Chapter 349: It Was a Back Scratcher
Ren stiffened on the flat wooden boards of the boat. The cozy, warm bubble they had just formed popped in a single instant.
"Vex," Ren warned, her voice dropping an octave as she stared up into the misty fog. "What was that?"
"Whatever do you mean, Little Rose?" Vex mumbled lazily, his breath tickling the back of her neck.
Ren rolled her eyes in the dark, her cheeks flushing hot. "You know exactly what I am talking about. What is poking me?"
"Poking you?" Vex repeated, his tone the very picture of feigned innocence. "I am sure I have no idea what you mean."
Ren felt her face burn with a mix of embarrassment and sheer outrage. He was playing dumb. She knew he was playing dumb. This sneaky, perverted fox could not be trusted for a single second. She had laid down a very clear boundary, and he was already trying to cross it.
Without giving him a chance to retreat, Ren reached her hand behind her, slipping her arm between their pressed bodies. She intended to tightly, furiously grab what she was certain was Vex’s arrogant cock and give it a warning squeeze he would never forget.
Her fingers closed around the offending object.
She paused.
It was rough. It had peeling bark. It was... splintery.
Ren frowned, her brain short-circuiting in the dark. She squeezed it again. It didn’t flinch.
"Vex," Ren said slowly, pulling the object out from between them and holding it up in the pale moonlight. "Why is there a stick?"
It was a literal piece of dead wood, roughly the size of a ruler.
Vex chuckled. "Oh, my bad. I forgot I stuck a stick in the waistband of my loincloth earlier."
Ren stared at the twig in her hand, baffled. "Why? Why do you have a stick in your loincloth?"
Vex casually reached over, plucked the stick from her grasp, and tossed it over the side of the boat. It hit the murky swamp water with a soft splash.
"I was using it to scratch my back," Vex explained simply, wrapping his arm around her waist again and pulling her back closer to his chest. "It is very hard to reach between the shoulder blades, you see."
Ren let out a sigh. She dropped her head back against his chest, trying to settle back into comfort. But the sudden spike of adrenaline from the brief misunderstanding had woken her up completely. Her mind was racing with thoughts now, jumping rapidly from one chaotic topic to the next.
Her thoughts drifted away from the dark swamp and landed on Kael.
How was the white tiger doing while she was in Syris’s palace? Had he been eating well? She hoped he wasn’t starving himself or getting into unnecessary fights with the other beastmen at the village. She missed his fluffy white ears and his fierce, golden gaze.
It was then that a realization hit her. Ren remembered that Vex never actually told her if he knew how to help Kael get his beast form back. The fox had danced around the topic, but he had never given her a straight answer.
"Vex," Ren whispered, poking his arm. "Are you asleep?"
"I was trying to be," Vex mumbled, a hint of genuine fatigue in his voice.
"You never told me about Kael," Ren pressed, twisting slightly to look at him over her shoulder. "Do you know how to fix his beast form or not?"
Vex groaned, a drawn-out sound of annoyance.
"Don’t give me that," Ren scolded, refusing to back down. "I helped you out many times with Vara. I kept the fact that you were hiding in the castle a secret from everyone. I even saved you from being executed by Syris’s giant axe just a few hours ago! You owe me now, so you have to tell me."
Vex yawned loudly. "Can it wait until morning, Little Rose? Some of us are actually tired."
"No," Ren insisted stubbornly. "I want to know now."
Vex let out another sigh, realizing she was not going to let him sleep in peace until he spoke. He pulled her closer into his embrace, resting his chin softly on top of her red hair.
"Very well," Vex whispered, his voice dropping into a serious, mysterious register. "Listen closely."
Ren perked up, her ears straining to catch every single word.
Vex began to speak in a low whisper. "Long ago, when the first rain fell on the giant toad of the eastern plains, the toad looked up and said to the jumping grasshopper..."
Ren frowned. "What?"
"...and the grasshopper told the toad that the shiny pebbles in the river were actually the teeth of a very confused badger," Vex babbled on, his voice incredibly soothing but the words forming a massive pile of pure nonsense. "But the badger didn’t want his teeth, you see. He wanted a nice bowl of fermented berry juice..."
