"Bloop... bloop bloop... bloop bloop bloop..."
In the boiling hot broth, tender, mouthwatering large bones, chunks of meat, and mushrooms rolled about, gleaming with rich, savory colors.
"Gulp!"
At that moment, inside this hidden, enormous tree hollow, Hada Anna sat beside a large pot seemingly pieced together from small iron plates, its enticing aroma of meat filling the air. She swallowed hard.
This girl...
Meanwhile, Hada Ryuhiko gently stirred the pot with a ladle made from a wooden branch, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his lips.
It was as if seeing Anna like this was enough to satisfy him completely.
Thank goodness!
They had been so lucky to find drinkable water before nightfall. At last, he could fill Anna's stomach.
Still smiling, he glanced from the corner of his eye toward the stream trickling past outside the tree hollow, quiet and tranquil.
Although the stream looked black in the dimness here, the sound of its flowing water gave him a considerable sense of security. The sound of water always seemed to bring people an inexplicable calm.
I wonder how everyone else is doing?
After that glance, deep concern flickered through his heart.
Judging from the change in light, it was clearly much darker than when they had first entered. Considering the time they had entered, it should be evening now, or close to it. They had been in here for several hours already. The others from Kusagakure had probably suffered unavoidable attacks. In any case, in this tangled forest known as the Death Forest, encountering danger was practically a certainty.
By now, the others had surely encountered all kinds of dangers as well.
To Hada Ryuhiko, although he usually acted like a boy who knew nothing of the world, some people—some geniuses, some prodigies—were not as simple