Two days since I resorted in self-cannibalism to survive, or two days since I started to resort in it. The fever doesn't drop a bit because I keep wounding myself, but as long as the hunger is sated, it isn't a problem. Blood loss is being controlled with the make up tourniquet, the strip of cloth now tied near where my elbow starts, so I'm no longer dropping because of anemia. Thanks to those reasons, I can yet again keep my head clear enough to actually count the days and time I'm lost in here. But my left arm is now worse than ever, only thin strips of flesh cover the bones of my forearm and hand, as I have been gnawing the meat for nourishment. Didn't bite of the bones like I did with my fingers, partly because of the fear that I could heal to that extend, partly because wasting energy to breaking my stronger bones isn't that good idea. But it keeps me moving forward.

And the third day dawns when I make my way into a forest, and to my surprise I find an actual, carriage wide road going through it. First sign of civilization in two weeks, so happy I could drop dead, but that would be rather counterproductive. And Io and behold, my senses tell me that it heads north, so I can follow it! Unless of course the idea that I've been entertaining in my head; that Ollie has napped the third one and is flying him or her around in circles to make me walk in circles proves true, wouldn't really put that below him. No matter, for now I follow the road.

Hour or two later my instinct flares up in eerily familiar manner and makes me pick up a rock by side of the road. I'm faced with clear command to throw it with full strength towards my north-west in certain angle. Even if the angle is low enough that it should be small animal that I'm aiming towards, I'm not sure anymore, with the ways the wolf has been tempting me. The instinct rises an alarm at that and tells me to throw at the target, before it flees, but after moment of consideration, I simply snap the rock in half between my fingers and make my way towards what has caught my interest. It's soon clear that I made a right choice doubting the wolf, as I see a young villager rummaging through the bushes, back turned against me. That would have been a mistake.

I step little closer in order to ask him whereabouts of nearest village, accidentally snapping a small branch under my foot, causing the village boy be startled. He turns around I correct my mistake; I caused a village girl to get startled. And start screaming. Loud. Trying to calm her down I raise both of my hands up in a calm-down gesture, only to expose my not so presentable left arm to her. She screams louder. Rummaging through my thoughts I try to find what one could do in this kind of situation and come up with the most used tactic; smiling. Now showing my sharp fangs hidden deep inside my blood soaked mouth. She passes out, so the plan to not have her to scream her lungs out succeeded? 

Now faced with dilemma, what to do in situation where you're beastly looking giant of man, with bloodied face and clothes, sharp fangs, diabolical eyes and badly mangled left arm and have caused someone to pass out in the middle of nowhere. Now that I think of it, maybe trying to talk to a child in my position wasn't the smartest idea there ever was, but I'm still little delirious from pain and fever. Plus I have kinda missed human contact, someone to talk to. Getting cabin fever while outside is just my luck I guess. But my nose makes me ignore all that, as it tells me that the girl wasn't here because she was lost, but because she was collecting berries. The smell of freshly picked berries whiffs out of the basket she was carrying, but I could steal that could I? The temptation is great, but with the conversation I had with Ollie, I think it would be too hypocritical to start stealing from unconscious people. So I move beyond my now pathetic range of smell and wait for the girl to wake up while out of sight. Let her lead me to the nearest village.

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Humans don't lose their consciousness for long, if I remember right. Falling asleep causes one to be unresponsive for few hours, but actually being knocked unconscious doesn't last more than five minutes, unless something is wrong. Or was that only when the state of unconsciousness was caused by blunt force trauma?  Anyways the girl wakes soon enough, looks around her frantically and when she is sure that there's nobody here, grabs the basket and runs off. I follow while remembering how I once though of myself as the Little Red Riding Hood, as I was being hunted by the wolf, and now I'm the Big Bad Wolf chasing someone in the hope of finding food. But it works, following her with the only sense I can currently trust, my hearing and we arrive near a house. A peasant house, single room cottage with no porch or any other feature that would make it more than a grey rectangle with a roof. Not a village like I hoped.

So I sit in the bushes and listen to the girl and her father talk. The girl tells her father how he saw a beastling in the forest and the father remarks how it has to be one of the halflings I've heard of. But here comes the important part; after the father tells the girl to get inside and starts talking to the mother of the girl, presumably his wife then, he devices a plan. Because even if they live in the outmost part of the capital's outskirt, they still live in the outskirt of the capital, they can actually call the king's men here to investigate a beast man sighting. So they're going to have the girl tell the good soldiers how she was nearly attacked by savage creature while tending the pigs, and are going to sacrifice one of their pigs as a prob for the mauling part of the story. Of course they themselves will eat the meat, and leave only the carcass to rot here, after giving it convincing wounds. Now, why are they doing this? Because they don't actually own the pigs, simply tend to them as a job, and with this they get to actually eat meat, which is a rarity for peasants and get reward for the sighting and protecting the other pigs from the beast. The important parts of that were as follow: first, we are in the outskirts of the capital, so I'm done with being lost. Second, capital is going to get reports of dangerous man with my features, so I have to get there fast before the rumors spread. Third, if they're going to blame me for eating one their pigs, I'm going to eat it.

So for the third time today, I play the waiting game till the father slits the pig's throat, and goes inside to fetch better tools for the evidence forging as the blood drains out. Perfect opportunity to grab the pig. Of course they were going to be greedy, and killed the fattest, biggest pig, so I get nearly 600 pounds of meat. With newly acquired prize, I leave the premises and disappear once more into the forest. Don't think they're courageous enough to try this again with a second pig, plus it would nullify the protection reward. Things truly are looking up for me I think as I begin my feast. I mean food, directions and confirmation of being close to the capital. Then yet again, I will be made into a criminal... Well at least far better than the earlier days.

Author note: Season 3 caps of here, with season 4 having him finally make it to the capital and getting some answer to this whole mess. Now, I'm keeping my usual two to three day hiatus here, but I'm using it to get the second story up here on the site. The more-comedic-than-serious-slice-of-life one that I talked about in earlier author note.

Second, this chapter was kinda hard to write, with Royal Road site not accepting words like outmost, halfling or beastling as correct, even though I checked that that is how you write them. Also the double "that" part in that sentence.