A Guide to Raising Your Natural Enemy

2. Fallen Beast Edgar

Shu Shu was standing on a branch, constantly plucking the fruits of the tree.

After peeling the thorny outer shell of the fruit, as soon as the ping-pong ball-sized chestnut was on his hand, Shu Shu stuffed it into his mouth, then another one, then another one again.... His mouth was like a bottomless pit, he could cram in ten chestnuts in the blink of an eye.

This was Shu Shu\'s natural skill.

Hamsters had food pouch on their cheeks. When he had just been an ordinary hamster, he had been able to put a lot of food in it. Later, he began to cultivate and he could put more and more things in. You couldn’t see it from outside, and he also didn’t feel the weight.

By now, he could already put hundreds of catties of food in his food pouches!

Shu Shu kept stuffing his mouth with chestnuts. Although he couldn\'t use magical power now, but his natural skill was still there, and he depended on it. He finally collected enough food.

There were many more chestnuts ahead! Eyes bright, Shu Shu slowly crawled forwards onto a small branch, picking chestnuts and carrying on with stuffing his mouth… stuffing and stuffing. Suddenly, he felt something was wrong.

A small, dark green snake as thick as a finger was wound around the branch in front of Shu Shu. The snake was staring at Shu Shu coldly, then it extend its body forward and forward.

"Ah ah ah ah ah!" Shu Shuke couldn\'t stop himself from screaming the place down. His shrieks made all the little animals in this part of forest to suddenly disperse and flee in chaos.

Shu Shu jumped from one tree to another. He was just like those little animals, fleeing in haste back to his cave. Unexpectedly, at this moment, the underbrush beside him was swaying and shaking, and then, a snake head that must have been bigger than his own head came out of the underbrush.

This was the biggest snake he had ever seen in his life!

In this world, there’s actually such a big snake!

How scary, ah ah ah ah!

Seeing the big snake, Shu Shu screamed again, but the sound didn’t come out. His eyes rolled back and he fell face first onto the ground, motionless and stiff.

Edgar quickly moved his body toward Shu Shu\'s face and examined Shu Shu anxiously. After he’d unexpectedly discovered that a little sub beastman was living in this area, he drove out the more dangerous animals in this area. He wouldn’t let this little sub beastman get hurt; what\'s wrong with him?

The little sub beastman was stiff all over and he’s not breathing. Was he... dead?

Edgar\'s huge snake body trembled. The whole man... no, the whole snake was chilled.

After his beast core had been shattered, he had not been able to turn into human form anymore, and he had become a fallen beast rejected by people. Afterwards, he had accidentally found this little sub beastman, and in any case, he now had a reason to keep on living. He wanted to protect this little sub beastman until others found this little guy, but now this little guy died in front of him….

Edgar\'s body trembled, only to feel the energy in his body that had become chaotic because of the nonexistent beast core constraint got even more chaotic. He hasn’t completely recovered from his injury, and the wound still ached dully. He gradually loosened up and calmed down, then he used his body to envelop the little sub beast.

He stuck his tongue out to feel the atmosphere around him and the condition of the sub beastman.

There was no danger at all in the vicinity. Although there were some living animals, but they all weren’t deadly. For example, the small green snake above his head was a non-venomous snake, and it’s one of the favorite food of sub beastmen.

As for the condition of this little sub beastman..., there’s no wound at all on his entire body.

Since it’s like this, how could the little sub beastman…. Edgar really liked this big-eyed little sub beastman, and he really didn\'t wish for him to wander aimlessly in the forest and struggle hard to survive only for him to die like this.

Edgar used his big head to rub against the little sub beastman a couple of times, and then he felt the little sub beastman, who was being enveloped by him, suddenly move.

The little guy was not dead! Edgar suddenly became aware of the situation, but at the same time, he also remembered one thing.

On the basis of this little sub beastman being able to stuff his mouth with so much food, it seemed that he had food pouches, which meant that he ought to be a sub beastman of hamster descent.

And both the beastman and sub beastman of hamster descent apparently could play dead?

Did this little sub beastman play dead after being scared? What had scared him then?

Edgar\'s snake body once again stiffened.

There’s nothing dangerous here. Even if the little sub beastman had shrieked before, but he hadn’t been scared to "death". So, was this because of him?

Nowadays, he was a beastman who couldn’t protect sub beastmen. His beast core had been shattered and he had become a fallen beast. Later on, he would gradually forget everything when he had been a beastman. Then he would turned into a beast that harmed sub beastmen.

Shu Shu has just regained consciousness, and he felt his body was being enwrapped by something. This ice-cold, sticky, greasy feeling… was it a snake? With this in mind, Shu Shu immediately got goosebumps and felt the hair on his whole body standing up.

