...and my kingdom crumbled...

~

The plants weren't super abundant, but with lots of time and trekking along, this time following the density of the cave life, I could tell it was becoming less scarce.

Insects were crawling along what was now thick brush made of vines and goopy-looking bushes, but the real show stopper was the one thing I'd been waiting for oh so long to find: an animal.

Some meat.

Don't take that out of context.

I'd stopped for a rest in a particularly large cavern, full of lush plants and life, and lit with fireflies and brightly-glowing crystals, and my legs felt like they might just snap in half if I took another step.

But all of that pain seemed to vanish when something stirred a thick rope of leaves, and I looked up to find that it was a sort of boar, one with a super thick, gray hide.

I couldn't help myself. I drew my knife entirely subconsciously, licking my lips as what felt like predatory instincts kicked in, and I was right back on my feet, chasing down the animal.

At first it seemed like a measly creature that would hardly even run very well, but when even that instinct hit my mind, I had to stop and realize that if this cave is keeping up its streak, there's not a chance it's just going to roll over and die.

As soon as it sensed me as a threat, it let out a loud (rather annoying) growl and scuffed its feet, very clearly saying it was ready for a fight.

But so was I, and so was my stomach. I'm absolutely not a vegetarian.

I went at it with my knife without much of a plan, which resulted in my face on the ground and a fat boar already turning from its dodge to run me over. I messily scrambled to my feet, paying more attention to the dirt on my elbows than the threat in front of me.

The animal stopped and backed up when I stood, but it absolutely did not look afraid of me.

I tried to go after it, but in the flash of an eye, some of the cave above began to crumble on top of me. I dodged what I could, but I still got knocked in the head a few times by falling rocks, and that just straight up pissed me off. Getting in in the head by anything is an instant way to my anger.

When I looked back at the boar, it had its front feet in the air, which then were slammed down, causing a sort of shockwave in the floor that made me lose my balance.

Is my dinner.... using magic??

"Is that how it is??"

I raised up my hands and casted the wind spell I learned with Lasory.

Well. I tried to.

In my fiery rage and lust for the kill I'd forgotten one very important detail: I uh, I have no idea how to use magic.

So what I wound up with was my hands out in front of me like a total idiot, and a very angry boar now charging at me rapidly. It then slammed into my knees with its extremely hard head, causing my leg to throw back and jam my knee, which, let me tell you, was not the hug I thought I was gonna be getting.

The animal toppled me over, and I reared back in pain as it kept on head butting me, and with a throbbing knee cap and a few bruises probably already forming, I just curled up in a ball to defend myself as much as I could while the boar slammed into me over and over.

I wanted to cry, but a part of me inevitably realized that this is the exact reason why I got nowhere in my first life. By being a little baby getting beaten up by some rather small and insignificant people. Or in this case animals. Well this animal isn't that small. *sigh* nevermind.

The boar decided I wasn't worth the effort of killing, that or I wasn't a part of its diet to begin with, so it began to leave, but I grit my teeth together, bounced to my feet, and threw myself at the fleeing animal.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

And when I say threw, I mean I was flying through the air with savage instinct to tear apart that beast and not only prove that I am in fact the superior force here, but also get revenge for bruising me up while I was on the ground.

My face could only be described as one of insanity as my knife sunk into the back of the animal and it retched and reared, a reaction that only made the thrill that much better to me.

I twisted and turned the blade every which way I could and subdued the beast as it struggled within my clutches. So tell me, how many hungry demons does it take to unscrew a cave boar's head?

Apparently just one! :D

When it had finally stopped squirming and had no pulse left to it, I thrust my hand straight through its skin, muscles, and ribs and wrenched out its heart out of pure, unfiltered instinct, and ate it. It was chewy, but something in me just... knew to do that, like the heart in particular had nutritional value.

I could spend hours going into detail about how good it felt to bite through the thick muscular shell of the heart and feel the blood it held burst throughout my mouth, like when I used to eat my eggs whole just to bite into the yolks and get the same effect.

To be honest, my actions both were and weren't entirely my own. it was something I wanted, but it also wasn't exactly me who wanted it. Either way, it was a great appetizer, at least until I was marginally disgusted as soon as I returned to my senses.

You're not you when you're hungry.

~

After I skinned and gutted the animal, which wasn't the cleanest work by any means - I mean I'm certainly no hunter - I decided I should probably figure out how to build a proper fire. Hunger pains are one thing, but my stomach growing arms and legs and deciding it doesn't wanna put up with this shit anymore when I try to eat raw meat from an animal at the bottom of a cave is absolutely another thing.

There were those trees I mentioned growing through the cave, which would be great to start a fire, except almost all of their branches were fused to the walls and ceiling, and any that weren't were too high for me to reach.

So I had to settle for some brush and vines, which were damp and near impossible to light.

But it's not like I was short on time, so with enough love and more than a handful of curses, I finally had a small and short fire to cook the boar over.

Since I'd already mangled its hide and couldn't turn it into anything special, I had to make do and clean the hide and use it as a sort of bag for the rest of the meat I didn't eat.

Not all of it was able to cook all the way because the brush didn't burn very hot or long, but it was better than none at all I suppose. Unless that just makes it even more of a health hazard. Who even knows. I was good at many things as Lydia and a few as Vincent, but out of them all, cooking was, without question, not one of my strong suits.

I did my best to tend to my injuries and then continued to drag on, limping for a few days because of a nasty bruise on my shin.

Of course, I realized only after spending forever trying to light a fire that there's a portable one right next to me.

Classic me move.

~

Sage

My time with Xavier and Greyhat has been nothing short of... difficult. I can't complain too much about being given a task. Something to do is already more than I can ask for but it's a challenge and I've been trying to tell myself that it's good for me.

But Jesus Christ these two are a handful.

Getting Xavier to do anything is a joke at best, and getting Greyhat to say a word or muster up the courage to do anything without nearly wetting himself is a whole other story.

It turns out I'm a squad leader of misfits, and our current objective is recon. I was given a week to prepare these two (and myself) to do reconnaissance on the Wood Elves, who we believe are collaborating with the demons.

From what I'm learning, that's bad news, to say the least. The demons were trapped underground forever ago, but not all of them, and they're crafty and resourceful and multiplied and trained.

What they're after right now, nobody is sure, and I think that's part of why I'm being sent to investigate. But the main point is that if demons do anything, just about the entire region, hell even the continent, freaks out and goes into full panic mode.

So whatever it is the demons did in the past, it was enough to stir just a little trouble now.

Our little base seems to be a focal point for the neighboring countries. The Wood Elves' forest is a vast slice of brush beginning at the lower end of the Viran mountains and going down below about where Sakari was, so what happens there has effect on a lot of nations.

While most of the region isn't on friendly terms with each other, it has sent soldiers, politicians, logicians, and just about any other people it could toss a dart and decide to send them down to our camp to help keep the draw with the activity in the forest.

I never thought myself someone who could keep all this stuff together in one piece, but I've been picking up on a lot of stuff through documents and conversation and the like.

Sakari's old land is in turmoil, because Donthaar wants it, but so do some of the former nation's neighbors. No moves have been made on it yet, but it's a reasonable possibility.

Naturally, international relations are tense, and the demons are only sour milk to add to the pot.

And while all of this is happening, here I am knocking what is effectively an angsty teenager in the head and trying to get him to listen at least a little.

Carla taught me what she could about stealth and recon given our language barrier, and then I was to reteach it to those two. This could not possibly be any more dysfunctional.

Except it could. Kir was proof of that.