"Ugh…"
After resting for a few minutes, Victor dragged his body to the nearest tree and finally slumped next to it. His left shoulder was still bleeding profusely and he was already starting to feel the effects of that blood loss on his body.
'My temperature is dropping and I'm feeling a little dizzy. Dammit.' Clicking his tongue, he quickly looked down. Using his intact arm, he cut off a part of his shirt before he wrapped it around his injured shoulder and tightened the knot.
The pain he felt at that moment was intense, but he ignored it and rested his head against the tree trunk. Sighing, he stared at the dead corpse of the monster for a while. 'I forgot what it felt like to get heavily injured… The pain is real.'
Laughing secretly, he closed his eyes. 'I should probably focus on absorbing energy instead of sitting idly like this.'
Since his core was almost empty and he felt like he was about to faint due to that, he decided to simply focus on recovering for now. With that, the boy spent a good while absorbing Runic Energy into his body.
He noticed that the absorption process was a little faster than before. The improvement was negligible, but it was still there and that made Victor even more pleased. It also proved that constantly absorbing and using Runic Energy was bound to make his core stronger if he had any doubts before.
An hour or so later, Victor opened his eyes again as he exhaled a small breath. Squinting his eyes, he still felt the strong headache and the weakness in his body from the injury. But, he was certainly feeling a lot better than before.
So much so he could even stand up again. Granted, it made him sway and almost fall again, but he ignored that and looked at the sky.
"It's already nighttime…" He muttered as he finally started moving to the beach again very slowly. Reaching the place, he looked at his pot, and he noticed that all the water was spilled over and the rest vaporized.
Then, he looked at his fishing rod and it was completely still.
"Sigh, great…" He muttered as he immediately went to work. Picking up the pot, he filled it again and put it on top of the campfire. Surprisingly, the fire wasn't extinguished after the brutal fight and the few hours he was away.
After that, he fixed his fishing rod and positioned it correctly again. When he was done with that, he finally sat down again with a small groan. 'This is really tiring. Ugh, I want to sleep if possible. But, before that…'
Wiping the sweat off his face, he looked at the corpse of the bird again for a few moments. "... Is that thing eatable?" He muttered.
The question was naturally way harder to answer than it should've been. If this was a creature Victor had seen before, he would've known if it was eatable or not. But, since it was something from a completely different world, he didn't know if its meat was safe to eat or infused with harmful substances.
'Well, this is the same case as the fruit. In any case, I should probably still skin it and gut it. I'm curious if these creatures have the same anatomical structure as the birds I know of.'
With that in mind, Victor stood up again and approached the bird before he sat down next to it. Examining its bloodied body, he thought for a moment.
"Do I have something sharp to use?" Looking around him, he couldn't see anything useful. Finding something sharp enough around him to cut through this monster's thick skin was going to be a problem.
However, as he was contemplating what to do, his eyes fell on the bird's body as he realized something.
"Hmm…" Humming, he slowly put his hand on the monster's feathers. Immediately, he felt something sting him so he retracted his hand. Looking at it, he saw a few droplets of blood coming out of the spot where he was pocked.
"... This could work. They seem sharp enough."
Slowly, he pulled one of the feathers out of the monster's body. Surprisingly, the feather was solid like steel with a sharp edge, perhaps even sharper than a knife. Victor didn't know how his hand wasn't injured when he attacked the monster.
'Did the ripples protect me from harm?' He asked himself. 'That could be possible, though I will have to experiment with it first.'
If that was the case then it was a very useful feature. It allowed him not to worry about what kind of surface he was going to punch. It will also perhaps stop his body from harming itself due to the power of each attack.
As those thoughts ran through his head, Victor started slowly cutting through the bird's body. At first, he faced some difficulties since he didn't have his left arm to actually help. But, he was able to somehow skin the monster's lower body, enough to expose its insides.
After a few minutes of inspection, he pulled himself away, all bloodied up. "Well, it seems the anatomical structure is very much the same. Though, some organs are a little different in shape, I can't see anything drastically different."
'Which makes a lot of sense considering how efficient the anatomical structure of most creatures on Earth is. I can't see how that could be changed and still deliver the same results. Though, certainly, the genetic code of monsters in this land is far different from that of the creatures on Earth.'
The biggest proof of that was the size of this albatross creature. Its size, sharp beak, and even its behavior were completely different and since its organs were basically the same, it meant its genetic code was the reason for these differences in appearance.
That was when he noticed it. Looking closer, Victor saw something shiny, buried between all the monster's organs. Without hesitation, Victor shoved his hand deep into the monster's chest and pulled the bloody orb out.
"... The Runic Core…"
Behind the veil of blood and flesh, Victor could see the beautiful Runic orb that he had seen before. With a curious look, Victor washed the core in the seawater to finally reveal its full appearance.
Then, he examined it with his hand. "It is surprisingly hard." He muttered. Slamming it on a nearby rock, Victor couldn't even feel the core shaking even though he put a lot of effort into it.
He was certain that it was stronger than iron purely from that experiment. The second thing he noticed was that the runes written on the surface of the core were a little darker than his which indicated that the monster was a little stronger than Victor.
'Though, it is probably still in the dark phase of the colorless stage.'
The next thing he noticed was that the runes written all over the core were different from his. He couldn't find a single symbol that was the same as the ones in his core.
"Interesting. So these runes are different from one creature to another?" He asked himself. Even though he had no proof of it, Victor could see that being the case.
With how many symbols there are written on this core, the number of combinations that could exist made the idea that each one of the birds from this species could have a different combination. 'Just like a genetic code. I can't tell yet if that's the case. I have to kill another one of these to know for certain.'
That naturally brought him to the most important question of all. Looking at the sky from the creature came, he muttered. "Though… Where did this creature come from?"
A//N: Support the book with PS, boys!