165 – Parenting(3)
Even being raised by Chester and Monia, Rex is clearly a top man. What that means is, I like strong things. I like to hunt something.
“A baby who doesn’t know anything likes to hunt, is this an instinct… … .”
“Sometimes a black wind comes and takes care of Rex.
“You’re ruining our child… … !”
“It’s not our kid, it’s the Black Wind kid.”
“Parents who raise children in the wrong way cannot be called parents!”
Could that be something from Monia’s experiences? He could guess that, so Chester didn’t say anything, and after that, Monia complained to the black wind.
“In the first place! Why are you treating him so roughly!”
‘It looks rough to us, but it must be at an appropriate level for them.’
“Didn’t you see Rex cry while playing with the black wind?!”
‘When you’re angry, the respectful words increase… … .’
“That’s not crying.”
“I cried!”
‘I didn’t cry. I just mistook you for crying.’
At that time, Rex didn’t cry, but because he liked it because it was fun, he made a fuss. However, as she likes to cry as if she is screaming, Monia still knows that Rex screamed and cried while playing with the black wind.
Monia will know that the truth is not like that. Just blindfolded.
‘It was like that when I just picked up Ant.’
What kind of reaction is she trying to show if she gives birth to her own baby? Chester was slightly afraid of the future that had yet to come.
Even if the future is frightening, that’s an afterthought. Chester decided to focus on the now, and looked around for signs of the creature.
Unremembered broken tree branch. Look at the height of the broken tree branch and roughly guess the size of the creature. Using my foot, I moved the branch very slightly, revealing that under it was some recently released feces.
“Monia.”
“yes.”
“What do you think?”
The drifting island leaves almost no traces of footprints because of the piled up leaves. That is why it is important not to miss the very faint traces.
Chester, who was looking at the scattered leaves, asked a question, and Monia similarly looked at the traces and brought out what she had thought of.
“First of all, it’s not a rabbit. The leaves are too tough, so it’s not the rabbit’s preferred grass.”
“right.”
“I wonder if it is a turtle, but there are few traces left around it to say so. Turtles are slow and drag their shells on the ground, so they leave big marks. The tree branch wouldn’t have broken just like that.”
“answer.”
“Is it a bird? If it were a bird, wouldn’t it leave a trace? Not carnivores. There are signs of eating leaves. Did you have a bowel movement immediately after eating? Then it’s not even a large herbivore. It’s not a rabbit, but it’s small, but its teeth are strong enough to eat tough leaves, and it’s heavy enough to leave traces.”
Monia recalled each of the beasts on the lower floor of the floating island she knew. Among them, herbivores, animals that can eat tough leaves there too.
While the number of candidates was steadily decreasing, Chester looked at the trails that followed and finished calculating where to move.
“… … Could this be it?”
Monia tried to put the identity of the animal in her mouth slightly uneasy. I tried to choose one of the last two candidates, but I couldn’t figure out at all, so I ended up choosing either one.
Monia chose a rabbit mouse. Named by Chester, it is a rat with a large body like a rabbit.
They cut tough leaves into their mouths with their sharp front teeth, then crush them with their large, strong molars before eating them. Since digestion is fast, traces of defecation are always left after a meal.
Chester pointed somewhere, saying that Monia’s answer was correct.
“Rabbit mice detect vibrations with their tails. Especially when eating, it constantly moves its tail to detect danger around it. So, if you look carefully at the place where the rabbits and rats ate… … .”
Chester pointed to the strange scattering of leaves. A place under the top pile of leaves, revealing a little bit of a deeper layer of brown rotting leaves, and new leaves just beginning to pile up on top.
“There is a place like this.”
“Aha.”
“And the fact that there is this means that the rabbit is right around the corner.”
“If a lot of time had passed, all the traces would have been covered with new leaves, right?”
“right. Come on, let’s chase. Rabbits and rats can catch five or six at a time if they’re good.”