That snake was here! No, the snake was not only here, it had also wrapped itself around him, and it was... going to eat him!

At the end of his rope, Shu Shu dimly recalled his past experiences of running into snake and being chased by it. He was really really afraid of this type of animal. But for him thinking that snakes were very scary, he wouldn\'t have given up living in the wild—where spiritual influence was abundant, fitting for cultivation—and run away to the city to be someone’s house pet.

He had believed that after he turned into a human, the snakes wouldn’t be able to do anything to him. He did not expect that in the end, he met with a snake that could swallow him down in one gulp.

Why was this world so cruel?

Shu Shu\'s whole body shuddered. He wanted to mobilize his magical power to escape, but he simply couldn’t gather and summon even a tiny bit of it. His legs were weak, no strength at all.

He was screwed. He’d just turned into a human, and now he would become someone else\'s food.

Shu Shu absolutely didn’t dare to open his eyes. With his eyes closed, he’s waiting for death to come. But, unexpectedly, the big snake that was wrapped around him actually let him go.

After a while, Shu Shu finally dared to open his eyes to make sure that the big snake has really gone. He immediately jumped up and ran at lightning speed to the cave where he lived.

Edgar was hiding not far away, observing everything that had just happened. He was just about to leave when he suddenly felt something was wrong.

The fleeing little sub beastman was actually bare-bottomed! The two round white flesh were jiggling in the wake of the little sub beastman running. On top of that, there’s also a cute short little tail.

It was not until the little sub beastman disappeared before him that Edgar came to himself. At the same time, he faintly felt that his scales were somewhat uncomfortable. He looked over, and sure enough, he saw a small grass skirt hanging on his scales.

He finally saw a naked sub beastman, and not only that, but he had also rubbed against that sub beastman’s whole body repeatedly.... He should be glad that the sub beastman did not know that he was a beastman, shouldn’t he?

No, he was no longer a beastman, he’s just a beast, nothing more....

The cave where Shu Shu lives was located not far from the left side of a boulder embedded on the mountain wall.

The boulder obstructed half of the cave mouth, then he added on some shelters. Most people couldn\'t see that there was a cave here. This cave, Shu Shu had spent a month digging it out from the front to the rear. In the beginning of the month, he’d only had a hole in the tree for his home.

Running back into the cave, Shu Shu took a headlong dive onto the hays that he’d gathered and strewn inside the cave himself.

Sniffing at the interior of the cave, there’s only the smell of himself. Rubbing and rubbing against the pile of grass, Shu Shu\'s heart finally calmed down.

He did not expect that there would be such a big snake in the mountain! Shu Shu\'s furry ears pricked up and his scalp felt numb.

Later on, how could he manage with a big snake outside, ah? How could he go out and find food? Shu Shu put his face into a small hole that he’d painstakingly dug out just for storing food. Then he used his hands to push on his cheeks and right away, his mouth began to spit out chestnuts one by one.

The time for collecting chestnuts today had not been long. Shu Shu had collected a total of about 20 catties of chestnuts. He piled them up properly and also inspected all his other food thoroughly.

He originally planned to sun-dry the food he had previously collected this afternoon. But now…, there’s a snake outside, ah!

Taking out some food that couldn’t be stored for long and nibbling on it, Shu Shu, laden with grief, ran around inside his cave, and finally went directly to his grass nest and fell asleep.

Shu Shu did not go out for a full three days and saw that his food was getting less and less. He took a deep breath and set his mind to go out.

However, he just went past the cave mouth and at once, he was hit by the cold, making him shiver. A gale was blowing outside!

Shu Shu subconsciously retreated into the cave, and then he frowned looking at his naked body. Where had his covering gone?!

The grass skirt didn’t keep him warm at all, but he could not make anything else. Shu Shu once again got into his grass nest, and then began weaving together the grass on hand with a skill learned from the bird building its nest, though he didn’t remember when and where.

Outside the cave, didn’t know whether it\'s because of the extreme cold or what, but Edgar\'s body was stiff.

That little sub beastman, just now, had came out of his cave naked! His body was naked!

It took a while for Edgar to return to normal, and he was somewhat uneasy when he recalled the image of the little sub beastman shivering with cold and going back into the cave.

The sub beastman should be held carefully in the hollow of his hands*. Some sub beastmen in the central star even wore different clothes every day, but this little sub beastman surprisingly didn’t have any clothes, and no underwear either….

The big snake slowly drew back and quietly left.

TL\'s note:

*held carefully in the hollow of his hands.

I almost translated it as "held in the palm of his hand", which has a totally different meaning.