The Ugly Duckling Of The Tiger Tribe-Chapter 100: He was so innovative

(A/N: Happy Hundredth Chapter everyone! I feel so glad that I was able to get to a hundred Chapters with you all. I hope you all stay to the 200th Chapter as well.)

We arrived at my cave and what I saw left me speechless. Fenric did say he already skinned all the squirrels, but I didn’t expect it to be like this.

In front of my cave, he spread all the pelts so they would dry. There was no place to step on because of the pelts.

And... My nose wiggled in the air and I almost wretched... What was that smell?

It smelled like dried blood and a little bit of rotting meat. Did Fenric leave all the meat in my cave?

I know it’s normal to leave the meat in the cave so no one would steal them but I’m not exactly used to such things.

If that smell is coming from my cave, then I can very much abandon the cave and sleep in the fields.

Since the temperature was high outside, even a cool cave could become humid, so the meat that was supposed to last at least the whole day would start to rot.

I held Damar as support as I tried to get used to the stench. We hadn’t even gotten inside but it was already like this. Oh God!

"Are you okay?" Damar asked and I shook my head.

"No," I said and looked down at the pelts. "First, let’s make way to get in. Can you clear the path by picking up the pelts?" I asked and he got to it right away.

The pelts were dry, and instead of hardening up, they became quite smooth on the inside, and the fur was so soft.

It felt so good to touch.

I had the option to shave out the fur if I wanted to make clothes with it, but then again, if I wanted to make winter clothes, I’d need the fur more.

What’s left now is to wash them since there’s still blood around them and then dry them again.

I think we can do that in Damar’s Lake.

We finally stood at the entrance of my cave and I took in a breath before opening the curtain.

But to my surprise, it didn’t smell like I feared it would.

Then, was the rotting flesh coming from the pelts? I didn’t smell it on the pelts when Damar picked them up though.

The meat was neatly stacked in one corner with sticks plunged through each of them, and I once again wanted to applaud for a job well done.

He was so innovative.

When did he even have time to gather so many sticks?

I feel like he did an excellent job just to impress me even more. Well, he succeeded and was so adorable for that.

With the meat stacked like this, there was no way they would rot so soon.

I squatted in front of the stack and sniffed them, trying to get where the smell was coming from, but I did not get the rotting smell from the front, as if it didn’t come from the stacked squirrels.

Still, it was coming from somewhere.

One of them had to be rotting away slowly.

"Damar," I called, looking up as his presence loomed behind me. "You have a good nose, right?" I asked and he nodded. "Then, can you smell something rotting?" I asked.

"Yes." He answered and then lowered his body. "The one rotting is over there." He pointed at the end, and there I found a rat hiding.

As soon as I saw the rat, I screamed and fell back but my body collapsed into Damar’s.

"A rat? Get rid of it!"

Damar did not respond immediately as he focused on the warmth of my body pressed against his.

Then, the rat squeaked, trying to get away from the danger it had gotten itself into.

I squealed, trembling in his arms.

"Ahh, Damar," I called and Damar glared at the rat.

Then, with the edge of his tail, he whipped the rat and sent it ok his way to the underworld.

"It’s fine now, Ari," he said, his hands gently landing on my shoulders.

"Is it gone?"

"It’s dead." He said and I shook my head.

"I don’t want to see it."

Why did a rat have to be here at this time? Who would believe that Arinya was scared of a common rat?

Damar flung the dead rat with his tail and just then, Fenric opened the curtain.

The rat flew past his head.

"Whoa, what was that?"

"A rat," Damar said, and then Fenric looked at me, trembling. He immediately rushed to my side.

"What’s wrong, Arinya?"

"She seems scared of the rat," Damar answered calmly.

"Really? Why?" He asked and I felt ashamed.

Yes, why would a tiger be scared of something like a rat? It’s unheard of.

I tried to pick myself up and cleared my throat.

"It... It’s just that... They’re disgusting." I said, but my hand wouldn’t stop trembling.

I held it and bit my lip.

I just cannot put up with rats.

They both looked at me silently for a while until Fenric broke the silence.

"Is this because you were locked up?" He suddenly asked and I raised my head, nearly gasping.

It just brought back a memory I didn’t want to recall. Arinya’s memory.

The cave she was locked up in for a week had only one entrance, and there were guards standing outside to make sure she did not leave.

They starved her.

And somehow, there were always two to three rats squeaking their way into the cave. Sometimes, she would wake up to find them eating the heel of her feet, which was horrifying by the way, and no treatment was given.

And because she was hungry, she was tempted a lot to eat the rats but because she had no strength, she couldn’t even catch them.

So, instead of wasting her strength to catch the little disgusting things, she decided to just stay still while these rats skittered around her.

I wanted to throw up, thinking of these memories.

It was horrible, another reason why I will forever hate rats.

I threw my face aside and didn’t answer. Fenric sighed as he had already gotten his answer.

"Don’t worry, Arinya. We’ll never let another rat get close to you." He was making such a promise, as if he would know when the rats were coming.

But that’s not what matters.

It’s the fact that he’s willing to make a promise to make me feel assured and calm that matters.

I nodded.

"Alright."