Chester and Monia follow the rabbit’s trail and begin their pursuit.
Rabbits live in burrows. Not only rabbits and ant wolves, many of the animals on this island live in burrows. This is because in order to withstand the rapidly changing weather, it is best to dig into the ground that is less affected by climate change.
In addition, because of the abundance of food, even if not as much as the upper floor, competition for food is rare, so strange situations often occur. Sometimes two or three kinds of animals can be found in one burrow, and even four or five kinds of animals can be found at once.
It’s not easy to follow the trail. As I said a while ago, traces quickly disappear due to the nature of the island. But Chester lived on the island for over a year, learning to follow the tracks of the animals on this wandering island.
Before long, Chester discovered an ‘entrance’ created by a pile of sticks and stones and a natural leaf covering on top.
Just as a bird gathers twigs to build a nest, or a beaver gathers trees to build a dam, construction is done on the layer with leaves to dig a burrow while damaging the leaves piled high on the ground.
Chester nodded, and Monia and Ant naturally looked for another entrance. Monia found one and Ant found three, and they went straight to work.
How to catch creatures that live in burrows? First of all, it starts by blocking all the burrows they dug, leaving only one. They lightly plugged the tunnel by bringing a rather heavy stone and passing it a little over the entrance to the tunnel and placing it at the beginning of the tunnel.
Next, make a fire. The important thing here is to make sure that the fire doesn’t migrate to the leaf layer and burn the forest.
After gathering a lot of living leaves on the end of a long stick and making a fire, Chester confirmed that the smoke was gushing out, then aimed at the entrance of the burrow and poked it deep.
After a while, smoke began to flow from the entrance to the cave where Chester was waiting and the entrance to the cave blocked by a stone block.
At first, the animals in the den, which escaped through another entrance to avoid the smoke start, despaired once inside the entrance blocked by a stone mass, and then tried to escape through the dangerous hole where the smoke had just started.
– Chiyi! Tzuyi!
Chester’s machete shreds the air as a rabbit rat screamed out of its burrow.
Just as it was rushing in, the rabbit ran into the machete and flew into the sky spraying blood.
Soon other rabbit rats started jumping out too, and Chester pointed at one as he had just done.
“yes!”
Rex responded excitedly and threw the stone he was holding with his arm.
– Kiek!
While one of the rats was knocked down by a stone thrown by Rex, Chester spun the slingshot and fired the stone, pointing at another rabbit.
Chester fired a stone that spun and flew, then turned and went around a tree to attack a rabbit, and another stone thrown by Rex smashed the head of a nearby rabbit.
While catching the four, there is a rabbit that ran away.
Chester was about to shoot his bow, but threw a stone at Rex and pointed at the rabbit’s ear.
Rex jumped up and stepped on Chester’s shoulder and head, grabbed the stone Chester had thrown him, and moved his whole body to throw the stone in the way Chester had taught him.
The rabbit-rat ran really hard. I ran and ran desperately as I heard other family members dying.
At the moment when he thought he had run away and survived with a little relief, the rat’s consciousness sank into darkness as his spine was shattered by a stone flying from behind.
“… … Hmm.”
After catching the last rabbit, Chester looked around.
“What do you think?”
Then, I asked Monia, who took a step back and watched the hunting process.
“Uh, that.”
Embarrassed for a moment, Monia looked at Rex and said.
“I think you will be more helpful than me.”
In response to Monia’s evaluation, which sounded a bit intimidated, Chester hugged her, saying it was okay.
“No, you are more helpful.”
“really?”
“yes.”
“really? really?”
“yes. really.”
As Chester suddenly hugged Monia and said something, Rex, who had been watching it, smiled broadly and hugged Mom and Dad’s heads with both of his arms.
“Sara!”
And since I was born with awkward words, I said the words I heard the most from my parents.
“Five!”
“… … !”
After Rex’s sudden confession of love, Chester and Monia were startled and burst into laughter as they looked at each other.