SDIWD - Chapter 109

Chapter 109

Hua Mu tried with all her might but couldn't get Luna to listen. In the end, Bai Zhen had to give Hati an order, and only then did the two spirit animals obediently follow her.

Although Luna let go of Hati, she still stuck close to him, practically rubbing against him as she walked. Hua Mu couldn't control her and walked on the other side of the white wolf. Compared to her own spirit animal, Hati made her feel much safer.

The area of the oil palm forest was about the same size as the coconut grove at the foot of the mountain; a preliminary guess was that it was also a man-made plantation. The longer Hua Mu lived on Dream Isle and the more she learned about it, the more she realized it wasn't as isolated from the world as she had imagined.

In fact, there were signs of human influence everywhere on the island, which were still clearly discernible even after several decades.

Setting aside the cave dwelling for a moment, just the ubiquitous plantations of tropical cash crops made it hard to imagine that such a large area could have been planted by just a few people in a short amount of time.

Hua Mu had some doubts, but she wasn't in the mood to investigate. Compared to improving their quality of life, these things were truly insignificant.

Although Hua Mu had never seen how oil was extracted, she had a goal in mind after hearing Bai Zhen explain the principle. The set of tools Bai Zhen had made was actually for extracting oil from things like rapeseed or peanuts; oil palm fruits, on the other hand, had a simpler method.

Simply boiling and crushing the oil palm fruits would allow one to skim the crude palm oil from the top layer of the broth. However, this oil still needed to go through many processing and refining steps before it could be used. Bai Zhen wanted to try a different extraction method to see if she could get a purer oil, which could then be separated into edible oil through temperature control.

Making rapeseed oil cakes usually involved using dried rice straw, but since oil palm fruits were larger, using wider leaves wouldn't be a problem. The first thing that came to Hua Mu's mind was banana leaves.

Many banana trees grew sporadically on the mountain. To harvest them more effectively, Hua Mu had roughly cataloged their locations and growth conditions. Bored while recuperating, she had done a lot of mental work.

Next to the oil palm forest, near the mountain wall, there happened to be a small banana grove. She took a small machete and headed there with the two spirit animals.

Luna had grown quite majestic, but her demeanor was still that of a naive, worldly-unaware cub. Hati, on the other hand, was steady and constantly paid attention to his surroundings.

This banana grove had no more than a dozen or so banana plants. Probably because they were untended, they had clearly degenerated over generations. Their fruiting rate, size, and sweetness couldn't compare to what Hua Mu had seen on her private island.

But the Young Lady wasn't so demanding now; she would happily eat the few bunches she occasionally managed to pick. Her luck was good today; she found two relatively intact bunches of fruit. They had probably been spared from being pecked by birds because they were still unripe. She cut them down with her small machete, placed them in a basket, and then began to select leaves.

She was afraid of stripping a single banana tree bare by cutting all the leaves from it, so she cut four or five from each plant, gradually moving closer to the mountain wall. Because Hati didn't show much alertness to the surroundings, she grew bolder, swinging the small machete quickly.

The mountain on Dream Isle was about two hundred meters high. The two of them were at an altitude of around one hundred meters, where the environment was more suitable for living. Further up, it was almost all steep rock faces with no flat areas.

Just as Hua Mu was getting closer and closer to the mountain wall, Hati, who had been following her silently, suddenly twitched his ears, leaped in front of her, and crouched down, beginning to let out low snarls toward a spot on the wall.

Startled, Hua Mu took a step back and looked in the direction the white wolf was focused on. In a corner of the rock wall, under two banana trees, was a cave about the size of a wok, hidden beneath various plant leaves and difficult to spot at first glance.

"Hati!" Hua Mu nervously reached out to touch the white wolf's back. Although it wasn't a physical touch, it allowed her to feel the wolf's presence.

"Awooo…" Hati acted very tense and fierce, but he neither urged her to flee nor pounced forward. He just kept staring at that spot as if in a standoff with some creature.

Seeing him bare his large fangs, Hua Mu subconsciously swallowed.

What on earth was it? A snake? A lizard? Should I run? But Hati hadn't given a signal. Should I wait here for Bai Zhen?

The forest seemed exceptionally quiet. Hua Mu stared intently at the cave entrance, not daring to move an inch.

In contrast to the tense human and spirit animal, Luna seemed completely oblivious to the situation, tilting her head as she looked at them.

"Yee yee?"

In Hua Mu's mind, her unicorn was already synonymous with "useless." Seeing its complete lack of a sense of danger, she just assumed it couldn't sense anything and didn't even consider the possibility that Hati was overreacting.

"Awoof!"

Hati suddenly barked. Hua Mu blinked, feeling as if she had seen something come out of the cave entrance, yet she clearly hadn't seen anything at all.

An unseen enemy was always more dangerous. Hua Mu's heart was in her throat. What animal could turn invisible? A chameleon? But she hadn't seen any rustling grass or leaves. Even if it was invisible, it couldn't possibly lack a physical body, right?

Unless… unless it was a spirit animal, like Hati and Luna.

But how was that possible? There was no one else on the island besides her and Bai Zhen. And she was a Guide, so how could she not be able to see a spirit animal?

