I Picked Up an Abandoned Villain in the Polar Region

Episode 16

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Kyle and Brody stared quietly at the open hole on the frozen sea.

The hole in the floor they were looking at was open to the unmelted sea beneath the ice layer.

Kyle sat down low, hiding behind a frozen drift ice, his bushy tail thumping against the floor, twitching with anticipation.

Brody also sat a little away from Kyle and stared at the hole, waiting for something to come out of it.

According to the seal hunting method passed down from the white bear, the seals wander around the bottom of the frozen sea for a long time, and at least once come out of the breathing holes they have made to breathe.

So, in order to catch a seal, they had to wait for that time.

Brody, who learned this, walked with Kyle to a place far away from the area where white bear was active, and had been camped out since last night in front of the hole they found after persistently searching and waited.

“Why isn’t it coming out…?”

Brody was extremely bored due to the seal not coming out even though she had been waiting for it all night long.

Starting to worry that the seal might have abandoned the breathing hole, she ran near the breathing hole, jumping up and down.

She was thinking of looking down through the hole. So, Brody stuck her head into the hole and looked closely at the dark sea.

It was a very dangerous thing to do. But the bear couldn’t teach her that before.

When Brody was looking into the hole without realizing it, a seal that was leisurely swimming under the sea raised its head.

The shadow of this small animal wandering around was reflected on the surface of the ice visible from the depths of the sea.

The seal swam at breakneck speed and leapt up through the breathing hole to catch her.

“Kyaaak!”

Brody, startled by the seal that suddenly jumped out, retreated with quick reflexes.

Thanks to that, she was able to avoid getting her face ripped off, but she couldn’t see the seal on the ice because she immediately fell backwards and rolled away.

“Kyle!”

After hearing Brody’s screams, Kyle appeared, convinced that the long-awaited seal had finally come.

He ran over in an instant and jumped on the seal’s back. The seal was startled by the sudden presence of a wild beast and struggled.

However, the seals crawling on their bellies on land were not able to properly resist the four-legged wolves.

Kyle clung to the wildly struggling seal and fought with all his might. And the moment the seal’s movements slowed down, he bit off its neck with his strong teeth.

Immediately, flesh was torn and a lot of blood flowed. It was truly an enormous power.

Brody, who had been hiding behind an ice rock and watching the whole scene, trembled when she saw Kyle suffocating the adult seal in the blink of an eye.

It was different from the day he hunted the seagulls. Now he was more cruel and barbaric than then, and he did not even have the slightest hesitation in killing his prey.

She already knew from the novel that he was more ruthless than anyone else when he hunted, but there was a big difference between what she knew and what she actually encountered.

Since she was a herbivore that would die from a single kick from him, she could not help but tremble in fear in front of a meat-eating predator in action.

On the other hand, Kyle excitedly tasted the seal meat without paying attention to Brody, who was scared when she saw him like that.

He was almost blinded by the fact that he was now eating raw meat to his fill after a few weeks of grazing on grass that was not suitable for his appetite.

It was completely different from when he ate the two seagulls and the piece of seal meat from the bear.

As his stomach filled, Kyle’s condition and mood, which had hit rock bottom so far, rose to the top.

“It’s so delicious…?”

Brody hesitantly approached and asked. He instinctively bared his teeth at her as she approached his prey.

It was like he did not even recognizing his benefactor in front of something to eat.

“I won’t take it from you!”

When the sarcastic Brody shouted, Kyle lowered his head and happily began eating meat again.

 

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After Kyle regained his strength, Brody was treated almost like a master during the subsequent journey.

He started carrying Brody on his back.

Of course, it was definitely not because he liked Brody.

It was to help Brody not to run out of stamina so quickly, as Brody was having a hard time eating the leaves she used to pluck from time to time whenever she saw them.

If she lost her strength, he would no longer be able to hunt and would have to return to the forest.

Kyle didn’t really want to do that.

Every time Kyle ate seals to replenish the energy he had lost, Brody’s body, which always ate leaves to the point where her stomach was full, was unable to absorb nutrients and lost energy day by day.

It was only natural that the rabbit, whose body was so weak, would become even weaker if she could not eat properly.

Kyle, who had already successfully hunted a prey for the fifth time, was eating the delicious seal, and belatedly noticed Brody’s condition and asked.

“Shall we go back to the forest?”

It was a faux offer. Brody, who was hanging on a block of ice like laundry, laughed and shook her head.

“I’m fine, so don’t worry about me and just eat.”

“Okay?”

Kyle was someone who didn’t have the manners to ask one more time when someone declined.

He listened to what the rabbit said and worked hard to fill his stomach.

