The huffing moose slowly got so close to me that its breaths condensed on my eyelids.
Unsuccessful in my attempt to kill it, I jumped up and stepped behind.
This was the moment when I should have gone back to my original method. I should have tried to escape.
I had to run.
I had to run so that maybe it would eventually bleed to death. A couple of centimetres was enough to impale its lungs right?
It was only so long before it collapsed. I prepared myself mentally for another chase- I stepped back again and turned around.
"Huff." I was out of breath. The back of my throat was freezing.
At that moment, I had the advantage, it was my stamina against his bleeding. It was just a battle of endurance.
'Run, El." I extended my leg forward, but right then, my shivering legs got stuck in a root. At that very moment, in that construed angle, both of my legs cramped up.
"AAARGH!"
I slowly felt myself falling further and further forward until I landed right on my face.
SHIT!
I immediately turned around. Letting your predator out of your sight was instant death.
The moose lowered its face to my level. Its antlers rubbed against my shoulders. I couldn't run even if I wanted to.
One of its hooves stepped on my right thigh and as soon as its weight moved forward, the place under it got crushed to smithereens.
"GHRRR!" I growled right at its face. From agony.
The bones turned to mush, I lost all the feeling in that leg. All except pain. Extreme pain.
I was scared. So scared. The face that kept on getting closer to me struck a ghastly fear in me. Every part of my body wanted this nightmare to end.
That would never happen. Not until I did something myself!
I had to do something.
'A hunt shouldn't be this hard.' I threw my torso back until I was lying on the ground. The moose didn't mind. It already had its prey. I wasn't a threat.
'This bastard.'
I ran my hand across the forest bed looking for something to attack the moose with. Anything!
Mud. It wouldn't blind it. Spikes? I just found out how ineffective they were. I scavenged, feeling everything on the floor. No matter how disgusting it was.
And then my hands landed on a rock. No, it was too smooth. I tried to look at it... But I was blind at night. Then my hands reached into its sockets.
You didn't need to know what it looked like to know what it was.
A skull. A skull, shaped like a human's head.
There was no sugar-coating it. The one hope I had left was by desecrating the dead.
Screw this.
'The moose was a dumb being who would put its snout up right in front of someone who wanted to kill it.' Or was it just so confident?
I looked at the moose in its twisted detestable face. It was the one that made me do this.
Overcome your fear. Overcome your fear. Overcome your fear. Overcome your fear!!
My grip tightened around the skull's eye sockets-!
Without wasting a second, taking a full swing, I smashed the moose's left eye.
"HOOOOOOON!" The moose wailed as it fell back, crushing the remnant of my right foot.
BUT IT FELL BACK!
That wasn't enough. In a frenzy, its antlers dug under my shoulder blades as it flung me metres behind.
His push hurt nowhere near as much as the kick from that man.
'I can still go on! I MUST!'
Exclusively fueled by adrenaline, I started crawling again… And tried to fight once more. Just once more.
Deers had tiny brains and large skulls. Even a little damage to their head gave them a concussion. That's why they had antlers to protect themselves. But if you got past those and attacked it there, they lost their edge.
Evidently, the moose monster in front of me was no exception. It stumbled as it fell to its side. I was sure this advantage of mine wouldn't last long.
Dragging myself closer and closer, I grabbed hold of a rock this time. I crawled on the ground like a bug.
'ALMOST THERE!'
The fallen moose, having noticed my presence, went ballistic. Kicking any and everywhere. My left leg fell victim.
"GAHHH!"
I was completely crippled now. But I couldn't stop. Not now!
With my free hand, I grabbed its torso and mounted its side. The spike was sticking out right next to me.
I held the rock in both of my hands and lifted it well above my head. In one hard flow, I hammered the spike.
"HOOOOOON!" The moose yelped. I won't let it go.
I hammered the spike again. Then I did it again. And again. And again. And again. It slowly dug deeper and deeper into its lungs.
"DIE! DIE! DIE DIE DIE!" I won't lose to an oversized fucking deer.
With every hit, the moose let out a blood-curdling cry.
Every time it tried to get up I turned and smashed its head. Every time it tried to recover, I hit the spike. It dug deeper and deeper until the entire spike was all the way inside the moose.
This little stream of blood turned into a waterfall. The torso I was sitting on decreased in size, as its lungs collapsed.
'COME OOOOOOOON!!!'
I hit again and again and again!
"HOOOOOOON!!!" It shouted in a sound that almost blew my eardrums. "HOOOOOO-" But that was its last time. I smashed the rock in one last time, for good measure.
No reaction.
It died. It lost its breath. I won this hunt. I- I SURVIVED!
And then completely exhausted, and in disbelief and relief, I fell forward.
"I WON!" I shouted out louder than I thought I could.
