I charged fiercely at the remaining two.
Startled by my intense demeanor, they flailed wooden sticks in a panic. Their attacks grazed my torso and shoulders, but it hardly hurt at all.
I didn’t lose momentum, crashing into one of them and sending him sprawling to the ground.
“━!”
The poor soul beneath me freaked out, thrashing wildly.
I raised my fist and slammed it down on his face with all my might.
With a series of four punches to his jaw, he weakly wiggled and fell silent.
The last one, finding me sitting atop his comrade, aimed kick after kick at me.
I got up from the ground and stood confidently on two legs in front of him.
They were mostly my size, but this last one was about a head shorter, making me look down at him.
His face, cast in shadow by my backlit silhouette, showed a mixture of terror and bizarre features with bulging eyes and jagged teeth.
“…Nishu.”
He looked like a joke, but I could tell he was panicking. If you had any sense, you’d panic too when a creature your size was taking down your buddies and now looming over you.
━Karrurrr!
I let out a roar that even I thought sounded pretty impressive. It was truly the cry of a beast.
Just like when I fought the wolf, I lifted my arms high into the sky.
It must’ve freaked him out because he cowered, shaking like a leaf.
Victory was clearly on my side, and unless he pulled a g*n out of his pocket, the situation wasn’t going to turn around.
If he wanted to run away at this point, I wouldn’t blame him. But, in a twist of fate, with a face full of tension, he charged straight at me instead.
“━Uoooh!”
Maybe prepared to face d*ath, he flailed his arms frantically. He leaped on me, throwing punches at my chin and chest.
While it was bearable, when he sank his teeth into my arm, it hurt like the dickens, even through the adrenaline.
━Let go!
I swung my fist toward his face. A flurry of hard punches that could make anyone cry was delivered, yet he didn’t release his grip.
“Kuheh heh!”
With my arm in his mouth, he let out a wheezing laugh. Not that we could understand each other, but it felt distinctly like mockery aimed at me.
His red eyes were filled with madness and a determination that sent chills down my spine.
It reminded me of something I once heard about how a cornered mouse would charge at a cat in desperation.
The little monster clinging to my arm clearly decided survival meant doing whatever he could to inflict damage on me.
The pain felt like it could tear my flesh away, and I grimaced, mouth wide open in agony.
━Ugh! This little punk is asking to d*e!
I sharpened the nails on my untouched right hand and raked it across his face without hesitation. A bright red streak appeared on his ashen skin, bl**d oozing out.
After scratching a few more times, he finally let go and crumpled to the ground. He lay there bleeding, his mouth forming a smirk.
“Ptooey.”
From his mouth, a chunk of flesh fell. It was part of the skin he had torn from my arm.
“…Bakanishu.”
━What’s with the endless chatter, you little brat?!
Fueled by anger at his attitude and the injury, I picked up a flat stone off the ground and slammed it down on his head.
With a loud crack, his eyes rolled back into his head.
I was wary he might be dead, but after checking his chest and neck, there was a faint rise and fall of breath; he was just knocked out cold.
At my feet, the little imps wriggled and groaned softly. They had only been punched and bitten, so nobody had bitten the dust.
━Man, eating is such a hassle.
Now that I thought things were wrapped up, I finally let out a sigh of relief. My heavy breaths settled, and I could feel the chill of bl**d coursing through my body.
At the same time, the pain I’d been ignoring flooded back. My back, where the wooden stick had hit, and my kicked and bitten arm were throbbing painfully.
Every breath came with a cough, and my chest hurt; maybe my ribs were cracked from the kicks and punches.
I recalled the day I’d worked part-time at a bar and ended up in a brawl with drunk patrons.
I fought like a madman then, but sure enough, once the excitement wore down, the pain came creeping in.
‘But at least I survived; I’m lucky it’s not worse than this.’
I flipped the positive switch in my head.
Survival was about the predatory and the prey, the takers and the taken colliding with each other.
Even lions in the savannah would take down buffalo and get injured, sometimes fatally, in the process.
‘No meal can be had without risking your neck. Not that I wouldn’t savor it.’
I dragged my sore body over to the hunk of meat roasting over the fire. The surface of the meat had turned pitch-black from being on the fire the whole time.
I picked it up on a stick, not entirely sure if it was cow or something else.
After scratching off the burnt bits with my nails, a thick, juicy portion was revealed.
Though charred on the outside, the inside was perfectly cooked and steaming, making my mouth water.
I opened wide and took a big bite. ━Crunch, the sound of my sharp teeth tearing into the meat tickled my ears.
With how long it had been on the grill, the meat was devoid of grease, infused with smoke and fire flavor that filled my mouth.
It wouldn’t be a proper meal, but it was most certainly the taste of civilization.
The chunk of meat, about half my size, disappeared in no time.
Spitting out the clean bones to the floor, I realized something strange.
‘It tastes great but I’m not full.’
I just feasted on a hunk of meat the size of my torso, which should have been plenty.
Surely my stomach couldn’t be smaller than my body. Yet I was thoroughly puzzled that I wasn’t even close to satisfied.
Two more cows would fit in my belly with all the confidence in the world, but my stomach emitted a growl of insatiable hunger.
