Hunting is a skill most kobolds can adopt with little effort; this fact was beaten into me during Aggel's mentions of survival training.

Unlike humans, kobolds are animalistic; more specifically, their noses are comparable to some breeds of dog with lesser scent-tracking and focus that can wire in far more intensely. This was born from their struggle to survive both before and following the Kobold King.

In the case of a Prince, our more upright walk and size results in a few things lacking at younger ages. While I retain a higher focus and ability to fight — our role is to rule and lead kobolds into battle after all — my natural sensory strength is greatly reduced. Even still, there was no way I could have expected my physical body to be so absurdly better.

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Baik brought his axe down, not flinching as blood splattered across his clothes and face. The rabbit fell over, squirming and kicking but ultimately paralyzed. The prince tossed the pelt over the creature, turning the weapon around and smacking the shaft against it to finish the creature off. Most may have needed to trap a rabbit, yet even as a small child, he could keep right behind a rabbit. Based on that alone, he was already running faster than some humans; potentially, that'd make him running anywhere between 25 to 30 miles per hour.

Maybe I'm even faster than that.

Baik hoisted the pelt clear, laying it down on the ground nearby. The rabbit was definitely dead after that second strike. He grabbed it by its ears, setting it on the left hip. Whether he wanted to believe it, his first time hunting was considerably easier than fighting a chimera or as tense as the wolf encounter; two smaller squirrels were set around his right hip by their tails from his earlier hunting, each slain with a thrown stone. Compared to before his Awakening, the progress was like comparing a malnourished man to one who had undergone proper training and a healthy diet for years. Nothing like this could be explained in his prior life but a mere dose of mutagen had turned him into something beyond his expectations.

However, with three kills it wasn't enough. Using rocks and delivering killing blows with his axe may have felt great and been to judge his skills, but Leik's ashes hadn't even been used for these kills. Baik needed to think bigger; hunting wolves alone wasn't a good idea but there were alternatives within the forest. Striking a large bird from the air was out of the question with his current equipment but Bailaka forest had other game. Compared to the creatures or humans, the threat was considerably lower but not entirely without risk. Baik recovered the drag-pelt and set it over his shoulder, looking up at the dimming light in the canopy. He'd spent yesterday hunting the squirrels and studying the behavior of rabbits to hunt this one today... but before the second night was through, he planned to bag one of the largest sources of food kobolds could find.

Baik set his gaze on a nearby tree, approaching and swinging to score a mark. The prince immediately adjusted to the dangling weight on his hips before taking off, pushing deeper into the woods.

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"Bailaka boar," Aggel started, tapping her finger against a carving on the hall's stone walls. "The staple of kobolds both within and surrounding our village."

The creature in the carving was depicted about as big as a kobold, potentially as long as their tails and an extra foot. Compared to boars from his previous life, they seemed more like feral pigs; however, the tell-tale swirly tail of a swine instead tapered upward.

"It has a dog's tail?"

Aggel laughed, however she quickly covered her mouth when Baik raised his brow.

"Well, yes! They're covered in fur, Prince. Their tail is also used for conveying their behavior, since they've evolved to be quieter to elude capture."

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Baik slowed his pace, wrapping the chimera pelt over himself to partially mask the scent of blood. The pelt itself didn't have much of a smell when fully wrapped tight; the blood from the rabbit had been simple enough to handwash off, likely masked beneath the corpses and his own scent by now.

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Found one.

The lone boar had taken an hour to track down but that was expected; the boar of Bailaka weren't nearly as territorially savvy as the invaders or natural aggressors in his prior life. Chimera and wolves didn't often battle with the boar due to their thicker hide being tough to penetrate, yet they almost always took the territory when the boar runs away. Some may suggest they were cowards but the boars had the ability to take down countless wolves and even stand toe-to-toe with chimera if they grew aggressive. Even the one Baik saw now — around 200 to 300 pounds — could be a match for an elite kobold in terms of power. Their legs had enough muscle to prepare themselves like living battering rams. There had even been legends by Aggel's account that the boar had once been bred larger to be used as cavalry.

