“Kitling’s back!”

An excited Marin greeted me.

“Ah wait caref—!”

I tried to warn her off before she hugged me and worsened my internal injuries, however I was too

late!

“Eh?”

There was what felt like some bruising along my abdomen……but the internal pain had subsided.

What’s more, I noticed that my head felt significantly clearer than it had after the fight. I was almost sure I had been concussed…….

What could’ve fixed all of this? The head flick? That was the only unusual action that occurred after the fight, was it a form of magic? But it didn’t seem like any magic I’d seen…… no wait, it could have been similar to Claura’s? However that was a product of her being able to see the ‘flecks’ as she had referred to them and a small comprehension of how heat transfer worked, which I had taught her.

“Kiiitttllliiiinnnggg!”

“Uwah!”

A surprised yip slipped out of my mouth after Alephi suddenly loomed in front of my face.

“Sorry……what?”

“What happened………..you’re all dirty and …..is that blood on your hand!?”

She had noticed the blood I had coughed up earlier on my hand.

“It’s fine, the damage….well it’s already healing.”

Oh don’t give that look Alephi, it pains me seeing you that distressed.

“Wuuu..”

A small sound of distress also leaked from my chest where Marin had been glued to this whole time.

“Really I’m fine.”

I force out a smile to show I’m ok.

My eyes scan the room and I spot Yuli standing on the bed staring at me.

“The bedding will get dirty if you do that.”

“Hmph!!”

She turned away, but still stopped standing.

What a troublesome child!

“Kitling…..why are you back so early though? Don’t get me wrong I’m happy—er well but…..um, I guess I never expected you back this early.”

“Huh?”

“I mean it hasn’t been that long since you left with that old man.”

“He was creepy!”

“He was strong.”

Even Yuli chimes in now? Though they are right….well at least Alephi and Yuli definitely are…….sorry Marin. It really has been only maybe over an hour since I left, and that old man…….. he definitely radiated something like power. It had been almost on an instinctual level, the whole time I was around him I could feel a small hint of danger.

Could Yuli have sensed it better since she was a pure beast-race?

“Well in the end it doesn’t matter, he’s my…….master………for the next year. I will be learning under him how to fight in the arena.”

“N….nnn.”

Well now there’s an awkward silence. It’s making me painfully aware how I smell a bit like that baboon.

“Well what’s done is done. Anyways I’m famished, has a meal been delivered yet?”

“No…..though it should be arriving soon.”

As always Alephi is immensely reliable, promptly answering my question and giving me a lead time!

“Well, I supposed I should get cleaned up….. I’ll be back in a second.”

The girls gave me slightly confused looks, though I suppose that’s to be expected. In this area of the world, personal hygiene isn’t a very high priority. However I’ll be damned if I get an infection from

that baboon!

“Oi guard boy, get me vinegar and water.”

“Hmmmph, why should I? What’s in it for me?”

“You…..do you have a learning disability?”

I raised my blood caked hand and slowly curled it into a fist for him to see. His expression paled nicely

“For you? It means what happened to that baboon won’t happen to you.”

“F-fine!”

The kid scampered off, I could only shake my head. He must’ve thought something along the lines of

‘I’m prepared now, he won’t be able to act like last time,’…………… dumbass.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...

A long while later not only did the water and vinegar arrive, so too did the food. It turned out that it was apple vinegar, but I figured that it would accomplish the same task. Which, in this case, was hopefully providing something that would kill all the nasty germs that I may have received from that baboon. I mixed it in roughly a one to one ratio, the water would relieve some of the vinegar’s corrosiveness.

Now comes the oh so fun job of getting everyone to use it.

“Before you can eat you need to wash your hands.”

“Wash your hands?”

Well I guess it isn’t commonly used phrase or concept here.

“It means scrubbing your hands in the water to get rid of the dirt and grime on them.”

“The water is smelly though.”

“That means it’s good for you.”

Surprisingly… or maybe unsurprisingly Marin was the chatterbox that seemed particularly opposed. However I eventually got her to wash her hands and the other two 

followed suit.

Breakfast consisted of something similar to oatmeal that was unfortunately ruined by the fat that had been incorporated into it. Leaving you with a greasy, oatmeal flavored dish. That being said, the dish packed a punch in terms of being a good energy source…..though the nutrients weren’t very diverse. However given that I wasn’t someone who had been too particular about eating a balanced meal, whether here or on earth, I could only shrug and continue eating the grease-porridge.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The meal was eventually finished and now came a new problem I hadn’t had time to think about……boredom. I already had plans for what I was going to do with part of my day, however, they did not. I glanced around the room; Yuli had re-taken her position on the bed, I have no idea how she wasn’t overheating in the early summer heat, and 

Marin and Alephi had secluded themselves to the far corner of the room. There was also a disgusting smell in the air which was quickly found to emanate from the chamber pot which had seemingly been used in my absence.

