Chapter 176 – Journal Entry 26: Butcher Mode

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Following the rumors, tracking the beast through the pattern by mouth, adding my own conclusions, putting the dire animal’s habit to the pot made me conclude where the dire animal is. In the island there is a pasture that usually people don’t visit due to a warp gate appearing, this warp gate has already been taken care by the earthen mates but it doesn’t mean the danger might have passed, so the people are told to stay away, hence I can only think that this is the right place.

I wasn’t mistaken at all, the beast is in the pasture, and thus I hid in a thicket with my eyes pointing at the dire animal. The dire animal stands about three foot tall, quite big for a dire animal. It has toned legs, a thick fur, and two protruding horns, followed with a long mouth that has fangs enough to bite into a thick branch. The earthen mates manage to conquer such beasts, and somehow I find myself amazed at their abilities. Good farmers, good tamers and great at managing domesticated beast. But despite that, they can be careless, reckless individuals too. However it may vary from the person, I do not discriminate.

The dire animal eats grass on the pasture. Its lone figure shined with the sun make the beast seems peaceful. Although I would have been fooled if it wasn’t for the fact that I know that it went wild. Slaying the beast is okay, the requester specifically told me to kill it with a blade, since apparently the dire animal's hide is quite great to skin and the meat is also solid yet soft, good for grilling and roasting. The earthen mate enticed me about the meat, telling that he will request for Odette to cook it.

I could not pass up on such offer, but even so, I am not foolish enough to trade my life for pieces of meat. So when it comes to it I will point the barrel of my gun at the beast’s head. Even a beast like this could be killed within a point blank shot of a doubled barreled gun armed with a buck shot. The piercing power of a shotgun is quite a lot, not to mention a point blank shot is devastating.

So when it comes to me being in danger, I will use it without any hesitation. The earthen mate also told me to be safe anyway, telling me that dying on him because of a request is something that he will feel guilty about. Hence, as long as the beast is dead, he doesn’t mind if I don’t bring the hide and meat for extra. So with all of that in mind, I crawled slowly in the thicket like a panther watching its prey. I feel like my movements are quite silent, my breathing also slowed, matching the wind in order to synchronize my approach at the beast. I plan to silently take down the beast and finished it off before it could even know I am here.

But suddenly my head went cold, my arms feel like they were so light, and my body that of thin air. My steps were nimble, I move so silently that the dire animal didn’t notice me, I stick my right hand up while holding my sword that I drew silently from my sheath, with an arc, I slit the throat of the dire animal, line appeared on the dire animal's neck, it black eyes turned toward me, it was surprise, and before it can even utter a groan, blood spurted. I dodge the blood, and I stab my sword in the mouth of the dire animal, piercing its brain. Pulling my sword that is littered with blood, I rotated my body gracefully, and stab the dire animal right in the butt. And as if natural to me, I began to skin the animal while it was barely alive, the stab to the brain ‘numbed’ the beast, it didn’t kill and at the moment the beast should be feeling literal hell as I skin it with expertise.

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I have no idea, but the skills that make my hands move without any waste makes me afraid, not because of how natural it is, but how good I am at skinning the beast while making sure it is standing. The slice in the throat that hit the artery of the beast should drain the blood, the stab in the butt too will do the trick, but the way the dire animal hardens, unable to fall, while slowly watching me skin its hide away, unable to die makes me wonder how good of a butcher I was.

My sword didn’t stop, it was rather soft, and it felt like slicing through jelly and despite the blood spurting out of the dire animal, I wasn’t stained simply because I kept dodging the blood. The feeling of coldness, the lightness in my body begins to scare me. As if there was something in this body that used to do this all the time, against many, and against anything. It felt like this body of mine has been serving, killing for the sake of one. Numbed, skilled and merciless without fail, I feel like the way I started carving the meat off the dire animal without even touching the bone makes me realize how deeply engraved these skills are. My hand didn’t stop at all. I continued moving my wrist, my fingers in control of the sword of mine. The dire animal had already died, its eyes were carved out, and its brain slowly dropped into the ground, time felt like it was so slow while I was doing all of this.

It wasn’t that time slowed, but it was because my perception turned to twelve, my reflexes faster than I can imagine. I am in a cold mode, a slicer, a butcher kind of mode that allows me to do this work without any single failure.

My cutting and carving slowed down suddenly, and before I know it, the dire animal that was just eating grass suddenly became mince meat, its bones are still standing, but the meat and all of its organs were dropped on the ground. I felt like the weight of my body returned, I do not feel that ‘feeling’ of cold and I was able to estimate that I did it quite fast.

Standing with the dire animal shredded, I felt scared. My hands started shaking. My heart trembled, and I felt like for the first time I was really spooked.

I hated the feeling of it.