The rise of the pervert primordial

Seeing all the others leaving, meaning that she was left alone with Aster, which is what her mother told her to strive for, Tiana couldn’t help but sigh to her insides, don’t misunderstand it’s not like she dislikes hanging around with Aster.

In fact, even though she won’t admit it, the truth is that she agrees with Erick, on the part that one can never get bored when Aster is around, being alone with him is what she is against, for the simple reason that all the teasing will be directed her way in those cases.

And as if to confirm the previous, Aster approached Tiana with an amused smile.

“Since miss Felicia put in so much effort so that we could have this “playdate”, why not enjoy it, how about you lead the hunt for our small team’s boar?”, he said which made Tiana softly snort to her insides.

‘What is he planning now…’, she thought to then say.

“Humph, fine, if you are going to mess with me anyway, I might as well make use of you, just don’t complain if you end up being used as boar’s bait”, Tiana did her best to sound as “cold” and serious as she could but her characterization was broken by Aster casually saying.

“That would be a shame, if I end up bedridden due to a boar’s charge, I won’t be able to forge a glaive for a certain someone who is quite picky when it comes to the type of spear she wields”.

“I’m not picky!”, immediately exclaimed Tiana, to then realize that she had lost her cool so easily.

‘Ughhh, this tease-loving bastard!’, she cursed to her insides, making Aster chuckle, for him, the funny part about teasing the girls is when their reactions go out of their normal attitude.

Tiana is very not like her carefree brother and mother, she probably wanted to be a responsible and reliable sister for Erick, but since that brother of his became quite an unrestrained guy as he grew up, she ended up being a bit too strict, in order to keep him under control.

That being said, Erick changed for the good when he befriended Aster and changed even more after meeting Sophia, she was strong enough to suppress that untamed personality of his, and so she didn’t need to be a strict older sister anymore.

The problem is that she didn’t know how to be at ease with anyone outside of her small family, until not too long ago when she though kind of against her will, became sparring partners and then friends with Alice and the others and she took another big step after that date without her mother’s presence.

How did Aster know all of that, it’s easy, Felicia told him and she also asked him to help that stubborn daughter of hers to act more like the young girl she is, of course it’s not only for personal development reasons, but for the sake of her soul path cultivation, she’ll have to face her spirit trial at some point after all.

Naturally Felicia gave Aster her bless to tease her as much as it was needed for it, so Aster of course accepted, and that’s what led us to the current situation where Aster was laughing at the poor energy constitution daughter whose face was slightly red out of embarrassment.

“Let’s make it interesting, leaving Guardian and that little girl’s team aside, if you hunt the biggest boar, then I’ll give you a reward”.

“Of course, if you lose, there has to be a little punishment, mmm let’s see, you’ll have to wear a cute frilly dress for our next date, no armor allowed”, said Aster which made Tiana’s right eyebrow twitch a bit.

“Knowing you, I’ll have to go on a date to get the reward as well and without my mother tagging along, right?”, she asked to which Aster chuckled in response.

“It wouldn’t be as fun otherwise”, he said without a second of hesitation, as if he was sure she’ll agree to another date without Felicia’s presence, meaning she couldn’t use the excuse of just following her mother around.

“Whatever… you’ll just find a way to mess with me if I don’t agree, so let’s go look for a boar”, ultimately mumbled Tiana to then set off without waiting for Aster to say anything in response, one had to give it to Tiana, she quite remembered the tracks Aster looked for when they first hunted boars, after only seeing him do it once.

For starters she looked at the trees in the vicinity until she found one that had broken branches and dried mud on it and after walking for a few hundreds of meters past it, they reached a slightly secluded part of the creek where there were noticeable accumulations of mud.

However, and very much for Tiana’s displease, though the zone perfectly matched with one that boars frequented, there was no boar in sight.

“Damn if only the vegetation wasn’t so thick I would be able to see…”, midway through her ow cursing, Tiana was reminded that she has a specialized “telescope” with her, so it would be foolish to not make use of it.

