I mean you no harm

They started their journey early on. The kids were still asleep, and Liam strapped them on Haru again. She again whined a lot but relented when Liam gave him some liver.

He was wondering about that a lot.

'Why do they like liver so damn much? Was that the iron in it, or did the blood contain something different? Or did they just like the taste of the thing.' Either way, he was curious to know the answer to those questions.

Liam sent words to Nio because he was still sleeping and told Biff how far he estimated them to be able to travel. He planned for the kids to hike for a while, with long breaks.

A few hours later, Yong-Sun was the first to wake up. He felt the soft fur and patted it gently. He had become used to the fluffiness of Haru. Sleeping on her was like he imagined sleeping on clouds.

Liam noticed when he woke, but this time he waited for the other two to wake up. It took them half an hour. Once they awoke, they stopped traveling for a time. Liam fed the kids some breakfast and then made them do some light stretches.

He told them they would be traveling for three hours, taking a break, and then another three hours. After that, they need to find another camping site and make it decent. That was why he only made them travel just six hours a day.

This was something that would grow their stamina and increase their muscle flexibility, and this uneven terrain would do wonders to a growing body.

The kids weren't happy hearing that, but they didn't complain.

This was good. The kids didn't need to understand everything right now. Once they grew up, maybe they'd realize what he did was beneficial to them.

The hiking had turned out slower and faster than Liam had anticipated. At first, the kids just moved along as Liam had directed, but as time passed, they started to play games again.

This time it was mind games: word puzzles and the like. The kids didn't seem to understand at first, but when they did start to understand. Their faces lit up; that was how Liam began their education.

They reached their destination on time. Nio was already there. Yet again, he seemed to be sleeping. Biff was awake, but he seemed to be dealing with something and tossed out a huge fish soon after.

"I want its liver!" He demanded when it fell in front of Liam.

"You don't want its meat?"

"No, just the liver is fine. I think I'm stuffed anyway, so I'll only ask for the liver," he elaborated, thinking it would be necessary for Liam to know that he didn't need to hunt for him any longer.

"Okay then. It seems I don't need to go hunting today," Liam mumbled.

He had noticed that Nio hadn't eaten anything besides the liver he had given him. Judging by Haru, who was gaining weight rapidly, he didn't need to hunt as much.

He stared at the creature in front of him. It was still alive and desperately attempting to reach the water.

'I have yet to try fish on this planet.' He thought and took out the snake tooth knife. This was the sharpest thing he had at the moment. He stabbed the knife behind the gills and opened up the fish creature. The only difference was its multicolored scales.

He tried to pull one scale but sliced his palm open. Liam pulled away and stared at the scales.

They seemed to be as sharp as the snake tooth knife given to him by Nio.

Just in case, he cleaned his hand and looked at the wound's edges in his palm. Just to see if it had any discoloring. Then, he focused his energy on healing and expelling all things that weren't necessary. Thankfully the scales held no poison, and he could close the wound, but it wasn't properly healed.

He stopped to think about how he should handle this.

Karu stepped up, pulling one of the Purple Runners' skins. An older one. Liam looked at it and hacked it with the blade. A palm-sized piece was extracted, and he added five holes for fingers. The skin was just to protect his palm. The surface of the scale hadn't harmed him.

He tried pulling it off again, but that seemed to be useless.

"Any other ideas?"

Everyone shook their heads. Even Nio had woken to see what was happening.

Liam then took the tops side scale in his hand and pushed it over. He heard a tiny sound, and looking over, he found that one side had been loosened up. He wiggled it some more and got it loose. He pulled it out.

One scale in his hand, he observed the thing. It looked perfectly round, slightly bent. The most marvelous thing about it was its color. The dark shade somehow reflected the light making the scale shine. Liam compared it to Nio's scales and found it lacking. Its strength wasn't as great, and it cracked when he tried to bend it. To him, it looked brittle.

The parts he liked about the thing were its color, the sharpness, and the fact that it was great for normal humans.

It took him an hour to get all the scales of the fish.

Meanwhile, the kids gathered wood and made the firepit.

On the other hand, Liam was considering what to do with the fish skin. Yet again, Karu appeared by his side. Thus, he asked him about it.

"I saw a picture. A woman was drawn there, wearing a dress that looked a lot like this skin."

This somehow made Liam laugh.

'So this place, riddled with danger, has fashion, huh? what a weird place.'

"What is so funny?"

"Nothing," he looked behind him and saw the kids' work. "Good work!" He praised them.

Karu wasn't happy with the weird arrangement, but he was still pleased when he was praised.

Liam cut a large piece of the meat out of the fish side and put it aside. Then he dug inside it to find its liver. It turned out to be bigger than he expected, and he tossed it into the river.

"Thanks," bubbles were seen on the river surface.

The rest of the fish was given to Haru, who ate the thing like it was nothing. She only left the bones. Later that evening, Liam would stumble on them, discovering how flexible they are. So he kept them all in one of those pouches.

Liam left the kids to try and start the fire all by themselves. They had found good kindling material before and are now trying to light the wood.

Liam was about four kilometers away from their new campsite when he found some familiar-looking plants. It wasn't just one, but he spotted another familiar and edible plant a little further away.

The first one seemed to be carrots and the second one looked a lot like potatoes. He looked around a found some onions and garlic. He didn't leave it there. He didn't know when he would be able to find this kind of good food. Stuffing them inside a pouch, he suddenly looked in a specific direction. He saw Haru doing nothing, just staying near him.

'Hmm, I definitely felt it. Was it another creature?' he thought to himself.

He had felt energy fluctuations from that direction.

Liam was a curious being, so he went to check it out. The forest was thick with all kinds of trees. So he walked in the direction of that fluctuation and found signs of human life or habitation.

'So, it isn't a creature, fascinating.'

After some time, he located an oak tree that seemed very old and sturdy. The oak had a hole at the side of the trunk. It looked natural to Liam but looking around, he discovered that someone was definitely using this place. Most likely to hide from the predators around, the tree suited well for that purpose.

Liam sat down in front of it and concentrated on his surroundings. Then, finally, he found that someone was definitely inside of it.

"Old one, will you come out? I mean you no harm," he said and watched if there was any reaction.