Bringing in something alive was far more difficult than making something dead. There was only so much damage and assault one could levy upon another being with restraint before they bordered the line between life and death. While he could use his spear and his shield as blunt tools to take down whatever was in his path, such an action would be time-consuming and difficult with a swarm of enemies that was aiming to kill him.
For starters, he should take out the lizard with the flaming circle floating above its head. Doing so would definitely make corralling these monsters a hell of a lot easier.
He took a small breath and began to move in. He moved cautiously as he focused with his divinity, keeping track of anything that came nearby. There wasn’t much worry to have anything vcome in and interrupt him, but the safety was more than necessary, especially when he was all by himself.
He got closer. The monsters didn’t detect him coming and continued lounging around. This time he was able to get a better count of each of the members of this herd. A total of five beasts excluding the lizard that acted as the lead. Completely doable.
He managed to get closer, enough that he could charge in and throw the rest of these monsters off. He closed his eyes as he began to navigate a path for his spears to strike against the lizard’s head. He was able to do so without much effort on his part and within a few seconds, he had his target. Then his spear stabbed forward.
The trajectory of the attack warped and twisted to fit the path he had made prematurely. Within seconds, the spear went from striking open air to slamming into the side of the lizard’s head. Whatever mystic abilities this beast had were going to stay unknown as the monster had no defenses against the Spartan’s assault. The spear went through completely and destroyed the skull, ending its life and returning it once more to dust and bone.
The rest of the monsters all reacted in shock. They gave off a strange screech that went in and out of volume as they backpedaled away from the clutter of bones. The one the lizard had been riding on did not have such luck as it tripped on its own feet and fell to the ground. It then stayed there, struggling to pick itself up without any success at all.
Well. That made things a lot easier. One down, four more to go.
Well that left something quite simple. The question was did he want to try to disable all of these monsters to get a better chance at figuring out how to extract meat without having it rot, or did he want to only use that one for the meal?
Having all of these would be useful for experimentation. I could probably find another way to get the meat out here and now without the complaints of the Crusader bearing down on my ears all the time. Alternatively, I could try to make a meal using the skin or try to convince him to eat the meat. The only issues are that I can’t think of any way to make the skin meat that much palatable when it got so tough so fast and trying to talk the man into eating the meat while the beast was alive was most likely an impossible task.
Though talking to him was something I really didn’t want to do either. He was a fanatic through and through and trying to get him to open his mind even a little bit always ended in absolute failure. He’d rant about this and that on God and holy duty and all that crap. I’d rather trick him than have to deal with any conversations with him.
With all that in mind, he made his decision. Might as well experiment. He could use some palatable food after all, might as well see if there weren’t truly any means to get meat off these beasts.
So he began to create several paths for his spear to go through. Each of these strikes would go through the knee of each of the legs without fail, shattering the bone and making these monsters unable to defend themselves or move. He had to spend a little bit of time with how jittery these beasts were but eventually, he was able to get all of the individual paths made.
He struck. The joints were all destroyed without fanfare. Each of the beasts came crashing down to the ground and struggled to move. That action came smooth and didn’t require much energy to maintain his divinity, though now he was feeling a bit faint.
Thus he deactivated his divinity. Wouldn’t be good if he collapsed from overusing his powers after all.
He moved forward and approached the herd carefully. Each of the crippled ones kept on squirming around, spilling all of their blood onto the ground and whining up a storm. The one that had fallen still had yet to get back up, giving him time to go and test some more.
He got to one of the beasts and looked it up and down. The legs did have a good amount of meat on them and they’d probably be good in some sort of soup or stew. He could see this monster was plump and definitely had a lot of meat on its bones, making this a potentially delectable meal if he could cook it to perfection.
Though he didn’t have many options. Dismembered limbs, torn off flesh, and heads turned to dust the moment they were separated from the body. The only exception to this rule was the skin, but that itself made him question such an action.
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Why did the flesh rot no matter the circumstances, but the skin was fine so long as the monster was living? What kind of sick twisted design of nature caused such a discrepancy and made it so that people would have to nearly starve to get any kind of food?
He shook his head at those thoughts. Thinking about the incompetent Usurper and how he ruined every single aspect of life was something he could do later. For now, he had to collect his hunt and get back inside to avoid getting ambushed in this foggy area. Without much fanfare, he crouched down and proceeded to skin the beast with as much effort as possible.
