The next day,
Aldo woke up very early in the morning just like usual, the sun is still peeking shyly in the sky. He now is already wearing leather armor that Diane gave to him coupled with a plain sword that he's been using to hunt for food the last couple of days.
Since there is no stockpile of food in the house, every day he went out to search for animals that he can roast by the fire and eat before he trained.
But now, he will be hunting lower-tier beasts to hone his sword skills, and also to get more beast cores because he's out of beast cores. Diane told him that she will not be coming here for a while for she has something to do, but she will still be in Arkney Village.
Inside the woods, Aldo is walking slowly while searching for any signs of a beast.
The woods are still dark since the sun hasn't gone up yet, and the coldness of snow got amplified by the lingering night air that will freeze Aldo's fingers if not for the leather gloves he's wearing.
Many kinds of sounds can be heard but most of them are just the sounds of bushes.
Each step that Aldo took is controlled so that he doesn't make any sound that will alert or even scares any beasts, he puts his senses to the max while gazing through the thick and lush woods that might cloak danger if he's not careful.
Usually, he will be going to the safer area near the slope of the hill on the right of the house.
Diane told him that if he's searching for food, the place in that area is rather safe so other weaker animals are gathered there far away from the more powerful beasts.
While searching for prey, Aldo heard a rustling sound before he stopped.
The experienced he had from being a hunter plays its part as he notices the heavy stepping thud coming from the rustling sound, 'Judging from its footsteps...'
Realizing the beast approaching his place, Aldo looks to the side and climbs onto a tree.
From the heavy thudding sound of the approaching beast, it should be a beast that is very heavy so relatively climbing a tree is the best option to stalk or even run from it.
Not long after, the beast emerges from the tall bushes showing its muscular body.
The first body part of the beast that emerges from the bushes is its horns that are at least a grown man's arm's length, its muscular and brown body follows after that screams strength. White striped decorates its brown skin and its currently chewing leaves.
Upon looking at the creature, the corner of Aldo's mouth quirks up into a smile.
'Earth Stripe Cow!', he exclaimed inside his head.
This beast in front of him that is at least three or four times his size is an Earth Stripe Cow, it doesn't really attack people and tends to avoid meeting people instead. But this beast is very territorial, and its meat is very tender that it becomes the most expensive food in Pendle Village.
Looking at this beast, Aldo becomes excited as not only that this beast's meat can last him through the winter, but it's also a mesial lower-tier beast.
It's perfect for him to hunt this kind of beast,
Holding the sword in his hand tightly, Aldo looks down on the beast that hasn't realized him up on the tree. He waited for the tree to wander close enough, and when he saw the beast walk past the tree he was on, Aldo jumped down.
With his sword ready, Aldo slashes down with a wide arc aiming for the beast's neck.
The beast seems to notice the sound from above, it tilts its head up before its eyes widen upon seeing Aldo is already slashing his sword downwards. But the movement of its head manage to make the sword get pushed off of its trajectory by the horns and this resulted in Aldo's attack missing.
Slash!
A huge cut appeared on the beast's withers but the cut is too shallow, the wither part of the beast is very thick and the sword can only cut the skin shallowly.
Roar!!
Aldo jumped back as the beast now glares at him angrily,
The beast's eyes turn red as its body suddenly bulges with muscle, it becomes slightly bigger, and right after that the beast charge at Aldo aiming its horn at him.
Upon seeing this, Aldo wanted to dodge but stopped, 'Let's see how much stronger I got'
With the beast cores he absorbed in the last couple of weeks, Aldo is curious about how strong he got from absorbing those beast cores. It's risky, but he decided to fight the beast head-on.
He lowers his stance to strengthen his center of gravity, gripping the sword tightly Aldo slashes down at the charging bull that has already arrived in front of him.
Clang!
Aldo's sword clashes with the beast's horn creating a spark, but just as the smile on Aldo's face started to blossom seeing that the beast's movement is halted for a split second. Strength is this beast's strong part, so realizing that his strength matches this beast gives a huge boost of confidence.
But that confidence got swept away when Aldo feels the strength of the bull is increasing, he only manage to halt the beast for a split second before he got pushed back.
Skkrt...!
The snow underneath Aldo's feet started to crumble as he got pushed back, the beast breathes roughly before putting more force into its legs. Aldo looks back and saw a tree behind him, he will be squished by the beast if he let this go any longer.
'Damn! I need to escape from this, but how?!', he thought darting his eyes left and right.
Aldo tries to figure out a way to escape this situation, adrenaline rushes inside his blood as the situation becomes life or death very quickly. He intends to roll away but the beast notices this and puts more effort into pushing him.
His sword got clipped and fall to the ground because of this, and this left Aldo no choice but to wrestle the bull by the horns while still getting pushed back.
Just as he was about to hit the tree behind him, Aldo tensed his body and grit his teeth trying to prepare for the impact, the tree is already right on his back, and when his back hits the tree behind him.
Bam!
"Huh...?", Aldo raises his gaze and saw the bull is still furiously pushing him.
His body is already hitting the tree but the impact is not as painful as he thought, even the fragile tree behind him didn't even get toppled over by the beast's strength.
But Aldo's eyes suddenly saw the creature's eyes on his tattoo glowing with a red light,
The beast saw the glowing eyes on Aldo's tattoo before its eyes suddenly widen, under Aldo's gaze the beast mooed that almost sounds like a whimper before stepping a couple of steps back.
Aldo was confused upon seeing this, 'Is the beast scared of my tattoo?', he thought.
