Chp.32: Collecting food
While the ogres were busy dealing with a nonexistent retaliation of the fairies, Haku and his brothers and sisters were enjoying the fruits of their hunt. The young dragons couldn't be happier: so far, the plan had been an unmitigated success. This obviously didn't guarantee that they would have continued to be successful like thast in the future and they knew it well, but it was still a boost for their morale.
Of course, they hadn't just killed Sarpa's hunting group. It would have been absurd for the fairies to have picked a group of ogres at random and captured them. If they wanted their lie to hold up, then they needed to create a lot more victims. And now that they knew the scent of ogres, combined with the locations of their tribes given by Ethan's diary, it was easy to kill large numbers of hunters. Over the next five days, Haku and his siblings moved silently throughout the forest, hunting and killing several groups of hunters. Only when they noticed that the ogres had stopped leaving their villages did Haku decide that it was enough: now that the ogres were scared enough, all of them would have believed what Sarpa would have soon told them.
The booty had been very profitable. In total, the young dragons had managed to track down and kill 42 groups of hunters. Considering that each group had at least six members, the number of ogres killed was 252; and considering that each ogre weighed an average of 400 kilos, the amount of food obtained was more than 100 tons. Nit only thay, but since many of those hunting parties had already caught some animals when the dragons attacked them, or were nearly killing it and then the dragons ended the job, the total gain of their efforts had been nearly 300 tons.
Of course, though, what Haku really cared about were the items they'd taken from the ogres: their weapons, their traps, their trinkets, and, above all, the dimensional bags and the refrigerators.
Since each hunting party carried at least one dimensional bag and a refrigerator, now Haku and his brothers could store 2,100 tons of food for the next three years. Although it was still a result far from the desired goal, it was still a great start.
The little dragons had wasted no time in filling them: combining the gigantic bodies of their father and the dragon who died in the forest with all the ogres they had killed, they already possessed an impressive 1,600 tons of meat; if they then added all the prey they had hunted in the previous days while they were training, the total quota reached was 1,750 tons. They had basically filled 35 dimensional bags in one single whoop. Once that was done, they made sure to hide the bags well, burying them in a safe place away from their mother's gaze.
Neytiri's face when she discovered that the bodies of Kalos and the other dragon were gone had been hilarious: the little dragons had had to summon all their self-control not to burst out laughing. The dragoness hadn't been able to understand what could have carried off such large carcasses, and obviously she excluded her children without even think about it. So she spent the next six days constantly flying from one part to another of her territory fearing that another dragon had sneaked in, obviously finding absolutely nothing.
Of course, Haku wasn't interested only in dimensional bags, refrigerators and ogre meat: even if they were the most important loot, there was more. Even if his victims were only hunters they still had several interesting objects. Haku had come into possession of many magical traps and several potions of various types. Obviously, before sending Sarpa away, he had had each of them explained to him. Now hunting would have been much easier, because with them and the help of all his siblings he could have caught many more animals.
Oh, and then there were the weapons. Even if they were of no use to him at the moment, it was possible that he might make use of them in the future. Some of them were basically useless (they were nothing more than spiked clubs without any power) but others were instead enchanted and therefore very powerful. Even though he still had no clue about how to use them, he was sure that someday he would have had some ideas. After all, the arrows and crossbow he'd stolen from Ethan had gone a long way toward making Sarpa's play more believable.
Haku was satisfied. With one single stroke he had obtained far more benefits than he could ever find in the valley. And of course that was just the beginning.
Over the next few days, Haku and his siblings split into three teams, each tasked with hunting as much as possible and obtaining as much meat as possible. By now the prey they fed on was a very small slice of what they actually hunted: most of them ended up straight into the dimensional bags to be stored.
Initially, most of them thought that large prey, such as karkadanns, would have been the best choice: although they were dangerous, they would have been helpless against an onslaught of seventeen dragons, even if they were young. That way, they would have gotten 10 tons of meat in one go. However, there were problems with this plan: large animals such as the karkadanns, while not rare, weren't very common either, so the little dragons would have wasted a lot of time looking for their prey. Therefore Haku had fallen back on something simpler and faster: catching smaller animals, but that lived in large herds.
For example, one of the most common animals in the valley was the eikfirnir, a species of deer similar to an indrik, but smaller and with less conspicuous antlers and a shorter tail. These animals weighed no more than half a ton each one, and the largest males could weigh no more than 700 kilos; however, unlike the indriks, they lived in huge herds numbering at least fifty, though some numbered over two hundred. Which meant that by hunting these animals the baby dragons could obtain at least 25 tons of meat at one time, more than double what they would have earned from a karkadann.
