Hearing the word owner struck me as odd for a moment, but then I shrugged it off. "I'm only going to feed him slime cores and higher grade hearts after this, but I won't know which are good until I get my own scanner. Anyway, we want to go hunting but Ms. Gwyn says we cant go without you for numbers' sake and you were already out there."
"Should I empty my bag first?" She asks blankly, looking back at me again.
"No, just tie it up and I should be able to launch it up toward the hilltop," I reply thoughtfully, looking up to see the actual top was around a hundred feet up and as much away. "If you want, I can carry your basket and you can carry my empty ruck until we start filling it."
Tying up the bag and then holding it out to me, Eliza says, "It's only half empty and I'll need to keep using it." Apparently, that meant no. I was not upset, though, as I got to see how far I could toss the sack of animals and nearly made it to our side of the top of the hill.
Poniard had already led a few trips out into the surrounding areas so he naturally took the lead to handle navigating. Picking a seemingly random direction outward from the side of the hill, Poniard walks with his spear in hand to lightly chop away brush in his way. It was almost like he was a confident and experienced exploration leader and his age was only measured in months.
Just yesterday we had claimed quite a number of creatures just by walking roughly ten football fields through the area. Today, though, it seemed the undead had scared off all but the primary consumers and other lower food chain members. However, the hunting Eliza had already done left her and the surroundings smelling of fresher death.
There were few things for her to draw her bow at and even then after all the stuff we already had these lower grade creatures were not as appetizing. I even asked Eliza why she was only occasionally shooting even though I saw plenty of small game. She said she did not want to over hunt and cause predators to seek unusual sources.
She had a point, I had already fought in the wreckage of a sentient settlement in this world so it was possible for us to drive hungry upper grade animals out which would chain reaction its way further and further until it reached somebody's doorstep.
A small round drum shield made of bluish skin that had not even been stretched yet came to mind and I simply had no arguments. Sadly, that skin was the highest graded material besides the troll in that portal. I wished I had gotten more of it.
However, this did not mean there was nothing to gain. Poniard discovered a log covered in mushrooms that were supposedly comparable in nutrients and 'flavor' to truffles. They were usually between C and B grade and had high quality components native to this world that stimulated both natural and biological energies for recovery needs so few people actually spent the money necessary to EAT them.
Because Poniard found them, I of course had to give him the second largest ruffled half circle of brownish mushroom that gave off the vague scent of sweet honey. That mushroom had been roughly the size of half of a saucer. The largest mushroom was the size of the average dinner plate and carefully cut into ten even portions.
After storing those in waxed paper provided by Eliza, the rest of the mushrooms were wrapped and stored in the basket.
You could tell that the magical qualities of the mushrooms were high from the reaction it caused in Poniard's body. It was almost like watching him catch crystal shards shards again, the lines on his head and face glowed dimly and some began appearing on the backs of his hands. However, the only changes in the previous lines were that thin glowing trails could be seen leading down and out from where the side lines met the corners of his eyes.
This gave me high hopes for what the mushroom might do for my improved body and MP rating. While magical enemies did not start appearing until upper D portals and magic bosses in C portals, all Protectors were inherently capable of consciously using MP in some way. Most do it without knowing, but some could actually train it.
Sadly, these MP manifestations did not take place until around mid to upper E grade. I was almost D grade as it was or there now but this was due to a surgical and magical advancement. Even though I could use my body efficiently enough to work again, it was still not fully settled into its grade.
Magical surgery made my strength at around three hundred pounds per bicep-deltoid-forearm group when I was able to work out again. Recently I had gone for heavy weight training to measure myself and my arm strength alone had increased by tens of pounds. My lower body was experiencing even greater gains from the fact they were on one of my MP's focuses.
Soon, I just might start showing signs of mana manifestation.
After two hours of following Poniard through the forest, who actively marked the locations where we found things by tearing off bark or stacking rocks, we had raised the level in the basket by a fifth and were now in the process of cleaning our first secondary or tertiary consumer. Another komodo.
The first guy was smaller than this but rated in the one-nineties of E which could have placed this guy into the early two hundreds based on size and appearance. On Earth, appearance in things like animals was usually determined by genetics. Here, where many things can evolve this determining factor has a much smaller role.
