NOVEL NEXT Chapter104 – Hunting
The duo was in the middle of their second chase after Fey effortlessly caught the blonde in the first one, but it seemed like the tiger was doing a lot better in the current hunt. The fox-girl had no issues locating Sophia inside the forest because the so-called silent hunter that tigers are supposed to be was anything but silent. That’s what the fox-girl had thought was going on, at least, but she eventually noticed that something wasn’t right.
“Okay, think, what is going on?” Fey stopped in the middle of a small clearing around a little lake in the middle of the cherry blossom forest and turned to look around her. “Why am I hearing her in the distance to my left, right, and right in front of me?” She seemed rather confused about the situation.
“Is she tricking me?” This possibility was starting to make sense to her. “I've described her as a whirlwind earlier because she was sounding like it. Is that what she’s doing? Creating literal whirlwinds to distract me while running in a different direction?” The fox-girl tilted her head. “Not too shabby.” She then nodded a few times. “She’s doing decent when not pressured, huh?” The fox-girl looked a little proud. “Creating the whirlwinds in different directions at the same time over a wide range puts the cherry on top."
“I didn’t think I’d need to put some effort into getting her.” It seemed like Fey had been looking down on her a little too much. She then raised her chin up and began sniffing the air. “Thankfully, my senses transferred over to this body.” She continued to sniff around for a bit longer before her gaze fixated on a direction across the lake. “Got you!” Having a bit of an excited expression on her face, the fox-girl jumped over the lake and disappeared into the forest once more.
“We’re getting somewhere now!" It had been an hour and twenty minutes since the chase had begun, and Fey's confidence was on the rise again. “She’s definitely been here! Not only is her scent getting stronger, but I can also see broken twigs and other markings too! There’s only one issue…” She arrived at a path that had clearly been used by someone not too long ago, but as the fox-girl first looked to her left and then her right, she wasn’t sure in which direction Sophia had run. “I’m surprised she knows how to cover her tracks in a way you can’t exactly tell which way she went. The broken twigs haven't fallen in a specific direction, and the stepped-on grass and cherry petals are blurred, too. Was she using wind magic around herself to scramble everything?”
“Clever, but!” She then looked to her right. “The scent is a little stronger this way, and I can hear two sounds right now." Fey went silent for a moment. "One doesn't make any sense, and the other one matches the path!" Having decided on a direction, the fox-girl immediately darted along the path and was trying to make up time for the next 20 minutes.
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“Mhmm, have I made a mistake?” The fox-girl eventually reached the end of the path she had been following and looked confused. “How did she do this? Her scent was getting stronger and stronger until it just vanished once the track ended here. That makes no sense, does it?” She was thinking aloud to help her understand it. “I don’t think she’d cheat, so there were definitely no portals involved.” Fey looked around to find some hints.
“Oh?” She eventually looked up and noticed a small, tiger-sized hole in the crown of one of the cherries. “Is that what she did?” Getting some tension into her legs by kneeling down, the fox-girl then jumped up and through the same hole, widening it by a lot because her tail was more than twice the size of her torso. “Where did she go?” Seemingly being the most normal thing, she jumped about 60 meters high in the air and calmly looked around to find anything that stood out.
“That lake formed by the waterfall from the island above seems promising!” Once she landed back on the ground, the fox-girl immediately made her way over to the lake and inspected the area. “She probably jumped all the way over here, so I lost her scent on the track. I can faintly smell it again, but it doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere. She’s a lot better than I had imagined.” Fey seemed impressed again.
“Seriously, though, where did she… no way?!” She looked at the massive torrent of water flowing down from the island roughly 500 meters above her. “She did not swim up the waterfall, right? Right?!” Fey couldn’t believe her own idea. “Well, I’m running out of options, so…” Fey then jumped into the lake and freestyled her way up the violent waterfall like it was no big deal. Comparing her to a regular being would be an insult to everyone involved.
