Mage And Wolf
Chapter 276

Chapter 276: Chapter 276

The hunt was a resounding success. With the assistance of the higher level cultivators among the refugees, the Pack brought back over forty edible category 2 and 3 Beasts, with over half of them in total and almost all of the category 3 Beasts producing a usable core.

That’s enough cores to finish the furnishings for the new building, as well as to provide daily necessities for a month if they’re frugal. The news came as a massive shock to the refugees. That a single day of the group’s strongest going hunting could supply all they would need for a month’s basic survival wasn’t even something they’d dared to dream.

The problem they’re having is that the pack didn’t account for all the extra necessary meat. Almost every species here loves meat. The more the better, but they didn’t plan out enough storage space. A new root cellar, a building built slightly underground to maintain a naturally cool temperature, is being built with several large freezers.

Still, if they keep hunting edible creatures to collect cores, they will end up with more fresh meat than they need, so plans for a smokehouse to preserve the meat are underway, as well as ideas for cooking and distribution.

Alpha Conway plans to hold a meeting about that in the next few days, once they’ve come up with a longer-term plan. The current one’s not bad. Barbecue all day, every day. They’ve produced a set of huge smokers capable of slow-roasting 800 lbs a day, or roughly enough for two pounds per person with the current population.

Werewolves and Dragon Kin are both big eaters, so that shouldn’t produce much for leftovers, but the same flavors constantly might get tiring.

Though, knowing the Wolves, it probably won’t. If they didn’t need other foods for proper nutrition, they would eat nothing but roast meat their entire lives.

Tonight’s dinner has been pulled from the smokers, stoves, and ovens to be served as a public picnic due to the unfurnished nature of the dining halls in the new residences. Much like a restaurant, they’re big enough to seat everyone who lives there, and in a werewolf pack, almost everyone would eat and socialize there at least once usually twice a day. The idea that everyone should eat alone or in small groups is foreign to the werewolves. They’re pack animals at heart, and don’t do well in isolation.

That’s brought everyone out to the center of the compound under a set of crude shelters to keep dry, since getting meals to four hundred people one at a time through the kitchen would take forever.

Despite the rain, the kids are ecstatic. Pudding isn’t a dessert that is served in their world so they will try their first new sweets, still adapting to the culture shock of a new world. The happiness is contagious, and even though they’re getting wet, everyone is still joking and laughing as they wait in line, or gather to eat under the hastily erected awnings and in the unfurnished dining rooms.

After the buffet trays are empty and everyone is fed, they start lining up for the creation circle, monster cores in hand to fuel everyone’s choices of home decor. The pack has done this once before, so they’re more prepared this time, assigning helpers to kids without parents, including the disguised Gerald, and having a standard set of furnishings ready because things like mattresses and dishes every family will need.

They take what they can carry and drop it in their new homes then return for more, a task made much easier with the strength gained through cultivation. Even mystic type cultivators are stronger than baseline humans by quite a bit, and many of these species have a natural strength advantage as well. With the pack Omegas in charge, everything gets organized on a checklist.

I’m not needed for anything, so I grab Elder Song to help me start making a plan to deal with these Divine Transfer idiots. If we can’t just blow them up, we will need to come up with something else that will derail their plans.

"I still think the original plan can work. We’ll have to bet more sneaky about it and enlist some help." Song suggests.

"What sort of help? Resistance forces to spread rumors and fight the mortal realm cultivators? That might get us started, but I don’t think it will be enough to turn the tide against the Divine Transfer."

"I don’t think we need to start a full-on uprising, we just need to cause trouble until the leaders come out of hiding to deal with things. Then we can remove them and start over in another city. Beheading their command structure should delay things quite a bit or even totally disrupt their progress.

You weren’t with us the first time, but some of their practices to align the planet’s energy for the transfer are very specific. Catchphrases in every sentence, specific clothing and walking patterns, reciting bad poetry at intervals that are to the minute specific. If they’ve gotten that far, we could cause some real damage to their progress or even force them to start over."

I admit he’s got the point. Forcing the Divine Transfer to start their ritual on this world from zero would be immensely satisfying.

In that case, the next logical step would be to get a map, or at least as much of one as the refugees can provide. For some reason, cultivation worlds always seem to be short on navigational aids. Like being able to look up where things should be is an affront to their sense of power and mystery.

So, for the rest of the evening I find myself standing by the creation circle, sketchbook in hand, filling in details to create a map of the area around the internment camp. Very few of these demihumans came from more than fifty Kilometers away, saying that those further away were taken to a different base. After a bit of discussion on the exact location, I’ve managed to pin down reasonable estimates for the location of four other internment camps, plus every village within fifty Kilometers and most of the roads and paths between them.

They also got me directions to the major cities of the Barra Kingdom, plus rough locations of several large lakes and hills. There are no real mountains in their Kingdom; the border is marked by a river that should be hard to miss as they have been at war with all their neighbors off and on for centuries, so there should be a lot of defensive fortifications along the banks.

With this information in hand, the plan changes a little. We’re first going to get some more refugees. There should be a lot of wolfkin and werewolves at one of the camps, but that wouldn’t happen with any of the stronger, more dominant wolves still alive, making it the best place to start. Werewolves are loyal to their Alpha, so we could expand Conway’s pack and bring in a wealth of wolf-type cultivators at the same time.

The disappearance of the refugees should cause some disruption once someone not fully devoted to the Cult notices, and then we can work from there to disrupt things even more.