Beastmen: She Tames the Land-Chapter 98: The parasites in the river

That night, Visha, Uri, and Xeno spoke about what they learned earlier today.

"A parasite that can affect a water source. It must be incredibly resilient." Uri mused.

"It’s even capable of making the fish meat taste bitter," Xeno mentioned.

Visha’s brow furrowed, "I can’t think of anything from my world that would cause the fish itself to taste bitter after they eat it. I know there are some that burrow into the gills. This is different."

They didn’t spend a long time on the topic. They hadn’t seen the issue yet. All they could do was guess. Guessing wouldn’t help anyone. So they went to bed without much thought about it again.

The first light of dawn greets the four people, and so does a group from the River Clan. Mira walked in front, greeting them as soon as she saw them. The air was cool, and the world around them was still shrouded.

They followed the otters down a path that runs parallel to the river. As they walked, the ground became softer. Visha watched the otters rapidly making their way down the path as if the ground wasn’t slippery. While they didn’t have the hardest time walking, they did not have the grace they did. Even the females were able to walk smoothly through the marshy ground.

The primary fishing ground large, lazy bend in the river. Wooden stakes funnelled the fish into pens. At any other time, the scene would be prosperous, but what they saw now was a river in a state of decline.

The water that should have been clear was muddy. There was a faint metallic smell. The fish in the pen were unnaturally still. If they did move, they drifted listlessly. The scales, instead of being healthy and shiny, were changing colour. The most disturbing part was the green light on the affected fish.

As she stared, the system issued a task.

[Task: The River’s Curse]

[Objective: Purify the contaminated water source. Eliminate the glow-leech without harming the fish or the ecosystem.]

[Rewards: 300 EXP, 150 CP, ’River Clan ally’ status]

Visha saw the name glow-leech and used Commune to see what exactly she was dealing with. She found it was a parasitic organism that infested aquatic life, making them weak and lethargic. The worms’ waste is toxic and poisons the surrounding water source.

She thought about their own water in the caldera. She couldn’t imagine having to deal with this at home. She was glad to meet this in the River Clan andnot her own. She was also sad that this was happening to them in the first place.

She wanted to ask how the glow-leech got into their water source in the first place. But she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to get the answer she wanted.

Now, she had the chance to deal with the issue. If it happens in the caldera, she would have a ready-made solution.

Visha thought about it and noticed the system didn’t give her a way to get rid of them. So she knew she had to figure it out on her own. She couldn’t expect help from Chi and Krag like last time. She could only do this on her own.

She thought of all the notes she had seen in the Hearth-Keeper’s journal. She couldn’t remember anything related to this.

"How long have they been in the water?" Uri asked. He was also looking at the situation and wasn’t sure how to help the River Clan.

When he saw Visha being so silent, he knew it must have something to do with the system, so he took over the conversation so no one would notice her abnormality.

"It has been more than a month. We hadn’t noticed at first, but after the taste of the fish changed more and more, we decided to take a look."

One of the otter shifters placed their hand in the water. He took out a gloe-leech, holding it in his hand.

"As you can see," he said. " They won’t try to burrow into flesh. They don’t eat anything outside of the water. And their diet consists mainly of fish and small shell animals. They won’t eat much else."

"The problem is, they reproduce quickly. Killing them won’t change much. They will burrow into the sand underneath and won’t leave until we do if they sense a threat," another said.

Xeno took the glow-leech from the beatman’s hand. It squirmed between his fingers but didn’t do much else. He pressed it between his fingers until he heard a small sound as it popped. He didn’t put his hand in the water; instead, opting to take water from his water pouch and wash his hands.

"They do eat flesh," Xeno said. "They just don’t like it."

Mira looked at Xeno when he said that. Her eyes were trained on the cloudy water previously. Her sadness was palpable. When she heard Xeno say this, she snapped to attention. There were many otter beastmen who had entered the water. None of them has had an issue, but if the worms might cause a problem for her people, she needed to know.

"How can you be sure? Our males have entered the water, and they have not been attacked."

Xeno’s relaxed posture didn’t change. "When I held it, it was sniffing me." He reached into the water, reaching for a glow-leech close to him. He held the midsection. "Look at the way it moves."

They all looked at the worm twitching. They couldn’t see anything different about it. For the fish, it would immediately latch onto them, but they couldn’t see the difference when it came to the one Xeno was holding.

"It is smelling different parts of your hand to find the best place to pierce," Kaelen said.

Xeno looked at him with appreciation.

Uri spoke up at this time. He pointed to a specific part of Xeno’s thumb. "It wants to bite that part. It moves mostly to this side, but when it gets close, it seems to be repelled. Whether it is by blood or something else, I am not sure." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Everyone stood watching. After some time, they noticed it was just as Uri and Kaelen said. The otter beastmen were horrified. They had been in the water multiple times looking for fish that were not affected by the worms, now they were being told that they could have been affected if not for the worms not liking the way they smelled.

Mira bowed and thanked them for their observation.

"I think I have a way to help," Visha said.