The next morning, no villagers headed to the mountainside.
The hoes and hatchets were left behind; I was to watch the situation from the sky first.
I opened my wings and let the magical power flow from deep within my chest.
When I kicked the ground, my body floated.
By now, if it was just flying around the village, I didn't have to think about every movement. I still didn't have the stamina to try a long trip, but going as far as the mountainside and back would be no problem.
I headed to the flat area where people had been working until yesterday.
On the empty ground meant to become a field, there was only half-turned soil and a hoe that had been left behind.
The water was still flowing thinly.
There was no sign of the Rock Apes.
I didn't land right away, and circled the flat area.
One turn.
I saw nothing.
On the second turn, the forest above shook.
A grey body appeared from between the branches.
One head.
Another followed.
It was the same place as yesterday.
However, it didn’t end there.
The branches further back swayed heavily.
Two more.
A shadow moved in a tree a little further away.
I gained altitude while keeping my distance.
I could see up to six at the same time.
One of them was clearly small.
Something was also moving at another one's belly.
I narrowed my eyes.
A small hand was gripping the adult's fur.
A young one.
Perhaps it wasn't just a few that had come looking for food.
I didn't approach the forest, and instead went round to the side.
The Rock Apes didn't come down to the flat area all at once.
One of them crossed the slope.
Another followed, and an even smaller Rock Ape crossed by branch.
They were moving.
Where are you going?
I followed while maintaining my altitude.
One of them noticed me flying and raised its voice.
“Gyaa!”
There was a reply from another place.
There was another one over there.
I couldn't even see it.
I didn't get any closer, and took a wide detour.
The forest continued below.
The Rock Apes weren't gathered around the flat area.
They came out of the forest above, crossed the slope, and then moved into the trees on this side.
Some of them stopped along the way and came down to the ground looking for something.
However, after a while they started moving again.
Yesterday's flat ground might be a place along the way rather than a destination.
I went down to the ground once.
I chose a place with few trees, far enough from the Rock Apes.
That saved more magic than staying in the air.
I used my nose.
An animal smell lingered.
In the soft soil beneath my feet were many imprints of long fingers, different from a human's.
Not just one or two.
New marks were laid over marks that looked old.
At least this wasn't a place they had come to for the first time yesterday.
I walked a little.
The tracks crossed the slope.
Some headed towards the flat ground, but many continued past it.
I see.
It didn't seem the Rock Apes had suddenly gathered yesterday because we started using the flat area.
They might have passed through this area several times before anyone noticed.
I spread my wings again.
I wouldn't chase them this time.
I returned to the village.
When I landed, the village chief and Dario were waiting for me.
Among the eight who had fled from the other side of the mountain, the man who had told us about the Rock Apes was there too.
“How was it?”
Dario asked.
I dug my claws into the ground.
I drew lines, one by one.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
I stopped there.
"There were six?"
I nodded.
"Only six?"
I didn't move my head.
I definitely saw six.
There might be more than that, but I couldn't say there were others I hadn't seen.
After thinking about it for a while, Dario said,
"You saw six?"
He said it again.
I nodded.
Next, I lowered my front leg.
Small.
Then I brought it close to my belly.
"Young?"
This time the man who had fled here noticed first.
I nodded.
"One?"
I left two small marks on the ground.
One of them had been moving on its own.
The other was clinging to an adult.
"So you saw two of them?"
That's right.
The man's face clouded over.
“That’s bad.”
the village chief asked.
"What is it?"
"When they first started coming to our village, I didn't see any small ones."
The man looked at the mountain.
"Only the big ones came to the fields. It wasn't until much later that I started seeing the young up close."
"Has the group moved where it lives?"
“I don’t know.”
The man immediately shook his head.
"However, if some of them were just coming to look for food, I don't think they'd need to bring the young along."
That matched what I saw.
I drew a long line on the ground.
Partway along I stopped my claw, meaning to mark the flat ground, and then extended the line further.
"They pass through the flat area?"
Dario asked.
I nodded.
"They don't stop there, they move on?"
I nodded again.
"Since yesterday?"
That's not it.
I shook my head.
The footprints had been layered over each other.
How could I convey that?
I pressed my claws into the same spot over and over.
Once.
Again.
Once more.
Dario crouched down.
"They've passed there many times?"
I nodded.
"They didn't come there for the first time yesterday?"
It was highly likely.
I nodded.
The village chief folded his arms.
"So they didn't come because people started going into the flat area."
"Probably not."
Dario answered.
"I don't know how old the traces Val saw are."
I don't know that either.
Old was all I could say; how many days ago, I couldn't tell.
"Then even if we give that place up, the Rock Apes won't disappear?"
said one of the villagers.
No one answered right away.
That was the important thing.
If work on the flat ground stopped, the danger of people having stones thrown at them would be reduced.
However, if the Rock Apes didn't want the flat ground itself, giving up the land was no reason for them to stop moving.
"Where were they heading?"
Dario looked at me.
Difficult.
I indicated the village.
Next, I indicated the end of the line drawn on the ground.