 

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Several days had passed since Brody and Kyle began heading south via the sea route.

Today, as usual, Brody sat on the ice rock alone and opened her backpack, leaving Kyle to catch and eat a seal with his brilliant hunting skills.

The backpack, which got smaller as she filled her stomach, made her feel depressed.

Brody took out a small leaf and chewed it.

It wasn’t enough to fill her stomach, but she had no choice because she had to eat sparingly.

Only recently did she understand Kyle’s feelings as he walked the white stone plains and climbed Rodia Mountain without eating properly for several weeks.

It was so hard to eat just a few meals, but Kyle almost starved every day on that arduous journey.

Brody felt sorry for Kyle and couldn’t show that she was having a hard time even more when she saw that his stomach was finally getting full.

Brody, who had filled her stomach with some leaves and was coming down from the ice rock without bothering to pack her backpack, suddenly stopped in surprise when she saw an animal that appeared out of nowhere in front of her.

“Mua?”

It was a white baby bear.

The baby bear was standing with both front and hind feet around the ice rock where Brody was standing, looking up at the rabbit.

Its curious eyes were as black as Brody’s. Brody exclaimed as she saw the doll-like baby bear, cooing towards him.

“Oh my god, you’re so cute!”

The baby bear was bigger than her, but because he was a real baby, everything he did was cute.

“Mamma, mamma.”

The baby bear was moving his body while holding on to the ice rock, but was unable to control his plump body and fell down.

Watching his figure bravely struggling to stand up again, Brody praised and encouraged him.

“Oh my, you’re good. Aww, that’s cute.”

“Mamma.”

“Mamma? Did you eat Mamma?”¹For those who don’t know, don’t get the wrong idea. Some places refer to the food as mamm or mamma, only to children though (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠)

“Ah!”

“Oh. Are you answering me now? You’re so smart!”

Brody, who was applauding the cute baby bear by saying ‘Good job, good job’, suddenly became curious as to why this baby bear was here alone.

“Baby. Where is your mom?”

“Mamma”

“Yes. Where did you leave your mom to wander around alone?”

“Mamma!”

Baby Bear shouted, pointing at Brody. Now that she saw it, it seemed like the only word he could say was ‘Mamma’.

Brody said with a mischievous smile.

“Yes, the Mamma you said you ate earlier.”

“Mam, ma!”

This time too, the baby bear shouted “Mamma” clearly.

But for some reason, Brody felt like the baby bear’s front paw was pointing at something behind her, not at her.²Oh no(⁠●⁠_⁠_⁠●⁠)

Without thinking, she looked back to where the baby bear was pointing behind her.

“Mom! Ma!”

The moment Brody turned around, the first thing she felt was that a shadow had suddenly been drawn over her.

And when she raised her head to follow the huge object that had not been there before, standing behind her, she made eye contact with the baby bear’s huge mother, who was quietly looking down at her.

“Aaaah!”

At that time, Kyle, who was frantically eating his food a little away, heard Brody’s screams.

When he raised his head to see what was going on. Brody shouted, jumping into his field of vision out of nowhere.

“Kyle! Run away!”

The rabbit that ran at an incredibly fast speed, showed breathtaking drifting skills when she almost hit an ice wall while turning a corner.

Kyle, who was admiring the rabbit without even understanding the situation, soon saw the bear cub and the huge mother bear that she was leading, and dropped the meat he was eating.

He was punished for his complacency over finding enough food to eat as he had not been able to spot the bear, and did not even notice that it was nearby.

The mother bear took her time when chasing the rabbit, but as soon as she saw Kyle, she became so excited that she started running towards them.

She was almost like an angry bull. The mother bear’s instinct to protect her cub when she saw a predator was clearly revealed.

Originally, white bears were famous for being animals with very strong maternal love for their cubs.

That’s why they always leave the cubs in a place where they can see them, and if anything approach the cubs….Whatever it was, they tore it to death with their front paws.

A Mother like that wouldn’t ignore predators like Kyle being near her child.

Kyle felt so bad about having to leave the fish he had caught, but he had no choice but to run away with Brody as hard as he could.

However, no matter how fast they ran, it was not easy to outrun the mother bear.

There were large and small drift ice frozen here and there like obstacles, and the bare snow-covered ground was too slippery for speeding.

On the other hand, the bear, unlike the two animals, did not slip and closed the distance between them, possibly because she had grown up playing and hunting here all her life.

If they continued like this, they would be caught by that mother bear and torn to pieces. Kyle, who had foreseen their future, put his brain to work and came up with a plan.

 

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TL:

Well, bad luck is a very good friend with them it seems ╮⁠(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠╭