Chapter 101: Lost and Found
Sunnie stared at the fragments of the egg for a while. They sat there beside her, broken and glimmering with light under the water’s glow. But the pretty sight of the egg wasn’t her main concern at the moment.
It was the fact that what was supposed to be inside it was no longer there. The baby that had likely cracked out of the egg was nowhere to be seen.
"What the...?" Immediately, she got up from where she was. Sunnie quickly made her way out of the water and soon stood by the water’s edge.
She looked around, but there was no sign of a little mer child anywhere. She panicked at the thought of the baby escaping already and running into the forest to meet some dangers or something "Where on earth could it possibly have gone?"
Her clothes were still wet from being in the water for too long. Now she was searching for any sight of the little one that had run off, but she didn’t see anything.
[Ding!]
[Baby Raising System Alert!]
[System notice: The Host’s cub is currently in danger!]
[The Host must save the baby before it’s too late.]
Sunnie stared at the system, speechless. Already in danger? Didn’t the baby just hatch? How was it already in danger?
She had partially see this coming when she woke up and didn’t see the baby around here!
The thought left Sunnie speechless. She stared as the system presented her with the location where she needed to go to save the baby from danger. It didn’t explicitly mention what type of danger it was.
Sunnie sighed. She guessed this would be her first impression of the little one. And so she set off to find and save the baby that had run off after hatching.
---
Deep in the woods, laughter filled the atmosphere.
A little baby was crawling on both hands and knees, making its way along the path as though it knew where it was going.
The little girl was still so small as she crawled, laughing and smiling.
She had short blue hair and big blue eyes that glittered. Her ears were curled slightly backwards like a mermaid’s ears. Around her body were leaves covering her as if they were clothes, and some blue fish scales dotted her body too.
The little girl happily crawled without any care in the world. She had a bright smile as she moved, giggling while slowly approaching a scene.
She stopped and stared at a tall figure before her. A tall man was standing at a distance, holding an arrow while positioning it toward a certain tree. This man was a hunter aiming for a big bird he had spotted on a tree and had been keeping a close eye on for a long time.
The man was a hunter from a hyena tribe down the forest. He had the ears and tail of a hyena. They lived at a distance not so far from the evil forest but still away from it.
This hunter had caught sight of a huge bird hovering around and making its way into the evil forest. He was determined to capture it and had followed it in.
The hunter had been monitoring it for a while and was about to catch it when he heard the laughing sound of the baby—soft giggles.
He paused and turned, staring down at the little one. The hunter immediately set out his arrow and pointed it down in her direction. "And what’s this we have here...?"
He stared at her for a while. The little mermaid didn’t even know what was happening. She didn’t seem to care; she stared up at the hunter with a bright smile.
But the hunter frowned at her, positioning his arrow down at her. "You little thing existing in the evil forest... where did you come from?"
The little girl sat there on the ground, smiling and giggling at the hunter as if he were playing with her.
The hunter let out a mischievous smile. "Smile all you want. When I fire this, then I’d like to see how much you can smile." He adjusted the arrow to make sure he wouldn’t miss his shot.
---
That morning, Azure had also gone to visit Sunnie in the water. But as he went inside, he didn’t see anyone at all.
He didn’t see Sunnie where she usually lay, and he also didn’t see the baby. All he saw were the hatched egg fragments, which simply meant the baby was out.
But he didn’t see it anywhere.
Panicked, Azure made his way out of the water. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew that Sunnie was awake and that the egg had hatched. Since he hadn’t seen either of them back at the cave where he came from, Azure guessed that they had gone somewhere else.
He didn’t know where to start looking for them, but he knew he had to start somewhere. So Azure set off in search of Sunnie and the baby.
The only advantage he had at the moment was that since it was his baby, he could partially sniff her scent to know where the contents of the egg had gone.
And so he followed the scent to guide his search for the baby and Sunnie.
---
Sunnie had also followed the scent from the egg to find the baby. She was surprised that she could perceive it—well, she should be able to, since she was the mother.
By the time she had trekked through the woods long enough, she could already feel her clothes and body drying.
Sunnie was at a distance when she heard someone talking. It was a male voice, a strange one at that.
And what caught her attention the most in this situation was the little giggles she heard as well. It was from a little baby, and she was certain of that.
"That’s it," she said, and without hesitation, Sunnie stepped into the scene.