The sudden breakage almost made Ackster lose his grip on the remaining antler. But while he didn’t completely let go, only having one handle to pull on wasn’t enough to hold the deer’s head, and the beast fighting for its life snapped its head back and whipped its head around from the sudden release of pressure on its neck.

Ackster refused to let go of the remaining handle, and he had to suffer the consequences of that decision as his body was yanked along with the deer’s head. His arm, especially, took a heavy beating since it felt like it was about to leave his shoulder and search for a brighter future with someone else.

Realizing that that situation had gone to shit, Ackster scrambled to regain his grip on the deer’s head somehow and continued twisting it in an attempt to break it off when he realized that he hadn’t just refused to let go of the intact antler.

His cramped grip and frenzied mind temporarily made him forget about the antler he had broken off. He didn’t even realize he was still holding onto it until he scratched his arm with the sharp tip.

But his own arm wasn’t the only thing he could use the tip on.

Ackster grinned, having ground his teeth so hard that his white teeth shone red with blood from his gums.

Without hesitation, Ackster jammed the sharp antler into the deer’s neck. And unlike when he drew blood from himself to fill the Doppelganger Slime with, there was no need to seek carefulness or moderation.

He went all out and released all of his feelings of pain, irritation, and hunger as he stabbed the deer like a psychotic killer.

With its neck punctured like a pincushion, the deer leaked blood like a fountain and lost its strength just as fast as its blood.

Ackster somehow managed to retain a clear mind through the killing frenzy he had accidentally entered and realized that the deer below him was as good as dead. And, rather than wasting more time and effort on it, he could make sure it was accompanied even in death by its companion.

Ackster stood up, blood dripping off him and leaving a trail on the ground even a blind man could follow.

He went over to the other deer, who realized what Ackster was going to do and, despite being scared stiff, tried to scramble away. But before it could even hobble more than a couple of steps, Ackster had already jumped onto its neck and given it the stabby-stab treatment.

Ackster, soaked in the blood of his prey, sank to his knees and dropped the antler to the ground as he closed his eyes and bathed in the moonlight. He reveled in his victory.

The battle had been short, almost astonishingly so. But it was the same with the goblin.

Fights weren’t long, at least not for Ackster. He fought with all of his strength at every single moment of the fight. Fighting with such an explosive method made sure that the battle would be short and quick, no matter who won.

Ackster guessed that fights in the future would probably be a little more time-consuming once he had strengthened his Strong Body’s recovery effect to the point where he could regenerate limbs in a matter of minutes or moments instead of waiting several days for a broken bone to mend itself.

But it would take a while until he reached that point. And it would never happen if he died first.

So, instead of resting and waiting for a predator feeling for a snack served on a silver platter to show up, Ackster got back on his feet and grabbed the two deers, one in each hand.

He traced his steps back to the closest stream he remembered and anchored the deer in the water, letting the water wash away the smell of blood. Ackster looked back and confirmed that the trail he had left through the forest was too thick, so it probably wouldn’t matter.

But draining the deers of their blood would make them easier to prepare and eat. And after cleaning himself of as much blood as he could get off his body, Ackster started preparing a bonfire.

Getting a fire was stupidly hard, but Ackster eventually found a couple of rocks that made almost decent sparks when he clacked them together. And he could use the sharp antler to prepare tinder small enough to catch fire from those sparks.

After the tinder caught on fire, it was a gentle but easy task to build a fire good enough to roast the deer meat over, which he prepared while the fire calmed down and made a glorious bed of crimson embers.

Well, Ackster’s preparing the meat consisted solely of skinning the deers and gutting them. But he didn’t throw away the guts, at least not the ones without relatively fresh contents. Compared to eating half-spoiled poison goblin finger, eating a heart, liver, or whatever that strange oval thing was a lot better. At least it was fresh.

Not knowing how to prepare it or not didn’t stop Ackster from tossing it on the embers for a little while and roasting himself a decent pile of meat to eat while he threw on more wood and prepared even more ember he could use to continue cooking the meat.

He had killed the two deers with his own two hands. He wouldn’t let anything of it go to waste.

Besides, if he needed to force it down, he could just injure himself and force Strong Body to burn some fuel.

It didn’t take long before Ackster realized that it was exactly what he needed to do to fit the entirety of the two deers inside him.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The two deers were big, and since he was eating everything except the antlers, skin, bones, and a couple of internal organs, since he didn’t want to eat shit, there was a lot for him to eat.

Both of the deers were larger than him. It would be crazy to try and fit it all inside his tiny stomach. So, he naturally had to empty his stomach and force his metabolism to work overtime.

Treating his stomach like a garbage disposal or food disposal made Ackster feel things he wasn’t sure about. But since it would be good training for his Strong Body skill and the acquisition of Iron Stomach, he didn’t mind and just got started.