Just as Hua Mu was thinking so hard her forehead broke out in a sweat, Bai Zhen arrived.

"Miss!"

"Bai Zhen!"

Hearing the Sentinel's voice, Hua Mu immediately turned and threw herself into her arms. While Hua Mu's attention was drawn to the Sentinel, Luna, as if she had suddenly seen something, trotted cheerfully toward the cave entrance.

"Yee yee yee~"

In that one moment of inattention, her own spirit animal had bolted off to cause trouble. Hua Mu felt like dying.

"Luna, don't go over there…"

Luna didn't listen to her. Even Hati, grabbing her tail in his mouth, couldn't hold her back.

"Yee?"

Bai Zhen also seemed to have sensed the invisible creature. She quickly scooped Hua Mu up and stared intently in the direction Hati was guarding.

Hua Mu held her breath and whispered, "Do you see anything?"

The Sentinel shook her head and said in a low voice, "Hati can't see it either, but he can sense… there's a… a spirit… animal?"

She herself seemed unable to believe it, unable to be certain. It was unprecedented for her to turn a statement into a question like that.

Hati shielded the unicorn, positioning himself at her side, and sniffed around in the grass with his nose to the ground, like a cat hunting a mouse.

Luna watched curiously for a moment, seemed to find it very interesting, and stuck out her tongue to lick Hati's perked-up ears.

"Oh my god, how can I have such a stupid spirit animal!" Hua Mu was about to cry from Luna's stupidity.

Bai Zhen, however, had a different opinion. Hati was certainly sharp and had a strong sense of danger from his years of military life, but after all this time of training, Luna shouldn't be so defenseless against danger. As far as she knew, although this unicorn was naive, she was excellent at seeking advantages and avoiding harm.

"Wooo…" Hati ignored her, pawing randomly at the grass, and it was very obvious he was trying to keep Luna separated from that thing.

Although the current situation was strange, it didn't seem immediately dangerous, so Bai Zhen decided to observe for a while longer. After all, this was a deserted island. If there really was some hidden danger, the two of them wouldn't be able to rest easy without figuring it out.

"Eeyah~" Luna seemed quite dissatisfied with Hati ignoring her. She let out a low cry and suddenly lifted her hoof and stomped down. But her foreleg strangely didn't land on the ground; instead, it hovered in mid-air as if stepping on something transparent.

The thing Hati had been trying to catch for ages seemed to have been pinned squarely by her stomp. The white wolf immediately changed direction and let out a low snarl at the transparent creature under her hoof.

Bai Zhen realized what was happening and said to Hua Mu, "Miss, it seems Luna can see it. Can you use her perspective to take a look?"

For professional Sentinels and Guides, entering a combat state and sharing senses was an instinctive action. But Hua Mu was still new to this and couldn't yet synchronize naturally with Luna.

"Oh, right!"

Hua Mu clapped her hands, immediately focused her mind to meditate, and the blurry scenery from Luna's perspective slowly appeared before her eyes.

"What in the world is that!" The Young Lady was so shocked that she even revealed a verbal tic she had picked up from being corrupted by a dialect in her childhood.

Pinned under Luna's hoof was a fleshy lump, about the size of a seabird. Its spindle-shaped body and wings on either side made it look like a featherless seabird. But this "seabird" also had a fish-like fin on its back, a forked tail, and a rounded head, making it look like a small whale.

Because Hua Mu wasn't used to Luna's perspective, the image wasn't very clear. Seeing something so bizarre left her momentarily speechless, at a loss for adjectives.

You couldn't really call the thing good-looking, but if you called it ugly, it was also inexplicably kind of cute. In short, it was hard to describe.

"Miss, what do you see?"

Hua Mu's mouth twitched. After a long moment, she mumbled, "In the northern darkness there is a fish, and its name is Kun?"

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know what it is either… Ouch, it's trying to run!"

Being able to be pinned down by the dumbly cute Luna, the danger level of this comical "creature"—or rather, spirit animal—had plummeted in Hua Mu's mind.

"Awoof awoof awoof!"

Hati raised his forepaw to strike, but Luna nudged the little thing with her nose and let it escape. Through the unicorn's eyes, she only saw the clumsy-looking creature disappear into the cave entrance with incredible speed, leaving the two humans and two spirit animals staring at each other as if nothing had happened.

"What the hell!"

Hua Mu was so angry at this traitorous unicorn she could cry!

Hati also seemed a little displeased, letting out a couple of low rumbles at Luna.

The unicorn stuck out her tongue and cozied up to him stickily, shamelessly hugging Hati and licking him. The big white wolf was placated in no time and licked the unicorn's head back. As if in retaliation, he specifically licked the horn on her forehead, making Luna's voice tremble and her limbs unsteady.

Seeing the two spirit animals suddenly put on an R-rated show without any warning, Hua Mu was stunned speechless. After a good while, she patted Bai Zhen's shoulder and said, "W-what do we do now?"

Bai Zhen pondered for a moment, then said slowly, "That thing… is probably not dangerous. Hati was likely just jealous."

"Huh?"

Hua Mu was about to die from anger. A spirit animal getting jealous? You've got to be kidding me!

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