Chapter 28: Feinitia, Who Returned Home to Visit Relatives

Toxic Miasma Valley, known as the graveyard of Netherworld creatures, was filled with miasma at the bottom of the gorge.

Everywhere lay the decayed or undecayed corpses of Netherworld creatures, as well as all kinds of skeleton frames.

Up above, however, was a paradise for all sorts of flora and fauna, featuring picturesque mountains, clear waters, singing birds, and fragrant flowers, forming a stark contrast with the hell below.

The bottom of this valley was precisely the habitat of the bone sparrows.

In the vast Netherworld, they lived only here, and could only live here in this place dubbed the Netherworld’s graveyard.

Although the art style and environment fit these weird zombie-skeleton-like birds in every sense, it certainly wasn’t that they wanted to live in such a place either.

It couldn’t be helped—only here would they not be harassed or driven away by other creatures.

Bone sparrows were disliked by people and chased away by birds; even if they weren’t hunted, running around blindly outside made it easy to get attacked and expelled.

Thus, the bone sparrows, detested by all creatures, collectively roosted in this place that every creature avoided like the plague.

Miss Feinitia, who hadn’t returned for a year, looked at the familiar scene before her eyes and let out a sigh.

【Still this ghost of a look… though it is my home, I guess.】

Calling it home, the little bird actually didn’t feel much of a sense of belonging.

The bird nest where she was born and raised back then had long been buried in dust as time passed, right?

However, her fellow kin still lived here, so as a member of the bone sparrows, in Feini’s eyes, this was still her home.

【Exhausted to death. Ah, right, I collapsed twice along the way… Why did I have to make things hard for myself and force myself to fly all the way here?】

Complaining and grumbling as she did, Toxic Miasma Valley was simply too far from the Netherworld.

The little bird relied on this tiny body of hers, flying without eating or sleeping, before she barely managed to fly over.

I’m just a bone sparrow, hey!

A bone sparrow’s flying ability is universally acknowledged to be terrible.

Making me play the long-distance flight game is really deadly, you know!

Originally, for long trips, given that a bone sparrow’s physical fitness was just like that, for the sake of efficiency and all, the little bird would always find a hitchhiking ride of some sort to carry her a distance.

But it couldn’t be helped—nobody was willing to come to this ghost place.

Even if Feini wanted to catch a ride, she couldn’t find one, so she could only flap her wings and force herself to fly hard, flying for two whole days before arriving.

【Who is that? Who is that? Is it a fellow kin? So tiny!】

【Such a tiny little boy, hasn’t grown up yet, right? You can’t run outside the valley, it’s very dangerous!】

Twittering and somewhat silly-sounding voices came over, and Feini soon bumped into a few bone sparrows that had just returned from outside.

A bone sparrow’s diet was very mixed—they basically ate anything.

So normally, they would also sneak around, hopping over to the forest outside the valley to grab some berries or something.

【Full of zombie skeleton frames. That festival in the mortal realm called Halloween is actually pretty suitable for us…】

A few bone sparrows gathered together, and that picture was simply too beautiful to look at.

Although she never felt inferior about her appearance, facing this scene, Feini couldn’t help covering her face in embarrassment.

【What is that? Is it fun? What’s the mortal realm?】

Still a silly-sounding response.

A creature like the bone sparrow really didn’t have high intelligence, so it was hard to expect any intellectual statements to come out of their mouths.

The few in front of the little bird were even adult bone sparrows, so one could naturally imagine how abstract those juvenile bone sparrows were.

【No, wait! You’re the old ancestor! The old ancestor is back! Woah, woah, woah!】

【Ahhh, it’s the old ancestor!】

【What is an old ancestor?】

One of the bone sparrows finally recognized Feini.

It couldn’t be helped—her size was overly delicate, comparable to a hatchling’s.

Combined with only returning once a year, not recognizing her immediately was normal.

Passionately surrounded and pushed toward the inside of the valley, this exact scene happened every year upon returning, so the little bird was already long used to it…

She couldn’t help thinking in her head that humans in the mortal realm seemed to have a custom of reuniting for the New Year too.

Creatures like bone sparrows were weak and stupid, while the mortality rate for adult bone sparrows remained high.

To continue the species, they were instinctively extra proactive about reproducing offspring…

Meaning once you reached adulthood, if you didn’t look for a partner, the older bone sparrows at home would press your head and force you to look for one, carrying quite a bit of that flavor of mortal humans pressuring younger generations into marriage.

In the little bird’s memory, the moment she satisfied the adult age for a bone sparrow, she was forced to look for a partner…

Later, because she didn’t have offspring for a long time, she was pressured by all kinds of elders every single time.

Fortunately, Feini was now a two-hundred-plus-year-old super-ancestor presence, so elders who could pressure her no longer existed.

So returning here now, she didn’t have any worries about being nagged to find a mate, though other troubles still existed.

【Winking at me every single day… For what? Offending your ancestor? Seriously…】

In terms of appearance, the little bird was considered average among bone sparrows, but she couldn’t help being ridiculously delicate and looking easy to pick on.

By the way, the ones winking at her were usually huge female bone sparrows.

It couldn’t be helped—bone sparrows were just dumb, and many bone sparrows didn’t even figure out their own gender…

Feini was even treated as a male bone sparrow by her birth parents all along due to her size.

Teasing those newly born juvenile bone sparrows a bit, and then greeting those somewhat familiar older bone sparrows, Feini’s family visit activity was pretty much just that.

Mixing in to make sure they didn’t completely forget an old thing like her was enough.

As for how deep an impression she could leave, all one could say was that a bone sparrow’s brain capacity didn’t support it.

【Still, a few familiar faces are missing again.】

Pecking two mouthfuls of beans, the little bird glanced at the bone sparrows gathered in a group.

Compared to last year, there were indeed some new hatchling faces, but many old faces that could be seen last year had already vanished.

Logically speaking, a bone sparrow’s maximum lifespan was twenty to thirty years, and bone sparrows were extremely caring and doting toward hatchlings.

Under conditions where the hatchling mortality rate wasn’t high, the average lifespan was actually less than half of the maximum lifespan.

Having bone sparrows that had just reached adulthood disappear the very next year sounded like something eerie no matter how you sliced it, yet in Feini’s eyes, it wasn’t strange at all.

Because bone sparrows themselves were a kind of stupid creature that, after reaching adulthood, was either seeking death or on the way to seeking death.

A bone sparrow’s social system was extremely primitive—basically gathering together to do whatever they wanted, with no specific activities to speak of…

So after eating her fill, the little bird slipped away alone toward the depths of the valley floor.

In the depths of Toxic Miasma Valley’s floor, there was a vast, highly toxic swamp.

Even the local native animals avoided this swamp like the plague.

Yet Feini hopped over like a completely unaffected bird.

After finally finding a stone on the swamp that served as a landing point, she landed on top of it, braving the overflowing toxic gas and miasma.

【Mr. Hydra, Mr. Hydra, are you awake yet?】

Accompanied by the little bird’s twittering calls, a massive amount of toxic gas bubbles abruptly burst from the swamp.

From the depths of the swamp emerged a snake head as huge as a house…

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