Luke grabbed the Gleem's corpse by its short legs.
He tried dragging the corpse, but it barely budged at all.
'Goddamn it.'
Adult Gleems weighed only around 100 kilograms, even though their huge size made them appear as if they'd be double that weight.
Luke wanted to drag the corpse back to the small house so he could attempt to harvest anything that seemed useful.
'Maybe its meat is edible? Or maybe I could try harvesting its talons and attempt to make an actual weapon out of them...'
As ideas swirled in his head, Luke decided that he couldn't let such an opportunity go to waste.
If he succeeded, killing Gleems in the future would be many times easier.
Luke wasn't that far away from the small house, so it wasn't impossible.
'I really wish I could just Google my way out of this one.'
He still had his phone with him, but it amounted to no more than a piece of junk, considering that he wouldn't be able to recharge it and that the internet didn't even exist in the first place.
Since Luke couldn't just rely on his physical strength for this task, he once again had to use his head and come up with a plan.
He looked at the sticks that were somehow still barely poking out of the Gleem's corpse.
The sticks, as thick as they were, couldn't withstand the force of the Gleem slamming into the ground and rolling around at the speed that it did, which caused them to break, and only the parts of the sticks that were stabbed into the Gleem remained intact.
'Wait... Sticks?'
Luke reminisced about a useless piece of information.
'I remember watching this documentary about global industrialization. They kept going on and on about the automation of factories and how important conveyor belts were in the early stages of a properly functioning factory line. Those conveyor belts in fact weren't belts per se, but a chain of connected rollers.'
He had an insane idea and was even more insane in trying to attempt it.
'I think that the house is roughly 200 meters away from here.'
Luke then started gathering sticks like a maniac, and after two hours, he managed to gather nearly 200 sticks and branches that were at least as long as the Gleem was wide.
After one more hour, the sticks and branches were neatly arranged from next to the Gleem's corpse, straight to the small house.
The sticks were about one meter away from each other.
'This better work...'
Luke sighed.
He spent three arduous hours just gathering and placing sticks.
'This kind of manual labor really wasn't meant for a guy like me.'
His back badly hurt as he kept bending down and then back up as he kept gathering sticks and then rearranging them.
Next to the Gleem's corpse were three sticks, parallel to each other and perpendicular to the corpse.
"Ughhh!!"
Luke tugged on the Gleem's corpse, trying to move it on top of the placed sticks.
He was barely able to move the corpse a few centimeters before growing tired.
"Seems like this is going to take a while."
After about thirty minutes, Luke had successfully managed to move the corpse onto the sticks, but just barely.
"Huff, huff..."
He was out of breath and proceeded to take a big gulp out of the leather water pouch.
"Now that's better!"
Luke started, more often than not, saying such things out loud, as he was starting to feel a bit lonely.
He cracked his knuckles and grabbed the Gleem by its legs once again, turning his back towards it.
Luke pulled the corpse, and it rolled along the placed sticks.
'It works!'
The strength required to move the corpse now was reduced by a very wide margin, as the friction was reduced heftily, among other things.
Luke still struggled a bit, but it was more than bearable.
After only fifteen minutes, Luke managed to bring the corpse back to the small house with him.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead and smiled.
"I'm not so useless after all, huh?"
When Luke arrived back with the corpse, it was already late afternoon.
He'd have to finish what he wanted to do before nightfall. He had a theory.
'I think that the giant bird-like creature only comes out at night.'
What made him so convinced was the fact that he spent almost half of the day out in the forest, and the only thing he ran into was a single Gleem - the one that he baited out intentionally.
'I guess that I was pretty unlucky to have three Gleems run into me just after arriving in the forest...'
Yet when he went out during the night, he ran into the giant bird-like creature merely minutes after leaving the house.
'The area around the house should be relatively safe during the day,' Luke concluded.
He couldn't really move the corpse anywhere else other than where the sticks brought it, so he just entered the house for the time being.
Luke would need to find a way to harvest the Gleem's corpse as soon as possible.
'Oh Jesus Christ!'
Luke frowned and pinched his nose the moment he stepped into the house.
The old man's corpse was still there, and while Luke previously thought it could just stay there, at least for now, he was very wrong.
The corpse had already started to rot, and the stench it was emitting was indescribably disgusting.
Luke had to do something about it, and fast.
He approached the old man's corpse and, while trying not to breathe through his nose, picked it up.
He got out of the house, leaving the door open.
'This house is in dire need of some fresh air.'