They weren't heading straight for the village.
They were crossing the slope.
"They're not coming down to the village?"
I shook my head.
The tension left Dario's face slightly.
"At least that's how it is this morning."
That’s right.
As of now, there was no sign of them heading towards the village.
"Then it's still too early to go into the mountains to drive them off."
said the village chief.
"But what if they do come this way?"
"We'll keep watching that."
The village chief looked around at the villagers.
"No one goes into the flat area on the mountainside for the time being. Even below it, don't go onto the mountainside alone."
Up to that point, it was the same as yesterday.
However, there was more.
"But I don't intend to stop all the work in the village. We'll take firewood from another place. We'll keep the livestock away from the mountainside as well. I'll have Val check the situation from above in the mornings."
"Every day?"
"It's probably better than sending someone into a dangerous place to check."
I had no objection either.
As long as it was within the range I could fly and see, I could do it.
"How far down do the Rock Apes have to come before we act?"
Dario asked.
The village chief thought for a moment.
"When they start coming into the parts of the mountain the villagers normally use."
"What about the flat area?"
"It isn't a field yet. For now, we can give it up."
The village chief looked at the mountain.
"But if they come to where we gather firewood or put out livestock, that collides with the village's living."
No line had been drawn.
There was no fence.
Even so, if the places humans lived and the places the Rock Apes moved through overlapped, conflict would arise.
"Before that, I'd like to know the reason they're moving."
Dario said.
The man who had fled here was silent for a while, then spoke.
"It might be a little different from when they were with us."
"How so?"
"Before, there was food in the fields."
The man spoke slowly.
"They'd come and take it, eat it, then run off. Their numbers grew, and they started coming closer to the houses. But there's nothing on that flat ground now."
That was certainly true.
The soil had only begun to be turned; no crops had been planted.
There was water.
However, in that case there was no need to cross the slope and move on.
"They're not looking for food?"
"At least, I can't think that flat ground is what they're after."
"Then why did they come?"
"That I don't understand."
In the end it came back to that.
However, one thing had become clearer than before.
The Rock Apes hadn't simply appeared to target the field we were trying to make.
Several individuals that appeared to be part of a group were passing along this mountainside, even bringing their young with them.
I didn't know the reason.
Just before noon, I decided to fly again.
This time it wasn't to count them.
Only to see whether the Rock Apes I'd seen in the morning stayed in the same place.
I went round the area close to the village and checked the flat ground.
The Rock Apes that had been there in the morning were nowhere to be seen.
No stones came flying at me.
However, the branches continued to sway on the slope a little further away.
The direction of travel was the same as the one I'd seen in the morning.
I didn't chase.
I only memorised the location and returned to the village.
“Gone?”
Dario asked.
I pointed to the flat ground and nodded, then pointed in a different direction.
"They've moved off the flat ground. But they're still in the mountains."
I nodded.
"Are they always moving in the same direction?"
From what I'd seen just now, that was so.
I nodded.
The man who had fled here spoke in a low voice.
"The group may be moving where it lives."
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
It was an immediate answer.
"We didn't see what happened over there after we were driven out."
That was natural.
Asking people who had fled to know what happened to the village afterwards would be impossible.
Dario looked at me.
"Val, could you fly over to the other side?"
I didn’t nod right away.
I didn't know exactly where the village those eight people came from was.
What's more, I didn't know whether it was a distance I could safely make a return trip to, with my flying as it was.
"You don't know where it is?"
Dario noticed first.
I nodded.
"And if it's far, you can't get back."
That too.
Just because I could fly didn't mean I could suddenly go anywhere.
"There's no need to chase them now."
The village chief stopped him.
"Stay within the range that can be seen from the village. If you go further than that, check the distance and the route first."
I preferred that as well.
If I chased Rock Apes into an unknown mountain, ran out of magic and couldn't get home, there would be no point to the scouting at all.
That afternoon, the men who had been due to go to the mountainside were reassigned to other work.
The waterway was left as it was too.
No one was pleased.
Still, no one sent anyone into a dangerous place to retrieve a single hoe.
In the evening, the village chief passed one instruction to the watchmen on the mountainside.
“If you see a Rock Ape, don’t chase it. Just remember which direction it moves.”
Dario confirmed the same thing.
There was no talk of killing them yet.
Because it wasn't even known whether the group was heading towards the village.
I looked at the mountainside from outside the fence.
The Rock Apes that had been in the flat area in the morning had moved somewhere else by noon.
There were even individuals with young.
They passed places with no food again and again, moving in the same direction.
I don’t know what happened in the eight people’s former village.
However, it was already clear that simply driving away the three Rock Apes that appeared near Rue Village wouldn't be enough.
Today too, no one went to fetch the hoe left on the mountainside.
Instead, a rough outline of the mountain drawn in charcoal by Dario, with marks showing the places where I had seen the Rock Apes, was left at the village chief's house.
Would more marks be added in the same place tomorrow, or would they move somewhere else?
If that could be confirmed, we should be able to see a little more clearly which direction the group was moving.
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