━What the heck is going on? What should I do?
I frowned in frustration. I wondered if there were more things to eat around, so I rummaged through the little imps’ campsite, but all I found was useless junk.
“…Nishu.”
Then, I spotted those little imps crawling on the floor, trying to flee from me.
Though they could be called another race, in broad terms, they could be considered humans, right? After all, I never thought of them as more than nuisances at best.
Yet after tasting the roasted meat, I began to see them less as creatures with intellect and more as moving sources of food.
*
【You have gained experience points.】
【You have gained experience points.】
Those weird notifications popped up multiple times.
I realized that I only gained experience points not just from killing, but from having gone out and “prey” like some beast!
White light began to swirl around my body. It was a familiar sensation; it meant I was leveling up after gathering a certain amount of experience points.
The ache and wounds healed in an instant.
The tingling, almost euphoric sensation of new skin growing where the wounds were felt indescribably good, sending shivers down my spine. It was utterly addictive.
【You have leveled up.】
Race: Magical Beast lv.3
Strength: 11
Agility: 8
Stamina: 10
Skills: 《Omnivorous》 《Sturdy Claws》 《Stealthy Movement》
Everything went up overall. Agility and stamina jumped by 2 at once!
I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how agility and stamina quantified, but I surely felt lighter and full of energy, confirming my physical abilities had improved.
A shiny new skill named Stealthy Movement caught my eye. Come to think of it, I remembered seeing notifications about achieving certain milestones.
It seemed like when I did something specific or reached a certain condition, I earned “achievements,” granting me skills—much like in a game.
‘No clue how to use this skill yet, but it’s not going to hurt to have it.’
Skills usually felt akin to abilities of game characters or finishing moves like in manga.
I looked at my claws, my mouth twitching.
━Sturdy Claws!
My shout echoed between the ruins. But nothing seemed to happen. It didn’t look like a skill that could be triggered by just saying the name.
I flexed my claws, swinging them around, trying all sorts of things, but nothing seemed different.
‘Being able to retract and project claws like a cat is nice.’
Unlike special moves that activated only under certain conditions, this seemed to be a constant ability.
So, what about Stealthy Movement?
Like a cat sneaking into a warehouse, I lifted my heels and moved around. My footsteps diminished to a level where they were nearly silent.
‘Even stepping on dry leaves or twigs makes no noise. How fascinating.’
Just like with the little imps, I could likely sneak around without drawing attention unless I decided to be loud.
I couldn’t say for sure if the skill was activated, but it was some profound state that couldn’t be achieved without it.
‘If I sneak up quietly, nobody will notice. I might be catching daytime rabbits soon enough too.’
Even in the midst of my full stomach, I worried about where my next meal would come from. Unlike the jittery days before, hope filled my chest, telling me I could do it.
The wolf that had tormented me since the moment I was born, and these imps who wield tools and fire—none of them were my match.
‘These magical beasts seem stronger than I thought? Did I manage to fight well?’
I smiled contentedly and gathered the bones scattered on the ground, pushing them together into a pile to bury.
It was my way of conducting a makeshift funeral, and I was burying it to deter other beasts from sniffing around.
‘So what the heck were those things?’
After burying the last piece of bone, I pondered again about their true nature. The taste of them lingered on my lips.
Contrary to what I expected, their tight muscles and fatty taste went down smoothly like a well-cooked steak.
I decided to call them goblins… no, marbling. The name goblin felt slightly off-putting to me.
The marbling flavor scored an impressive 8 out of 10.
‘I should hunt them whenever I see them in the forest in the future. I need to try catching other beasts too.’
I resolved to leave scores of the creatures and plants I encountered in this forest, building a solid survival guide.
‘Now that I’m full, what should I do next?’
Looking up at the sky, I noticed the sun was still high, indicating it would still be a while before evening hit.
Of course, having time left in daylight despite feeling full was incredibly lucky for me. I thought it would be wise to search for a proper shelter that I had been thinking about for some time.
‘Or should I just build one myself from the get-go? I see materials around.’
Suddenly, that thought crossed my mind.
With the campfire crackling and flat stones littered around, I pondered whether I could craft a makeshift house using them.
Even as a magical beast, I was still fundamentally human and couldn’t sleep in the woods like an animal. I didn’t want to lose the fire I had worked so hard to get either.
‘If I dig a hole and set flat stones on top, paired with a furnace nearby to keep the campfire, it should work!’
After gathering dry branches and leaves around to fill up the campfire, I started collecting the scattered flat stones.
The stones were thick and heavy, but not unmanageable. Some even had strange wedge markings and bizarre drawings on them.
‘Did the marblings draw them?’
I thought so, for the writing looked deeply hewn as if from an age long past. Most importantly, I couldn’t imagine little imps who barely used wooden sticks as weapons being able to etch anything into stone.
‘It suggests that there was or is a more advanced race who could use stones like I do.’
Of course, what I was using those stones for was not to record letters or draw but to build a house.
‘This feels like serious construction work!’
[Author’s Note] Thank you for the support coupon! A poor writer can now afford an extra bowl of ramen! 😭
