Chapter 473: Watching the Bear and Snake
“Okay, so coffee is this beverage made of grounded up roasted beans and…”
As the two clerks of the Skyscale company made their way to try some exotic sounding coffee, Nepherage, Frosttusk, Hurricroak and Razostella did their absolute best impressions of a bunch of figures until the two human girls finally left.
[Oi, Hurricroak, those human girls gone yet?]
[Think so…yeah, no one else is around. Let’s get going.]
[Aye.]
[Okay…]
[Finally.]
Once the kaijin were sure that nobody else was watching them walk around like puppets without strings, they proceeded to do just that.
[Incoming gap.]
[Three, two…jump!]
[Yeet!]
Now, the reason why the kaijin were running around between rafts and being generally sneaky was due to a single suggestion by Hurricroak: proactivity.
[You guys find anything interesting in these Skyscales guys’ cargo yet?,] Nepherage asked.
[Nah, just the usual stuff. Silk, spices, weapons. All standard caravan shit,] Razorstella stated.
[Really? No contraband or dubious drugs?]
[Nah…,] Frosttusk added, [lot…of…tobacco…though…]
[Okay, that’s deadly but not interesting deadly,] Hurricroak commented.
[True…]
Perhaps it was due to their knowledge being provided by an interdimensional library or the influence of Zhen Liu’s wild imagination, but the kaijin couldn’t help but snoop around the cargo of their latest travelling companions.
They wanted to make sure that the Skyscales guys were on the up and up, and definitely not looking for a reason to go wild and beat up/eat people…or so they say.
[Welp, these guys are boring merchants,] Hurricroak noted as she leaped out of a crate labelled fragile but was full of life-sized doll parts, [y’all wanna go move on to part two of our snooping?]
[Aye.]
[Sure…]
[Shouldn’t this have been part one of our snooping?,] Nepherage pointed out.
The second part of their proactivity was actually a touch more relavent to their future plans, they were going to scope out and observe Zhen Liu’s uncles.
More specifically, they were going to investigate Zhen Liu’s Second and Sixth uncles, Zhen Hou and Zhen Ye, respectively.
Or as they called them…
[Okay, so it appears Uncle Bear is in the second to last raft on the right,] Razorstella explained to the group,[while Uncle…did we ever agree on calling him Uncle Viper, Uncle Cobra or Uncle Snake?]
[I think it was Uncle Snake,] Nepherage answered, [because the man had significantly more types of snakes on his person than we had anticipated, that included those other species. That and he is too skinny for us to call him Uncle Anaconda.]
[Right. Anyways, Uncle Snake is at the middle row, about two boats over to our right.]
[Gonna be honest, I thought we called him Uncle Snek,] Hurricroak added.
[Stop that.]
[No…]
[Absolutely not.]
[Tsk! Y’all are no fun.]
The kaijin understood that their lord planned to have them possess and empower his remaining two uncles, however, instead of just letting him pick who he thought was the most appropriate fit, they would be more proactive and see for themselves whether or not a certain uncle was compatible with their respective abilities and/or had a desire they could work with.
It was rather serendipitous it worked the last two times, three if they were counting Patriarch Zhen Shi, but they still wanted to make sure everything was hunky dory.
This was definitely their reasoning and not the fact that they wanted to snoop and felt like spying on other people’s lives.
[So…do we want to get into groups and split up or go as one big group?,] Razorstella asked.
[Frosttusk and I think we can vibe with Uncle Bear on some sort of level,] Hurricroak answered, [we can go check on him while y’all see if Uncle Snake is compatible with y’all.]
[I’m not sure if [heroism] and [attention] are compatible with a quiet snake man, but might as well give it a shot. Meet back here in like…thirty minutes?]
[Or if something goes horribly wrong.]
[Break!]
With their plans all set, the kaijin split off into two groups.
One following a bear, the other a snake.
[I hope they’re interesting people.]
________________________________________________
The Bear: Zhen Hou.
“Hmm. This is nice.”
“Yeah…I figured floating caravans were more of hassle to handle, but this…this is relaxing.”
“Yup.”
In this moment in time, Zhen Hou and his wife, Zhen-Lin Lee, were taking in the warm sun rays as a gentle breeze blew by, the two of them lounging in a chair that the Skyscales Company provided for free.
The couple made for a somewhat comical get sweet sight as Zhen Hou was noticably larger than his rather petite wife.
Honestly, looking at the two of them was like looking at a red panda and a giant panda together.