“Can you climb that tree and use those dangerous eyes of yours to look for a boar?”, she asked to Aster who nodded in response.

“Sure”, he said as he took out a couple of short axes out of the backpack to then throw them at the three, successfully making them get stuck on the three’s trunk at different heights.

What followed was pretty obvious, Aster jumped to then use the axes as steps, to then land on a branch which was thick enough to support his weight.

“How is it, is there a boar in the vicinity?”, asked Tiana from the ground to which Aster nodded as he pointed in a specific direction.

“I partially see one in that direction, it’s a bit far from here though”, he said as he descended from the tree to then retrieve the short axes.

And now the decision of whether going after that boar or looking for another one, fell on Tiana who was a bit indecisive.

‘We just need to hunt one so this finding is enough, however what if it’s not a big sized boar, leaving aside the whole dress thing, we need to get a certain amount of meat from it, for it to be worth the travel’, she thought.

Surprisingly Tiana, wasn’t as worried about losing the little game Aster proposed to her, at least not to the point of losing sight of her priorities, also maybe her senses aren’t as sharp as Mira or Aster’s ones, but she could hear some noises from the distance, meaning that the other groups had already started their hunt as well.

Which made sense, it took her some time to find her way to an area that matched the criteria she knew about.

“We’ll go for it, I thought of a way to make up for the time we lost looking for that boar”, she said as she gazed at Aster.

A few moments later, Aster found himself not too far from the boar he has partially seen from afar, the animal had just finished its meal and was now drinking water.

“Are you so against wearing a dress that you’d rather have me pierced by a boar’s tusks?”, jokingly said Aster, but he was met with silence.

“Sigh, what a cold-hearted girl”, added Aster as he grabbed a decent sized stone to then throw it at the boar, hitting it on the head.

“Squeal!”, having its water drinking time interrupted by a stone that came out of nowhere, and wounded its face forcing it close one of its eyes to prevent blood form entering it, the boar let out an angered sound as it charged in the direction from which the stone came, where a strange bipedal animal it has never seen before was.

Now, one might think that such a big animal that doesn’t look exactly athletic like a boar, would be slow, but in reality, boars have the capacity to get a short but explosive increase in speed, allowing them to rush at their target, in this case Aster.

However, and as fast as the boar was, Aster never lost track of it, but he also didn’t move because the one calling the shots was not him this time, that being said the boar looked closer and closer with each fraction of a second that passed.

It was not until pieces of rock which flew all over the place due to the boar’s heavy steps, reached Aster’s body that a voice coming from a bush near Aster, sounded.

“Now!”, following Tiana’s instructions Aster got out of the way on the spot, allowing the energy constitution daughter to come out of the bush with her wood spear pointed at the incoming boar, which tried to stop itself, but it was too late, the last thing the boar saw was another of those strange creatures, one that had longer hair of gray color, before it impaled itself with the wood spear, dying on the spot.

“Thud”, while Tiana rolled to the side in order to avoid the boar, the latter though dead still advanced a few meters to then clash against a tree, producing a solid sound as its tusks collided with the trunk of the tree, luckily the boar was already dead, if not that would have hurt for sure.

“Quite an interesting way to hunt a boar, not the most efficient but certainly it was quite fast”, said Aster as he approached the dead boar.

“Hahaha, of course I was the one that hunted it…”, while Tiana was enthusiastically celebrating the success of her plan, Aster didn’t forget to add.

“Though it was only possible due to the especially fast reactions of the “bait” you used”, he said which made Tiana pout.

“Humph, don’t try to steal the merit, its size is something else so no dress for me”, she said.

Tiana was right, this boar was quite bigger than the ones they had hunted before, as in it was around a third times larger than those and it was surprisingly a female, so it was quite the finding.

“Sure, sure, I just found it and played the most dangerous role, why would I fight for the credit with lady Tiana”, jokingly said Aster, which made Tiana’s face redden, truth to be told she indeed depended a bit too much on Aster to hunt the boar.