Ren laid there, trying her best to keep up with what he was saying. She tried to find the hidden metaphor, the secret meaning buried in the fable. But it just sounded like a bunch of random nonsense.
"...and so the grasshopper jumped over the moon, but his little legs got tired..." Vex’s voice grew softer, his words slowly slurring together. "...and the badger went to sleep... just... like... zzzzz."
He fell asleep mid-sentence.
Ren stared into the darkness, her mouth hanging open. She let out a frustrated huff, blowing a stray strand of red hair out of her face.
He wasted all that time saying nonsense just to put himself to sleep!
’Useless fox,’ Ren thought to herself, resisting the urge to elbow him in the ribs.
But the question still lingered in her mind. Maybe what Kael needed was a magical flower too. Just like the one she was going to find in the Northern Mountains to have her be able to get pregnant. The system had given her that specific quest, pointing her toward a mystical cure for her barren state. If a rare mountain flower could fix her womb, maybe a different magical plant could fix a broken beast . She just had to figure out what it was.
Ren wasn’t tired at all. Her green eyes were wide open, staring at the misty fog drifting lazily above the boat.
Despite Vex’s annoying antics and his refusal to give her a straight answer, him being this close to her made her feel a bit better. His steady body heat and the gentle rise and fall of his chest made her feel much less scared of the creepy swamp around them. Besides, she joked with herself in her head, if a swamp monster attacked the boat right now, she could just throw Vex at it as a distraction and escape.
Still, the eerie clicking and splashing of the swamp kept her nerves on edge. She needed to calm down.
Food. Food was her happy place. Thinking about a perfectly prepped kitchen and beautifully plated meals always brought her heart rate down.
Ren closed her eyes and mentally retreated to her stainless-steel haven. She began to list the top ten greatest dishes she had ever cooked, letting the phantom aromas wash over her.
First was the classic, pan-seared A5 Wagyu beef with a sharp blackberry gastrique. The sear was flawless, the fat melting on the tongue like savory butter.
Number two was her rich, fiercely spicy Jamaican jerk pork belly. She had slow-roasted the meat until the fat rendered down perfectly, the fiery scotch bonnet heat balanced by a sweet, cooling mango chutney glaze that caramelized beautifully under the broiler.
Third was her delicate, citrus-cured Peruvian ceviche. Fresh, translucent white fish swimming in a spicy tiger’s milk, paired with the perfect textural crunch of giant corn and the smooth sweetness of roasted sweet potato.
She drifted to number four: a butter-poached lobster tail resting on a bed of creamy, earthy truffle risotto. Then came a smoky, wok-tossed Lomo Saltado, the beef tenderized to melt-in-the-mouth perfection, dripping with savory soy and aji amarillo heat. Next was an authentic plate of Jamaican ackee and saltfish, vibrant and savory, served with the crispiest, golden-fried plantains.
Her mind supplied the mouth-watering visuals of a twenty-four-hour slow-smoked brisket, a fragrant saffron seafood bouillabaisse, a perfectly fried soft-shell crab that cracked audibly when bitten, and finally, a towering, multi-layered chocolate hazelnut entremet that shone like a dark mirror.
With the silence of the night pressing in, Ren’s mind wandered back to the dream.
She thought back to it again and again.
Why was she basically forced to remember that specific memory? Why had her mind conjured something so vivid and alien while she was unconscious? Was her subconscious trying to clue her in on something important?
Ren shivered, pulling her knees a little tighter to her chest, disturbing Vex’s tails slightly.
She feared her current existence was someone’s game. After all, her life had actual blue screens, floating text, and quests popping up just like in a video game. It felt too structured. The tiny Japanese woman in the restaurant had literally given her a mission.
What happens after she cures the feral madness?
The thought hit her like a bucket of freezing water. If she was brought here for a specific purpose to save the beastmen, what happens when the job is done? Will she just disappear? Will she be sent back to her world, leaving Kael, Syris, Altair, and even this infuriating fox behind?
Ren felt nervous about the entire thing. Her stomach tied itself into a tight knot.
Things in the dark were coming to the light, and that scared her.