Another thirteen or so hours passed. The sun began to set.

The pair of man and fox were still faithfully following the winding river, but their path was anything but smooth.

A reverberating roar echoed through the forest. Ellis stared at the source of the noise with somewhat weary eyes. On the other hand, Ena softly yawned. She was currently curled up above his head, a sleepy look colored her face.

The earth shook. A cloud of dust erupted, while the feeling of impending doom surged through the air. Right now, there was a monster barreling towards them.

This one possessed a seriously scary appearance. It had the appearance of a giant bear with charcoal black fur, but that wasn’t really important. The thing that caught his attention was its ridiculous size. Even by monster standards, it was big. Only the green dragon could rival it in size, and that was only in terms of height.

From his perspective, it really did look like a small mountain.

“Well, that’s not quite right. In motion, it more resembles a runaway freight train.” Ellis muttered to himself as he cocked back his arm and planted his feet firmly on the ground.

The charging beast put immense pressure on Ellis’s shoulders, but he wasn’t one to back down. To meet its enthusiasm, he specially prepared a gift.

BANG!

He punched out. A single fist directly made contact with the creature’s skull. The end result was a gruesome scene. Its head quite literally exploded. It was like watching a watermelon burst after it had been pumped full of air. Ellis recalled seeing a similar video in his past life. It was not as entertaining as the premise made it out to be.

“Kyu!” Ena let out a surprised shriek as blood and brain matter splattered all over her body. She glared resentfully at Ellis before the little fox hurriedly jumped into the river to wash herself.

Ellis, for the most part, stood there awkwardly. His entire upper body was coated in red. He stared at the headless corpse for a moment, before he too ran for the river.

A few minutes later, the pair of man and fox walked out of the water.

Ena still seemed slightly resentful, but there was nothing he could really do about it. They returned to the corpse.

Ellis let out a sigh. “This guy’s already the nineteenth one today.”

If the mountain lion was the first beast that they had encountered while following the river, then this giant bear was the nineteenth. Ellis was not surprised by the frequency of the encounters. After all, he had half-expected something like this. Water was a very precious resource, so it was only natural for animals to gather around it.

The number did not bother him, but these guys, weren’t they a tad bit too strong?

The giant bear from before, not only was it as big as the dragon, it was also slightly stronger. The fact that he was able to kill it with one punch was verifiable proof that his strength had increased since the last time, but rather than happiness, he felt an emotion more akin to despair.

Ellis had originally thought that the dragon was some sort of overlord from the land above. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. That damn dragon, it was just some mook-like character. A damn mob! Its identity as an all mighty dragon deceived him.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He had not given this world the credit it deserved. If such strong mobs existed in large numbers, then wasn’t the rest of Lull populated by uber strong individuals? Even if he was able to kill the bear in one hit now, a stronger monster might appear the very next day. In a world teeming with such frightening existences, what did he amount to?

Once again, Ellis’s confidence took a dip.

No, thinking bad thoughts won’t do me any good. Haven’t I already resolved myself to avoid the Heroes? I’ll just amend my prior plans now. Living like a hermit and avoiding danger… that sort of life probably isn’t that bad…

He shook his head. After clearing his thoughts, he turned towards his little companion.

“Well, what do you think about this one? It’s fine, right?”

In response, Ena approached the corpse and narrowed her eyes. A very serious expression blanketed her face. She sniffed the air for a moment, then hesitantly licked at the fur. Her face immediately scrunched up.

Seeing such a reaction, Ellis frowned. “Is this no good either?”

Ena raised her paw to interrupt him. It was a gesture that said something along the lines of ‘wait! Don’t be so hasty.’

Her scrutinizing glare was locked onto the corpse. Ena remained silent for a long time. There was clear hesitation on her face. In fact, she hesitated quite a bit.

Eventually, still with a lot of hesitation in her eyes, she nodded.

“Yes! Finally!” Ellis pumped his fist in excitement. He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Finally, we can eat!”

That strange little exchange was the process in which the pair picked out their food.

Ellis was a desperate man. He wanted to eat whatever he could get his hands on. As long as it was properly cooked over a fire, then Ellis would immediately put it in his mouth without remorse. To him, this whole process was torture.

Unfortunately, Ena was different. She was a bit more careful and shrewder. In short, she was a very picky eater. All the previous monsters that they had encountered were all thoroughly rejected by her. Ellis did not know under what criteria she judged them on, but regardless, her rejection was final. Ellis couldn’t really argue with her. After all, she was the one that held the power (fire).

From the looks of things, the bear just barely reached her requirements.

Does she only want to eat strong animals? Considering the fact that the bear was the strongest creature that they had encountered today, it wasn’t that far off of a guess. Well, it doesn’t really matter. Ellis shrugged his shoulders. To him, any food was good food… as long as it was cooked properly, that is.

With that, the meal was decided.

Ellis began gathering the materials. This forest was somewhat peculiar. It lacked any large sticks or pieces of wood. The most he could find were dried leaves and thin twigs. Nevertheless, he gathered as much as he could and piled them up within a circle of rocks that he had previously created.

He was somewhat experienced with the whole process. Ellis had been practicing for over a year now. Of course, the furthest he ever got was the preparation stage. He never was able to start a proper fire.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying though.

Ellis certainly did try, but suffice to say, he was inept at this particular task. Back then, with no tools around in sight, he had attempted to start a fire by banging two rocks together. Unfortunately, that did not work. The rocks around the lagoon were not the type that could be used to start a fire, not that he actually knew what the correct type was.

Afterward, he tried mimicking all the survival videos he had seen online and rubbed a bunch of sticks together. This was an attempt at starting a fire through friction. Like what you’d expect, that didn’t work either.

Within this gloomy forest, it was impossible to find any branches or sticks sturdy and strong enough to resist the pressure from furious rubbing. The twigs scattered on the ground were thin and brittle. Every time Ellis applied any sort of force, they would break into tiny pieces.

Eventually, he just gave up and accepted his fate of eating raw meat.

Today was different.

After he finished gathering the kindling, Ena walked over. She inhaled once, closed her eyes, then exhaled. A tiny flickering flame flew out from her partially opened mouth. The fire landed onto the pile of twigs below.

The flame gradually grew bigger and brighter. Ellis continually fed the fire with more kindling. Soon, a raging warmth radiated from the flame.

Ellis smiled. He walked over to the corpse and brutally ripped out a chunk of meat with his bare hands. After he washed the meat in the river, he returned to fire pit. He paused for a moment before he casually tossed the meat directly into the pit.

Sparks flew. The flame slightly dimmed. It was a primitive and slightly unsightly method, but Ellis did not really care.

As the sun set beneath a sea of trees, the smell of cooked meat danced in the air.