Chapter 4

Seeing Robin approach, Hilda gave him a smile and a small wave. Vance, on the other hand, winced and looked at him hatefully. He opened his mouth, probably to ask what Robin was doing here when Hilda spoke up.

"Vance since you're already here, you might as well stay and listen."

He gave a questioning look, but Hilda just smiled, making him blush and avert his gaze. Instead, he just chose to scowl at Robin. If it was Robin from two days ago, he might have yelped in fear, but the present one just found the way Vance scrunched up his face kind of funny.

With quite a bit of nonchalance, Robin moved up near Vance, turning to face Hilda. "So, are you going to tell me what the Grimm are?" He might have slipped and sounded a bit more demanding than what he intended, but the walk here instilled urgency in him.

From his side, he could see Vance perk up at his question. Apparently, he was also curious to know.

Hilda hummed and looked at the two of them. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise me you won't tell the other kids." Robin frowned but nodded nonetheless.

"Alright so, first off, tell me what you know about them."

Vance took this chance to speak "They are evil monsters that want to kill us!" It was a little off-putting to hear an eight-year-old child speak about getting killed. Still, that was, unfortunately, the gist of what Robin knew as well.

"You are pretty much correct there Vance." He beamed at the approval. "Still there are some more things that you have to know about them."

Robin simply kept his mouth shut and listened tentatively. "First off these monsters are pretty much everywhere in the world, except places like the big cities or towns. We don't really know how they multiply, but there was never a lack of them. The main thing about them is that they are immediately aggressive to humans and Faunus alike."

While Vance kept listening and nodding seriously Robin instead chose to speak up. "What's a Faunus?"

"Well, the Faunus are people like you Robin. Most of them have some visible animal part, but other than that they are like everyone else. Oh, right, and they have night vision."

Vance tilted his head "What's night vision?"

"Basically we are capable of seeing in the dark unimpaired" I quietly mused.

"Oh my, those are some big words, Robin. Such a smart boy you are." Hilda gently ruffled his hair, cousin Vance to boil in jealousy. Meanwhile, Robin cursed himself for the slip-up. He had no idea what a five-year-old's vocabulary consisted of, but he was pretty damn sure there were no words like "unimpaired".

Still, he chose to remain silent, and, thankfully, Hilda continued speaking without much thought.

"Right, most Faunus in the tribe work as guards especially at night since their eyes help them see like in the day."

Vance nodded and Robin smiled. He was glad he had something so useful.

"Anyway, back to the Grimm. We still don't know why they hate us so much. Many people tried to study them, but the problem is that once they die their body breaks apart and vanishes."

'So not only are they rabid, but we can't even make use of their bodies after killing them.' They were not like a bear or a wolf. You could not skin them and harvest fur or other useful things from them.

"The Grimm also come in different forms and move and act differently. For example, the Beowolves usually come in a group with one alpha Beowolf as their leader. The Death Stalkers, on the other hand, prefer moving alone and ambushing people."

"My dad told me last week that they fought one. He said it looked like a giant scorpion!"

Robin frowned. Initially, he thought the Grimm were the same species or, at least, similar, but now he stood corrected. The diversity both in shape and in behavior made them sound even more dangerous.

Hilda smiled at Vance and nodded. "Right, your father was trained by my grandfather who was a Huntsman. No wonder they took down a Death Stalker."

Robin frowned, confused at the terminology. "Don't we have a lot of hunters in the tribe? Wasn't Vance's dad already a hunter?"

Vance and Hilda blinked. "Oh, right. See, a licensed Huntsman is different from the usual hunters who go out after animals. Basically, they specialize and are trained to fight the Grimm. They're super strong warriors that keep everyone safe. My grandfather and my father, the chieftain, are actually the only licensed Huntsman in the tribe." She finished with no small amount of pride lacing her voice.

Robin nodded, throwing the information in the back of his head. "So that's it about the Grimm?"

"Hmm, yeah that's about it. Oh, right, another thing. From what my father told me, the Grimm can sense negative emotions."

Vance seemed a bit confused "What do you mean? Like, they know when I'm angry or sad?"

"Yes, think of it this way. Imagine the Grimm are always hungry. When you get upset or something like that you start smelling like food for them. The more upset you are, the more delicious you smell."

Vance felt enlightened and happily nodded his head. Robin, on the other hand, was a bit miffed at the fact that Grimm may think about him as food. Or was that just a silly comparison made for children to understand?

"I see. But Hilda, why did you make us promise not to tell the other kids about them?"

Hilda winced "Normally, I wouldn't have told you either Robin since you are a bit young. But considering what happened to your mum and dad… In any case, as I said, Grimm are attracted to negative emotions. So it would be best if the kids did not have nightmares about the big evil monsters trying to eat them."

Robin saw her point. Normal kids would be scared after hearing the full extent of the threat the tribe was subjected to. It didn't mean much to have a few scared children running around in the grand scheme of things, but the tribe had to take every precaution it could.

After all, you can't ignore even the little things when it comes to survival.

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