Almost as if asking for the next predator to approach me.
I won but lost both of my legs in the process. It was only some time before the other monsters arrived to take both me and the moose as their dinner. There was no happiness or glory in this victory. It was just a call to say that I can live if I tried. It was just a petty attempt to vent my anger.
BUT I FUCKING WON!!!
"BWOOF!" As I fell in the rain, the body of the moose burst right behind me. A wave of heat got emitted from the inside.
"Oh yeah, monsters do tend to do that." I mumbled while being glad that I fell off.
Monsters blew up due to rapid gas build up after death. They did everything they could to rid humans. It was just their law.
These were things I wouldn't have known had I not researched after Luno left for the crusade. It was silly but a part of me did want to adventure with her and that same part wanted to know best for her safety. So I did what I could back in my town- I studied only the theory of adventuring.
Anyways, dying after getting suicide bombed by the moose I killed after so much effort would have been brutal.
I turned around to face the sky and put my hand up to cover the rain falling directly on my eyes. It was an end I came to expect.
"What a wild way to go."
With my arm raised up high, with no prior notice, the rose tattoo on my arm started to burn bright pink like it was a lantern. Pulsating. Not just in the light, there was a carnal temptation pulsating too- within me.
The more the rose brand burnt, the stronger the temptation became.
'What?'
Hunger, gluttony. I was famished. All of a sudden.
Not once throughout the day did I feel this. Not right until I saw the corpse of the moose.
It was like the time the arm warned me about the moose right before the chase started. Surely, that wasn't fear either. It was this exact feeling- Hunger.
My stomach started to rumble uncontrollable. I wanted to get up but I didn't have the legs to do it.
I stared at the piece of blown moose to my right. Raw, covered in mud, and steaming from gas. Yet it looked like the finest meal.
The piece's blood vessels let out the blood-soaked in them. It looked like an appetizing sauce. After a point, I couldn't help myself. I would rather eat before I got eaten.
My left hand grabbed the meat and pushed it down my throat.
And it tasted just like it looked. Absolutely delicious.
I pushed towards more of the meat and started scarfing down all of the moose. I couldn't have asked for a better meal after all my work.
I ate and ate and ate. But the bottomless pit in my stomach was nowhere near full. So the gastronomical perverseness continued for portions of an hour before I stopped. My blood started to cool down.
I was satiated.
"Phew." I let out a deep sigh.
[Conditions met.] Suddenly a sweet yet familiar voice rang in my head.
'What the hell?' It was the same voice that told me to prostrate myself. The sweet hymn of an emotionless child. The deity's envoy? Liu?
SO THAT WAS WHAT IT MEANT WHEN IT SAID THAT I WOULD BE SEEING MORE OF HER!
Just as I tried to wrap my head around this, within the dark night an object appeared in front of me with the sound of fluttering- A book? No, it was thick and well ornamented. A grimoire appeared in front of my eyes.
It floated around mid-air. While slowly aligning itself in front of my eyes. The blank pages slowly started to turn backwards. With each consecutive page, the speed of turning got faster, till it reached the first page.
{Class : Human}
{ Strength - Four/Ten - F }
{ Agility - Three/Ten - F }
{ Endurance - Five/Ten- F }
{ Dexterity - Three/Ten - F }
[Adding Points.] The voice rang again.
I felt my body become denser and my muscles electrifying as the text in the grimoire began to morph.
{ Strength - Seven/Ten - F }
{ Agility - Seven/Ten - F }
{ Endurance - Seven/Ten - F }
{ Dexterity - Four/Ten - F }
[Due to consumption of meat, skills:
{(Hardening - E) (Night Vision - F) (Regeneration - D}
Have been gained.]
This was like the guild card Luno showed me.
The words surrounded me. The night environment around me became as clear as day.
There were clearly not these many moving parts in her guild card. And adventurers never gained the skills of the monsters they killed. But I doubt they ate them raw either. I was an anomaly.
The glowing tattoo on my hand started to glow another colour. A deep scarlet. Slowly, the liquid around me started to rise. No- It wasn't all the liquid… Just the blood.
The blood of the moose started to leave its body. The blood that had found its way into the mud, separated from it. All to form a large ball. The moose's bones started to turn into ash and integrated into the ball of blood.
And then like a slurp, the markings on my hand drank it all.
[Unable to summon (Moose - F) due to lack of ****]
The page turned and (Moose - F) got carved onto the page.
[Blood turned to nutrition. Activating (Regenerate - D)]
The smashed legs dangling off my pelvis got surrounded by blood and inflated. Black bones grew out of thin air and the blood vessels started to surround them. Regeneration?
I was awestruck.
Within seconds, my legs were back.
[Proceedings complete. 6 steps to Daemonism remain.]