God I wish toilets would have at least been invented here.

Alright, must.find.something.for.them.to.do!

……………Nope, nothing………….

It should be fine if I just let them be, right? Kids can find their own entertainment…….right? There’s plenty of clothes in here…….dress-up?

Yeah…….they’ll probably be fine.            

After convin – assuring myself that the girls would be fine, I informed them I would be gone for a while.

“Whyyy!?”

“Because that old man told me I had something else to do.”

“okkk…..”

Geez Marin! Don’t look so sad! It makes the pain of lying to you that much worse!

It cuts me deep!

Eventually she relented, the other two remained silent, though Alephi gave me a worried look. These girls are so young….yet the stress they’ve had had to deal with has 

matured them far too rapidly.

With these thoughts I stepped back through the door and out to the hallway. I glanced up briefly at the guard-boy, he avoided eye contact however.

Seems he’s been properly cowed.

It took me a few minutes to make my way back through the dimly lit passageways to the courtyard where I had my struggle with the baboon. Just like the servant had stated, 

the baboon was still left lying in the hard packed dirt untouched.

As I approached it I realized something that puts a severe kink in my plans.

“I don’t have a knife……..”

I stood there for a few moments as I looked at the corpse. A few flies buzzed about, one even crawled along the baboon’s now glassy eye. It was odd, I didn’t feel much now that it was dead. Before, while I was killing it, I had felt myself come to a peace with killing. However, I still thought I might feel something looking at the baboon’s corpse.

I just didn’t though….

It’s like now it doesn’t matter a single bit, the corpse is just another part of the scenery.

It was starting to smell……

“So now what?”

I began rubbing my chin and cheeks, stroking at my now non-existent stubble.

…..oh!

I glanced down at the hand I’d previously been rubbing my face with. With a slight flexing of muscles along the hand and fingers my set of black claws unsheathed themselves.

These were not the claws of a house cat. That much was clear from the coloration and the size. These were the claws of a big cat. The overall length of each claw was no more than half an inch, each forming an oblong crescent as I extended and retracted each one.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“These will work.”

An awfully morbid way of looking at it is that these claws were to a killer what a crescent wrench was to an engineer. Not the best tool for the job, but one that can still do the job well.

*ZZZZzzzz*

The flies continued to circle about the carcass, some occasionally landing to take a nibble from the red line along its cheek. Some of them buzzed away when I suddenly knelt down beside the corpse.

As a kid I remember when hunters would be allowed onto my parent’s lands to thin the deer population. They would sometimes skin the deer they had killed on the property, and I was able to watch. I’m not sure if it would aid me now, but at least it was something.

Haltingly, I turned the body so its chest faced the sky and all of its limbs were arranged as if it were being crucified. The body had begun to stiffen slightly however, given my race’s inherent strength, it was relatively easy to move the body.

“If I were a magic organ, where would I be?”

With a slight twitch, the claw on my right index finger unsheathed. I lightly placed it at the hollow of the throat…….and hesitated.

“Oh come on! I’ve already killed the damn thing!”

*Schlick*

My claw went in surprisingly easy, though I guess that was to be expected given that the fur was no longer receiving some form of magical signal to harden.

I wonder if the hair follicles themselves form part of the magic system of the creature? Or does it simply cast a spell upon itself? Though that’s getting a bit far ahead, the logic of how magic might work in my world need not apply on this world where magic actually exists.

*SSskkriippshh*

I continue to cut along the skin, going over its sternum, along its stomach, and eventually to its pelvis. It was slow going given that my claws weren’t exactly designed to cut rather to puncture. It was especially tedious going over the stomach seeing as how I didn’t wish to inadvertently cut its stomach lining and thereby release its digestive acids which would probably burn me.

The blood had already pooled to the back within the hour that I had been away with the girls so it was a relatively clean operation. Next came around the neck which was much easier going, the reason being that the skin was slightly thinner there.

The next bit was much more gory as I was peeling the skin of the muscles and bone of the carcass. Once done, I was given the very unpleasant sight of the abdomen of the baboon. The muscles and organs glinted grotesquely in the slightly past noon sun and somewhere along the way I had nicked its lower intestine……..it smelled horrible.

