The appetising smell was incredibly thick, and even better, it was up ahead. It wasn't capable of knowing many things, but it definitely knew when food was nearby.
The wolf looked like it had just undergone a period of brutality. One of its eyes was murky, its hide was filled with claw marks that oozed fresh blood and one of its legs was dislocated.
As it rushed through the dense array of trees, saliva drooled from its mouth at the thought of getting something to eat after days of starvation.
After a while, its bestial eye, the one that could still see clearly, saw it.
It was a feast!
Food was everywhere!
Its eyes focused on the first thing he saw, and started munching on the flesh. It growled In pleasure as it felt the energy that had been drained from it slowly get refilled.
The refill of the energy wasn't noticed by the wolf though, as it concentrated on gorging down the appetising meal in front of it.
After downing the flesh, it moved to the next one as it felt its energy soar. Then, following an instinct, it made the energy surge to its left eye–the murky one.
The eye rapidly healed, but the beast felt suddenly tired. It growled weakly before consuming the whole of the second corpse.
After that, the third.
The wolf had eaten three whole bodies, but it wasn't satisfied.
Therefore, it lifted its snout and sniffed the air, trying to locate the nearest place that smelt like food.
Soon enough, he found it, but what he saw made him hesitate a bit. All kinds of fleshy food he had eaten were all light skinned in colour.
But this particular one was dark.
It growled menacingly and circled around the dark flesh, trying to be careful, but hunger soon took over the tiny amount of reasoning it had.
It charged forward and opened its mouth, expelling a large amount of foul breath, then it closed its mouth.
Or it at least tried to.
A bright light flashed, and it felt its vision spinning violently before it went completely dark.
Luan watched the body of the wolf topple to the ground and sighed. Then, he used the blade as a handhold to stand up.
"Ugh!"
He let out a pained grunt the moment he stood up. Maybe he hadn't felt it before due to the fact that he wasn't trying to move, but his whole body was in pain.
His punctured heart now had the feeling of being torn, his head ached as if he just drank ten barells of liquor, his body had countless wounds, all of them were relatively minor, but they sent waves of pain with every pulse of blood that was pumped through his body.
Most importantly, the stench of blood was now extremely nauseating.
"Urrghh!"
Luan bent over and tried to vomit, but there was nothing in his stomach. Therefore he just kept heaving and heaving until he was able to get himself under some semblance of control.
He wanted to take a deep breath, but he refrained from breathing in too much of the air in the place.
'First things first. I have to get to the river and wash this filth off my body.'
He searched for the sheath of the blade, inserted the bloody sword, and then slung the meat sack that had surprisingly avoided the senses of the scavenging wolf.
He was about to leave when he spotted a brown book covered in leather in one of the guards' pouches. Sating his curiosity, he picked the book up and dumped it in the meat sack.
'Why would someone on a hunt carry a book?
He walked a bit quickly, ignoring the pangs of pain that ran through him every time he took a step as he wanted to get to the river and wash up before nightfall.
He also held the wooden cane in his right hand so as to be able to unsheathe the blade and cut whatever attacked him in one fluid motion.
'I didn't notice before, but the blade is sharp and strong, maybe too much for a normal blade,' he thought as he recalled the way the blade passed through flesh and bone without any resistance.
He was constantly as alert as he could be, but nothing happened for the whole length of his journey.
Finally, he saw the river.
He let out a smile of happiness, but he still remained alert when he got to the bank of the river.
No one wanted to suddenly get swallowed by a crocodile while bathing, and he definitely did not want such.
After making sure that all was fine, he stripped himself of what was left of his clothes and jumped into the river.
The flowing water washed over him, causing his wounds to hurt more than normal, but he smiled as he felt the blood on him being washed away. The wounds hurt, yes, but the river was a freshwater body, not a saltwater body.
He gingerly loosened his dreadlocks, making his hair cascade down to his shoulder, then he washed his hair delicately… even more delicately than a woman could ever do.
As the blood flowed down the river, he felt his body become lighter, as if a tangible weight had just been lifted from his body.
After two hours, he lifted his body from the water and walked to the meat sack. He removed one of the few clothes he took and put it on.
'Ah… that felt really good.'
Nodding, he picked up the wooden can and ran to the nearest tree, cutting about fifteen tiny branches.
He arranged in a triangular form, then picked up two stones and made a fire by hitting them on each other.
He removed one of the lumps of meat in the sack, pierced it with a tiny branch, and placed it over the fire, repeating the same action for the remaining ten lumps of meat except the head which he flung away.
Luan looked at the roasting meat, then brought out the leather-covered book.
He opened it, and what he saw almost made him leap in joy.
"History of the five kingdoms and an Introduction to Mana."