Exiled Villainess: They Threw Me Out, Now Every Beastman Wants Me
Chapter 10: Seasoned

Chapter 10: Seasoned

Tera’s meat had finished cooking by the time all the slabs of meat at the main fire had been done. However, even as the gathered beast folk continued to eat, Tera noted how they kept staring at her meat.

One male in particular bit into his piece and chewed with the resigned expression of someone who had given up on joy a long time ago.

One by one, Tera could feel their gazes on her—curious, suspicious, hungry. They were unsatisfied with their own food.

Holding back a smirk, she finally poked her meat with her stick, and when it was soft enough, she carefully pulled it off the heat and set it on a leaf, tearing off a piece to pop into her mouth.

It wasn’t restaurant quality, but it shocked Tera how nice it tasted.

It was tender and salty, and had subtle hints of seasoning she had tasted before. But compared to the charred lumps the others were chewing, she was practically having a delicacy.

Tera glanced at the sky. The clouds were thicker now and darker than they had been when Xavi left. She looked around the settlement at the burrows dug into the low ground, the shacks with no drainage, and the complete absence of any elevated storage.

If it rained, every single one of those holes was going to fill with water. Did they have any plan to migrate to higher ground when such a thing happened?

She was halfway through her meal when two beast women walked over. They tried to look casual about it, but their eyes kept darting to her meat.

’Oh! So now they want to mingle.’

One of them, a fox beast woman, crossed her arms, her expression caught somewhere between pride and desperate curiosity.

"That smells different," she said stiffly.

"Good different," the taller one asked. She had deer-like ears and a dusting of freckles across her nose. "What did you do to it?"

"I seasoned it."

They frowned. "Seasoned?"

Tera refused to accept that they didn’t understand what that meant. Then she realised she could not think up any memories of the food in the Jackdaw tribe being seasoned either.

Had these people been eating such bland food all this time?

"I just smeared those leaves all over the meat."

Silence. The two women exchanged glances.

Tera tore off a strip of meat from hers and held it up. "You can try it first. I am eating it, so it isn’t poisoned."

They took it hesitantly, as if expecting it to turn into a snake. When they tasted it, their eyes went wide in wonder.

"It is so soft!"

"If the leader brings back more meat, will you show us how to do this?"

Tera smiled. "Yes."

The fox female looked like she would rather swallow her own tail. The deer female, however, was already nodding eagerly. "Please. That was the best meat I’ve ever tasted. Please show us."

"Yara, don’t beg," the fox female hissed.

Yara looked like she wanted to ask more, but the other one dragged her away and quickly retreated back to their group, whispering to each other.

Then a few of them started poking around the areas Tera had gotten the herbs from. Tera could not believe what she was seeing. Nothing was stopping them from asking her.

She didn’t notice how Ermin was watching the entire exchange from his spot. He was so confused as to how Tera was behaving.

The Tera he knew didn’t cook, and she didn’t share food either. The fact that she let those cubs earlier poke at her and disturb her without screaming at them was a vast difference compared to how Tera would usually have behaved.

This female was doing things that didn’t match anything he had seen from her before.

He didn’t trust it.

Tera finished up and looked around the clearing. The sky had darkened while she had been cooking, and the clouds now looked thick and grey. The air also had that heavy, charged feeling that came before a storm.

And it disturbed her how the other beast folk were so relaxed about it.

The whole area was a flood zone if they had nowhere to go.

Tera walked back toward the main fire pit. "Should we still be here? Those clouds look bad."

"The skies are cloudy all the time. It doesn’t rain here all the time."

’Am I hearing things right?’

"When it does rain, won’t the water rush straight into the holes?" Tera pointed all around them. "How did you survive here during the rains?"

One of them smirked at Tera. "It won’t rain. We have been here for a few weeks, and our senses are not as dull as yours, shiftless one. We can tell when a storm is coming, and we will just move if that is the case."

Tera wanted to laugh. Was it just her, or what she was hearing was delusional?

"She might have a point," Yara glanced up at the sky. "Those clouds do look darker than usual."

"It’s nothing." Someone waved a dismissive hand. "The tribe leader would have said something before he left if there was danger."

Tera bit her tongue. Arguing with these idiots was going to get her nowhere, but her alarm bells were screaming. The ground seemed soft, how else would they have made those holes within a few weeks, and when Xavi had brought her here, she had noticed a slight slope of the ground.

Plus, the fact that a river was nearby meant a constant flow of water, and that water had to be coming from somewhere.

Regardless, the soil was dangerous enough. Even if they would like to move in the rain, the ground would not make it easy.

’Damn it!’

[Host is lecturing beast-folk about survival]

[These are creatures with claws, fur, and the ability to turn into large predators fit for the terrain]

[Host is a hairless being with a strength stat of 5]

[If flooding occurs, they will simply shift and climb]

[Host will... slip?]

[( ˘•ω•˘ )]

[Perhaps Host should be more concerned about herself]

Tera’s brain short-circuited when she realised what the system was implying.

She was the one in real danger here if anything, but she couldn’t help but wonder if they would truly be fine in the midst of a storm. Especially the cubs.

As she was about to ask the system to scan the whole area for miles, a sharp rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

The clouds had darkened to a bruised, ominous purple colour.