For reptiles, the example of a ball python is fairly common. A 'normal' ball python that can be born from any ball python and even by chance in some hybrid clutches and usually cot between twenty and thirty dollars. Ball pythons with different colors and patterns like a pastel or spider or common albino cost more because of these genetic 'morphs'.
The last komodo was a mostly solid dark forest green that was almost black with some brown speckling around the legs and tail. Karen speculated it was a camouflage for hiding in shrubbery with their legs and tails out in leaves waiting for prey to pass by. This komodo-like reptile had lines of 'vague' speckling that were like a connect the dots for ornamental patterns.
It was certainly further down the line of evolution that yesterday's lizard.
Last time, Poniard did not show much interest in the kill. Since I saw and shot this one first in its peeking head, he seemed to change his mind. As soon as it was gutted and skinned, he started pointing at parts her wanted. The parts I was collecting were its larger teeth as intended gifts for Karen to make arrows for Eliza, Poniard wanted its larger claws and tail.
The claws were probably a decent grade item for a goblin, but they were worn and peeling around the cuticles as if evolution were going to replace them. Even though I put them in an outer pocket of his ruck I planned to have them recycled and printed back out to original pristine form for him. As for the tail, he ate it from base to end.
The iridescent scaly hide of the lizard was stored in my larger ruck and the rest of the body was wantonly left behind. The sun was only nearing its zenith in this world with similar time frames to our own. Once it reached the top of the sky was when I felt like it would be a good time to head back, when something was probably picking at that carcass.
There were not many lizards on the opposite side of the hill from the portal, but the birds here were more plentiful. Most of them were small and would be completely destroyed by most of our ranged attacks, so neither of us bothered with them. However, there were a few that followed us for a few probable reasons.
One was curiosity, birds were smart and interested in shit like shiny objects so people in our armor with a goblin were probably not that threatening to an aerial creature that was basically ignored by them. The other reasons were our baggage. Eliza carried a large basket full of mostly edible vegetation and even some fruits or vegetables while Poniard carried a ruck of dead game animals.
At first, there were a lot that followed us in the mid and lower branches and chirped despite the shots I fired earlier. However, after a larger bird of prey not unlike a small eagle started circling around our path overhead. When it finally landed ahead of us high up in a tree ten minutes after Poniard actually noticed it, it soon fell from a small game arrow punching through its body and into the tree behind it.
The bird fell but the arrow was lost for good and only a few birds stuck around after that.
Because the bird was big and beautiful with rusty read body feathers, rust mottled gray head, and rust mottled black wings tipped in red, I put it in my ruck. It was too large to fit in Poniard's and too valuable to risk further damaging by taking apart. Even Eliza who was usually silent made some light conversation about upper grade arrows made with its feathers.
By the time we finally started heading back, the main body of Poniard's rucksack was mostly filled with gutted and skinned animals and the outer pockets were stuffed with all sorts of odds and ends. My rack contained the additional hide of the first otherworldly wolf I had seen since my first exposure.
It was alone for some reason or another and ripping apart the carcass we left behind. Poniard had noticed it before we did and approached first, wielding his spear defensively across his body. However, I stopped him quickly and shook my head before pointing at my rifle.
Unlike the immense beast from my memories, this was a young gray and brown beta only a few inches bigger all around than a common timber wolf or desert coyotes. In those few brief seconds of aiming down the sights, though, I could clearly see the large black head of a bigger wolf turning to look at me aiming. When I pulled the back trigger to unleash a single-shot volley from each barrel, the gun that only twitched into my flexed body gave me the phantom feel of a .357 in my hands.
The shots were on point from roughly sixty yards out and flanking from the broad side after circling back around, all three bullets went straight into the back muscles of the wolf's upper forelimb and through its heart and lungs behind its upper ribs. The potentially lower E grade wolf never even knew what hit him, it just slumped over sideways and started to raise its head before giving out.
Poniard did not really even seem interested in eating its heart, he had probably just wanted to fight it. However, I had taken the overly caution route and shot to kill. I did not doubt Poniard's abilities in the least with upper body strengths of around one-eighty pounds and greater for the lower body with his own weight being around one-fifty.
But this was a wolf that we were dealing with, speed and agility were their fortes.
