Evelyn fell to the ground as she received a powerful strike from Michael.

While watching Evelyn and Michael, Bob screams in excitement and jumps up and down.

Evelyn touches her face and feels no bruise.

At least my gift is preventing me from taking any real damage… but does he have to hit that hard?!

Evelyn turns around and before she could stand up, Michael kicks her face into the dirt.

“Hey hey! Wait!”

Michael stops.

“Time out!”

Evelyn stands up while checking her nose to see if she was bleeding.

She wasn’t. Michael seemed unaffected.

“Can’t you wait?”

+No.+

With that, Michael does a jab. Evelyn tries to dodge but the fist makes direct contact with her face. She backs away but Michael steps forward within close range and hits her stomach with a powerful uppercut.

~Gasp~

Evelyn felt the air escape her lungs but she didn’t have time to rest. Michael steps forward even closer and Evelyn sees Michael’s elbow as it strikes her face. Before she could respond, Michael grabs Evelyn’s arm with his hands. Using the momentum of his strikes, Michael throws her straight to the ground.

While Michael’s strikes weren’t enough to go through Evelyn’s divine gift, he was still able to deliver strikes that beggared belief. Professional boxers, especially in the heavy-weight category, were capable of delivering strikes that could be compared to a sledgehammer.

Michael’s semi-serious punches were on that level. Fortunately, Michael knew that Evelyn’s body could take an insane amount of punishment, or else he wouldn’t even risk striking her.

Michael waits for Evelyn to stand up.

~Pant Pant Pant~

“You… are… so strong…”

Michael walks towards the side of Evelyn’s head. He then squats. Bob is on his back with a smug smile.

+A lot of the things we face are going to be unfair. The super reptiles you saw are strong but excluding the Draco, there are other powerful creatures that are almost in the superspecies category.+

Evelyn rolls her eyes. Noticing that Michael was relaxed and barely putting in any effort, Evelyn groans.

She sighs as her mind returns to the night before.

----------------------------------------

“Huh?!”

Evelyn felt confused. Ever since she joined Michael in their first hunt, he always took her out, whether it was for training or hunting. Why would he leave her this time?

“Why are you going on your own?! What if I run out of food? Or the serpents attack? Or the Draco flies here and takes me. I’m a virgin you know, dragons take virgins right?”

Michael looked confused as to why Evelyn was panicking over this.

+Evelyn do not ____. I cannot bring you along where I am going this time.+

“What? Why? Before that, tell me first where you’re going.”

Michael nods.

+We’re running out of salt.+

“Salt?”

Evelyn frowned.

“You’re going to leave me here for a whole day because of salt?”

+Actually, it might be a week or more.+

“A week!? What about food?”

+I intend to bring supplies. And I prepared enough food for you to last for a month or so.+

“Just for salt??”

Michael nods.

“I can make do without salt. I’m fine with bland-tasting meat.”

Michael frowns which surprised Evelyn.

“Uh… what?”

+Salt is more than just for making meat tasty. It has a lot of uses that most people aren’t aware of. They’re also used for soap.+

“Wait, what? That’s a lie.”

Michael gave Evelyn a deadpan look.

+No, it’s the truth.+

Evelyn’s face paled as she realized that her only form of hygiene would disappear if their salt supply was to disappear.

“... What else?”

+It also helps us preserve a large amount of meat we get when we hunt. It prevents spoilage and allows us to store our food. And if we ever find ice, we can use rock salt to extend its lifespan.+

Evelyn swallows the lump in her throat as she realizes how useful salt was and how much she took it for granted.

+Our current supplies will only last us a few bars of soap and maybe 2 kilos or 3 kilos of meat. Do you understand our predicament?+

Evelyn nods.

“But why can’t I come? Surely, I can help you haul a few packs of salt? If there are animals, we can escape.”

+It’s not that simple.+

“Why not?”

+In my time here in Teremarae, I have yet to find an ocean or a large deposit of salt water.+

“Where did you get your salt then?”

+Underground.+

“Salt mines?”

+No, ____.+

“What?”

Michael takes out a piece of paper and writes on it.

“Brine pools? Wait… don’t brine pools only appear on the seafloor?”

Michael smiles. He’s impressed that Evelyn knows that.

+Yes they do but during my travels, I found an ____ cave. Like everything here, it defies explanation except that maybe there is an impossibly long ____ tunnel that connects it to the ocean but even then, it sounds ____. Anyway, this cave has a brine pool in it. I used it to make most of our salt. I return to that cave once a month to stock up on salt.+

Evelyn frowns when she doesn’t understand a lot of Michael’s signs.

