A New Life In The Beast World-Chapter 146: A Few Questions About Herbs

Once Serena was finished with lunch, she headed into the hut and sneakily sent her bowl with Liz’s potion of the spiced meat and brown roots into her subspace. A moment later Liz disappeared into her subspace.

"What are you doing?" Theo asked, confused as to why Serena was just standing in the middle of the hut.

Serena turned to him and answered, "Just giving the Beast God’s messenger some tribute."

Theo raised an eyebrow at her word, but chose not to ask questions. Instead he just packed away the clean bowls as he intended to in the first place before heading back out of the hut.

Serena followed after him, glancing around the front of the hut, looking for Kiro. Not seeing him anyway, She turned to Theo, who was preparing the rest of the boar meat so he could smoke it.

"Um... Where’s Kiro?" Serena asked as she walked over to Theo.

"He ran off to go play in the village center." Theo answered. He then paused for a moment before he asked, "Wait, was I meant to stop him?"

"No... It’s fine." Serena sighed. "As long as he tells one of us where he’s going, it should be fine."

At least she hoped so. Sometimes she wondered if she was giving him too much freedom for a cub his age. Or maybe she was being too restrictive of his movements constantly wanting to know where he was going.

Either way, Serena couldn’t be sure.

"Anyway, I think I’m going to head to Healer Kai’s hut." Serena mused.

Theo paused for a moment before he asked, "Are you sick... Or is it for something else?"

"I wanted to ask him about some herbs and stuff. I’m not sick." Serena stated firmly. "I’ll go in a bit though. Finn should be arriving any minute now... Speak of the devil."

Theo frowned at the last part, not sure what she was going on about. What was even a devil? However, it was too late to ask because Serena was already walking away to talk to the strange rabbit beastman.

Normally, Theo would’ve felt a tinge of jealousy at the attention Finn was getting from Serena, but it seemed the rabbit beastman had no interest in Serena other than the crafts she wanted him to make.

As for Serena herself, he doubted anything was happening on her side. She seemed to only want the rabbit beastman for his hand-crafting skills.

Honestly, it was weird watching the two interact. Theo was used to beastmen and beastwomen only interacting a lot when they were interested in one another and wanted to be mates.

It was definitely not for creating weird contraptions. Then again, the Beast God was probably responsible for Serena wanting to make all sorts of things.

He was still trying to wrap his mind around that. There was something missing to this whole thing, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. But he supposed as long as Serena was happy and healthy, he was fine with it.

Serena soon returned, checking to see if he needed anything before she headed off to the village center. Once she was gone, Theo turned his attention back to smoking the meat.

***

"Is Healer Kai around?" Serena asked Jason the moment she got to the healer’s hut.

The bird beastman was outside the hut, leaning against the hut wall. From the looks of it, Jason seemed to be sun bathing or perhaps sleeping. Not that Serena could pick up on him sleeping. His breathing seemed too uneven. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Jason snapped an eye open and pursed his lips. "The old rabbit just left to check on someone. Davis is inside through.... Are you sick?"

"No. I just have a question about herbs." Serena answered before turning to the door.

She didn’t really mind if she spoke to Healer Kai or Davis. Either one could probably answer her questions. At least she assumed that.

Davis must’ve heard a commotion from inside the hut because he appeared by the door. He glanced between Jason and Serena for a moment before he spoke.

"Is everything... okay here?" Davis asked, shifting his gaze to Jason once more.

"It’s all good. Just asking Jason something." Serena responded. "I actually wanted to ask you something... Do you mind if I come in?"

"Not at all..." Davis said, moving to the side to allow for Serena to enter the hut.

She headed inside the hut, the usual heavy scent of herbs filling the air and trickling her nose, making her almost want to sneeze. It took her a moment to adjust to the overwhelming scent, not quite used to it.

"So what can I do for you today?" Davis asked, walking back over to his work bench.

Various types of herbs, both fresh and dried, were scattered across the work bench. Serena could easily name some, but others were harder to recognize.

"I just wanted to ask you how you crush your herbs." Serena responded, turning her gaze back to Davis. "Also do herbs get affected a lot when you dry them?"

"Oh... well, we use this to crush the herbs. You can ask Finn to craft you one if you’d like. He’s made several for some other families." Davis explained, picking up a small stone bowl.

Inside it was a strange curved cylinder with a roundish bottom. The bowl had a few herbs and a green paste inside it with the cylinder covered with a bit of the paste too.

"I’ll ask him about it..." Serena nodded her head in understanding.

Things would probably be much easier if she could use that inside of some random flat stone. The bowl would keep everything inside without splattering all over the place too much.

"As for drying herbs... The herbs do get affected." Davis said, answering her second question. "Normally, it’s just the taste of the herbs, but sometimes the medical properties of the herb can be affected. However, it’s sometimes necessary to dry the herb before using it. Especially when it’s scarce during other seasons."

Serena took note of his words, deciding to look more into drying herbs. It seemed to be more complicated than she originally thought. No wonder being a healer was a skilled job.

Not just for the medical skills, but also the plant knowledge and how to deal with them.

"There’s also different processes for drying different herbs and if you don’t do it right, it won’t be good." Davis added. He was quiet for a moment before he asked, "Are you planning on drying any herbs?"

He knew Serena had an interest in plants seeing as they spoke about them whenever they came across each other while foraging. He was happy to see her interest, however, it also made him a little wary.

Because messing with plants without a proper guide was a bad idea. One could accidentally poison themselves if they didn’t understand what they were doing.

Still, Serena was coming to him and Healer Kai about her interest, so he wasn’t too worried about that.

"I will admit I’m interested in trying it for myself, but I wanted to learn more before I tried anything myself." Serena answered honestly. "Don’t want to accidentally poison myself or anything."

"That’s for the best." Davis nodded his head in agreement.

"What’s for the best?" A voice suddenly called out.

They both turned to Healer Kai walking into the hut. His face was stern as he looked at them, lightening up upon realizing that his nephew was talking to Serena.

"Oh Serena... I didn’t know you were coming to visit." Healer Kai stated. "Has Davis offered you some tea? Come sit down. No need to stand on ceremony."

"No need." Serena waved her hands at the older beastman. "I just came to ask a few questions. I’ll be out of your hair soon."

"What nonsese..." Healer Kai huffed out, moving to the work bench to set down his animal fur bag. "You should still have some tea. It’s getting colder these days, you know. Don’t want you getting sick."

"Alright... Maybe one cup." Serena gave in.

A part of her wanted to argue that her body could handle colder weather than what they were experiencing right now, but she was not going to win this uphill battle.

Healer Kai sent Davis off to prepare them some tea before he asked what Serena was here for. She explained her question about the dry herbs and her need for knowledge on them.

The older rabbit beastman happily gave her the answers she needed, even going as far as to show her some methods for drying herbs. Normally, he wouldn’t have done this.

But considering the knowledge Serena was willingly giving to improve the village, he saw it as a small sacrifice. Perhaps it could even help with whatever she was doing.

Though he would only find out more about that at the next Council meeting since the Council had given her more freedom to do what she wanted.

After spending two hours at Healer Kai’s hut, Serena soon left, her mind brimming with new information.