Outside the tent, Elizabeth awkwardly tugged at the collar of her tight sports top, trying to maintain her composure after eavesdropping on the women's gossip emanating from inside.
“Pfft…” Valeria barely suppressed a snort of laughter. Her red eyes stared with undisguised glee at the slightly flushed, embarrassed face of the new Sharu.
Especially after hearing the unrestrained banter of the women inside the shelter, the horned warrior was a hair's breadth away from bursting into loud, hearty laughter.
“Ahem…” Elizabeth cleared her throat theatrically, straightening her shoulders, and asked in a quiet, lowered tone: “That girl with the rabbit ears, Lily - she is your close friend?”
“Yes. Lily is incredibly hardworking, diligent, and truly has a heart of gold. She just tends to be a bit too stubborn in her convictions sometimes,” Valeria praised her sincerely, though her tone sounded somewhat helpless toward the end.
“What do you mean? What exactly happened?” Elizabeth pressed, her curiosity piqued.
“Lily is Uncle Riven's biological niece. Her parents died in the forest when she was still a baby, so her aunt raised her,” Valeria revealed a sketch of the family's history. “Recently, her aunt became pregnant. Lily immediately packed up and moved out into this communal crafting tent, stubbornly insisting she could no longer be a burden or mooch off her uncle's family stores with a new baby on the way.”
“She acted with absolute dignity and did the right thing,” Elizabeth agreed without hesitation, nodding in approval.
“But Lily could easily just help Uncle Riven process meat and keep living with them! Instead, she's out here barely getting any scraps and hardly eating proper meat at all,” Valeria rolled her red eyes with visible dissatisfaction, unable to comprehend such stubbornness.
“No, you completely misunderstand her,” Elizabeth shook her head and smiled with profound empathy.
“Huh? What do you mean I misunderstand her? I've been her best friend since childhood!” Valeria protested fervently, furrowing her brow.
“When what you are capable of giving and what you are continuously receiving from others begin to differ too drastically, a heavy sense of guilt instantly takes root in your heart,” Elizabeth explained calmly and pragmatically.
As someone who had spent her entire childhood within the walls of an earthly orphanage, she knew that paralyzing feeling intimately. Wise people knew that you must never take the selfless help of others for granted - such an entitled mindset quickly bred laziness, psychological dependency, and ultimately destroyed a person's character entirely.
“What exactly do you mean by that?…” Valeria blinked in utter consternation, scratching the base of her horn.
Though she intuitively felt the Shaman's words carried profound truth, her wild, straightforward mind couldn't yet fully grasp such complex intricacies of human pride.
“Such things are usually only understood through one's own difficult experiences of growing up. It's perfectly fine if you don't grasp it right now.” The corners of Elizabeth's mouth curled into a warm smile.
Deep down, she felt certain that the perfect candidate for her personal Priestess had just been successfully identified.
A proud, honorable, and incredibly hardworking orphan was exactly the kind of person who could be entrusted with daily duties without worry.
Moreover, Elizabeth's choice was cemented even further when a fleeting memory of the rabbit girl's ample curves and impressive, full bust - which she had glimpsed through the slit in the hides - crossed her mind.
“Sharu, do you truly believe Lily is the right person?” Valeria asked somewhat nervously, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Ask her to step outside for a moment. I have a few simple questions for her,” Elizabeth said gently.
“Alright, I'll call her right now!” Valeria immediately lifted the leather entrance flap with energy and called out loudly into the dark tipi: “Lily, come out quickly! Our new Sharu is personally looking for you!”
“Oho, I'm coming! Let's not keep our important guests waiting!” a ringing voice, brimming with boundless verve, echoed from inside.
“Wow, the Sharu came for Lily personally?”
“Do you think she really intends to appoint her as her personal Priestess?”
Hearing these whispers, Lily didn't feel a shred of fear or embarrassment. On the contrary, a radiant, excited smile blossomed across her face. She energetically smoothed down her fur outfit, flicked her long ears flirtatiously, and bounced outside with a springy step.
The moment she stood before Elizabeth, her pink eyes flashed with wild enthusiasm.
Elizabeth sized up the rabbit girl standing before her. She hadn't seen her clearly in the dim light of the tent, but now she appeared in her full glory. She stood about 1.55 meters tall, barely reaching Elizabeth's chest, but her figure was incredibly shapely and brimming with life. Her snow-white ears with pinkish interiors twitched perkily atop her head, a small fluffy tail bobbed behind her, and her bust - exceptionally generous for such a petite frame - was truly impressive. It was undeniably much larger than Valeria's.
