Chapter 24: The Deadly Dance

  Gaia World, Day 14 After the Shattering

  Things were not going well.

  Pawel had assumed that with basic survival figured out, he could focus on crafting gear to fight off monsters.

  Now he wore a fancy pair of shin guards made from tree bark sheets tied with plant fibers, protecting the lower parts of his legs up to over his knees, and vambraces on his forearms made the same way.

  Trying to do any more wasn't practical, as bark was heavy, unwieldy, and difficult to fasten on any other body part. At least he had his limbs somewhat protected.

  This was good.

  His new wooden maul, now with a typical flat tree-trunk hammerhead connected to a 150-centimeter-long handle with a primitive through mortise-and-tenon joint additionally secured with cord, was also alright.

  He'd much prefer a spear with a metal point and edge, but with only wood available, he could make do with the unwieldy mega-hammer.

  Two days of practicing swings, together with throwing javelins and magical regeneration, had evidently built up his body and made the oversized weapon more manageable anyway.

  Magic shenanigans made his body feel strong and fit now—more than ever.

  That was all good.

  But the side effect was: he was hungry ALL THE TIME.

  And he needed a lot of food.

  Which he thought he could get, but a bird here and there with some roots was not enough.

  By far.

  Pawel had been hoping to use Snack for hunting, but as it managed something resembling flight, it just flew away—not satisfied by having only small bugs in its diet.

  So much for new friends.

  Really, he was conflicted about it. On one side, it was a relief that Snack could handle himself; on the other hand, it was a bit of a bitter feeling.

  The magical bond was still there—Pawel could sense the direction of Snack; perhaps he could call the animal.

  But truly subjugating a wild animal for selfish reasons was against the main principle he held dear in his soul—freedom.

  So, Pawel was alone again.

  Yesterday he had tried traveling along a tracked wildlife path in hopes of finding something bigger to eat, and possibly get some leather for clothes, but monsters must have scared everything away.

  Or killed it all.

  Last night, motivated by the hunger, he had figured to use mana sight as a method of tracking.

  Most of it would lead to monsters—which would also be good—but some clumps of moving mana were bound to be animals.

  At first it was impossible with the increased amount of varied signals, but pretty fast, Pawel figured he could concentrate on one or two affinities, filtering everything else out.

  Right now he was following his senses to a green clump of mana at the end of an orange thread.

  He confidently stepped out of the thicket, expecting yet another clay tadpole or predatory vine—instead, something stood there on four limbs, its body covered in short, smooth fur, most of it being matte light brown with some darker undertones, and its belly being white and more fluffy.

  "An animal perhaps—meat!"

  Luckily it was turned away from him, concentrated on something, standing just fifteen meters away, its thin black tail straight, almost perfectly pointing at Pawel.

  Seizing the moment, he instinctively lowered his posture, slowly took off the backpack silently to not scare the prey away, and with the hammer held in one hand and a single javelin in another—stepped in for a throw.

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  In that crucial moment, Pawel's treacherous empty stomach gave him away by growling.

  Good thing: the creature did not run.

  Bad thing: Pawel felt like he should.

  The animal turned slowly towards him, lowering itself on its four clawless paws and responding with its own menacing growl.

  Now looking straight into Pawel's soul with its tiny yellow eyes situated on a wide head, topped with large pointy ears.

  The entire thing reached above one meter in height—slightly around Pawel's waist. Its flat, bare, and black snout was filled with large pointy white teeth permanently exposed in a lipless grin. Those teeth certainly made up for any deficiency in the claw department.

  Pawel snapped out of instinctual fear quickly; flexed his throwing arm in a wide arc, taking one step forward to add momentum, in the best javelin-throwing form he could muster.

  The weapon flew swift and true.

  But not fast enough. The creature just dexterously jumped sideways, and the wooden javelin harmlessly stuck into the ground.

  Instead of attacking itself, the predator opened its mouth and...

  Laughed mockingly?

  "A hyena?!?"—this realization, for some reason, struck Pawel so hard he spoke it out loud.

  And stood there, thinking instead of attacking himself.

  The creature truly looked like some kind of hyena with a black crocodile snout and teeth.

  "Is it actually mocking me? Is it intelligent?" He gaped at the thing as it opened its mouth again.

  And a brown dust cloud appeared in front of its mouth; in half a second, it coalesced into a few small objects which then propelled fast in Pawel's direction.

  This snapped him out of his musings, and he managed to lift his armored forearm to at least protect his eyes.

  The force struck the protecting bark with no penetration, but two projectiles trucked into his shoulder and rib, flaring sharp pain.

  "Ugh" slipped from his mouth, and a disappointed thought followed: "Magic, so it's a monster—no food."

  The pain wasn't that bad; these were just some needles, formed from wood-like material—too light to even penetrate too deep.

  Pawel ignored his wounds, gripping his maul in both hands and dashed forward to close the remaining distance.

  He lifted the heavy hammerhead in a full overhead swing midstep. There was no quick and untelegraphed attack with a twelve-kilogram top-weighted weapon.

  Sadly, the croco-hyena was not kind enough to stand still and get its head splattered. The animal jumped to its right, and as Pawel was still hitting the empty ground with a heavy thud, it lunged to snap on his left arm.

