Team to the forest to hunt for food.

However, before anyone from the tribe could take action, the Earth King Beast lowered its huge head and charged forward, creating a path with brute force.

The tribe had long anticipated abducting the Earth King Beast, so they had already constructed a giant shelter specially designed by Yan Shuangshuang.

This shelter uses four giant trees as pillars, with a triangular framework on top. Vines weave the rooftop, which is layered with layer upon layer of grass, covered with large, dried resilient leaves, followed by more layers of grass. This process repeats several times until the canopy is completed.

The constructed canopy can block rain and snow without leaking, and when it warms up, it can also provide shade. Thick dry grass covers the floor below. Although there are no surrounding walls, the canopy and grass-covered ground provide a very comfortable spot for the Earth King Beast.

The Earth King Beast was quite satisfied with the shelter and grass bedding, entering and sprawling out motionlessly. The tribe stored abundant grass, unable to fit entirely within the caves. They built stacks of grass outside, appearing as a majestic sequence from afar.

The grass stacks are placed outside, so the Earth King Beast can go and eat whenever it gets hungry, no need for people to feed it. Nowadays, the Earth King Beast leads an extremely leisurely life, eating grass when hungry and sleeping when full.

When nature calls, the Earth King Beast walks a good distance away to relieve itself and then returns. It is a clean creature, ensuring it doesn’t foul its living space.

With the Earth King Beast guarding the tribe, animals in the forest wouldn’t even dare think of targeting the tribe, let alone approach it. It’s extremely safe.

On the second day after the Earth King Beast settled in the tribe, the cold season finally arrived. On that night of its arrival, Yan Shuangshuang lay warmly sleeping under beast skins, on a bed of hot coals, dry grass, and beast skins.

On an average night, Yan Shuangshuang could sleep through without interruptions, waking up to a warm bed in the morning. However, in the late hours of this particular night, she was awoken by the cold, her body curling into a ball and shivering uncontrollably, knowing that the cold season had really come.

Unable to bear the cold, Yan Shuangshuang got up to pile several layers of beast skins beneath and over her. Even then, she couldn’t stop trembling from the cold—the cold season was truly too frigid.

It wasn’t just Yan Shuangshuang who was frozen awake; everyone in the tribe awoke from the cold, crawling up to search for thick, furry beast skin stored for warmth.

Some couldn’t endure the cold any longer and took out charcoal to light fires for warmth. Soon, several fires lit up in the cave, with everyone wrapped in thick beast skins, warming by the fires, finally feeling alive again.