“Seeing as how it can’t possibly be there…..”

I quickly pinched the connective tissue of the stomach to the esophagus and cut it loose, leaving enough of the esophagus to tie into a knot. The action of which was so slimy and disgusting it nearly made me hurl the greasy porridge. Luckily I suppressed the urge.

Only one of us needed to go spilling the contents of our guts today.

“haha….”

I think I’m going slightly cuckoo!

With that thought in mind I sliced the bladder away from the other connective tissues surrounding it and drug it, the intestines, and the stomach away from the rest of the corpse in a direction that I hoped would remain down wind. When I got back to the now mutilated corpse I almost didn’t have the stomach to go on. However my curiosity won out. I wanted to know how the creatures here gained the ability to utilize magic as well.

So I set back to work.

Over the course of the next few minutes I had examined all of its internal workings, finding them to operate much like how I would expect of a primate. Meaning, it was very similar to the human body. By now my hands were caked in blood an organic matter that I’d rather not think about.

My search turned up nothing however, not even the heart contained anything that looked remotely like something magical. I had figured it might based on earth’s fantasy novels, some help they were.

“Heads it is…..”

I muttered musingly as I unsheathed the claw of my middle finger, the one on my index finger was starting to ache…..

It was much harder going this time. The skull is a very hardy bone, and I was afraid of scrambling the contents within so I opted to simply remove it from the spinal column and skin it as well.

Another hour passed. Eventually with some heaving and ho-ing I managed to pop the baboons head off of the spine. The skinning took a long time given that I was attempting to detach each scrap of skin and hair.

What I was left with was a bloody skull with hanging bits of the fat and muscle found under the skin. The whole thing smelt of nothing but blood. Just blood, blood, and more blood.

Given the nature of my current reality, to me it just smelt like, well, like air. It’s like when someone says your room stinks but you can’t smell it since you’re already acclimated to it.

“Let’s see just how strong this body is.”

I was already well aware of my current body’s superior strength, a strength so great it even gave full grown men difficulty handling it. That, combined with its small size produced an insane explosive force. As for brute strength though….that remained to be seen.

*KKRrriiicggghh!*

“Haarr!”

I managed to pop open the skull with a tug from either side it cracked open. Unfortunately blood also splattered across my face.

“Ewwww.”

I suppose I should be thankful to my personality. My need to know how this magic works is beating out my disgust over what I am doing. Glancing down again, cradled between the two halves of what was once a skull was the brain of the baboon…a bit of brain stem was also still attached. I quickly dropped the pieces of bone and rotated the brain 

around.

“Finally!”

I was awarded with what looked almost like a flexible gem that bridged the gap between the two halves of the brain. Upon touching the gemstone however, I found it to be hardened like a stone. Whether that was due to the creature’s death or that was just how it always was remained uncertain.

*ssschwiipp*

“Eh…!?”

The gem disappeared.

It went *ssschwiipp* and then melted into my hand.

You can’t be serious.

“EEeeehhh!?”

Why do I feel so invigorated all of the sudden!? Like I just got my second wind!?

It must be true! Grand Archive absorbed the mana!

“FUCK YOU GRAND ARCHIVE!!!!!”

Dashed are my hopes of figuring out how this thing’s magic worked. Now I’m just left with a mutilated corpse that is starting to stink up the entire courtyard. What’s more is my claws ached too from all of the work!

“I give up.”

Without bothering to clean up I trudged back through the hallways to my room. I numbly ordered the boy-guard to bring me hot water and more vinegar. He complied readily this time, my blood covered body must have scared him this time.

The water and vinegar quickly came back, and I entered my room. I was dimly aware that Alephi and Marin were asking me something but all I did was mumble something unintelligible and cleaned myself off. After that I huddled up in a blanket on the bed and ignored everything else for the rest of the day.

My psyche was wrecked. The only reason I was able to do such grotesque things was because I thought there may be a reward at the end…….but there wasn’t!

I think Yuli and the sisters got into some argument while I was having my pity party.

At some point I fell asleep. Eventually I awoke to Alephi on one side and Marin beside her and, surprisingly, Yuli on my other side. The bed was more than big enough to fit us all comfortably together.

~Data Gathering: 70%~

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I have another one for you! muahhahaha while in hibernation I was able to type out a bit more! I'll be trying to pick up the pace so this story gets more face time. Also so the story progresses and ya'll don't get more bored than you already are with this portion of it.