“Then? Why can’t I come then?”

+You’d die there.+

Huh?

“What do you mean, I’d die there?”

+For some reason I still don’t understand, cave areas seem to spawn dangerous creatures that are above the normal category but aren’t dangerous enough to be put in the superspecies category.+

Evelyn was familiar with Michael’s categories. He explained them the night before. Normal animals were comparable to animals that came from Earth but creatures of the superspecies category could be likened to the creatures of ancient times such as the dinosaurs.

After seeing the Deus Draco, Evelyn knew that the superspecies category wasn’t something she could ignore.

“Wait, if I would die in caves due to the monstrous creatures there, what were the things that lived in your cave?”

+Not just caves but ____ caves.+

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Umm…”

+You don’t understand?+

Evelyn nods.

Michael writes on the piece of paper and it showed the word “underground”.

“Underground caves?”

Michael nods.

+You will not survive and I cannot ensure your safety without endangering mine.+

Evelyn frowns.

“Are you saying I’ll be a liability??”

+Yes.+

“I am not! I would never be dead weight. If needed, you can just leave me.”

Michael frowns.

+You think I want you to die?+

Evelyn stops.

+If you think I do not value your ____, then you are wrong. You are the only other ____ here. I will not let you die just because you feel a bit lonely.+

Evelyn was touched but she still didn’t want to stay here alone. She did not like the idea of her waiting for the man of the house to go home while she lounged. She wanted to help.

“But… I can’t just stay here! Help me so I won’t be prone to death. Help me help you.”

Before she could react, Evelyn finds a knife pressed to her throat. There wasn’t any force but the implied threat was there.

Michael’s face was serious and even Bob was silent.

Using his one free hand, Michael makes some signs, albeit limited.

+You’re not strong enough+

“I can be. I’m just like you. I can learn.”

Evelyn glared at Michael’s serious eyes.

After a few seconds of intense staring, Michael pulls the knife away.

+Tomorrow, early morning. No hunting, we’re training.+

Michael stands up and takes the plates away, not letting Evelyn speak.

Evelyn had a smug smile. Bob shrugged.

----------------------------------------

God… why did I run my mouth off like that…

Looking up while lying on the ground, Evelyn sees Michael sign with his hands.

+Are you going to stand or not? If not, I’ll go to the caves alone.+

“Don’t get cocky!”

Evelyn grabs Michael’s leg and pulls but Michael doesn’t budge.

She pulls again and again, he doesn’t budge.

“Umm…”

Michael slowly grabs Evelyn’s arm.

“Hey, we can talk about this.”

Michael stands up and pulls Evelyn up. He lets her hands go when they’re both standing.

+You shouldn’t use brute strength against those stronger than you. You should use their strength against them.+

“Okay… You’re not going to hi-”

Without allowing her to finish, Michael sweeps both of Evelyn’s legs and she falls on her ass.

“Oof… Really?”

Michael moves back so Evelyn has some space. Evelyn stands up.

“Can’t we start with training? Like you teach me what to do?”

Michael shakes his head.

Evelyn frowns.

+We learn faster with experience.+

“Yeah yeah, experience is the best teacher.”

+No, I mean that quite literally. I managed to confirm it when you came here.+

“And?”

+In one year, I’ve managed to achieve a lot of things here in Teremarae. Now, I am not a man of many talents, I’m a man of focused skills so when I needed to learn new skills, I was nervous because I didn’t want to waste precious time or resources. What I found was that I learned skills quickly especially when I did it rather than learning the theory.+

“Oh? Ummm… then?”

+I confirmed that it wasn’t just me when I started training you. You were learning quickly, have you not noticed?+

Evelyn remembered the times Michael taught her. While she failed in hunting, it was only her second time. Unlike the first time, she got pretty close to the target animal without alerting it. If she was to hunt a carabiche again, she was confident she could approach it without being heard or seen.

“You… you’re right… what does that mean?”

+It means, we, as humans, are evolving as well.+

Evelyn seems to brighten at that.

“Do you know what level you are?”

+Level?+

“Yeah, you’re obviously stronger than me. And buddy, I’ve met people of the highest physical caliber. Believe me when I say that you’re stronger and faster than all of the people I’ve known.”

+Well… I guess I’m a level 2 human?+

“Aww come on, level 2 only? Can’t you name them better?”

+Why, what’s wrong with level 2?+

“It doesn’t sound as strong or cool. Tsk, I’ll think of a name later. Anyway, if what you’re saying is true, then that means that if I keep throwing myself at you, you’ll eventually get finished off?”

