The Cursed Prince

Emmelyn followed the guidance from the Y-shaped branch and walked quite a bit from where she was. It didn't take long until she heard the sounds of a running stream. Her heart felt so light when she realized she just found water.

Her teacher's knowledge about the world was amazing and she had used this method to find water numerous times before. After her teacher left her to save his son from the pirates, Emmelyn stayed behind with Maxim and continued going on adventures together.

She remembered Maxim doubted her water searching ability and laughed at her method. That stupid man said he never needed to find water because he was a lucky man.

Even during an episode where he was stranded in the desert and almost died of thirst, suddenly rain would fall from the sky. Emmelyn could only roll her eyes when she heard his story. 

She never believed in luck, only in hard work. A coincidence like that was not luck and one should never rely on getting lucky all the time. That's why it was important to equip oneself with survival skills.

"Great! Water... finally," Emmelyn threw away the branch and ran toward the stream. She crouched down by the river and scooped water with her two hands and drank to relieve her thirst.

After she drank water, now she felt hungry. Uff, what could she eat?

Emmelyn looked up to the trees around her and tried to see if one of the trees had edible fruits. She could only sigh when she didn't see any.

Why was she so unlucky?

"Fine. I will trap something..." she muttered.

The woman cut some branches and made several traps that she put close to the water. Since she didn't have any ropes or baits with her, she decided to walk back to the carriage and brought it here.

Emmelyn returned not long after with the carriage and parked it by the river. She realized the horses would be thirsty and hungry too after pulling the carriage for hours. So, she removed them from the carriage and let them graze and drink water from the river.

Since those horses were domesticated animals and were used to working, they docilely drank water and then graze around the carriage. Emmelyn was relieved to see them standing meekly and ate in a relaxed manner. 

She was initially worried that the horses would run away and left her stranded in this forest. This lifted another burden that had been weighing her chest.

This was good. She took some ropes from the carriage and worked to make the traps. Luckily she found some leftover bread that she could use as bait.

She was not sure if small animals like rabbits would eat bread, but at least they would be curious. Hopefully.

After Emmelyn placed her traps in several places, she went back to the river and watched the stream. She was thinking of catching some fish with her sword. Was she fast enough to do it?

Sigh.

Normally, she would be fine going for one or two days without food, but after she was pregnant she became hungry very easily. Plus, she must eat for her baby. She must not let Harlow lose any nutrition.

And what's more important was she had to gain energy so she could continue her journey to get out of here and find ways to go back to the capital.

Hmm.. maybe she could use the leftover bread to get fish to come closer, she thought. Once they were near, she could spear them using her sword.

She might not be fast enough to catch any, but at least she could try.

Finally, Emmely sat by the river. She got ready with her sword and then she broke a small piece of bread into crumbs and sprinkled them into the water nearby.

There was a small section close to her that was protected by big rocks, so the water didn't flow rapidly like in other parts of the river.

The breadcrumb floated on the water for a few seconds before she saw several fish came closer to eat them.

"Got you!" Emmelyn speared one fish with her sword so quickly once she saw an opportunity. Sadly, she was not fast enough and the fish escaped with the breadcrumb.

She pursed her lips and cursed under her breath, careful so that Harlow wouldn't hear her.

Mars already told her to watch her mouth while she was pregnant so their baby wouldn't pick up curse words before he was even born.

It was really hard to do, especially when she was in such a stressful situation. Cursing had that effect to make one's mind become lighter. At least that was true with Emmelyn.

"Sorry, Harlow. Don't listen to that. Mommy was talking nonsense..." Emmelyn rubbed her belly lovingly. Then she wiped her forehead and observed the water again.

She saw there was a lot of fish in the river, swimming relaxedly. They seemed to have a good life here, without a predator.

She assumed this place was quite far from human settlement. That's why there was a bountiful of fish here.

She imagined that there were many people coming by this place often, they might have caught a lot of fish from this river and the population would decrease very significantly.

"All right.. I still have some bread..." Emmelyn's spirit was reignited after she saw the abundance of fish in the river. At least from that many fish, she must at least get one.

She was really hungry.

So, she repeated her method one more time and tried to catch a fish with her sword. The second try was another failure, but the third time was a charm.

Emmelyn shrieked with joy when the tip of her sword managed to stab through quite a big fish. Even though when she threw her sword forward to catch the fish, she almost fell into the river.

It was worth it.

"Heh.. gotcha...!" She wiped her lips and pulled the fish from the water. In no time, she had gutted her catch and got ready to grill it.

Now, she just needed to find flint or dry stones to light fire.

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From the author:

Thank you sooo much for your patience. I am feeling better and can type more. So, I will go back to publishing two chapters per day. xx