The tools on the bench looked pretty. Evren had spent an unnecessarily long amount of time polishing them after they were engraved. It had taken him another two weeks. The trees in the forest had already lost all of their leaves a long time ago, and Evren had only been hunting once since he started working on the tools. One of the houses nearby had been emptied of its contents and had been converted to a slaughterhouse/meat storage facility. Once a day he would go inside the house and hose it down with 'cutter' then freeze it solid, keeping its internal temperature very cold. Fortunately, the days had gotten much cooler and the iced wouldn't melt as much.
Evren was now putting on his armor and was planning to go hunting. He had emptied his wagon previously and would be using that to transport whatever he had hunted. When he was ready, he headed to the east gate and climbed up to the tower from the inside. From the top of the tower, he had a good view of the surrounding area. Occasionally he would see something he could hunt from there, but today it seemed he should have gotten up earlier in the morning.
He stretched out with his sensory field to the east, then to the north, but couldn't find anything worthwhile. He climbed down, out of the tower and pulled his wagon out of the gate, shutting it behind him. He pulled the wagon north of town to the forest with his sensory field active. Fortunately, he found a couple of deer east of where he planned to drop off the wagon.
Stopping at the forest, he headed due east along the wood line until he was south of the deer. Heading north quietly, he closed in on the deer. His sensory field had gotten better as now he would be able to see certain details without alerting what he was focusing on. He had gotten within range of the deer, but there was a tree between them. He headed east to remain down wind of them until one of them came into view. It was a male, judging by the antlers, and it hadn't yet sensed Evren. He drew his bow, with one of his hunting arrows, and let fly the arrow.
When it hit the deer, both started to run away, but the male only lasted a few meters before falling. Evren caught up to the deer, cleaned and dressed it, and began dragging it to the wagon. When he reached the wagon, he tied the back legs to the side of the wagon, letting the head hang so he could drain it of blood. He turned and headed back into the forest. He knew where the other deer was as he had followed it with his sensory field. It would be on alert to him, but the range of the bow was great enough that he could still shoot from a distance and be effective. When he caught up with the deer, he repeated the steps he had done so with the previous deer, instead tying its feet to the opposite side of the wagon to keep it balanced.
Evren found something west of the wagon that was larger than the deer, Evren assumed it was an elk. He approached the elk from the east and found it in a small clearing, about fifty meters away from the wood line. There was something wrong though. The elk seemed to be alerted to something that Evren couldn't sense.
Evren backed up into the trees slowly, with the cloak covering him, he seemed to melt into the shadows. Carefully, as to not alarm the elk, or whatever the elk sensed, he put the hunting arrow back into his quiver and drew out one of the adamantium arrows and set it on the string. He closed his eyes and set out a wide sensory field. There were several large objects that could have been anything from boulders to a bear, but none of them moved.
Then one of the boulders stood up and began to approach the elk quietly. It was north of the elk, in its blind spot and still within the wood line. Evren turned his eyes to where it was but due to a slight change in elevation, he couldn't see what it was. Evren began to focus on the shape. It was as large as a bear, but something felt odd about it. First, bears don't hunt like this and if they hunt at all, its usually something smaller, or stolen from another. Secondly, it didn't move like a bear. It was too smooth, too focused.
Evren moved his left leg back to balance his stance. Whatever it was would soon be attacking his elk, and he didn't want to let it get away. If he shot the elk first, it would give him away and might alert it. However, if he let it attack and the elk got away, he'd be out of luck too. Evren took out another arrow and grabbed it with his left hand's first two fingers. He then took aim at the elk and waited. As the beast leapt out of the woods after the elk, the elk's head turned towards it, and it crouched down as if to leap away.
Within that moment, Evren let the arrow fly, striking the elk in the chest, just behind its elbow. He quickly knocked the other arrow and aimed at the new target bearing down on his prey. Evren saw a large tan cat that ran up to the elk that had begun to falter. When the cat reached the elk and stopped moving, Evren released the second arrow, aimed at the armpit of the cat's front paw. The cat flinched and leapt away from Evren, looking in his direction. The arrow had nearly gone completely through the chest of the cat, and had impaled its opposite arm, stunting its movement.
