SWNOVELS Chatper 26
The entire group was gathered by the back mountain soon.
The Back Mountain was a relatively dangerous area in Riverside Pack. It shared boarders with the rogues up north and inhabited
many dangerous species in the woods.
Only strong werewolves dared to hunt in this area.
Janet had finished the prep work and was standing at the start–up point with Kass and Balvina.
“Gamma Janet, I promise I won’t let you down,” Kass said excitedly while rolling his wrists. “If there is any danger, just hide
behind my back.”
Balvina burst into laughter, “Oh please. Your Gamma is stronger than the two of us combined. You probably want to hide behind
her back when something dangerous happened.”
“I won’t behave like a coward,” Kass said solemnly. “They’ll have to step over my dead body before they get to Gamma Janet.”
“Nobody will be dead,” Janet smiled.
“You are such a nerd Kass...Oh shit.”
Balvina’s eyes traveled behind Janet’s shoulder, and she snorted, “Here comes the clown.”
The three of them turned around and found Harper walking across the crowd of people.
Among all these soldiers dressed in uniform or sportswear, Harper stood out with her low–cup top, short skirt, and skinny high–
heels.
She carried a basket in her hand and walked up to the group of Alphas and Gammas at the front.
“Hey, I heard that you are having a competition today. So I prepare some snacks for you,” Harper opened her basket with a big
smile. “Would anyone like to have a try?”
“Seems nice!”
Jeff and Steven immediately came to her side.
But when they saw clearly what’s inside, they became hesitate again.
“Please take as much as you like. I’ve made quite a few,” Harper encouraged.
She gave a sheepish look at Daran and added with a shy smile, “Not to flatter myself, but I’m quite good at cooking. And I’m
trying to get better at it because it’s the duty of the future Lun-”
“Are you seriously giving us these?” Balvina cut her off abruptly after taking a look
at the basket.
Harper seemed offended, “If you don’t like it, I won’t force you to eat my food...”
“Sure. But I’m just saying,” Balvina shrugged, “You made chocolate muffins, French fries, panzerotti...all of these contains lots of
fats, sugar and carbs. We try to keep a low body fat as warriors. Nobody here would like to eat it.”
Harper’s face quickly turned red.
“I–I don’t know...” she murmured, “I just want to do the good thing here-”
“But don’t you have a nutrition class when you were in school?” Balvina raised an eyebrow at her, “You skipped diving lesson,
and you missed nutrition as well? How on earth did you get your graduate certificate?”
Harper felt a surge of panic.
Of course she didn’t get her graduate certificate. She spent all of her teenage life messing around with her high school
boyfriends.
So in the end she had to force Janet to scrape off her name off her graduate certificate and put the name “Harper” on it.
Later when Janet married Daran, Janet was even mocked to be “the Luna without graduate certificate.”
But Daran knew none of these. She couldn’t let Daran find out!
“I–I forgot,” Harper quickly covered her basket and put on a forced smile. “Let me run back and get you something else.”
“There’s no need.”
Janet reached into her backpack and took out a box of protein bars.
“The competition is about to begin,” Janet said coolly. “If any of you is hungry, take my snack here.”
Everybody swarmed in for a protein bars. They seemed much more enthusiastic compared to earlier when they saw Harper’s
snack.
Harper gripped onto her basket as rage building up in her.
She looked over to Daran and found him gazing at Janet, with a small smile on his lips.
Harper was furious.
She made 5 maids to prepare these foods within a short time. She even made her way across the dusty training field‘ in these
hells carrying this damn heavy basket- Yet all those efforts couldn’t even compare to Janet’s cheap, pathetic protein bars?!
She wanted to fucking kill Janet so much!
But Janet didn’t notice her angry glare at all.
She had finished her protein bar and was ready to begin the competition.
“Attention, all teams!” Jasper announced loudly, “The competition is about to begin. Are you ready—”
All teams were fueled up.
“GO!”
With some rustling noises, all 5 teams–15 people–lunged into the forest at full speed.
Janet had discussed their tactics with Kass and Balvina.
The hunting was not just about the speed, but about skills and patience.
So they didn’t plan on wasting their energy at the beginning of the competition. They also didn’t want to go to those hot hunting
spots and fought over preys with
other teams.
They planned to take a detour and go deep into the forest, which had less people and more chances.
The three of them ventured into the dense woods quiet and steady, like three experienced predators.
The forest in Riverside Pack seemed dreary, compared to Blood Moon’s ever–green woods.
The color of the trees was muted shades of green and brown, which gave the forest an eerie and foreboding atmosphere.
Now each step they took made a crunching sound on the bed of fallen twigs.
The branches of the trees twisted and turned, forming eerie shapes like gnarled, ancient arms reaching out to grab them.
“Christ,” Balvina rubbed her arm and groaned, “This place seemed so off. Don’t people get depression living in a place like this?”
Janet brushed a branch away from her face and replied deeply, “Not if you are used to it.”
She was thrown into this forest many times by Hellen and Paul when she was little.
It was the cruelest kind of punishment for a kid.
Janet would cry hours and hours, but nobody would come to her rescue.
Hellen probably wanted her to be killed by a bear. But magically, Janet managed to crawl back home each time alive.
Gradually, this forest stopped being so dreadful to her anymore.
“Hey. I’ve been meaning to ask you
Janet turned around to Balvina and asked, “What happened between you and Casper the other day? Were you two kissing in his
room?”
Balvina’s face quickly turned red, “Oh that–well, yeah...we were.”
“Really?” Janet cried excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you been going out?”
“...We are not going out,” Balvina laughed bitterly. “We just...hooked up. It doesn’t mean anything serious for Casper.”
“...What?” Janet rounded her eyes in shock and anger.
What the hell?
How the fuck did Casper become such a fuckboy!
Janet wanted to keep asking but she was interrupted by Kass, who just returned from the front carrying a deer on his shoulder:
“Gamma Janet, look what I got! A dear!”
“Good for you,” Janet gave him a smile.
“Let’s not talk about it here,” Balvina whispered urgently into Janet’s ears. “We should focus on the race for now.”
And they kept traveling north, deep into the forest.
Half an hour later, the three of them found themselves at an intersection.
According to the map, if they took the left, they’ll soon arrive at a stream, which was the hydration spot for many animals like
rabbit, dears, and horses.
It would seal their position as the winner.
“Let’s go us.”
then!” Kass urged them excitedly, “I bet other teams were all way behind
But then he found Janet studying the map closely..
“What’s the matter Gamma Janet?”
“Nothing...Let’s go.” Janet put the map back to her backpack.
There was a scraping mark on the map as though somebody had tried to change the detail...
But she was probably being too suspicious.