"As you get stronger, the food gets better too. A lot of people don't know, because they only eat for nutrition, but Mythic Beasts are secretly really tasty." Luna told the others once the boar was split up between them.
"Really? Aren't they still the same creature?" Penny asked, being the second most interested in good food, behind Luna.
"I've got some Mythic Leopard I brought from home. Give me a few minutes and we can have a snack." The transformed Lamia agreed.
Some of the others looked to Cain to see if he was in a hurry, but he was well acquainted with Luna's eating schedule, so he had been expecting this, especially after they had butchered and shared the boar.
"It only takes a few minutes to fry up the strips to medium rare. Trust me, the giant purple Leopards might be a nasty piece of work, with that speed and the lightning affinity, but once you manage to kill them, it is all worth it." He explained.
Luna piled up up a collection of dry sticks to make a fire and waited until they were burning to her satisfaction, then pulled out a stand and a frying pan, planning on having the meat ready in under ten minutes as promised.
"Humans need well-rounded meals. Add this to the mix." Tena informed her, passing over some cabbage and local vegetables that Luna didn't know.
"What do I do with that? Are you sure it is edible? Is it as good as meat?" Luna asked, making the other girls laugh.
"See, this is what happens without female supervision. Yes, it is edible and important to your growth. You can't just eat meat all the time, no matter how good meat is." Tena explained.
"So, you're saying it's not as good as meat? Well, I suppose we can eat it too." Luna sighed.
Tena took over the cooking, and Cain took a seat on a fallen log, watching the two small girls work, looking like twins showing off for their Sect family. Penny seemed to have the same idea, and Cain noticed that she had taken out a sketchpad and was drawing the scene of them making dinner and arguing about the merits of adding vegetables to your diet.
Everything that they had could be fried, but the vegetables took longer to soften than the meat took to cook, which in Luna's mind proved their inferiority as a food product.
With Mythic Beast meat, you didn't actually need anything else, it nourished the entire body, including your energy needs, but it was still good to have more than unseasoned meat as a snack.
As far as Cain could tell, he was the only one that knew that little fact though, as the argument was firmly on the side of having proper meals, and not just snacking on roast meat all the time.
"Dinner is served. Or an afternoon snack? What meal are we even on at this point?" Tena asked.
"I think it's afternoon? I kind of lost track of time while we were hunting." Luna shrugged.
The Mythic Leopard meat was a big hit with everyone, starting an intense discussion about the best ways to obtain more of the unique meat since there were no similar creatures in the vicinity. There were many other forms of Mythic Beasts though, so there was hope that they would be able to find something just as good in the near future.
"Once we are done, we will head deeper into the mountains until it gets dark. I know it means sleeping in the open, but we should get further away from the disturbance before someone comes looking and tries to find out what happened to the Elders that Tena and her group were traveling with. That would just be awkward, and they wouldn't be happy with the answers." Cain informed his new Sect.
"Yes, the fewer people that we meet in the next few days the better. Maybe we should get some more nondescript travel clothes as well though? The Sect Uniforms are beautiful, but wearing our plain travel outfits would help us blend in." Sabbat agreed.
"Hopefully you can. If not, I have outfits with me that should be the same for everyone who puts them on. The System has a habit of changing the appearance of everything that you try to wear to suit its ideas of what you should look like. The fact you all came out looking so similar was actually a surprise to me. I had expected a very eclectic group with such different classes." Cain explained.
"What are you thinking?" Luna asked and Cain took out the Darklight Host tabards, which should make for a thigh-length sleeveless dress on the ladies, which would be relatively normal looking in this world if they had a long-sleeved shirt and pants underneath. Nobody really went sleeveless here, they liked long flowing robes with wide sleeves all day every day.
"If only we had Lickity with us, she could make an assortment of normal clothing for us." Luna sighed.
That reminded Cain, he still had an entire chest full of women's clothing in his inventory. Now that they had a System, the fit didn't matter, it would adapt, so he could dress them up however he liked.
[You know, that sounds more than a little suspicious, right?] Oath Breaker asked.
[Possibly. But I don't think that they would object. There are plenty of normal things in the box.] Cain shrugged off the Demon's concern.
Luckily, their traveling robes in boring shades of brown and green didn't change at all when they equipped them. Even the sets that Luna bought from the shops in town came out with their original colors. It was just the one set of robes that the System created for them when they joined the Sect that was so flamboyant.
It was a shame though, the peach colors and fancy design were adorable. Much better than these tunic and pants travel robes.
Cain changed back into his customary Dark Elven suit, in black with a Peach-colored shirt, unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, which made Penny give him a thumbs up.
"I don't think I've ever seen an outfit like that before, but it looks good. It makes you look very civilized." The Lycan commended him.
"I will have you know, I am a proper Noble back on my homeworld and not just a cult leader. Looking dapper is in my nature." Cain replied with a wink.
"I can see why it was so easy to get people to follow you. A lot of powerful people are aloof or really rude to those who are weaker than themselves, only ever thinking about a challenge or improving themselves, but you're very different." Jen told him, polishing her new sword before they headed out.
"We just need a better travel method eventually. You can walk the length of the mountains in a season, but much further and it will be an issue." Penny sighed, looking out into the woods.
That didn't sound right to Cain, he had a map, and he had guessed at the scale by looking from the city to the nearest peaks which were marked on the map.
"A whole season to cross the mountains?" Cain asked.
"Oh, I forgot that you're not from here. If we're headed across the mountain range to the coast from here it is three thousand kilometers." Penny informed him, and Cain took out his map, adjusting his estimation of the distances.
It seemed that this world was at least five times as large as the one he came from because that would make the valley four thousand kilometers long, and the Divine Light Sect, which he had thought was close, over a thousand kilometers from the city, up in the mountains.
"We will hunt here in unclaimed territory for a few days, and I will make everyone some flying swords at night, so you can keep up when we want to head to a new area. They will take some energy to keep active, but that shouldn't be too big of an issue for any of you." Cain decided.
That brightened everyone's mood, and Luna decided not to mention that she could just summon swords for everyone. Even now that they knew about the System, that might take some explanation, and Luna was hoping that they could find another beast to hunt today before the sun went down.
She had stockpiled as much as possible for the trip, but their new companions only just now got an inventory and didn't have storage rings, so they couldn't have much with them, and Luna didn't want to run out of food.
Cain shook his head as he heard her thoughts. Even if everyone ate out of her inventory and didn't replenish anything, they would have a season's worth of meat. Luna was just a bit too focused on her food supply, which Cain couldn't really explain since he knew she had been fed regularly all her life.
[Carnage is the same way. He is a War-type Demon, though a Wrath Demon, not an obsession Demon. His instincts tell him to stockpile enough for the entire army to eat for a year, or he doesn't have enough food.] Oath Breaker explained.
That made sense. A Commander was in charge of keeping their troops fed, so wanting to have a huge amount of food on hand was only logical, if your nature was to want to start an army.
[Good thing I've got you with me. Raising children isn't easy.]
Oath Breaker Laughed as Cain followed the group into the mountains, keeping his senses open for anything that might be a threat.