Not taking any chances, Evren knocked another arrow and took aim at the cat. It had begun to stumble and would fall at any moment, but Evren didn't move. He waited for a few minutes before lowing his bow and putting the arrow away, his shoulder feeling the strain of having held it drawn for an unusually long time. He put the arrow away and drew out his sword. It was a long and thin one, suitable for stabbing.
He approached cautiously and stood about 5 meters away from the dying cat. "What is that a puma? Or maybe a mountain lion? I've got it, it's a cougar. No, it's a big cougar. Damn, that thing is huge! Are they supposed to make them this big? How the hell am I going to get that on the wagon?" Evren moved on to the elk, took out the arrow, wiped it off and put it away. He then began to dress and clean the elk. He grabbed the antlers and hiked them up to his shoulders. The back end was dragging along the ground, but that was how he got the elk to the cart. It was too big to hang off the side, so he just manhandled it into the back of the wagon.
When he got back to the cougar, he approached with his sword out and when he got close enough, he stabbed it. The animal didn't react which caused him to breath a sigh of relief. He removed the arrow, cleaned it and put it away, then cleaned and dressed the cougar. Evren stood and looked down at the cougar and tried to figure out a way to get it to the wagon. It wasn't as big as the boars he had taken down before, but it was close.
Eventually he knelt at the chest of the cougar and grabbed its front paw, lifting it over his head to the opposite shoulder. Bending down slightly, he tightened his grip on the arm of the cougar and grabbed the opposite arm, placing it over his other shoulder. He then slowly pulled the cougar onto his back as he was bent forward on his knee in the grass. Adjusting his grip, he put his legs underneath him and pushed himself up.
It was a heavy. He couldn't move very fast either and had to stop twice on the way because his legs were burning. "I need to increase the amount I run daily." He said as he finally approached the wagon. He tried to get the top half of the cougar onto the wagon, but it fell, and he was too spent to care. When the cougar fell, it landed on his legs, causing him to fall along with it.
He sat on the grass with the cougar on his lap staring up at the cart. He was tempted to just leave the thing there. He had gotten the elk into the wagon, and wouldn't have any problems with the two deer, but the bear sized cougar was certainly going to be a challenge. Eventually he climbed out from beneath the cougar and using some rope, tied up its front paws. He ran the rope up to the opposite side of the wagon and let it hang over the edge.
He lifted the cougar like he had done before and placed the upper half on the back of the wagon. Holding the front legs, he pushed himself backward while lowing himself slightly to get under the mid portion of the cat. He stood upright and pushed that slid the upper portion further onto the wagon. He continued this until his arms couldn't push back anymore and instead reached back and grabbed it by the ribs, now using that like he used the front legs.
After a few minutes of grunting and quiet cursing, Evren finally got a majority of the cougar onto the back of the wagon. He walked around to the front of the wagon and pulled the rope taught, tying it in place to make sure the cougar wouldn't fall off the back. He climbed up into the wagon and using the rope, pulled the cougar fully on to the wagon. After a moment of rest, he untied the rope at the front of the wagon and tossed it into the back.
He then walked around and one by one put the two deer into the back of the wagon before closing off the back. He made sure it was secure, pulled up the blocks on the wheels and pulled the wagon back to Plinth slowly. The weight of the four animals was considerably greater than the weight of the wagon as he was pulling it from the first town all the way to Plinth, and his legs were already tired from dragging the cougar through the forest.
When Evren reached Plinth, he entered through the gate and barred it behind him as he headed to his makeshift slaughterhouse. When he arrived, he processed the deer one at a time, inside the house, while leaving the elk and cougar on the cart. He then pulled the elk off the cart and did the same with it. By the time he had gotten around to the cougar, it was halfway between noon and sunset.
Not wanting to drag the cougar into the house, he decided to instead process it there. After skinning it, he disassembled it and brought the parts in to the slaughterhouse one at a time. The parts he wouldn't use he left on the cart. He also brought the parts of the deer and elk that he wasn't going to use out to the cart and deposited them there. He then went into the house to look around, and just because he felt like it, he hosed it down and froze it again.
Wearily he trudged back to his apartment where he promised that he would exercise more. After stripping his armor off and performing maintenance on everything, he fixed himself a quick meal and then went for a light jog around the inside of the wall.