Powering his arms with essence while swinging the greatsword horizontally, Nathan smashed a quadrupedal calamity with a strangely wide jaw that revealed its sharp teeth.
Putting the sword down on the ground, knowing that the calamity had been killed by his attack, Nathan sighed and wiped the beads of sweat that were running down his face.
He looked at the corpse of the calamity and sighed again, this time in annoyance.
"This one isn't edible either..."
The calamity's skin looked toxic, secreting acids from every furry pore on its body. If Nathan had to rank it on the list of most disgusting calamities, this one took a good place on the podium.
Of course, this was a list he had made up himself in his spare time, which he had plenty of.
It had been two weeks since his fight against Gril and Nata, which made a total of three weeks since he had arrived at the castle.
These two weeks had been both dangerous and productive for Nathan. He spent his days hunting calamities in the castle corridors, trying to fight as many of them as possible to have enough to eat and practicing with the greatsword, which he had become somewhat accustomed to, although it was still too heavy for him.
His movements were still clumsy, and he had to saturate both the sword and his arms with essence in order to wield it even slightly well.
Still, being the only worthy weapon, he had obtained, Nathan was forced to use it. Still, the sword was quite powerful and cut quite well, so he wasn't too dissatisfied either.
Amelia sighed inside Nathan's mind.
'Is that all you think about? Besides... I've noticed that you've changed the way you fight in the last few weeks'
Nathan nodded, leaving the calamity, and walking away.
'Don't complain, it's thanks to the calamity's flesh that I can keep feeding you, and yes, I have changed the way I fight... although it would be better to say I have adapted'
For years, Boreas had taught him adaptability in order to face different situations that required different solutions.
Right now, Nathan was mostly facing calamities of first rank third category and second rank first category. Calamities that he had to work hard to kill but that was not a big problem for him either, however that was because he changed his fighting style from a safer and more defensive one to a more savage one.
When he used the katana, his movements were more fluid and therefore more agile, so that he could more easily dodge the attacks of his enemies, but now that he was using the big sword, he had no such facilities.
For that reason, Nathan now focused on ignoring his defense, letting himself be killed when he felt it was necessary to find openings in his opponent's defense.
Amelia felt slightly disgusted by Nathan's way of fighting, as if he didn't care about his own life at all.
'You... Don't you get tired of experiencing death?'
Nathan was silent and thought for a while before answering.
'It's not that I don't get tired... it's just that I'm used to it'
If Nathan was completely honest, he really didn't like dying at all, he didn't mind the pain so much anymore, it was just a bad experience. But it was thanks to the premotions that he had survived so far.
Amelia felt even more disgusted.
'That's... horrible'
Nathan shrugged.
'It is what it is'
For a while longer, Nathan continued to walk as he regained some of his essence. In these two weeks he fed Amelia daily, though not as much as she would have liked.
Nathan could not afford to walk around without any essence in his body, so he limited himself to giving her what he considered a reasonable amount. But as he had said before, he had no idea how long they would be trapped in the realm.
Amelia had remembered a couple of other things, among those, the most important was surely the structure of the castle.
The castle was divided into 4 main zones.
The first was where Nathan was, the residential area. This area was known for being the place where guests stayed when they visited the castle, which is why it had dozens of rooms.
The second area was the military area. Area which was where all the meetings, plans and other things that involved military power took place... or so it was in the past according to Amelia.
All of Amelia's description of the castle gave him a picture of the castle's past, full of people walking through the corridors. People in fancy clothes, servants serving the needs of the nobles, all in all, quite a populated place.
What had the world to which the castle belonged been like?
It was a doubt that sometimes popped into his mind, but something he quickly forgot. It was more important to think about the present than a historical past that was not helpful for him to know.
The third area was the outside area of the castle, including the large courtyard that could be seen from the windows, all the way to a large part of the forest. Although, as the gravity changed from time to time, it was a rather dangerous area.
Flying into the sky must have been quite a strange experience, an experience that Nathan would rather not experience... to say the least.
The fourth and last area, the throne room. Compared to the other areas, which seemed to cover a large part of the castle, this one was a single room.
According to Amelia, it was located in the lowest part of the castle, far away from where Nathan was currently standing, which was fortunate for him.
The throne room was located in the middle of the military zone, where the average level of calamities was second rank third category and third rank first category.
Nathan did not want to imagine what his fate would have been if instead of waking up in the residential zone, he had woken up in the military zone, or worse, in the throne room.
Actually, it was not difficult to imagine what would have happened to him. For his corpse would have been inside the stomach of some calamity.
It was a big no for Nathan to go near the military zone, and therefore the throne room. The outside area was clearly out of his reach, so the best idea was to stay where he was until he left the realm... or until he died, one of the two.