“Call me “Tia” like always…”, she mumbled while avoiding Aster’s eyes, it was brief but for a moment there, she acted as carefree as Erick and Aster got to see her smiling like back at their date.

Unfortunately, this nice moment was interrupted by the sound of leaves being violently pushed aside, as Erick who was dragging dead boar, appeared.

“Yo, brother Aster what’s taking you so long, is sis perhaps dragging you down?”, said Erick who though barely, managed to see Tiana acting all shy and couldn’t help but laugh.

“As expected of brother Ast… agh”, what Erick saw next was a fist that reached him before he could finish his sentence, sending him flying into the bush out of which he came, just in time for Sophia to catch him, so that he wouldn’t get in the way of the others that were also coming this way.

Needless to say, but every team had already finished their task and as expected the ones that caught the biggest boar, were none other than the little wyrm and Guardian, the boar that the little wyrm was happily carrying around with her tail was almost half times bigger than the ones they had hunted before.

Aster knew such was going to be case, because Guardian is the expert in this terrain so finding the better prey was a given for her, and the little wyrm was an excellent hunter, so catching it was a given for her.

Tiana was not worried about her brother, because she knew he lacked the patience to look for an especially large target and would just go for any boar he saw, and she was right the boar Erick dragged alongside him was of the same size as the one they had caught before, so the one she was actually worried about was the one that Agnes and Nina would catch.

But after a quick dissimulated gaze in their way, Tiana’s eyes sparkled as she saw that their boar was only around a fourth part larger than the ones they caught before, in other words she had won the game.

And before her composed and serious self could react, she turned to see Aster while proudly smiling at him, only to realize it a second later.

“Ahem, we are also finished on our end”, said Tiana as she regained her composure, not without Aster softly laughing at her cute honest reaction, that being said and feeling the “I’ll kill you if you say anything” glare of Tiana, Aster decided to stop here for today, both when it came to making a certain stubborn energy constitution girl relax a bit and the food and resource gathering matter as well, though there were still a couple of hours of daylight left.

The reason behind of it is that not only did Vivian and the others practically overloaded their backpacks with herbs, meaning that the herb gathering area that Guardian had presented to them, was incredibly good.

But the lynx herself also brought an extra boar which she dragged by its neck, so there was more than enough meat for tonight’s dinner, and there will even be leftover for tomorrow’s lunch, since they had five boars in total and except Erick’s one, all the others were larger than the first ones they had caught.

It’s worth mentioning that all they were female boars, apparently Guardian supported the idea of focusing on the female members of the race, because the vast majority of boars in the forest were females and unlike other animals, if the mother dies, another female boar will adopt her babies.

Also, she was interested in the fact that according to Aster, a dish prepared out of the meat of a female boar, will have much softer taste than that of a male boar, apparently the lynx didn’t think in something such as the “taste” of her food before, besides not eating what she thought will make her sick, she wasn’t particularly picky.

But now that Aster mentioned it, she couldn’t help but wonder if the slight displease, she developed for gory and excessive blood in her food, was because of a change in her sense of taste.

“It will be tiring for you to carry that boar all the way to the snake’s area like that, here let me help you”, said Aster as he approached Guardian and after tying a bag around its head, to prevent blood from leaking, secured the boar on the lynx’s back, all this while Vivian felt disappointed knowing that she won’t be able to ride Guardian on their way back, as well, very much to Aster’s amusement.

“There you go, let’s hurry back to the snake’s area, I leave calling them to take the innards and parts that we don’t need to you”, said Aster to the little wyrm who nodded in response, unlike Guardian, Espi could use her tail to carry the boar without it interfering with her movements.

The others had already hanged the boars upwards using the spears as support, like Aster had explained to them, so the group was now ready to go.

