151 A Week And A Half After, Exploring The Jungle
—–
After a week and a half since then, we were back in Aquarina’s tribe, as we found ourselves wandering around the jungle. We were mostly looking for the woman that we had meet before, which we had made of a misunderstanding a bit, that was the Skin-changer capable of becoming a beast at will by some strange sort of magic innate to her race.
That was, of course, Ninhursag! This woman was very mysterious, although my parents and Aquarina’s parents apparently knew about her, what they knew was always quite vague, so I always wondered what more was there for her in store.
I know they had said she once accompanied them in their travels and more, but it has been a long time since then… And well, although Zack had been encountering her occasionally in the jungle, I had not seen her again since our first meeting, nor Aquarina.
It seems that the woman got some sort of fixation for Zack, I remember she had said something about protecting him since he was a child. The whole story behind Zack was always intriguing to me, how by a demon attack, his parents died and all, and how he ended escaping the tribe or something, and lived for almost two years in the wild as a toddler…
I suppose she always looked over him while he never noticed… Maybe she developed some motherly instincts on the young boy, it wouldn’t surprise me if I were to know she thought of herself as her adoptive mother, although, seeing how her personality was back then, she might never admit it, nor Zack would accept it.
But the best way to learn about things such as these is by asking him directly, right?
We had been traveling around the jungle near the dungeon for almost an hour, so we took a small break to drink some water.
“Phew, we haven’t encountered any monster yet…” sighed Aquarina.
…..
“Yeah, where could Ninhursag be? Does she only lives past the barrier? So we’ll have to go through it…” I said.
The dungeon was located within the barrier, but because the dummy of Furoh ran away from me in that time, he ended getting out of the barrier and I had to chase him out of it, only for us to be greeted by Ninhursag, who immediately saw Furoh as a threat she had to eliminate.
So, based in that we encountered her outside, she most likely lives outside, right? I would guess she has a life in nature… Doesn’t seem so bad to be honest, it looks like it would be quite fun.
“Yeah, I think she lives past the barrier, every time I find her, is past the barrier. She is a lot like a wild beast, always saying she guards her “territory” from other beasts… It could be said she’s always guarding the village from any potential danger.” Said Zack.
“I see… You know a lot about her, don’t you?” I asked with a teasing smile.
“Eh?! W-What do you mean by that? Of course I know about her…” he said.
“Of course? Care to explain in detail? I am pretty bored, so I am up for a larger conversation!” I said.
“Yeah, spit the beans.” Said Aquarina while nodding at my side.
“Aquarina, its spill the beans.” I said.
“Oh! Yeah, that!” said Aquarina.
Zack felt the pressure of our intense glares and sighed.
“W-Well, what can I say? I kind of know her for a while… but back then when you first meet her with the demon incident, I didn’t recognized her for a while… She was also annoyingly attacking me with lighting because she likes to tease me or something…” sighed Zack.
“Oh? Care to explain this teasing?” I wondered.
“Yeah, why was she doing that?” asked Aquarina.
“Ugh… After that meeting, I’ve meet her again occasionally here and there, the other day I was hunting a Shadow Stalker myself, I was winning but she suddenly showed up and killed it. She showed up in the form of a large gray wolf, so I thought it wanted to steal my prey, but she quickly went back to her normal form and surprised me…” he sighed.
“Oh… I guess she might be looking over you.” I said.
“Y-You think so?” asked Zack.
“Isn’t it kind of obvious?” asked Aquarina while raising an eyebrow.
“O-Obvious?! I never thought about it in such a way before… I think it was just coincidence… But I do recall having a lot of encounters with mildly friendly animals… Wait, could they all had been her?!” wondered Zack.
Suddenly, the boy looked at us as if he had realized something quite crucial…
“Yeah, I think she might had been looking over you since you were a kid.” I said.
“T-There’s no way…” he said.
“Hey, but you’ve barely spoken enough… What else do you know?” wondered Aquarina.
“Well… the other day I was wandering around looking for strawberries to eat, and when I found a new fruit with a strange purple color, a large crow stopped me from eating them, grabbing the fruits and splattering them in the ground while crying angrily at me…” said Zack.
“Oh… she was Ninhursag, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I-I don’t know, but that crow really annoyed me, so I ran away… I feared that it would bring more friends and they would all begin to shit over me or something…” sighed Zack.
“Hahaha! That would had been funny to see!” said Aquarina.
“Ugh, shut up, shrimp…” sighed Zack.
“Who are you calling shrimp, gorilla?!” roared Aquarina.
“G-Gorilla?! Is that my new nickname?” asked Zack with an angered expression.
“You’re a brutish gorilla!” said Aquarina while crossing her arms and furrowing her eyebrows.
I petted her head and caressed her shoulder.
“Aquarina calm down, don’t get so overly aggressive… Also, Zack, stop calling her a shrimp.” I said.
“…Sigh. Okay…” sighed Zack while averting his gaze.
“O-Only because you ask me, Sylphy…” said Aquarina.
Seriously, these children…
—–