Luke walked by the Gleem's corpse and journeyed deeper into the forest.
Although he never wanted to do this to anyone's remains, he didn't really know of any other options.
After walking for nearly 15 minutes, he stopped and dropped the corpse to the ground.
*Thud*
Luke dusted his hands and took a deep breath. He loudly whistled and then opened his mouth.
"HEY BASTARDS!! DINNER!!!"
Shouting that out, Luke turned away and started running away. He wasn't ready for a fight. The Gleems would take care of the old man's corpse in his stead.
'It looks like I'm a bit faster, and I also feel lighter. It's probably the effect of the tiny piece of the wind elemental that I've absorbed.'
Luke touched his chest and kept running.
He arrived in front of the house in about ten minutes.
'Okay, I should have enough time to finish this before nightfall."
While running back towards the house, Luke made sure to pick up two rocks. He needed to bang them together so that he could make a tool that could cut into the Gleem's flesh.
The goal was to make a rough knife.
'This is going to be such a pain…'
Luke earnestly started banging together two rocks, as if he were a caveman.
And after banging the two rocks together for nearly two hours, he was getting near his desired result.
He had fashioned one of the rocks into the rough shape of a knife blade.
In his other hand was what remained of the other rock. He was banging this rock against the stone blade, attempting to make it at least somewhat sharp.
'Finally.'
After another twenty minutes, Luke's hands stopped moving. In his hand was now a tool that resembled a stone blade, often seen in survival games he liked to play back on Earth.
Luke glanced at his callused hands, one of which was bleeding, and smiled bitterly.
'I hate to say it because of the state my body is in, but it actually was a very productive day.'
He thought about ways that he could use to sharpen the stone blade.
Luke knew that he had to find a much harder rock to be able to sharpen the stone blade at all, but he doubted that such a variety of stones could even be found in such a bare forest.
He covered the Gleem's corpse up with some of the sticks that had remained near the house after Luke's makeshift conveyor belt project.
Luke then entered the house, closed the door, and sat down at the table, taking out some dry meat and water.
Nighttime was approaching.
The stench was finally almost gone, so he could try eating in peace.
He was feeling lightheaded as he had lost his appetite earlier in the day, and dumping the old man's corpse to be eaten by monsters didn't really help much in that aspect.
But now, hunger simply overwhelmed him.
After finishing his dinner, he unbuttoned his shirt.
He touched the tattoos on his chest.
'Even if I were to strengthen the wind elemental, would I really be able to just control wind like that giant bird-like creature did?'
Contemplating about it, Luke stretched his left hand out, started swinging it around, and talked out loud.
"Go wind! Up, up, and away! Gather, hurricane!"
He then looked at his hand and wondered:
"Ah, what am I even doing?"
Luke gave up on controlling the wind for now.
'I'll keep testing it out as I strengthen my wind elemental.'
Luke started thinking about the information that the old man gave him.
["You are in the forest of N'Gool, one of the monster overlords. This is one of the forbidden areas of the Exul Empire."]
'Okay, so first of all, I think that I've already met this monster overlord.'
Luke frowned as he remembered the giant bird-like creature.
'He had also said that this forest is a forbidden area of some Empire? Is that because of N'Gool, the monster overlord, or because the forest is swarming with Gleems?'
Luke didn't think too hard about this, though, simply because of the fact that he barely had any information about where he was.
'I will gather information once I actually manage to get out of this forest.'
Luke heaved out a sigh.
'I think that's it for today. I'll rest now and work on sharpening the stone blade tomorrow.'
Luke walked over to the bed and lied down.
Him being calmer and much more tired than yesterday proved to be useful, as Luke slept like a log.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*Crash!!*
*Boom*
"Argh… What is that noise?"
Unexpectedly loud noises woke Luke up, and he sat up on the bed, still in a daze.
He rubbed his eyes and noticed a weird breeze coming from above him.
The roof of the house was missing.
Luke's eyes opened wide as he stared at what was above him.
A pair of giant red eyes glared at him in fury.
It was the giant bird-like creature, presumed to be the monster overlord, N'Gool, by Luke.
Luke felt a gust of wind tickling his ear and heard a maddening whisper.
"How. Dare. You?!"
Luke gulped as he jumped out of the bed.
Blood rushed to his head, making him feel nauseous, and after nearly tripping over his own legs, he managed to gather his essential supplies and run out of the house.
Another gust of wind tickled Luke's ears.
"Yes… Try. Running. Away."
