On the eleventh day, Black-and-White Bear made his way through the maze of mountain ridges.
The forests of the Minicia Kingdom held many ancient trees. They blocked most of the sunlight, leaving the air damp and heavy, filled with the mingled smells of rotting vegetation and some wild beast's den.
Slippery moss and tangled roots lay underfoot, forcing Black-and-White Bear to tread carefully with every step lest he fall.
Still, entering a forest like this had its advantages... at least Black-and-White Bear no longer had to worry about starving. There were plenty of edible plants and animals here.
Normally, searching for a group of people deliberately hiding in these treacherous mountains would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Black-and-White Bear had prepared himself for a lengthy search.
That was why he had deliberately bought a generous supply of coarse salt at the Black Market in White Rock City, so he would not find himself stranded without any.
Yet fate seemed to have played a little joke on him.
Just as he pushed aside an unusually thick cluster of bushes hung with water droplets to scout ahead, the view suddenly opened up. Before him lay a small, relatively level forest clearing, where vines and fungi covered several enormous fallen trees.
And at the edge of the clearing, behind a low bush bearing some kind of red berries...
A very conspicuous pair of round, full female buttocks stuck out, wrapped in dirty, faded fabric that was still recognizably fine linen.
The owner of those upturned buttocks seemed utterly absorbed in her task, clearly working hard to pick ripe berries from deep within the bush.
Black-and-White Bear stopped dead.
Beneath his hood, his initial astonishment gave way to an involuntary twitch of his lips, finally settling into an expression caught