Valeria involuntarily glanced down at her own more modest chest, then shifted her gaze to Lily's prominent curves. She crossed her arms lightly over her chest, feeling a twinge of quiet irritation. Even though she trained so grueling hard every day, her body somehow refused to develop such curves.
Meanwhile, Lily's pink eyes roamed straight to Elizabeth's silhouette. Her gaze slid downward, locking onto the blonde Sharu's impressive cleavage. At the sight of those sensual curves, the rabbit girl's eyes literally lit up, and a wide, absolutely shameless grin blossomed on her lips.
“Ooo, by the spirits of the ancestors… You have magnificent breasts!” Lily blurted out without a shred of restraint, eyeing them with sheer awe. “They look so incredibly soft and wonderfully squishy! I wonder what it feels like to hold them…”
Hearing those words, Valeria froze solid. A second later, she closed her eyes in pure resignation and slapped her open palm against her face with a loud smack, shaking her head side to side in complete embarrassment.
Elizabeth was genuinely surprised by such a blunt and brazen remark for a moment, but her surprise instantly dissolved into pure amusement. The corners of her mouth curled up into an even wider, alluring, and confident smile.
“Do you really think so?” Elizabeth asked in a velvety, deep tone, proudly straightening her back. “Care to find out for yourself?”
Valeria's eyes went wide in absolute horror.
“Sharu, for pity's sake, don't you start egging her on too!” the spooked horned warrior cried out.
Hearing that response, Lily practically jumped with wild excitement. Her rabbit ears stood straight up, and without caring in the slightest that she was standing before the most sacred and important person in the entire tribe, she reached both hands straight toward Elizabeth's bust with a glint in her eye and a wide grin, ready to take immediate action.
But before her fingers could even graze the fabric, Valeria reacted with lightning speed. She lunged between them, gripped both of Lily's wrists firmly, and yanked her hands down. Standing solidly in the middle, she categorically shut down the frivolous play.
“Enough of this nonsense!” Valeria growled, glaring at her friend with a stern, flustered look. “Stop it right now! Lily, control yourself! We came here on a matter of utmost importance, not for a shameless grope!”
Lily merely giggled carelessly, completely unfazed by the reprimand, and shot Elizabeth a playful, conspiratorial wink.
Elizabeth chuckled quietly before adopting a slightly more serious tone, wanting to move on to the actual test:
“Lily… tell me, do you know how to write?”
“Write? Me?” Lily grinned cheerfully, waving her now-free hand dismissively. “Not a chance! Not even a little bit, Sharu! My nimble little hands are made for sewing hides, hunting, and… other, far more enjoyable things. But all those little squiggles are pure black magic to me!”
“Sharu, aside from the Old Sharu, absolutely no one in our tribe knows how to write or recognize symbols,” Valeria interjected with a sigh, still recovering from her friend's antic.
“What? No one in the entire tribe knows how to read or write?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in genuine astonishment.
So everyone here is completely illiterate…
“Yes. Our tribe does not possess a written language of its own,” Valeria explained calmly. “Only the mighty, massive clans have developed their own systems of symbols. Ordinary people simply have no one to learn it from.”
“Are you saying that every large tribe uses a completely different script?” Elizabeth pressed, a hint of resignation creeping into her voice.
“That is correct,” the horned girl confirmed curtly.
A barely perceptible grimace touched the corner of Elizabeth's mouth.
Fantastic… How am I supposed to eradicate illiteracy when I would be considered illiterate in this world myself?
Do I have to cram the foreign alphabets of every single tribe from scratch?
Not to mention the complex Sharu scripts…
Suddenly, an entirely new idea sprang to mind.
Wait… why on earth should I conform to them?
When our tribe grows strong and becomes a superpower, the other clans will have to learn from us!
We will use our influence to impose our culture and script upon them.
Why should I struggle with foreign languages?
We'll establish Earth's letters as the sole mandatory standard!
At that very thought, the corners of Elizabeth's mouth curved into a confident, enigmatic smile.
Valeria and Lily exchanged a look.
The rabbit girl twitched her ears playfully, staring at the deep in thought blonde with undisguised amusement, as if silently asking: Hey, did our beautiful Sharu just hatch some diabolical scheme?