CHAPTER TEN

Raising a finger, Yumi continued her explanation. “For instance,” she said, “say you’re considering that this was indeed the work of a dire goat just like Master Severin suspected. The first thing you need to do is get into the proper mind set. You need to, um, think and act like a dire goat. Yeah, that’s right! And once you have that down, you can go even deeper. And the deeper you go, the more successful you’ll be in bagging the critter.”

Keeping her hands up and close to her chest, she proceeded to hop around like a kangaroo, completely forgetting, it seemed, that dire goats were quadrupeds, even as she expounded, “Think like a dire goat. Act like a dire goat. Be the dire goat!”

Eyes watery with gleeful tears, the others exhibited a tremendous amount of self-control. They remained tight-lipped and said nothing although an amused smile did manage to escape from the corner of Sven's mouth.

Yumi stopped. She looked to the right and then to the left, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. “So here you are,” she said thus, “the dire goat. You've traveled far and you are tired and thirsty and hungry. You've been following the scent of your favorite food lingering in the air for days and there it is now standing in front of you.” She gestured to the nearby bush.

She hopped on over to the bush whereupon she grabbed a handful of blood berries and before Rolf or Sven could utter a word of warning, she crammed them into her mouth.

“Yumi, no...” Rolf finally managed to say.

“Mmmmm, berries!” Yumi went as she chewed with gusto, bright red berry juice dribbling down her chin.

Presently, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. A torrent of juice, pulp, and saliva gushed out of her mouth. “Bleeeccchhh! So bitter!”

Sven turned to Rolf and murmured, “Guess she should've put herself in the shoes of blood berry bush first.”

Rolf could not help himself and grinned in response.

Yumi then covered her mouth with her right hand and clutched at her stomach with the other. “Woooghhh,” she mumbled, “I don’t feel so good...”

“I knew it,” Rolf said. “I knew you were in no shape at all to go out on a job. You’re still drunk, aren’t you? And those berries just made things worse. If you’re going to barf, I suggest--”

Just then there was a loud growling noise, so loud that it seemed to reverberate across the moonlit field of blood berry bushes. It came from Yumi’s stomach.

Sven nearly keeled over with surprise and disbelief.

While Rolf, on the other hand, could only stare incredulously. After a moment of silence, Rolf muttered, “Yumi...”

“What?” Yumi asked. “I’m hungry. Those berries can really stimulate the appetite and I haven’t had anything to eat since, well, since the tavern.”

“Yumi, that was only a couple of hours ago!” Rolf exclaimed.

“I can’t help it!” Yumi cried. “I’m hungry! What? Don’t look at me like that! I’m still a growing girl, dang it!”

“Still a growing...? What the heck are you talking about? You’re already twen--”

Rolf was interrupted a loud crash of branches and timber breaking and rustling of leaves that seemed to sound from the far end of the field. It was shortly followed by monstrous, angry bellowing.

Whelp. They were now sure of one thing. Whatever it was, it was definitely not a dire goat.

“Say,” Sven wondered out loud as they all ran towards the source of the sound, “what the heck is a berry snake?” 

 

CHAPTER NINE

“So then if you wanna catch a blood berry bandit?” Yumi continued. “Well?”

She did not bother waiting for a response though. Her answer was out of her mouth as soon as she finished asking her question. “You gotta think like one, that's what!”

That was it? Her great idea? Rolf blinked. “Think like a blood berry bandit?” he asked.

“Yes!” Yumi cried, brandishing a leather-covered fist as though in victory.

She put her battle axe down on the ground, letting it stand on its head.

“See,” she said, gesturing with her hands, “if you can think like a blood berry bandit, you can predict what it's gonna do, where it's gonna go, and stuff. Yeah. Pretty heavy stuff. Luckily, there's a trick to it and I happen to know it!”

When Rolf and Sven did not say anything, she continued, “You see, first you have to narrow down your choices. There are different kinds of blood berry bandits, right? For instance, it could be a monster like a dire goat or a berry snake or even a, um, a fruit dragon. Yeah, a fruit dragon, that's it!”

“Fruit dragons don't exist though,” Rolf pointed out. “They're fictitious monsters created by renowned children's book author Anita Frankinson in the fifth volume of her Vegetable Vanguard series.”

“Er,” Yumi went, “um, yeah, I knew that. I was just testing you. Yeah, that's right. What I meant to say was, um, abominable bush beast? Yeah, that's it! Abominable--”

“Still Anita Frankinson, this time in the first volume of her Ballad of the Mountain Hermit Crab series.”

“Oh, you know what I mean!” Yumi cried. “Fine! Whatever! My point still stands. There are different kinds of blood berry bandits. It could be a monster that's gone berry crazy. Or it could be something else like a thieving goblin or a band of gypsies or a traveling merchant even. So which is it exactly, you ask? How do you narrow it down?”

Again she did not wait for Rolf or Sven to answer. “Well, it's easy if you think about it. It's just a simple process of elimination, that's all. You take one option, put yourself in its shoes, and then move on to the next option if it doesn't fit the evidence.”

Yumi crossed her arms, a smug look on her face, and this time seem to be waiting for questions, if any. Not that she expected any for it was a brilliant idea, one worthy of applause even and she was sure that Rolf and Sven understood her equally brilliant explanation.

But even on the off chance that there were any questions, she was sure that she could easily provide more than sufficient answers.

Suddenly she moved and pointed with an outstretched arm. “Yes, Sven?” she shouted.

Sven had sheathed his sword and was raising his hand.

“So this is where thinking like a blood berry bandit comes in?” he asked.

“Correct!” Yumi replied enthusiastically. She tapped the side of her forehead with a finger. “But that's the tricky part, see? It’s not enough that you figure out how to think and act like the critter, which is hard enough, let me tells ya, it takes a sharp, cunning mind and a twisted, devious personality to truly pull it off, but you need to really put yourself in its shoes as in you need to become the critter in both mind and body. Well, not body literally but you know what I mean.”

“You need to get inside its head. What are its motivations? What are its fears? Why did it come here? Why does it do what it does? Does it like coffee? Does it question its own existence and that of the gods?”

Sven glanced over to Rolf. “Coffee?” he mouthed but Rolf only shrugged in response.

“Those are the questions you need to ask,” Yumi was saying. “Hard questions that only certain type of mind can answer. That mind of a hunter. Fortunately, I was raised by one of the best hunters around. My father.”

“Wait,” Rolf said then. “I thought your father was a basket maker.”

“No, no.” Yumi shook her head. “Not that one. I meant my other father. He was a dance instructor.”

Rolf considered saying something but then sighed and decided to just let it go.