Curiously enough, after we skinned the wolf and started on our way one of the few remaining birds following us came down from the trees. It had an off-white body with true white parakeet crest, true white wing tips, true white tail feathers, and true white belly. Its head and the insides of its wings, though, were a pale whitish blue.
From a neighboring tree it perched on the recently skinned wolf and pecked out the eyes still in its skull. Purplish jelly smeared its ivory white beak and pale scarlet fluids marred its previously pristine body. It showed no care at all as it demolished the eye and then plucked the other with a single peck.
I just stood there watching it eat the eyes before moving on to the soft tissue meats of the wolf's face. After standing only fifteen yards away for a full minute, I reached into Poniard's ruck and took out a large rodent and lightly whistled. The bird, wielding a long strip of torn facial flesh in one foot while gnawing away with its beak, suddenly looked up at the sound.
Since animals and creatures in this world had disproportionate levels of intelligence, I figured I might get some interesting reaction from the bird that had been following us. However, I did not expect the large chicken-parrot to simply spread its wings and flap twice to fly over. Then, it landed on the back of my wrist and proceeded to peck the animal's eyes out.
The bird was by no means light, weight in at over ten pounds and only two feet tall, but it still felt like a thick piece of paper had settled on my arm.
When it was done with those eyes, it simply turned its head to look at me and preen around its beak with its 'clean' foot without looking away. "Poniard, give me another," I say softly, lightly flicking the dead animal to the ground at the goblin's feet. Without missing a beat, Poniard picks up the dropped rodent and puts it in his ruck to replace with an arboreal rabbit thing that he hold up to my hand without raising his head toward the bird.
If Poniard, the haughty and decently trained goblin, was treating the bird with that much caution and respect then it must certainly be an interesting creature. Three sets of eyes later, the bird seemed to be contented and hopped up my arm and then to the top of me head. There, the bird settled down into a perch on the night vision goggles that were currently pushed up over my forehead.
"That equipment isn't cheap, if you poop on it…" I warn the bird dryly, hoping it does not poop on my head since it had only just eaten.
"How did you do that?" Eliza asks with a hint of awe or plain curiosity in her voice as she steps up close and around my side to inspect the bird on my head.
"It just didn't seem like a 'natural' bird," I reply simply, thinking about how it had looked at me the first time with uncaring but uncontrollably calculating eyes. It had honestly felt like this time at the academy when I met an A grade genius who looked down on the rest of the world. "This world is not as… simple… as ours, the creatures are different. I figured this bird was special by the way the others birds would not come near it while eating so I got its attentions."
"Birds are pretty smart," she agrees more to herself than to me. "They've been following us for a while so it already knows we killed those two and have more. Are you going to try and take it back?"
"Hell if I know," I reply honestly, thinking about the few mentions of bird familiars and general falconry I had read up on while studying for training Poniard and then my license exam. "Aerial support has its serious uses, but there's an intelligence requirement for birds from portals and heavy restrictions. We might breed them in captivity, but if you take it outside without a hood and it flies off, you'll face charges for releasing an invasive species and so on. I don't have any equipment for a bird so I probably won't be keeping it."
"What a pity, its just so pretty," Eliza says with another hint of inflection in her helmet muffled voice, this time the expression was of wistfulness.
"If you want it, you can have it," I reply casually, earning myself a sudden quick but melodious coo from the bird. A split second before it hanged down from my goggles, drew its head back, and then pecked the bulletproof visor of my helmet. The visor. Fucking. Cracked.
Not like a big crack that blinded half of my field of view but like when a rock hits a windshield and causes three or four small lines to wave out from a small central ripple as the material refused to yield. That kind of tiny spiderweb of cracks was right between my eyes, making my visor look like it had just caught a .22 bullet. Then the bird settled back down.
I could see why Poniard treated this bird so deferentially, it could put a hole right through his head and take its time pecking brain bits out. "I take that back, this thing might like me but it's too unpredictable and way too scary to even bring back to camp. We're the only ones with helmets that cover our faces."
Instead of a short riff of chortling like noises, the bird only made a single coo this time and started preening itself. "I think that means stop talking," Eliza says, looking up at the bird with a faint smile in her eyes behind her lightly shaded visor. "Come on, let's just get going and see how it goes."
"Coo," the bird agreed before cleaning dried blood from its wings while Poniard started leading the way back to the hill.
*