The light from its eyes faded and its nerves and muscles gave the last few jerks they could muster until the body went totally lifeless. My mind and thoughts were turning upside-down. In front of me was a dead bear, halfway devoured, by me!

Why?! Why the fuck?! How?! How the fuck?! None of this made sense, did it? I ate a bear, raw nonetheless! Did I, sleepwalk? Since when?! Oh my god! I, strangely though, didn’t feel like puking. Buddy, the fuck’s going on? I asked my grimoire. The sheer amount I ate wasn’t normal, so something specific to this world had to be responsible.

My grimoire floated up and showed me a passive ability called Consume. It was neither spell nor skill, so I wondered where it came from, but I decided to read on. Wait, sure it’s disgusting as fuck but it’s pretty cool, isn’t it? It basically allowed me to eat anything, but it had to be raw and eaten within one hour of death. It’d stave off hunger, and allow me to consume anything organic. I wasn’t sure about poisonous plants though.

But the real kicker was that if I ate at least 80% of the target, I’d get a permanent increase in my HP and MP. And, if I ate 95%, I would get 0.5% of the target’s strength. The real benefit would be the strength increase, but it was much too small to focus my attention on. However, the HP increase was something I could look forward to taking advantage of, since mine was horrendously low.

I looked at the entrails. Wait, there’s bear poop in there. Yup, that’s when I vomited. I cast Clean on its intestines, and that fixed things but the thought still threw me off. I bit down on the stretchy tissue. Geez that’s nas—actually, it’s not so bad. Alright, let’s do this. I kept eating and eating and eating. Skin, fur, bones, heart, lungs, even brain. Consume made it so the stuff I ate was a little better than just tolerable, so even though it still tasted like unseasoned meat, it was somewhat tasty.

The bear was all but gone, but my HP increased by 20, so it was definitely worth it. If I replaced all my cooked meals with at least a D-rank monster, I’d progress rather fast. The bear truly was an apex predator; although the strength increase was only 0.5% of the monster, I still felt a subtle upgrade.

Too bad the fucking bounty hunters didn’t give me a chance to take advantage of my newly discovered skill; an arrow zoomed past me. My eyes popped open and my body automatically moved, instincts taking over. I looked in the direction it came from, but didn’t notice the person in the woods I was in.

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With nothing but my Shadowsiphon dagger and grimoire, I bolted out of there and hid behind a tree. Based on the footsteps, I knew there were at least three people giving chase. I bent over just a little and pondered what to do, but an arrow bust throw the tree I was hiding behind and landed on the ground in front of me. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I dashed out, threw up some Earth Walls and scanned the area for the damned archer, but apparently, I had more pressing matters in that of a couple warriors.

One’s spear went right through my Earth Wall, but at a low point. I realized that they weren’t trying to kill me, but drag me back for the bounty. I’d hoped my beard and overgrown hair would throw them off, but I guess they figured it out.

I clutched my dagger, stepped into the open and saw the leather-armored bounty hunter with the spear. He was about to stab me with it, but Wind Kiss threw him off and my dagger sank into his chest, then I used a skill to imbue my arm with enough strength to shred all the way from his chest to one of his legs. He was down for the count.

A blinding arrow swerved right between my legs. I finally found the perched markswoman on a branch and aimed Water Jet at her. The first one missed, but the second one connected. However, she wasn’t thrown off. The second warrior came charging in, but was rather prudent by keeping his shield at the ready. Ignite made him flinch a bit, but it couldn’t easily catch on the man’s mail armor. Wind Kiss toppled him over and I was about to take advantage of that but the archer’s skill-enhanced arrow grazed my arm.

I cast another Water Jet at her and successfully struck her right in the neck. It busted her jugular and she fell from the tree. The warrior on the ground clipped my legs and used his shield to bash my face in. I rolled over and tried to recover from my dizziness, but it lasted longer than I thought, so I began to cast a shitload of Earth Walls to protect myself in the interim. I figured that with time, I’d regain my composure, but it only got worse. I fell to one knee and began losing consciousness. You fuckers! I cast Purify on myself which would remove any unnatural substances, and that included poisons and venoms. I sweated profusely, but my dizziness subsided bit by bit.

A screeching slash of metal cutting stone sounded through my box of protection. The warrior was cleaving his way inside. Lesser Heal dealt with the wound from the arrow. I gripped my dagger, put my back against the wall opposite my enemy, and let him exhaust himself until he finally made it past the last Earth Walls. Perfect. I released all my Earth Walls, cast Wind Kiss to force him to try to regain his balance, then brought an Earth Wall up right between his legs.

I rushed out and dropped the tip of my dagger right in his neck. I then checked around for any others, but that trio was all I had to worry about for now. I dragged their corpses together and wondered what the hell to do with them.

And of course, my amazing grimoire levitated up and showed me the Consume ability once more.

I held it gently. “You’re a disturbing fucking book, you know that?”