But right now, the main goal Baik had required fighting one with the size of a kobold child and the strength perhaps closer mirroring a young adult. He let the three bodies down from his belt, removing the pelt from his shoulders and rolling it tightly around the trio like a sack. Tucking it close and under his arm, Baik pushed out through the brush in a low crawl.

It was time to use Leik's ashes and show that he, too, could hunt one of the prized kills for a kobold hunter.

Baik rose to his knees at around twenty feet from the boar; its sense of smell was strong but the difference in the wind flow had allowed him to close the divide. Now, however, he set his axe into his belt and took the bundle in both hands; his first move in engaging the boar was to verify how alert it was. Although it was sitting down like the chimera, the boar's ears were up and only one of its eyes was closed. Normally, that might make one think it was aware; however, this was merely how they slept to fool predators. Baik's eyes looked to the grounded creature's tail, gritting his fanged teeth at the appendage's position: raised and bristling.

If it's down, the boar is down. If it's raised, then don't mess around.

He threw the bundle up and outward, letting the corpses spill like projectiles. In an instant, the boar rose to its feet and swung its head, striking one of the squirrels so hard that it sailed away and crashed into the tree. Bailaka boar had a lot of possum-styled ploys, intentionally letting predators assume they were tough. This display might have shaken the resolve in a novice hunter but not Baik; he stood up and slipped free of the brush, defensively arcing his axe across his torso when the boar lowered its head.

Leik wouldn't have felt fear right now. Not if he knew your true colors. Now, for the final part of my plan...

The prince reached his free hand back, grabbing the wolf pelt bag and feeling it slightly slosh around. "I filled this with water, you know... how could it possibly harm a big pig like you?"

Even if the beast didn't understand him, Baik's tail whisked aside confidently and his smirk showed his fangs. The reason why the boar ran away from wolves and chimera was often due to their size and natural threat. However, humans and kobolds had evolved them to detect or look for numbers. Someone at Baik's size standing alone after bothering one of the boar was too much.

It lowered its head and arced its tail higher, squealing and storming forward over the rabbit directly toward Baik. It was moving at nearly 35 miles per hour and should have rightly scared him; at this distance, that sudden increase of speed would have spelled doom in this age.

The prince hurled the pouch forward and swung his axe, cutting through one of the securing straps and sending the ashy water directly at the boar's face. One of its beady black orbs was drenched, making the boar turn its head and divert; it sailed past Baik and crashed into an older tree, snapping it in half and sending the creature into a confused panic. Although bucking and swinging its head, it didn't dare run while partially blinded. Baik immediately grabbed the shaft in both hands, leaping up and over the boar. Both gravity and momentum strengthened his downward swing, burying its edge in the boar's head just behind the ear.

Strike behind the ear, eat for a year!

The blade bit and the boar struggled, driving the axe deeper but ultimately knocking it loose. The boar darted despite its blinding, knocking Baik back and running itself into the dirt. Even if it kicked and tried to run, disrupting the boar's equilibrium was the key to his strike; their immense speed and body type made their hearing vital to moving fast. Tails couldn't offset the entirety of losing one ear's worth of hearing to adjust. Between being blinded in one eye, the ash-faced boar now was running considerably low on options. With the loss of its primary sense of smell, it became considerably easier to kill.

Baik got up, recovered his pigsplitter, and approached the wounded creature with a satisfied smirk. The feathers on the back of his ears wanted to stand up but right now, all he wanted was to get this prize back home. He set the weapon on his belt and drew his dagger.

"Sorry," Baik pitifully sighed. He set his foot on the boar's snout to keep its head still, grabbing the top of its head and lining his dagger up with the creature's still-open eye. "But we need to eat you, fat fuck."

Baik drove the dagger in with a single strike, ending the creature's struggles moments later with a relieved groan.

"Now I just need to get you back home..."

He turned his head, looking at the scattered corpses, chimera pelt, and the opened bag.

Easier said than done.