And the eikfirnirs were just one of many animal species in the valley that lived in herds. There were also the calidonius, gigantic wild boars which could weigh over 400 kilos, but which lived in herds of at least 300 individuals each. Or there were the audhumlas, enormous cows that could weigh up to a ton, but which didn't live in herds of less than 40 members.
So, in conclusion, the little dragons had a great variety of possibilities. These species were common in the valley and easy to track down, so they didn't have to spend much time looking for them: as for catching them… that was even easier. As soon as they identified a herd, in fact, the little dragons quickly dug a deep hole which they hid with branches and leaves, and then attacked the herd from various directions, scaring them and pushing the animals towards the hole, from which they could no longer get out. What's more, the little dragons had learned to use some of the traps they'd taken from the ogres to further immobilize their prey and prevent them from escaping. Many animals even died crushed by their terrified companions, making their task easier. In one shot, the little dragons exterminated a whole herd of animals; it basically took them no more than an hour to track them down, build the trap, and then kill them all. Consequently, once that herd was completely exterminated, they could immediately go looking for another one.
Even when they had bad luck in hunting, each of the three teams obtained at least 100 tons of food each day. Added together, that was more than 300 tons of food per day. Haku was sure that if they continued at that speed they would have surpassed 3,000 tons of food before their mother chased them away from the valley; so, then they would have had to find 'only' 4,000 to reach the chosen quota. The 42 dimensional bags they had available weren't enough to store all that food, but Haku had already given orders to Sarpa so that he would have gotten him more; since they were items relatively easy to find, it wouldn't have been difficult for the ogre to bring him more.
If they had continued at that speed even after they got out of the valley, Haku and his siblings would have reached the 7,000 tons of food they needed in just four months. However, Haku aimed to obtain them in a even shorter time thanks to a very important factor: the conflict between ogres and fairies that he himself was causing.
Haku didn't know much about how the wars of the newcomers worked, but he knew that the two sides fought to the death and that was enough for him: the number of ogres and fairies killed would have guaranteed him an immense source of food. From what he learned from Ethan's notes, the most populous ogre tribes numbered 10,000 individuals; which meant that, bearing in mind that each ogre weighed an average of 400 kilos, only one of these tribes could guarantee him and his siblings 4,000 tons of meat. Haku certainly didn't expect the whole tribe to go and get killed, but since there were at least thirty ogre tribes, the number of corpses on the battlefield would have been enormous. And to them he also had to add the fairies: they were much less heavy than the ogres (according to Ethan's notes, they shouldn't have weighed more than 50 kilos), but they were still a good source of food. As soon as the conflict broke out, Haku and his siblings would have just had to wait and recover the bodies after each battle. And since they would also have hunted the animals of the forest, they could have reached the 7,000 tons needed for their journey in less than a couple of months. This without counting that they could have taken advantage of the situation to steal supplies, plunder villages and kill patrols or small battalions.
From what he'd learned from Ethan's journal, the ogres were a proud race, so it was unlikely their leaders would have turned a blind eye to all these vanishing hunters. And thanks to Sarpa's testimony and various clues that the little dragons had voluntarily left near the places of the crime (an arrow stuck in a tree here, a piece of rope there) the ogres would have placed all the blame on the fairies and would have declared war on them in no time. Now Haku just had to wait, and the ogres would have just played his game.
As for Sarpa's son… well, Haku had obviously kept his word and hadn't hurt him in the slightest, but still he had made sure he couldn't escape. Using one of the ogres' traps which consisted of several golden ropes similar to the ones the humans had captured him and Darbi with, he had completely immobilized Sinar. He didn't even free him for meals: he fed him to feed him. And as greater protection he had hidden it in a cave that he closed with a very heavy boulder, too heavy for the young ogre to move, when he went away and there was no one to watch him. After all, he didn't want to risk Sinar breaking free and running to tell everyone the truth, invalidating his plan.
Otherwise, Haku had treated the young ogre quite well, giving him plenty of food and water and doing no cruelty to him. It would have done him no good, after all, and he had nothing against Sinar. Indeed, in truth, Haku had nothing against ogres in general: he was only operating in his own interest, and he did what had to be done to ensure his survival and the one of his siblings. Sufficient supplies were needed in the first place for his plan to be carried out, and that was the only way to obtain them. Haku was willing to kill every creature present in the valley and in the adjacent forest in order to achieve his goal.
He would have done anything to keep his brothers and sisters safe. He didn't mind the cost in the slightest. The family was the only thing that mattered: everything else was worthless.