…

The way back to the camp went on quite uneventfully, besides the fact that Guardian was interested in seeing how Aster skinned and butchered the boar to make it easier for consumption, as an example so that the other members of the group could imitate him with their respective boars, well, except the little wyrm and the lynx of course, whose boars were processed by Aster.

After the snakes happily left with the parts that Aster and the others didn’t need, the group came out from the forest without those large boars on view, but backpacks with containers full of meat, instead.

They actually came out just in time to see the girls from the sect making their last travel back to the camp with a load of fruit that was being transported way more easily, thanks to the filly lending a hand.

“Hello senior brother, are you back for good this time?”, asked one of the girls, to which Aster nodded in response.

“Yeah, I want everyone to remain near the camp before the sun starts going down this time, so I came back earlier too”, he said, to which those girl’s eyes sparkled, that meant they’ll get to spend a bit more time with Aster today.

As if he knew what they were thinking, Aster didn’t forget to say.

“Sorry but today I’ll use all the leftover daylight in a lesson for the girls from the Blacksmith peak”, seeing their cute slightly disappointed expressions, he added.

“That being said and if you finish your assigned tasks early, you are all welcomed to watch so long as you give space for the ones taking the lesson”.

“Mm~”, with bright smiles on their pretty faces, those girls rushed back to the camp, leaving behind the filly who was calmly transporting a part of the fruit they had gathered, apparently, they still had a few things to take care of and wanted to finish as soon as possible.

“Sister Valentina is going to scold you for making them get tired earlier than yesterday”, said Agnes, to which Aster shrugged in response.

“Tomorrow we’ll stay in the vicinity, so it’s better if they go to bed early and get up earlier, since we have a lot of things to do”, he said, which made Agnes’s eyes sparkle as she said.

“I see, in that case I hope you don’t mind giving me some of your time tomorrow”.

“Sure, I was going to ask you to help me with a little something anyway”, said Aster making Agnes softly smile in response.

Surprisingly, this time the girls of the sect didn’t come in swarms to welcome Aster, but it was for a good reason, those girls that were returning from fruit gathering earlier, had already spread the word about Aster opening the lesson he was giving for everyone who wanted to see, so long as they didn’t get in the way of the girls from the blacksmith peak, who will be the focus of it, so those girls were rushing here and there without even taking a break to greet their beloved senior brother, it was a strange situation of Aster losing against himself in a sense.

“Let’s hand over the meat to Sarina and the other girls that will help prepare dinner, after that you are all free”, said Aster to the members of today’s exploration group.

“Woah, how much are you planning to feed those girls”, said Sarina as she saw container after container filled to the brim with boar’s meet as well as bag after back of herbs and potatoes being placed on the table near the cooking area.

To which Aster pecked the blond motherly woman’s right cheek as he said.

“Sorry for the extra work, tomorrow we’ll be staying here so I brought extra meat for tomorrow’s meals”, he didn’t forget to whisper a few extra words to Sarina, which were impossible for others to hear, but made Sarina’s face redden on the spot.

Naturally the previous drew the attention of all the girls that were helping Sarina, and she knew this will be their gossiping material for the incoming days, she could already hear them whisper among themselves and of course she knew Aster did it on purpose to tease her.

“Fine, fine, just leave already, you are distracting my girls”, said Sarina as she “shooed” Aster away, to then turn to see the girls working with her today.

“It seems like I was being too soft on you, since you have the time to chit chat”, she said with a smile that wasn’t a smile.

While those poor girls were receiving a bit of “tough love” from Sarina, Aster and the exploration team parted ways, with the exception of the little wyrm and surprisingly Guardian who instead of going to watch over the horses, that were still sleeping since the energizing drug’s effect had ended, wanted to tag along and see what the routine of the leader of a human settlement which she was visiting for the first time, was like.

Though she’ll only be observing since Mira had left to the shore of the lake, as she wanted to see how the girls whom she taught how to fish were doing and catch a fish or two as well, meaning that there won’t be anyone to properly translate between them, though conveying simple messages should still be possible for them.