  In order to not have vice-like jaws clamped on his hand now, he had to let go of the hammer with his left hand and twist his torso, now awkwardly holding the shaft with just his right—but in perfect stance to jab the animal with his left hand. So he did.

  The hit did not land substantially, but the skittish animal again backed as if splashed with hot water, yipping and jutting away full five meters, beginning to circle around Pawel like a shark.

  The need to constantly turn around risked losing balance, so again Pawel took the initiative and feigned another overhead hit—this time not lifting the weapon fully to keep better balance.

  Predictably—the animal jumped sideways again and tried to get a bite—but this time Pawel was prepared.

  Instead of swinging with the hammerhead, he took a step back to get out of the attacker's way and brought down the end of the shaft on the hyena's head, hoping to stun it.

  The animal snapped its jaws where Pawel's leg used to be, but it was very fast; before getting jabbed, it already began backing off.

  So Pawel fluidly turned the weapon into a weak horizontal swing with longer reach.

  It grazed the pesky thing into the side of its head—with no apparent consequence—it just darted away again.

  And the dancing resumed.

  This continued for around two minutes, both fighters attempting to feel the other out, making him lose balance by feints or frustrating him into making mistakes.

  One such feint turned into a test of strength when the hyena clasped its jaws around the hammer's shaft. Now they were trying to throw each other off balance or tire, but neither was able to assert dominance.

  Suddenly, a shadow caught by Pawel with the corner of his eye descended on his enemy's back, drawing blood and causing it to let go of the maul to face the new winged opponent.

  That was a fatal mistake.

  As Snack, who came to the rescue, flew off, Pawel landed a direct side sweep on the hyena's hind legs, resulting in a wet snap—breaking one of them.

  The creature attempted to shift its attention back to the former opponent, but without the support of its back legs, it was slow and clumsy. It wasn't able to properly counterattack either, forcing Pawel to stumble as before, so he fluidly changed the stance and swung his maul with a powerful attack that landed on the hyena's head, driving it to the ground with a thud.

  The wounded predator squealed in pain after the blow; it wasn't dead, but dazed now. By the time Pawel took another mighty swing, it stood back up on wobbly legs.

  It wasn't even thinking about attacking anymore; it made a move as if to run away, but toppled instead, staying in range for another hit.

  This time it was inaccurate and landed on its chest, cracking something inside and forcing another yelp and blood splatter from the creature's mouth.

  This wasn't a fight anymore, but an execution. Pawel finished it off in a few more blows to the head.

  When the animal finally stilled, it didn't have its skull crushed completely, but its eyes had bulged out under the smushed brains' pressure; one was even gouged somehow, and its snout was broken off.

  Pawel rested the hammerhead on the ground, leaning on its shaft for rest, breathing heavy from exertion.

  He sent Snack a nudge of gratitude, which was responded to with pride and promptly

  "food?"

  "Of course. Well, I'm happy to see you, gluttonous bastard, anyway."

  He looked in anticipation at the monster for it to turn into mist and leave him a green gem.

  Which it did not.

  "What?" Pawel squeaked excitedly.

  "It was an animal?"

  He grinned widely like a maniac, tossed away the hammer, and ran back to the backpack for tools.

  "FOOD!"

  He finally had a big chunk of food again. Perhaps he wouldn't have to feel so hungry all the time!

  After effortlessly healing small injuries, Pawel moved quickly, emptying the intestines to get to cooking as fast as possible, salivating heavily just thinking about the evening feast in the camp—and stopped, looking at the liver in his hand.

  He gulped.

  "It's supposed to be edible raw anyway, right?"

  Sniffed it for a test—it smelled about as disgusting as you'd expect.

  He was just so hungry, and camp was still an hour away, not even cooking.

  "I can deal with parasites anyway, right?"

  Pawel took a nibble.

  Chewed for a while, swallowed.

  Then he took a bigger bite, faster now.

  His hands began shaking uncontrollably, shivers going down his spine.

  The taste was bad and the texture was disgusting—gummy and chewy. But there was something in it that his body immediately understood he absolutely needed and lacked.

  Pawel began wolfing the organ as fast as he could without choking, torn between disgust and the bliss of finally satisfying a need he did not realize.

  It was two-thirds gone when Snack hopped on the dead hyena and looked at Pawel inquisitively.

  "Food?"

  He looked at his friend. Because that was a friend that came to help him.

  Sighed and handed the happy bird the remaining delicacy.

  "Here, buddy—you deserved it."

  Pawel was about to pack up and get on his way to camp and begin cooking the meat, but stilled, staring at the corpse intently.

  "Well... hunter societies always have two priority delicacies in their prey... might as well..."

  He chopped off the top of the skull after some effort and looked inside at the mix of pink and red pulp inside.

  It was savaged more than the intact skull would indicate, but still fully recognizable.

  For some reason, the psychological barrier was worse to overcome now, to eat brain, but when he finally did, it was heavenly.

  The texture was softer, and it had a pleasant fatty-metallic taste.

  And it hit that unknown spot just like the liver did.

  Pawel might have even groaned indecently once or twice.

  After the entire thing was gone, his gaze fell on the lopped-off top of the skull.

  There was a green gem embedded into the top of the skull.

  "Well... that is an interesting turn of events."