Michael didn’t bother replying.

“Not a fan of jokes?”

Michael signs.

+I’m going to start pounding you now, I don’t know when I’ll stop.+

Evelyn smiles.

At least he can joke ba-

Without finishing her thought, Michael steps forward to deliver a beating.

Michael and Evelyn spent the whole morning beating each other off but it was mostly Evelyn getting destroyed. Michael was mostly unsatisfied.

In the end, Evelyn was lying on the floor breathless and exhausted while Michael was waiting by the side unaffected. Bob was nowhere to be seen. He got bored halfway through and went into the cave to sleep.

Michael squatted near Evelyn.

“You… you’re… you’re amazing Michael…”

Michael rolls his eyes. He’s tired of the constant innuendos that Evelyn delivered each time he attacked her. It was her way of making him lose focus. It would have helped but the gap between them was too big.

Michael looks up and sees that the sun was almost at its peak. If he wanted some fresh meat, he would need to leave soon.

+Go wash up and rest. I’m going to do a quick hunt so we don’t get meat from the supplies.+

“Wai-wait… let me come.”

Evelyn tries to stand up but Michael was already walking away.

“Hey…”

Once Michael is on the elevator, he taps the elevator with the wooden part of his spear and Bob shows up.

He signs to Michael.

Michael signs back.

They both nod.

Seeing the elevator slowly going down, Evelyn glares at Michael who seemed to smile at her.

“You two… are bitches…”

Michael waves off and he starts to go down with Bob.

“Ughhh…”

She puts her face down as she sighs with annoyance. She stays like this for a bit as she slowly relaxed her body.

Eventually, Evelyn stands up and slowly walks to the bath to clean herself.

While walking towards the bath, Evelyn complained in her head.

Ugh… stupid level 2 human… He isn’t even tired after all of that… Stupid name… can’t even name properly…

Evelyn looked up. She noticed that the sun was going down.

~Sigh~

Evelyn enters the bath. She soaks herself for a long time so she can ease her body aches in the hot water.

The night quickly comes and Evelyn admires the beauty of the unpolluted nature.

“The stars are beautiful tonight.”

Evelyn enjoys her bath and after cleaning up, she feels refreshed.

Once done bathing, Evelyn takes a few strips of dried meat from her pack and walks around the area, enjoying the feeling of her feet on the grass.

It’s getting late, Michael is taking long.

Crossing the bridge that’s on top of the river, Evelyn sees the elevator slowly going up.

Oh, there he is.

Evelyn approached the pulley and helped pull the elevator up.

Looking down, Evelyn sees Michael with some small game attached to his side. Bob is devouring some fruit.

Michael sees Evelyn helping them up and he gives her a small wave.

Evelyn waves back.

Bob waves back as well.

Evelyn waves at Bob as well.

The elevator reaches the top.

Once Michael locks the elevator, he signs to Evelyn.

+How do you feel?+

“Better after the bath. Is that dinner?”

+Yes.+

Bob jumps up and down. He signs in excitement.

+Stew, stew, stew+

“Ah, so we’re eating stew tonight?”

+Yep. Bob quite likes stew.+

Evelyn chuckles and the trio goes to their dinner table where Michael prepares the meal.

After a delicious and healthy meal, the trio goes to their respective rooms.

Shit… we’re gonna train again.

Evelyn’s sleep was a bit restless as she prepared for Michael’s pounding. After a while, she fully falls asleep.

~Thud!~

Wha…

~Thud!!~

Who?

~Thud!!!~

“Who is making that racket!?”

Evelyn wakes up from her comfy fur bed and hears loud noises out of the cave.

Getting up from her comfy bed, Evelyn wears her clothes.

Going out of her room, she notices that Michael’s door was open. She saw that Bob is still sleeping, unaffected by all the noise. Michael was not in his room.

“What am I hearing?”

Evelyn goes out and finds that Michael has set up a small area on the other side of the bridge. Using his crude tools, Michael set up an area that had wooden logs standing up. He made sure that the logs would not fall down so easily.

“Michael, it’s like…”

Evelyn looks at the sky and notices that it’s still dark.

“4 in the morning! What are you doing?!”

Michael ignores Evelyn and continues hammering the logs.

Evelyn angrily stomps toward him.

When she is near, Michael grabs her shoulder and shoves her toward the maze of logs.

“Michael! What’s wrong with you!”

~Whoosh~

Evelyn heard something thrown at her and she quickly hides behind a log.

“Michael! Hey!”

