A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 143: How Does One Court?

It had been a while since Serena had seen that blue screen, so used to Liz now. She quickly read through the list of recipes Liz had found for her and was a little surprised by how short the list was.

Then again they were limited to mostly vegetables and herbs.

"I’ve also added some dishes that you can add meat to." Liz said. "Of course, you can’t make that for the village, but at least you’ll have more ways to prepare food besides roasting it and making a soup or stew out of it."

"That’s fine." Serena said, settling on two recipes.

One was a mix of vegetables that were cooked together with some herbs. Another was a way of making brown roots and orange roots with herbs. The latter had her intrigued about how good the brown roots would taste with herbs added.

They were already good with salt and she even tried making them once with a bit of the leftover fat. Which had turned out better than she expected.

"I’ll do these two." Serena pointed at the recipes.

"Understood." Liz murmured, making note of the recipes Serena pointed at.

The blue screen shifted and a moment later, it changed to her map. She was still at three point five percent of the map explored, but that was mostly because she basically explored more of the area around the village.

If she wanted to explore more, she would have to go further out and right now that wasn’t a good idea. The forest got dangerous leading up to and during the cold season.

Not that it wasn’t dangerous during the other seasons. But the harsh cold made some desperate for food and willing to harm others for it.

After checking out where all the ingredients were on the map, Serena went foraging. She started with the vegetables, picking up some leafy greens. Normally, she would leave them, but she decided to just add them to her subspace for when she needed them.

When she got to the herbs, she found that she was familiar with some of them, seeing as they were used for medicine and herbal teas. Which made her question Liz for a moment.

"Ae you sure these are safe to cook with?" Serena asked, looking at the system. "I don’t need to accidentally kill some of the villagers with this."

"I promised I checked." Liz stated. She then added, "You only need to be careful with those spicy peppers. It’ll be bad if you get it in your eyes."

Serena pursed her lips, wondering if she should perhaps leave that one out altogether. She didn’t want to have such a dangerous plant around. What if Kiro got some in his eyes?

"Are the peppers necessary?" Serena asked, going back to harvesting a herb.

"Not really..." Liz mused. "Some leave it out while others sometimes add more. Apparently it depends on the person."

"Then I’ll leave it out for now." Serena said. "I don’t want someone getting injured while I use it."

"You need to learn to take risks." Liz retorted.

Serena glanced over at the snake and muttered, "I’m taking enough risks listening to you."

Liz pouted at her words. "I’m not that bad... Also you do some stupid things too."

"I know." Serena pressed her lips together and got up.

She shouldered her basket once more and continued to the next vegetable. Along the way, she picked up a few more brown roots while Liz watched her quietly work, its eyes going glazed every once in a while.

***

It was late into the afternoon when Serena arrived back at the village. Theo had already returned by then and started dinner, pursing his lips at the sight of her basket.

"Don’t tell me you spent the whole day harvesting vegetables..." Theo exclaimed from his spot by the fire.

"I just wanted to collect a few things after lunch. I took breaks so you don’t need to worry about me." Serena said. "I have a few experiments I want to try. We can do them tomorrow."

It was too late for her to try the recipes tonight seeing as Theo was making roasted skewers and had a few vegetables roasting too. So, instead she headed inside the hut to pack away the vegetables.

She headed to the underground part of the hut first before entering her subspace, it becoming a bit of a habit at this point. She then sorted through what she collected, making note that she was going to need more baskets.

Again.

Once she had sorted though the vegetables for her experiment, Finn and the festival, Serena exited her subspace, leaving Liz behind. She then put the remaining vegetables, mostly just some brown roots and orange roots, away.

When she was done she headed back up and put her basket down. She went to wash her hands, grabbed the vegetable scraps from Theo and headed to the coop to feed the wild birds.

Along the way, she stopped where Finn was busy working on the last stone for the grinder. The others were already done and Serena had to admit that the rabbit beastman was really skilled.

He made Theo and her admits look like a bunch of children had been messing around. He didn’t bother to look up at her as she approached him.

"I’ll be going for the night once I’m done with this." Finn said as he chipped away at the stone.

"Don’t worry, I’m not here to chase you away." Serena stated. "Was just checking on your process... and if you needed any help."

"I see... Well, there’s been no problems here." Finn responded. "This part is pretty simple enough."

Serena nodded her head in understanding. "Alright then... I’ll be going then. Don’t stay up too long."

Finn hummed at her words and with that Serena continued her trip to the coop. She wondered if she should offer Finn something to eat seeing how long he was working for, but she decided not to in the end.

She didn’t want to cause some kind of misunderstanding. She had her hands full courting Theo right now. The thought had her cheeks heat up.

Serena still couldn’t believe she was giving this a shot. It seemed so weird and she wasn’t even sure about the first thing beastmen did when they courted. And Liz’s memories were no help.

The original owner’s mate was a childhood friend who became her lover and there wasn’t really any courting that happened. Other than that, all she knew was that beastmen gave gifts and food to impress a beastwoman.

However, that didn’t really seem like much to her... Honestly, they were past that point having been living together for some time now. And Serena doubted something as simple as that would cut it for her.

Perhaps she could try modern dating methods.

No that won’t work either... Serena mused. We’re past the point of going on dates... Well, maybe not, but I don’t know if that’ll work.

What would they even do? They ate together and it wasn’t like they could make Kiro eat some other time so they could be alone. The cub would probably think they didn’t want to be around him anymore.

Walking around the forest was too dangerous at night and they always chatted by the fire, so it wasn’t anything special. Sarah suddenly squawked as Serena approached the garden, bringing the snow leopard beastwoman out of her thoughts.

Serena dispelled the thoughts in her head, deciding to just go with the flow for now. Because right now, she needed to focus on looking after the wild birds.

Once she was done feeding and checking the coop, she headed back to the hut. Theo was finishing up with dinner and Kiro had made an appearance, helping the older beastman with dinner.

They soon settled down for dinner as the sun was setting, everything going as normal. Well almost anyway. Serena glanced over at Theo, wondering if she was just imagining it.

Because she felt he was sitting closer to her than normal. Not right on top of her, she probably would’ve kicked him for that, but her instincts were going haywire.

Even turning away to look at Kiro, she was aware of his presence, of how close he was. And she couldn’t concentrate like this. Her mind was completely focused on every move he made.

It was one of those times that she hated her instincts.

Theo noticed she wasn’t eating as normal and shifted closer. "Do you not like the food?"

"It’s fine." Serena mused, turning back to him. "But you’re too close... It’s hard to concentrate."

Theo blushed, sheepishly turning away and giving her a bit of space. Serena took this chance to finally eat, her senses able to take a breather.

Kiro, meanwhile, watched the two quietly for a moment. They were both acting strangely since this morning. He pursed his lips for a moment before he asked, "Are you fighting?"