It seemed that Roran was skilled in handling beast corpses, so they left it to him.
Using his dagger, he masterfully cut the skin from the rabbit's body and removed its organs.
After separating it into five pieces, each one for a member of the party, plus one for Silverfang, who seemed to look at the rabbit with excited eyes.
Roran pierced the meat with sticks and positioned them above the fire, rotating them from time to time, not letting the meat get too burned.
Soon after, the pleasant smell of meat began to spread through the air. Everyone was waiting with anticipation, watching the master chef at his work.
Unsurprisingly, the most excited one was Silverfang, as saliva formed from his mouth while wagging his tail in excitement.
'Does this guy even need to eat, being undead and all?' Zaroth wondered, but didn't object to giving meat to his beast as he felt Silverfang deserved it.
Soon after, the meat was ready, and everyone began to eat with smiles on their faces.
"This is good!" Zaroth muttered as he ate, almost choking multiple times, and it seemed that Zack agreed with him.
Lily was eating pretty elegantly, as if she had been accustomed to the cooking skills of her lover.
While Roran smiled faintly as he thanked them for the compliments.
After they were finished, Zaroth asked Roran how he was so good at this, only to get a reply like, "Just sort of figured it out along the way."
Zack sighed, leaning back with a satisfied smile on his face. "I can't imagine how this can get better!" he proclaimed.
Roran suddenly smiled as he reached into the bag he was carrying. Everyone had taken some things with them to make the journey easier, not only weapons but also other necessities.
Zaroth wondered for a moment what Roran had been carrying all this time. Considering his composed and intelligent nature, it must have been something he had thoughtfully brought with him!
"There's a way!" Roran proclaimed as he took something from his bag, grinning like a child.
Zaroth's expectations were shattered in an instant. True, he hadn't thought about bringing something like this…
With a satisfied grin, Roran put a bottle of strong liquor on the ground, earning him strange stares from his companions.
"What? There's no way we go to sleep without having a bit of fun first!" he proclaimed proudly.
No one felt sleepy yet, so they began passing around the bottle as they talked about all sorts of stuff around the fire.
After some time, Zaroth felt his cheeks burning. Glancing around, he saw that they had almost finished half of the bottle.
"Heey… Roran, how much alcohol did you say this thing has?" Despite stumbling over his words, Zaroth managed to ask.
Looking at him with tired eyes, Roran took a moment to respond. "Ah… something like 43%? I'm not sure…"
Zaroth wasn't an expert, but that did sound like quite a lot…
Shifting his gaze, he saw that Zack had drifted to sleep. He tried to wake him up but it was useless, he was out cold.
"I can't anymore!" Lily suddenly cried as she got up.
Her face was red, and her hair was messy. She shifted her gaze to Zaroth, who seemed to be able to handle the alcohol the best. Maybe it was because he drank in smaller sips compared to the others?
"Zaroth!" Lily shouted, as she barely managed to get on her feet. "Either drink the bottle and go to sleep or go for a walk for about an hour!"
"Why?" Zaroth asked, raising his eyebrow.
"Because!" Lily started walking towards Roran and then sat—no, fell—on his lap, grasping his red head with her delicate hands. "He and I are going to… you know."
Zaroth's eyes narrowed, but not as much as Roran's, who wasn't expecting that. Though looking at how he grabbed her, it seemed he didn't object.
With a sigh, Zaroth stood up and began distancing himself from the camp while muttering to himself, "Man… some fresh air sure sounds nice…"
The next moment, he leaned to one side and began puking.
"Never! I am never getting drunk again!" Zaroth proclaimed as he puked up his dinner.
"Ah… this feels better," he sighed with relief as he took a relaxed walk through the forest.
Silverfang was with him, keeping him company.
Suddenly, Zaroth began laughing. "Who would've thought? About a month before, I was fighting for my life, and now I'm getting drunk with my friends at a camp…"
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a scream in the distance, that immediately broke Zaroth out of his trance.
"What was that?" he muttered. He was considering running back to warn his friends, but given their current condition, they'd be next to useless in combat…
Plus, he felt curious to see what the scream was all about, so he took a deep breath, trying to ignore the alcohol running through his system, and began walking toward the place from where he had heard the scream.
"This is stupid! Why am I doing this?! It must be because I'm drunk!" He had walked for quite a while and wasn't even sure if he would be able to return to the camp. But his curiosity pushed him forward.
Just when he was about to turn back, he saw something that made his eyes narrow in shock.
A man wearing the uniform of a student was lying on the ground, dead, his face deathly pale. Standing close to the body was a deadly pale woman with red hair and pupils.
She had two large fangs protruding from her mouth that seemed to have appeared from thin air, with a bit of blood still dripping from them.
Her nails seemed to have gotten longer as well, almost as long as her fingers, and ended in sharp tips, almost like they were swords.
She didn't look uncanny anymore, now she radiated a deadly beauty that made Zaroth's eyes hurt just by looking at her. It was like the sun—no matter how beautiful, if you stare at it for too long, it would hurt you in return.
It was a Midnight Bloodrose… it turned out she had been a demon… more specifically, a vampire…
And that vampire had now fixed her sights directly on Zaroth.
He gulped loudly as a single word escaped his mouth, "Shit…"