Chapter 123: What Happened To The Water?
What followed was the most enthusiastic meal the Glimmer Pack had ever consumed.
The wolves tore through the roasted meat faster than they had ever eaten their raw portions, and they ate in their human forms to savour every bite rather than gulping it down in beast form.
It had taken Tera over an hour to roast the remaining raw meat, and when it ran out, another animal had to be killed, and Tera had noticed it was a different breed from the others, stockier and darker-furred, and for something that looked close to a hairy boar, it had amazing meat which even tasted richer than what she had been roasting earlier.
The meat had been rinsed with the little water they had from the water skins. The wolves had also watched Tera work with an intensity that bordered on reverence, and she had been painfully aware of how much they were relying on her in that moment.
Tera had pushed for the females to be especially well fed. They were frail, far more than they should have been, and their bodies were carrying the future of the pack. She had made sure they received the largest portions, and the tenderest cuts.
The females had been very surprised. No one had prioritised their portions to this extent before, and this made them warm up to Tera slightly.
[Host is currying favour with the females]
[(¬‿¬)]
Tera was shocked. She had not realised what she was doing.
’I am not! I just noticed they were not eating enough. They are pregnant, for God’s sake!’
It was obvious from what she had just seen that the cubs’ feeding was mostly prioritised, but the females were just as important too. Especially since they were pregnant and nursing.
[This system is not judging]
[This system is merely observing that Host’s instinct to care for pregnant females happens to perfectly align with the task requirement of winning over key pack members]
[How convenient]
Tera rolled her eyes. ’Oh, quit it. I genuinely didn’t even think about the task.’
[This system chooses to believe Host]
[(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧]
The elder wolves had been a different story. A cluster of them, led by Greymaw, had stubbornly refused to touch the roasted meat.
Including one particular male who she discovered was Greymaw’s son. But it was very funny watching him salivate as he watched the other wolves eat their roasted meat.
"We are full!" Greymaw had announced.
And the elder wolves’ attempts to dissuade the younger wolves from eating had failed spectacularly. One elder had even delivered a passionate speech about tradition and the dangers of outsider influence to an audience of exactly zero wolves, all of whom were already busy eating.
In the end, seven of the nineteen elderly wolves had quietly joined the meal, some of them trying to eat discreetly behind trees as if the others wouldn’t notice.
They were even licking their fingers too.
By the time the last scrap of meat had been consumed and every bone had been gnawed clean, the fire was dying down. Tera had carefully smothered it with damp earth, making a point of showing the wolves how to safely extinguish it.
Tera collapsed against a tree, sweaty and exhausted. Her arms ached from turning the meat, even though Calis had helped for most of it, but she was also thirsty after eating such a large meal.
The pack settled around her in their usual clusters, but the arrangement had shifted. More wolves were facing her direction now. Cubs had migrated closer to where she sat. The females’ group had moved several paces nearer than before, but Tera barely even noticed.
Calis came to hand her a nearly empty water skin.
She frowned and looked around. The other water skins being passed between wolves concerned her, especially with how they were rationing their sips and drinking only enough to wet their mouths before passing it on.
"This is small. How often do you refill these?" Tera asked him.
Calis shrugged. "Sometimes. You will have to manage until the next rainfall. The pond has dried up."
"Dried up what?"
Calis frowned, confused by her reaction.
Tera looked at the soggy ground beneath her feet.
The air here was humid, and the soil was soft due to the excess moisture. How could a place this wet have no flowing water?
Yes, she understood the apocalypse had thrashed the climate of many regions, and the sun here was not so strong that it was rapidly evaporating the moisture, so there ought to be a water source somewhere.
And it had to be close too, so how could they lack water?
She looked back at the wolves, studying them with even clearer eyes. Now a part of the females’ exhaustion made sense. Sure, tending to cubs and delivering was a whole lot, but even after eating, Tera realised that they were also dehydrated.
One female in particular was struggling to breastfeed another newborn.
’Good Lord! No wonder they look like that!’
’System. I need a full terrain scan. I want to see every water source, stream bed, and drainage path.’
[Scanning...]
’I also want to see a visualisation.’
The map bloomed across her vision, and Tera’s eyes narrowed as everything added up.
She saw the pond Calis was talking about, and it was very close, but she also noticed a stream path winding from higher up and passing directly through the dried-up pond.
It was the same stream network that fed the Dow clan’s territory.
’Why is it dry?’
[The primary water source appears to have been disrupted]
The system focused on a region that was slightly farther away, and she saw how the stream’s path was cut off by something.
[Analysing subsurface data...]
[The stream encountered a limestone shelf up ahead]
[Cracks in the limestone have created a sinkhole]
[Surface water is draining underground into a cavern system beneath the limestone]
[A lot of it is also leaking directly into the soil]
[(⊙_⊙)]
[The water has been flowing underground instead of continuing along the surface]
’Whoa...’
A thought was already forming in Tera’s head, but she wanted to be sure of one thing.
’How long has this been going on?’
[This system estimates the sinkhole formed roughly seven years ago]
’SEVEN YEARS?!’
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Note: For the mass releases this week, I left the details in the review section. The bonus Chapters are added to daily Chapter upload.