“Great, now I’m wet…” Having arrived on top of the island after just a couple of minutes, Fey looked a little dejected, especially after glancing at her tail, which lost around 80% of its volume while being dripping wet. She then first shook herself a couple of times before using air magic and drying herself with a little whirlwind all around her. “Not sure if that’s the solution, but better than before, at least.” The fox-girl looked at her tail again after it turned into a gigantic ball of pure frizz. “Oh! I will ask Mira if she can take care of my tail for me~.” Her mood instantly brightened up again.
“There’s more good news, too.” Once she finished drying herself, Fey looked around on the island a little bit and quickly spotted a small puddle next to the river and a few footsteps that were still wet. “I can still make out her scent, too. Someone was in a hurry, huh?” Her expression turned smug. “It doesn’t seem like she’s faked them either, so…” The fox-girl followed the footsteps to the edge of the island to see where the tiger went. “So, we're doing island hopping now?" Her view fell on another small floating island around 300 meters in front of her.
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For the next half hour, the fox-girl kept jumping from island to island high above the cherry forest while trying to track down the surprisingly elusive tiger. Whenever she found a hint of her having been on the island, Fey continued on, and whenever there was nothing, she backtracked to the previous one before going in a different direction.
“Well, congratulations.” The red fox stopped on an island where she found another couple of footsteps. “She officially just beat Steph’s record." It had been around two hours and 20 minutes since the chase had started, meaning the older sister had been on the run for longer than the dog-girl had managed so far.
“It won’t be a much longer record, though.” Fey pressed the side of her hand against her forehead and strained her eyes a little. “Got you!” In the far distance, a couple of islands away from her position, she finally spotted something jumping through the air. “Let’s go!” Before even finishing those words, she kicked the ground and catapulted herself in the direction of the tiger. The fox-girl used so much force that she even moved the island she was on out of its previous position in the sky.
She needed only two minutes to catch up with the tiger, and it only took that long because Sophia eventually noticed the approaching doom and desperately tried to evade the fox-girl and put some distance between them again. Naturally, it was of no use, and the inevitable eventually happened.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” The blonde made one last desperate attempt to jump from one island to another, but that was the last mistake she made in the chase.
“It’s over!” While the tiger was in the air, Fey used all of her strength to launch herself at Sophia to catch her in midair. Tackling her first, the fox-girl then wrapped her arms around the tiger and tightly hugged her to make sure she couldn't wiggle herself free. Fey was well aware Sophia was ultimately stronger than her, but she also knew that the scatterbrained girl would forget about that in this situation. “It’s my win~.”
“Nooo!” Sophia only let out another scream. Afterward, something unfortunate happened. As Fey jumped the blonde so hard, they left the trajectory to the island and ended up falling towards the cherry blossom forest below them again. This time, it came with a little twist, though, and the two, while continuing to hug, made a 500-meter-deep dive right into one of the many little lakes inside the forest, causing a massive splash the moment they hit the water.
“Great, I’m wet again.” The fox-girl felt a sense of déjà-vu as she sat down at the shore of the lake while taking care of her wet clothes and sad-looking tail.
“YOU DON'T SAY?!" Sophia, sounding a little upset, was lying on her back next to her, sprawling out her limbs and looking quite exhausted. "You're way too extreme!"
“Thank you very much~.” Fey looked to her side and smiled at the tiger. Afterward, she created a miniature twister of warm air around them and used it to dry both of them. “Congratulations on beating Steph’s record, by the way.” The fox-girl then gave her a thumbs-up. “You held out longer than her. Only by a few minutes, but a win is a win.”
“Let’s go!” It was enough to cheer her up. “Oh, I’m going to be so smug about it in front of her~."
“Before that, you have some explaining to do, though.” The fox-girl finished drying herself and took a glance at her frizzy ball of a tail before focusing on Sophia. “You did some things during the chase I’d love to get an explanation for.”
"Cute!" All the blonde could focus on right now was the fluffy-looking ball of fur behind Fey, so she needed a little break to regain her focus and be able to answer her questions.