'I really need to get out of here! Beating that creature is impossible right now!'
What Luke saw outside of the small house made the blood in his body freeze and stop flowing.
'N-no… but how?!'
In front of the house lay a Gleem's corpse, and around it stood more than two dozen Gleems. They all turned their heads toward Luke.
*Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!*
*Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!*
They started screeching at the same time, making Luke's head ring and making him unable to breathe.
He remembered the scene from his first night in the forest.
His whole body was shaking out of an instinctual sense of fear.
They were the predators, and he was their prey.
'No, calm down; it's not the same as the last time. I may have a chance now.'
Luke just barely managed to snap out of it and look to the left.
The area seemed clear of any monsters. He forced his body to move with the sheer power of will and started sprinting as fast as his legs would allow him to.
The pure white tattoo on his chest started glowing in a pure white sheen, and Luke could feel his body getting even lighter and his legs getting a bit faster.
He ran, and then ran some more. His stamina also seemed to have improved, either because of the wind elemental or the manual labor he had to go through all day long.
After running for nearly ten minutes, he turned his head around, and he could no longer see any monsters.
Feeling relieved, Luke kept running, but as he turned his head back around, he felt a gust of wind passing him by.
"Useless. Give. Up."
His heart dropped.
'Why is this even happening?! Why did it even come to the house? Wait…'
Realizing that he had made a grave mistake, he kept running.
The answer was obvious.
'It has to be the goddamn corpse I brought to the house!!'
*Swooosh*
He heard something above him and was about to look upward.
But just as he was about to raise his head, a giant talon stepped on Luke.
Luke's body got so completely crushed that only a scarlet-red paste remained on the ground where he was standing just moments ago.
He died instantly, without even realizing it.
A small silver light appeared from under the giant talon and started shining in a bright blue hue.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Luke gasped, opening his eyes wide and staring at his surroundings.
'What just happened?!'
The last thing he remembered was being chased by a small army of Gleems and the giant bird-like creature in the middle of the night.
Just as he was about to look at what was above him, he appeared here.
He thought for an instant that it may have just been a dream, but when he realized what he was holding in his hands, he cursed himself and realized that it wasn't a dream.
Luke was holding a thick stick in one hand and a slanted stone in the other.
'Did I... die again?'
It was the only logical conclusion he could come up with.
'...Since I'm still alive and appear to be back to just before noon of the previous day, I had to have died once again.'
Luke was now sure.
'The mysterious power that the old man gave me... It indeed has to be the power to travel back in time on death. I can't come up with any other explanations that would make any sense.'
Compared to his first death, this one happened in an instant and did not cause any pain to Luke, so he could still keep a relatively calm state of mind.
He'd stick to his previous plan of killing a Gleem.
'I just need to kill more Gleems to get stronger, right?'
Eventually, he'd no longer need sticks and stones to be able to kill Gleems.
As he felt like his body was still lighter than ever, he decided to check something.
Luke unbuttoned his shirt and looked at his chest.
The pure white tattoo under the silver hourglass was still on his chest, even though he couldn't have absorbed the wind elemental yet at this point in time since he technically still hasn't killed any Gleems yet.
Luke smirked.
'So that's how it is... I see.'
He calmly buttoned his shirt back up and continued sharpening the stick.
If he just kept at it, Luke was sure that he could eventually face the giant bird-like creature as an equal.
He had time on his side, and this time he wouldn't just lead the giant creature to the only safe place that he knew of in this whole forest.
'Of course, I will still try hard not to die, as this power might have unknown limitations that I am not currently aware of.'
Finishing up the work on sharpening the sticks, Luke stood up and placed one of the sticks on the ground while keeping the other behind his back.
'Even though it's my second time doing this, I can't help but feel a bit nauseous and light-headed.'
He decided to grin and bear it as he opened his mouth.
"HEY!!! BASTARDS! COME AND GET SOME!!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As the bitter battle came to an end, there was now once again a Gleem corpse in front of Luke, and a speck of white light floated out of the corpse.
Luke reached out and absorbed the tiny piece of the wind elemental.
His chest tightened just like before, but no sharp pain came, as the tattoo on his chest was still there.
Luke was also in much better shape than after his first fight with a Gleem, because this time he was able to just barely move out of the way of the Gleem as it died.
It could be chalked up to either the help from the tiny wind elemental he had obtained or to his knowledge of what was going to happen.
When the elemental was fully absorbed into Luke, he was filled with a pleasant and elevating feeling.
Luke kept getting stronger, one step at a time.