Just as he thought of that, the beast suddenly turns around and started running away. But Aldo didn't want to let that beast go, 'You're going to be my dinner! Don't you run away from me!!'
Putting strength in his legs, Aldo takes his sword before running after the beast that has a hint of fear in its eyes.
It saw Aldo catching up before its eyes widen again in fear, the fear is directed at the glowing eyes on Aldo's tattoo more than himself. Since the bull has powerful strength, its speed is its downside because of its dense muscle and sheer weight.
Aldo manages to reach the beast's side before his eyes glint fiercly,
Using the slippery snow on the sloping ground as a tool, he jumps and slides toward the beast before slashing the beast's legs with a swing of his sword.
Slash!
Moo!
Blood splattered on the snow as the beast falls to the ground from having the right front of his leg sliced cleanly off, the legs are its vulnerable part except for its neck.
Even with its legs cut off, the beast tries to stand up but its weight is too heavy.
There is nothing it can do besides struggle in futility as Aldo approaches it with his bloodied sword, he saw the imminent fear in the beast's eyes, and he walks slowly while cleaning his sword by rubbing it on his leather armor.
With the same smile and excited eyes, Aldo then readies his sword again, "Don't worry, I'll put great use of your beast core and your meat", he said before jabbing the beast's neck with his sword.
The beast struggles again, but with a twist of the sword, the life in the beast's eyes fades.
After killing the Earth Stripe Cow, Aldo immediately sliced through its belly before taking out its internal organs that look disgusting but he's a hunter so he's already used to this.
Rummaging through the beast's inside, Aldo grabs a round object before he pulls it out.
A brown beast core got pulled out of the beast's stomach emitting faint energy, this brings a smile to Aldo's face, 'I need about two more of these before I'll go back training'
Just after he thought of that, Aldo puts the beast core in a pouch before he looks at the beast carcass. Grabbing the beast by the head, Aldo decided to pull the beast toward his house as he can't wait to roast the meat and savor it.
Since the insides are already taken out, the beast is noticeably lighter.
The dense muscle and meat are the big factors affecting its weight, this beast is at least two tons but its insides reduce it to about a quarter of its weight.
Aldo finds his strength is also stronger as he can even pull this beast.
'It's surely handy to become an Ego Fighter, back then I need to slice the beast into tiny pieces just to even bring it back to the village', he thought while dragging the beast.
But when Aldo is nearing the house, "Arghh...", he grunted as he feel a slight sting on his right arm. The pain comes from the tattoo that is now glowing again, but this time it's not only the eyes that are glowing the entire tattoo that is glowing.
Looking at this, Aldo looks at the tattoo on his right arm in surprise. The tattoo is glowing red with a subtle splash of fire occasionally appearing.
Aldo frown before he looks in a direction, the tattoo seems to be reacting to something.
'Is there something there? Why do I feel the tattoo is telling me to go there?', he thought before standing up while holding his burning right arm, he went past a couple of trees slowly before he notice that some of the trees here are burnt.
When he saw burnt, its black charcoal burnt as if it got engulfed by a powerful fire.
Traveling through the woods for a two-three minute following where the tattoo leads him, the burnt trees become even more frequent. Aldo looks at the place before he seems to find this part of the wood familiar, 'Isn't this leads to the waterfall?', he thought.
After walking for some more, Aldo was greeted with a burnt open space.
He looks at the place with a frown before he saw that there are two beasts in the middle of the burnt open space, both beasts seem to be dead but it still surprises Aldo since he never really expected to see this.
While looking at this, Aldo remembered that night he almost got hit by a fireball, 'Is that fireball coming from one of these beasts?', he thought before approaching the beast closer.
It's not that he wants to since the place is still emitting a scorching heat of energy that makes the air stuffy and even burned Aldo's skin the closer he got to the two beasts. But the burning pain on his tattoo beats the pain from the surrounding heat, so he has no choice but to follow the tattoo's lead that wanted him to get closer.
Upon getting closer to the two beasts, Aldo can slowly know what the two beasts are.
The one on the left that has its body burnt the most should be an Elusive Iron Deer, which has two holes on its neck. Half of its body is burnt, with two fang holes on its neck which should be caused by being bitten by the other beast.
On the other side lying just beside the Elusive Iron Deer is a wolf, the beast has its stomach ripped open but Aldo never saw this kind of wolf around here.
While inspecting the two beasts, Aldo can't help but gasp seeing the energy these two beasts emitted. For energy to still linger around even after death shows of these two beasts' power, usually the energy of a beast will be dispersed after its death but these two beasts are not.
'There's no way... these two beasts are close to reaching the high-tier realm', Aldo thought gasping cold air, he was surprised by how powerful these two beasts are.
High-tier beast is very powerful, even Lord Arter himself probably won't be able to take on a high-tier beast. For these two to almost reach that realm is terrifying, but thankfully they are dead.
Aldo's daze is interrupted by a pain on his right arm coming from the tattoo, "Argh! Really?! What do you want me to do?!", he complained while looking at the tattoo.
But out of nowhere, his eyes catch a glimpse of glowing light.
The glowing light came from the dead wolf that has its stomach open, Aldo looks at the glowing light before his eyes widen in realization. He crouches beside the dead wolf before he reaches for the glowing red light inside the wolf's stomach.
Tsss...
Aldo grunted as the wolf's skin is scorching hot, he hurriedly takes the glowing light inside the wolf's stomach before the entire place got shone by the glowing light.
Upon seeing the thing in his hand, Aldo widens his eyes in utter shock.
'Thank you tattoo, this is my damn lucky day!'