The couple looked to be enjoying the quietness that comes with marital bliss, but if one were to get closer, they would notice a slightly heavier than normal atmosphere around them.
It wasn’t the type of atmosphere one gets when they feel a fight is brewing, rather, it was the type of atmosphere one gets when one person has something weighing heavily on their mind but they can’t seem to find the words to share it.
Luckily for him, he had someone who could coax it out of him.
“What’s wrong big bear?,” Lin Lee asked, “you look like you got something on your mind.”
“Is it that obvious?”
Lin Lee let out a playful snort at her husband’s question.
“You’re the type to laugh big and make grand gestures. Of course I’d notice if you had a big frown on your face.”
“Hah! That’s fair…I was just thinking maybe I should have been more forceful.”
“Forceful? What do you mean?”
“Well…I guess it’s too late now, since we’re already here, but…I can’t help but be worried about what’s gonna happen to pops once we get back to this main branch place.”
“Ah…because of all the grudges?”
“Essentially, yeah.” Zhen Hou sat up a bit straighter as he tried to share his thoughts more.
“I mean…this is the most I’ve seen pop share more about his past to us in the last week than in our entire lives and I can’t help but think of it as…the last words of a man walking to his death.”
“Hmm,” Zhen-Lin Lee hummed while scratching her chin.
“I don’t think that will be the case. Patriarch Zhen Shi is an Aether Lord, and I’m fairly certain that’s a big enough fist to prevent any underhanded tactics.”
“Yeah, but that was the case when we were back home,” Zhen Hou replied, “what if being a Lord here is being equivalent to a foot soldier? Ma always said to be wary of the lake beyond the well…and I can’t help but think…are we overestimating our abilities or underestimating theirs?”
“Ah…”
As Zhen Hou vented to his wife, a toad and a mammoth figure were watching off to the side, debating amongst themselves what could fuel him up more.
[Hmm…not…as…strong…as…Zhen…Shi…but…could…tap…into…the…[regret]…as…well…]
[Nah, if you ask me, the bear needs a good ole kick of [Resolve] moreso than [Regret]. That might backfire and make him even colder.]
[Hmmm…]
________________________________________________
The Snake: Zhen Ye.
At another part of the carvan, a member of the main clan and an employee of the Skyscales Company were sharing a moment of mundane strangeness together.
That strangeness being?
Watching Zhen Ye and his wife, Zhen-She Yang, doing yoga together.
Or to be more precise, watch as the two of them hold a pose that didn’t look the least bit comfortable for the better part of twenty five minutes going on thirty, without uttering a single sound.
Making the whole thing more unusual to two of them, were the first tier aether snakes slithering up and down the interlocked couple’s form.
The observers couldn’t tell if this was a safety thing, a kink thing or just plain weird.
Either way, they couldn’t help but watch.
“An Ice Rattler, a Redfire Cobra and a Plague Viper…how the hell are they so calm while all these snakes be slithering all over them like that?”
“The branch clan is a clan of aether beast handlers, so I guess this is normal for them?”
“Normal my ass, he’s the only guy I’ve seen do yoga with his beasts!”
“I guess he’s just that confident in his abilities?”
“I guess…”
As the two observers made their commentary on the couple’s activity, the actual couple themselves were having a relavent conversation…namely, how to get rid of these onlookers.
“Sweetie, I think those two have stared long enough, I think you now have carte blanche to tell them to fuck off.”
“I know that,” Zhen Ye replied, “but you know how I get in social confrontations.”
“You ripped a man’s head off before”
“Yeah, because it was less awkward to tell him to go away and he was a bandit. These two are innocent…probably.”
“Aish…”
Out of sight of both groups, a ballerina and a valkyrie figurine were watching with perplexed expressions.
[How…how is this guy the family torture master? He is radiating pure nervousness!]
[To be fair, you don’t exactly need confidence to torture someone…just…a lot of tools.]
[Fair enough, I guess?]
[Either way, I think he’d honestly benefit from either one of us possessing him.]
[Yeah…so how do we decide that?]
[Hmmm.]
________________________________________________
Back at the front on Tiny’s back…
“Huh…”
“Hmm? What’s wrong?,” Jin Fang asked.
“I’m not sure…but I feel like I just got an ominous premonition…,” Zhen Liu answered as he felt a chill run up his spine, “that involves the kaijin…”
“Uhh…what’s a premonition?,” Alicia followed up.
