Editing Dark Elf:Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

Traditional torches burned pine resin instead of tallow. A long-lasting light could be produced by taking a stick or piece of wood filled with plenty of flammable pine resin, covering it with dried grass or stems, and tying it all together with a thin string. Klaus was pretty sure he had seen candles made by wrapping dried leaves around pine resin shaped into a stick.

He did not have to search long to find a sticky fluid on the hard tree bark that was not ordinary sap. He tentatively concluded that he wanted the sticky stuff that the bugs stayed away from.

…''Damn. I could take all of this with me if I had an empty bottle.

There was no use worrying over it. He scraped the heavy stuff away with the large, hard leaf he took from a bush and scooped it up. The unique and powerful smell suggested he needed to be careful how he handled it. He definitely didn’t want to get any on his clothing. He would never be able to shake pursuit then.

He returned to where he had left the dead deer. Luckily, no animals had stolen his prize in the meantime. He scraped its belly fur again to create static electricity and held the pine resin close.

“Whoa!!”

He shouted more from the blinding light than from the heat. It was a small flame, no larger than a candle, but it was too much for his eyes after growing accustomed to the dark night. The surprise hit him first, soon followed by fear of the dark elves noticing, but he was not about to give up the fire he had worked so hard to acquire.

The danger never arrived. No dark elves showed themselves and the forest remained quiet.

He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Heh heh. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

This time, he could finally escape the hunger. And once he had plenty of magic derivative, he could use as much camouflage magic as he liked. This forest was ruled by the dark elves who would capture and roast anyone they found here, but he had outdone them. He had proven they weren’t the only ones who could survive here.

At long last, some hot food would be his.

Thanks to the cold dip in the river earlier, that thought was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

But then something occurred to him.

He had no knife.

How was he supposed to get the fresh meat out of the dead deer covered in thick skin?

“…”

He stared blankly for the few seconds it took him to realize – no, to accept – that he had gotten the order wrong.

He had no knife. Nor could he get one. He grabbed at the unmoving deer’s solid fur with his empty hand and tugged, but its skin showed no sign of tearing. It felt as sturdy as pulling on the carpet.

He had fire, so could he burn away the troublesome skin? He thought about it, but could not imagine it ever working. It would not catch fire that easily and the whole thing would just get burnt if it did.

Then what could he do? Had he hit a dead end after so much work?

How many different processes were needed to create a metal blade strong enough to skin a dead animal? Could he not expect any real food until he had done that? And could he not obtain a single stem’s worth of magic derivative? Even though he had the fire needed to cook the meat and the dead animal too!?

His head tilted backwards in despair.

The starry sky above seemed to be pressing down on him. He connected those countless dots to create a grand constellation in his head. It was the goddess. And the goddess had a message for him: ''Nope. Incorrect☆ Return to square one and try again from the beginning, okay?

“Are…”

He set his burning pine resin on the ground.

He took a deep breath and reached a conclusion in his mind.

“Are you kidding me, you stupid deerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr○☆△□♂♀!!!???”

He pulled the morning star rock out of his cloak and gripped it in his hand.

Skin the animal? Prepare it with a knife? Who was he, Mr. Fancy-Pants? He took aim at the deer’s belly over and over. The head was already smashed up by repeated blows, so he could do the same to another part of its body. The skin split open and the fat and muscles were crushed until they spilled out. He smeared the minced chunks onto a nearby stick and held that into the fire. Once the pink had turned grayish, just like the stir-fried mincemeat in a royal capital kitchen, he stuffed the end of the stick in his mouth.

“Urp!?”

…''Ew.

It only tasted like blood. He had to stick out his tongue and remove the rough fur stuck to it. If you were served this in the royal capital, it wouldn’t even qualify as an amusing punishment for losing a bet – it would seem a lot more like severe abuse. He could not recommend this to animal-loving Little Girl or even to Slender.

But he could still eat it. As long as he had something that wouldn’t give him food poisoning, he had to eat it. He repeatedly crushed the deer corpse, smeared the mincemeat onto the stick, and cooked it. He could eat it. He forced back the tears to swallow it. And he repeated the process.

“Wait, no! This is my note-taking stick!”

He panicked when he realized his mistake, but the tears on his cheeks were not from pain.

Even this awful food gave him sustenance.

He was hit by a sudden drowsiness, just like when he had finished a nice big meal. The taste of meat and the fresh magic derivatives were overwhelming him. And all he really had was fur, skin, and crushed meat smeared on the end of a stick. He realized his values had declined drastically from when he had lived in the royal capital being tormented by his rotten teacher and that knight girl. It scared him. He hated to admit it, but these tears did not come from fear or sorrow.

He was definitely going about this all wrong. He knew that all too well. You were supposed to skin the animal, cut its gut open, remove the organs, and remove the blood. Before cooking it, you were meant to wash it, season it with salt and pepper, cover up the smell with spices, chop it into more conveniently sized pieces, melt some butter in the hot frying pan, and then slowly lower the meat inside. Oh, and you couldn’t forget to remove the moisture first since the oil would be sent flying.

“But…so what?” he slowly spat out.

He could feel all of his blood vessels expanding. Something was being circulated around his body – maybe the physical nutrients and maybe the magic derivative. It was going to take a while before he actually digested the food, but he had still regained enough strength to complain.

“Survival isn’t about looking all cool and clever. Ugh…yeah, that’s right. I killed this thing and ate it. I smashed it to pieces and it looks pretty damn ugly, but that’s how these things work. You’re always killing something, chewing it to pieces, and swallowing it whenever you fill your stomach. Ugh, bleh.”

He could not keep eating like this forever. As he continued swinging the heavy stone down on the deer, he started to taste a strange bitterness in the meat. He checked and found the grass and leaves on its fur was getting smashed in with everything else. He couldn’t keep doing this. It smelled too much like medicine for comfort. It might even be poisonous.

If he could properly prepare the meat, he could make jerky that would last several days. If he could smoke it, he might have even made it into a present for Slender. Instead, it had provided just the one meal and only one Witch Pumpkin stem’s worth of magic derivative. The rest would go to waste. He normally would have felt dizzy from that kind of loss.

But he instead felt like he had outsmarted some unseen foe.

He felt like crying, raging, and puking, but not even he knew why.

Klaus Knockburn had avoided death for tonight. He had acquired food and survived. None of it had anything to do with Slender. He had been wandering and struggling all alone, but he had succeeded in the end.