Reincarnated; Nine Tailed Fox With A Temper

CHAPTER 40

Alya took about an hour to pluck the bird's hard scales, each one the size of her head. The meat of that particular beast was great food and could be used for a wide variety of dishes back in the city. How she already missed those dishes in just a few hours, she was already drooling at the thought of food. After plucking all the scales, Nyx used a knife to cut the beast down to parts, then separated the edible parts from the rest. She buried the parts they definitely didn't need and stored the edible ones in her spatial pouch. She would bring some out later to make breakfast, but now she needed sleep, they all did, one of them was already ahead.

Alya was about to discard the scales but Nyx stopped her, saying they would be useful to trade with in Crolis. She put them all in her pouch before dragging Alya to a spot and placing her there.

"You should sleep in the middle, your heat will warm us up till day break."

Alya didn't argue and just collapsed on a pile of leaves. As she shut her beautiful fiery orbs, she released a bit of her internal heat over a certain range, just wide enough to reach the girls and warm them up. Nyx followed suit and leaned her back on the trunk of a tree and slid down, resting her head on it. She didn't bother to say goodnight seeing they were both fast asleep, it didn't take long for her to do the same as she drifted off.

...

The sun slowly came out three hours after they drifted off to sleep, soon after various sounds of life burst forth from every belt of the forest. The girls though continued to sleep till noon, despite the fact dangerous beasts could be meters away from them. Crissal and Alya were not aware of the barrier Nyx had created while they were busy fighting the beast a few hours ago. Still without such knowledge they still slept soundly without a care in the world.

Nyx's shadow barrier slowly faded as the day broke, revealing the sun with its golden light, a clear weakness to Nyx's element. Nyx's barrier  shielded them by blending with the darkness and also with her barrier, as well as the darkness, Nyx could easily tell if there was any form of threat within her barrier's range.

By noon Alya was the first to wake up to the sounds of creaking branches and leaves shuffling. Along with the sounds of beasts and small critters, it created a noisy but also calming atmosphere. Sleeping and waking up in a forest was almost second nature, since she arrived about three years ago. A long yawn escaped her mouth, a sign of how satisfied she was with the amount of sleep she got, and luckily definitely no nightmares like the one she had the other day. Her vision was still blurry with her eyes half opened still adjusting to the light. Fortunately there wasn't much sunlight because of the curtain of leaves and branches above them.

Alya then remembered the heat wave she was creating and withdrew her warm aura.

Because she had missed breakfast, her tummy rumbled, eagerly waiting to be fed. Her eyes fully opened, fully conscious and she immediately got up. She needed to get firewood, luckily there were millions if not billions of trees surrounding them. She quickly got some firewood and some stones and created a fire pit, the same as the ones she made back in the village.

As Alya was in the middle of making the pit, Nyx opened her eyes. Nyx groggily rubbed her hazy eyes and stared at Alya.

"What....are you doing?" she asked, still confused about what was going on. Alya rolled her eyes at her question.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she continued on with her work, leaving Nyx still confused. Her mind was muddled at the moment, it takes about a minute for her senses to sharpen when she wakes up.

"Uh....."

Nyx had to squint her eyes so she could make sense of what was happening.

"Oh...."

"What are you doing still sitting there? Bring out the meat."

Nyx gazed at Alya, her face void and impassive as she sat still, not moving an inch from where she was all night.

Alya didn't notice Nyx's face and continued on with the pit.

Soon enough she was done making the pit then she turned to Nyx, hoping the meat was in her hands but it wasn't. Nyx was still in the same position, leaning on the trunk of the tree staring at nothing in particular.