A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 70: Hunting

The next morning, Theo headed out to hunt alone as he wanted to go deeper into the forest to find better prey. It was getting cooler as the cold season approached and Theo wanted to get more meat stored up before prey began moving to warmer regions or began hibernating.

Thus Serena took Kiro to the village center before heading out into the forest. Greeting the other beastwomen was a bit awkward, but it seemed everyone decided to ignore what happened yesterday.

She had Wilma, Grace and Emma’s mates following her as she went into the forest to show them where the apple trees were as promised. Ria and Fay would get the pathway from Wilma’s mate later as their mates were busy.

It took several minutes to get to the apple trees and after being thanked, Serena headed off. She went to gather some more purple roots before going deeper into the forest to achieve her real purpose for today.

Hunting some wild birds.

Once she was some distance away from everyone, she placed her basket in the subspace before shifting into her beast form. She found that her senses heightened whenever she was in her beast form.

Serena made sure to keep downwind as she walked deeper into the forest, not wanting anyone to track her or let her prey know she was around. As she moved, she left marks in nearby trees with her claws.

Because the last thing she wanted was getting lost in the forest. It was mostly quiet as she walked save for the occasional rustling of tree leaves as the wind blew passed.

Her eyes scanned the trees and bushes, searching for places where any birds could be nesting. It took about two hours before she finally came across bird prints in the ground. She crouched down, glancing around the area until her eyes spotted a red feather.

Serena almost smiled at the sight, moving slowly to sniff the feather. The scent was still strong, meaning the bird was nearby. She raised her head into the air and took another big sniff, quickly finding more traces of the scent.

She followed the trail, careful not to make any noise as she moved. It took a few minutes of walking before she came to a final stop behind a tree.

A few meters in front of her were about five adult birds and several chicks pecking at some fallen berries near some bushes. One of the adult birds raised its head for a second, making Serena suck in a breath, before it went back to eating along with the others.

Serena watched them as they continued pecking at the berries, wondering how she was going to catch them. She only needed three, but the moment she went for one, the others were bound to scatter.

And she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea chasing after them. She was not familiar with this part of the forest and chasing after prey would mean she couldn’t mark where she was going.

Some kind of trap was her best bet maybe, but before she could properly decide on how to hunt the birds, one began moving closer to her. Her body stiffened slightly and Serena lowered her body to hide herself better.

She watched with bated breath as the wild bird inched closer and closer to where she was hiding, hoping it would spot her. Perhaps she could get lucky and have it walk right over to her.

However, it suddenly stopped and opened its mouth to squawk. Serena let out a hiss and pounced on the bird, mouth locking onto the bird’s neck before it could even move.

She quickly snapped the bird’s neck with her teeth, a metallic taste filling her mouth as she dropped the dead bird onto the ground. The other birds were now aware of her existence and were squawking loudly, running all over the place.

They flapped their wings, but thankfully, these birds seemed to be of the flightless kind. Serena moved to grab the next one, almost losing an eye as it pecked at her.

But it didn’t matter as she got her mouth around its neck a moment later, letting it meet the same fate as the other bird. However, by then, the other birds had scattered across the forest.

Serena let out a sigh as she dropped the dead bird, shifting into her human form. She retrieved her water skin and quickly rinsed out her mouth, disliking the taste of blood in her mouth.

This was probably the one disadvantage of hunting in this form. She had to either use her mouth or claws to kill her prey and her mouth was the quicker option.

Once her mouth was clean, Serena put her water skin back in her subspace and went to pick up both birds. Once she had both in her hands, she murmured, "Exchange."

A blue light flashed around the birds a second later before they disappeared from her hand. A system notification then appeared in front of her. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

[2 Wild Birds Exchanged]

Serena glanced up at the tree tops, trying to gauge the time using the sun. From the way it was getting quite high, Serena figured it was likely late morning by now. She didn’t have time to try finding another bird.

She needed to head back to the village before she began worrying others. And maybe go to the river to wash up. She could smell bird all over her.

Just as she was walking back, her eyes caught sight of something hiding in the bushes. She knelt down to look at it, finding a nest of eggs. A smile formed on her face at the sight.

Well, it seemed she had an excuse for smelling like birds now. She quickly retrieved her basket and carefully placed the nest into it. Careful not to break the eggs.

She then sent it back to her subspace, planning on getting it out once she was closer to the village. Serena then shifted back into her beast form and made her way back to the village.