Before System could respond, Shava suddenly raised her head and looked up into the sky.

  After her second pupation, Shava's intelligence had obviously improved a lot, especially in terms of resolving this kind of embarrassment. System didn't know how she'd managed to figure so much out on her own.

  All four legs on Shava's lower body suddenly exerted force, and the snow around her scattered.

  She jumped up from the snow and started climbing and jumping her way through the forest's trees, looking like a nimble thief.

  As she jumped and maneuvered between the branches, System also observed her target—a seven-centimeter-long blue butterfly.

  The butterfly seemed to have noticed Shava shuttling between the trees. It quickly changed its flight pattern in a panic and started weaving through the air in circles. In the end, its panicked flight didn't help it escape Shava's clutches, and it was soon captured between her twin bdes.

  "King, do you think this one's female or male?"

  Shava carefully cmped the butterfly's body between the twin bdes on her forelegs in order to prevent it from being hurt.

  "Male, and why are you catching it? Let it go." System observed Shava's actions and shook his head helplessly.

  "Oh."

  Shava gave a simple response and released the butterfly from between her twin bdes. The male butterfly flew away in panic.

  That icy blue butterfly was a member of a species that had survived through Lilt Forest's transition into its new snowy climate. System had studied them many times over the past few months. Even if he only saw one from a distance, he could still immediately determine its sex.

  These butterflies had icy blue wings that were covered in strange patterns. Some of them had patterns that were simir to the veins of leaves, some had patterns that looked like a pair of huge eyes, and others were covered in a grid of intersecting lines.

  These butterflies seemed to have frost blood in their bodies, so they weren't affected by the cold climate at all.

  When System had first discovered them a few months earlier, he'd eaten a few. Later, he'd found out that very few of them existed in the forest, so he'd stopped hunting them. Now, whenever he saw any of this species' eggs or rvae, he protected them by moving them over to trees with more moss.

  Sometimes he'd use [Ability Enhancement] on the blue butterflies that were about to y eggs, making it easier for them to survive.

  Of course, System wasn't doing this out of sympathy for these butterflies. He only wanted more of them to survive so that he could use them as a sustainable food source in the future.

  He estimated that in two months, the popution of these butterflies that had no natural predators would be sufficiently rge. By then, he could capture as many butterflies and rvae as he wanted.

  Both System and his more than one hundred ant subjects would greatly enjoy eating this new type of food.

  ...

  They continued on their trip to the goblin vilge. This time, System was flying in the air, while Shava was running on the snow-covered ground, which made System's journey much easier.

  Although Shava's speed wasn't that fast due to her heavy body constantly sinking into the snow as she ran, she quickly mastered a trick to get around the problem. She started using the cws at the tips of her legs to jump from branch to branch just like System had done back when he'd still been a normal grasshopper.

  In general, Shava's speed wasn't slow. Although she was much slower than System was when he flew on his own, she was still much faster than when he flew with her wrapped in his tentacles.

  The simple goblin vilge soon entered System's sight.

  The skinny goblins had become majestic and powerful, and their wisdom had also increased, but the living conditions in the giant goblins' vilge were still as simple as before.

  No, perhaps the lives of these giant frost goblins were even worse than before.

  In the past, the goblins would at least collect dead grass to build simple thatched houses, but now they weren't afraid of the cold winter. When they went to sleep at night, they simply found a nearby snow pile to y down on.

  These giant goblins also maintained their bad habit of defecating near their vilge. Fortunately, thanks to Lilt Forest's newly cold climate, there was no bad smell lingering in the vilge anymore.

  In the past three months, the number of goblins in the vilge had started to increase. Of course, there were still only a dozen at most. A few months ago, there had actually been fewer than five giant goblins left in the vilge.

  Because the goblins had already finished their task of cutting down every oak tree in Lilt Forest, some of them with nothing better to do had moved to the Lilt Mountains, while the rest had returned to their vilge to reproduce.

  When System and Shava arrived at the outskirts of the goblin vilge, two goblin teenagers were arguing loudly.

  Actually, while System called them teenagers, these two giant goblins were already nearly two meters tall and had bulging muscles all over their bodies. They didn't look much different from adult goblins.

  Four months ago, when System first had first seen these two goblin teenagers, they'd only been about one meter tall. He never would have expected them to grow so big in such a short time.

  However, when System thought about it, he realized that it had only taken about ten days for his ant subjects to grow dozens of times rger than their original rice-grain size.

  From this point of view, the growth rate of goblins wasn't actually a big deal.

  The two goblin teens quickly stopped arguing. They picked up the straw rope lying in the snow nearby and started pying Cat's Cradle very seriously.

  'It's been more than four months. Don't they ever get bored?'

  System wondered to himself with a strange look on his face, but he noticed that Shava was attracted to the scene of the two goblins pying Cat's Cradle.

  The twin bdes on her forelegs swayed slightly through the air as if she was imagining herself pying the game.

  Unfortunately, because of the bdes on Shava's forelegs, she could only watch. She wouldn't be able to py the game in this lifetime.

  System smiled and shook his head. He called over Shava, who looked reluctant to leave, and they entered the goblin vilge.

  ...

  In order to prevent accidents, System brought Shava into the vilge with him.

  Although the giant goblins had good tempers and were mostly friendly to creatures with frost power, they would occasionally attack frost creatures that intruded into their territory.

  After walking along the main path through the goblin vilge for a while, System saw his old friend, the first giant frost goblin he'd ever met. The goblin was practicing swinging his ice crystal axe in an open space in the vilge.

  When System saw the white animal skin bag on the goblin's waist, his insect face smiled. It seemed like this trip wouldn't be in vain.

  After System had taught the Cat's Cradle game to the giant goblins a few months earlier and weaved together a dozen ropes using special pnt leaves, the goblins had said that they'd give him a gift.

  His giant goblin friend wanted to give System an ice crystal axe to express his gratitude, but what use did System have for an axe?

  It would be okay if they gifted him some of the wine that they'd brought back from the Lilt Mountains, but by that time, the goblins had already drank it all.

  After a lengthy conversation between System and the goblins with Nellis acting as interpreter, the goblins had finally decided on a gift. System had only mentioned it casually, and he hadn't expected the goblins to actually agree, but they'd ended up making a special trip to the Lilt Mountains to find him some frost flower seeds.

  Today, it looked like the giant goblin had finally brought System the seeds.