~Whoosh~

Evelyn dodges again and she sees what was being thrown at her.

Bone daggers?!

Evelyn takes out one of the daggers but she feels a bone dagger strike her back.

“Ah! Michael! You assho- Ow!”

Evelyn gets hit by another bone dagger. Each flying dagger was sent forward with Michael’s strength.

Evelyn looks around but finds that Michael put the wooden logs in a way that prevented her from seeing out clearly.

~Whoosh~

Michael could clearly see Evelyn from outside the small log maze.

Evelyn tried to maneuver herself out of the logs but before she could escape, she sees Michael appear in front of her and kick her back into the log area.

“Goddamit!”

Standing up, Evelyn dodges an incoming bone dagger.

“Where are you getting so many bone daggers??!

Of course, she didn’t hear any response.

~Whoosh~

~Whoosh~

~Whoosh~

Three?!

Evelyn dodged the two daggers but the third one hits her back.

That’s it!

Evelyn decides that it’s too early for this shit and starts to try and escape the log.

“Michael, I’m done!”

But Michael was obviously not done. Michael kicked her back into the log area.

She continued to be pelted with sharp bone daggers but fortunately, her body was extremely tough.

~Whoosh~

Evelyn dodges a crudely thrown dagger. Looking up, she sees Bob on the logs throwing bone daggers with a smile on his face.

You traitor!

Knowing she had no choice, Evelyn weathers out the storm of bone daggers. Slowly but surely, she dodged more and more while using the logs as a natural cover.

Eventually, none of the daggers, whether they came from Michael or Bob, hit Evelyn.

Then the daggers stopped.

~Pant pant pant~

Evelyn was starting to feel tired. She didn’t have breakfast to eat and she was forced to move at such an early hour.

Evelyn didn’t bother asking if the training was done. All she did was wait for the next bone dagger.

~Pant pant pant~

“Come on! What are you waiting for?!”

Bob jumps up and down screeching in excitement. Evelyn looks at Bob with her peripheral vision.

She sees the monkey point at the exit.

Evelyn sighed and slowly calmed her breathing.

She slowly walked towards the exit while looking for any sign of a flying bone dagger. As she approached the exit, she waited for Michael to kick her again. Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened.

Once she reaches the outside of the log area, she sees Michael a few meters away staring at her.

Then he throws a bone dagger straight toward her face without any warning.

~Whoosh~

Michael didn’t offer a reaction when the dagger, flies through the air with Evelyn as its target and gets caught in her hand.

With her exhausted body pushed to the limit, Evelyn has been running entirely on adrenaline. Her senses were extremely sharp and she no longer needed to dodge such slow projectiles, she could just catch them.

Evelyn lowers the hand that caught the dagger.

It hits on the ground as Evelyn lets go of it.

Screaming, she runs forward.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”

Michael takes a stance.

Evelyn punches forward which the non-exhausted Michael easily dodges.

Without hesitating, Michael delivers a knock-out punch toward Evelyn’s chin.

The blow connects or so Michael thought. Evelyn barely manages to duck back. She counters by kneeing Michael on the crotch. Michael quickly reacts and raises his feet to step on Evelyn’s knee, forcing it down with one swift movement.

Evelyn punches forward. Michael quickly leans to the side and then lowers his body to deliver a powerful uppercut.

Knowing she can’t compete with strength, Evelyn quickly backs away, dodging the strike that might knock her out.

~Pant pant pant~

Michael doesn’t wait for Evelyn to recover and he moves forward. Putting his hand inside his cloak, Michael pulls out his bone knife and moves forward with a stabbing motion.

Michael’s eyes widen as Evelyn moved forward instead of backing away.

Seeing the resolve in Evelyn’s eyes, Michael decides not to hold back and he aims the dagger at her stomach.

In truth, the two of them did not test how tough Evelyn’s body truly was. Michael didn’t know if his knife, augmented with his full strength, could pierce her body.

But if he stopped now, the extreme growth that Evelyn experienced in these few hours would be diminished.

Evelyn continued onward and threw a strike that contained all of her remaining strength. Michael’s knife was about to connect with her stomach.

~Crack!~

One of the moving hands hit its mark.

Michael barely managed to dodge Evelyn’s full-power strike.

Looking down, Michael sees that the knife shattered upon impact.

Prepared to get stabbed, Evelyn finally loses all her steam and faints.

Michael catches her.

He looks at her tired, hungry, and pissed-off face. He smiles.

He lifts her up and walks back to her room.

He was satisfied for now.

Hmmm… I’m gonna have to make more knives.