[Name: –] [Profession: (Adventurer)]

[Stats:

[Strength: E]

[Agility: F]

[Fortitude: E]

[Mana: –]

[Spirit: F]

[Skills:

[Strong Body]

[Pain Tolerance: E]

[Poison Resistance: E]

[Keen Senses: F]

[Iron Stomach: G]

Ackster looked at his Nomi with satisfaction that could rival the satiety he felt after eating even the bone marrow of the deers he had killed. He had tried gnawing on the bones as well, in a desperate attempt to train his teeth and jaws, but he had to give up since they were too hard.

But he had eaten practically everything else on the two animals. And it wasn’t for nothing. He had finally gotten Iron Stomach, and while it was still G-ranked, having it was a world of difference from not having it.

And Iron Stomach wasn’t the only thing he had gotten out of his suffering the last day. He had also bumped up most of his stats, Pain tolerance, and Poison Resistance. It was almost unbelievably rapid growth considering how weak he had been when he left the Phileam Estate.

But it was just the beginning, and it took exponentially more effort to reach every new rank, even with the Adventurer profession, which had probably played a big part in his growth.

Well, since he took down a couple of beasts, a Hunter would probably have gotten a little more. But since the two deers were stronger than him, just a little less versatile and vulnerable to sneak attacks, Acskter had still gotten a significant amount of existential power from his prey.

The fact that it was two against one had probably helped as well. Or, well, one against two since Ackster had initiated the fight.

The results on his Nomi and the conclusion that killing the two deers had helped him grow his stats made Ackster realize that he didn’t just have to torture and abuse himself. Sharing that experience with others by killing a bunch of beasts and monsters would be one of the quickest ways for him to grow at the moment.

It might also lead to him getting a rarer skill, which wouldn’t be as basic as Pain Tolerance or the others he had aside from Strong Body. They were still fundamental skills that made sure Ackster had a solid and strong base he could build an impregnable fortress on. But they wouldn’t be the skills to make the fortress the best defense and offense. For that, he would need something more impactful.

However, skills like those had tricky acquisition conditions. Some were even so close to impossible that it wasn’t even worth trying. But with the knowledge of a transmigrator, Ackster felt like anything was possible.

And, after digesting most of the food, making his stomach bulge through his partly torn and bloody shirt, he got up to continue moving.

Just thinking about it made Ackster motivated to get going again.

He sat up with a groan and grabbed his bag with the failed Doppelganger Slime and the sharp antlers of the Sharp-horned deer.

“Oh, shit. I forgot to ask if you were hungry, little guy.”

Ackster opened the bag and looked at the mostly unmoving slime.

“Well, you don’t look that hungry. But I’ll give you some next time I catch anything, alright?”

Ackster wasn’t sure, but he felt like the slime rumbled slightly as a way to respond to his question. He had no idea whether to tell if it was the rumbling of a slime’s hypothetical stomach or if it was a yes, or if it was a no.

So, he just shrugged and kept moving. Since he couldn’t tell if the slime communicated with him, he decided that it had and that it had said yes, it could wait.

But he still kept his eyes out for tracks of other monsters and beasts. Although chewing poison fingers was a decent way to train his skills, he still needed good stats to get far. And at the moment, they would be the most helpful.

At least, that’s what he had confirmed after fighting with the two Sharp-horned deer.

Poison Resistance would be good if he got poisoned. His stats would be useful in any and every situation he could find himself in.

And since he was an Adventurer, he would naturally grow faster by killing monsters and beasts. It would also provide him with some much-needed combat experience.

With that mindset in place, Ackster went looking for trouble as soon as he found it.

His next victim was a pack of goblins.

Their tracks were easy to spot, and Ackster followed them for a while until he could confirm that they didn’t belong to a goblin settlement. If they did, he would have found even more trouble and the existential power that would come with it if he managed to kill them all.

He would have to fight smart since he was up against so many, and he would have had to fight even smarter if there had been a settlement. But it was relatively easy work, nonetheless.

Wild goblins were pretty stupid, and Ackster didn’t have any trouble getting them to separate from the rest of the pack, one by one, by throwing things that only one of them noticed or got hit by.

He once again felt unlucky that his encounter with the poison goblin was his first encounter with a monster of Millmeria. But at the same time, it was also thanks to it that he had gotten Poison Resistance and Iron Stomach so easily.

And, although he almost died, he wouldn’t have fared any better against a pack of goblins.

When there were only five of the dozen or so large pack left, Ackster decided he had been careful enough. He had managed to lure the others away one at a time and killed them with ambushes.

But now… Now it was time for a proper brawl that would put his senses, reflexes, muscles, and skills to the test.

At least there weren’t any poison goblins that could surprise him and incapacitate him. But even if there were, Ackster wouldn’t go down without a fight now that he had his Poison Resistance at E.

As he stepped out of the bushes where he had been hiding, Ackster was almost looking forward to the fight. It had been far too long since he smelled the scent of blood from his fight with the deers.