Unfortunately, with all the squirming and thrashing, he failed. A critical blood vein got nicked in the process and the beast began to spill out its blood at a rapid pace before it dissolved away. The Spartan cursed as all of his effort went away, before he moved on to the next beast.
This time he was successful with skinning, though he didn’t have any good materials to stem all the bleeding that was going on. Thus the monster faded away into dust once more, leaving him stuck with nothing to show for it.
Three left. He had to come up with something to prevent the monster from bleeding out after being skinned. He thought for a little while before he realized something.
The dust! When mixed with water it had the chance of becoming a paste. That meant it could be used as a way to stem any type of bleeding. Hell, if his thought process was right, he’d be able to create some kind of pseudo skin with it!
With that thought process nailed in his head, he got to work. He scooped up all the dust he could with the clay bowl and rushed to the nearest beast. This one had fear in its eyes as he came closer but there was ultimately nothing it could do to avoid its cruel fate.
The skin was tossed aside. The dust was mixed together with its blood, forming a red amalgamation that began to spread throughout the body. The Spartan watched with wide eyes as this blood dust mixture proceeded to cover up the whole body in a heartbeat, before finally settling down into a strange muck that breathed in and out.
He waited and watched to see if there was anything that would occur. Was this a possible regeneration tool or was this nothing more than some strange reaction he had discovered?
He kept his eye on the mixture. The thing seemed to keep breathing in and out and the monster didn’t seem to be dying anytime soon, considering how it kept twitching and kicking aimlessly to get up.
Well then. That changed things. He had something to use now.
With that in mind, he went ahead and skinned the other crippled beast before grabbing the circular neck of the last beast and moved away. The creature kicked and tried to get away but to no avail: there was no means for it to get a foothold on anything while being dragged away.
He was able to get inside the luxury building without any confrontations. Once he got to the lobby, he got to work on cooking.
The skin of these beasts had a few layers: the fur, the actual skin, and the fat. In order for this to be somewhat palatable, he’d have to get rid of all the hairs and cook the skin somewhat to soften it up. To that end, he created a small fire using some of the makeshift barricades as fuel, before using the flames to burn off the hairs.
With that done, he got his spear and started to shave off the burnt ends. It took a good amount of time but he was able to get all of this done within a few minutes. With that, he put down the clay bowl onto the fire with two bottles worth of water and one of the skins that had been cut up into smaller pieces.
There was far too little space to use both skins. The other one would have to be used later or be utilized in another fashion. For now, he had to wait for this one to boil completely and soften up before becoming an edible ingredient in the upcoming dinner.
With that done, now he had to focus on one other thing: the last living beast. He had to eat after all and what better way than to have a live dinner right here and now? He had the blood and everything to use.
Except for the part that he didn’t have any dust in hand to prevent any of the bleeding. All of the dust from the previous battle had disappeared and all that remained were the bones. While bone broth was a delectable dish, he certainly was not going to use former human remains to make the dish. Thus, he had no choice but to go back upstairs to find some cloth to help stem any bleeding that would come from his ingredient retrieval.
Thankfully, there was plenty of that to be found plus some new tools. A sharp knife that was more like a block of iron and a cutting board. While he couldn’t find any more spices, he did discover two corked bottles of liquid to use at this time.
Perfect. He could start cooking now.
The beast was skinned and some of the cloth was used to prevent the bleeding from getting worse. The creature was then pushed onto a new set of fires and left to cook, allowing the fire to cook the flesh and provide some well needed warmth to his food.
He ignored the loud screeching coming from the beast as he popped open one of the corks and took a whiff. Spicy. Flowery. Hard.
This liquid smelled for sure like alcohol. He took a small taste and found that yes, this was wine. A honey wine that had been given some kick to it with spice and flowers. While this wasn’t great and not something that he would have drunk back home, now? This was ambrosia, a gift of the gods.
He went ahead and took a big gulp of this, before wiping his mouth and looking at the burning beast. The smell had gotten to that perfect point where it was well cooked but not completely burnt. He pulled the creature out of the fire and used the remaining cloth to dampen the flames, before getting his knife and spices ready.
Time for a red juicy steak with wine. His favorite.