Chương 43: Chapter 40

Tracking down the boar was surprisingly easy; and Sobelle didn't rely on any of her skills while doing so. Although it would have been good if she did. Regardless, she managed to find the animal that she was looking for by simply using common sense. She asked herself where boars commonly went and that led her to areas with plenty of water and fallen fruits. More specifically, she checked a lot of fruit trees.

Boars commonly ate such things and if they somehow couldn't be found around these budding fruit trees then it was safe to assume they went to things like berry bushes. Food was where animals went. Everyone knew this. And what did swines eat? Well, fallen fruits, berries, mushrooms, and if they got lucky, then they'd also eat meat left behind by predators. These were the kind of things boars stuffed their mouths with so going to them would be ideal if you wanted to find one.

Sobelle was right; in front of her was a thick, black furred boar with a belly so thick its legs looked like they couldn't support the weight. It dug the ground using two sharp tusks, which meant it was definitely male. Male boars are far more aggressive than females—if you assume babies weren't involved since a mother boar would kill anything on sight according to legend—so she needed to be careful when fighting this thing.

She had been mistaken to believe that the boar would be willing to fight her when she stepped out of the undergrowth. As the animal backed away rather than attack, it carefully watched Sobelle's movements so she made sure to not hesitate in grabbing her dagger. This thing wasn't meant to be thrown, but that limitation only existed to people who didn't have access to the supernatural abilities of the [Flow State].

Focusing on nothing but wanting to throw the dagger had taken Sobelle a lot of effort; she imagined all the possible directions the boar would dodge, the weight of her dagger, as well as how she would move her arms. Before long, her mind went into overdrive and the edges of her vision blurred. She felt her breathing even until it turned so slow that it was outright inaudible.

It was like the world had suddenly slowed to a crawl and the only one who could move normally was Sobelle, with this knowledge, she pulled her arm back and threw the dagger into the boar. She aimed for its neck and intended to incapacitate it before the fight even started. Boars were known to be absolutely feral and Sobelle's wizened mind realized that chasing after an animal like that would just make them go, well... Hog wild.

Making them scream and be in fear would increase their ferocity once they finally started fighting back, hence the need for specialized spear and wolves by boar hunters who often used horses to chase down the animal. An arrow to the neck or in Sobelle's case, a dagger, was more than enough to kill a boar. Everything turned fast once the dagger left Sobelle's fingers and then? Screaming.

The dagger struck true and now the boar was starting to panic, it went wild but instead of running after Sobelle, it ran away from her. This was how boar hunts were meant to go, anything beyond this would simply put you or animals in danger. Proof of a boar's insane vitality was the following chase that Sobelle had to do after she got the animal's neck. A large pool of blood had washed the forest floor and when most creatures would die from such wounds, boars just kept going.

They also weren't afraid to use their extreme vitality when they believed they were going to die. If a boar thought that its death was near, it was unafraid to take its hunter with it to the grave.

'It had thinned.' Sobelle bent down to check the trail and confirmed that only droplets of red stained the earth. It was hard to see on account that they had a near identical color but you'd be able to tell the difference with a closer inspection.

'The boar is going to die soon.' She quickened her footsteps and readied her spear. Some other beast would be able to find the boar thanks to the scent of its blood mixing with the forest air and Sobelle would fight this creature for her kill, which made it the luckiest and unluckiest thing in this forest simultaneously. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Fortunately for her, no animal had gotten their claws on her dying quarry and she got to be boar just as it fell to the ground heaving. She bent down and checked its pulse, muttering the words, "you're going to die soon and the pain will end." It squealed weakly in response, the sound mixed with the liquid that filled its throat and turned it into a drowned gurgle. It was cold now. The fire of life in its veins had disappeared and now the frost of death touched its skin.

Sobelle picked up her axe and swung it down the boar's head. Killing it in one swift strike and granting Sobelle the kill she had craved back at camp. Like last time, Sobelle hung the corpse up in the trees to let it bleed. She hadn't needed to wait for long as most of the creature's blood had already been drained out during their uneventful chase, and once the last crimson droplet fell, Sobelle moved to carry it back to camp.

"Oh, you're back!" Chael greeted Sobelle the first thing after she returned. The young merchant eyed the boar curiously, "is that an actual boar?"

"Yes." Sobelle confirmed. She wanted to say something about how Chael's eyes didn't work properly but kept it to herself. She dropped the animal on a rock and apologized, "I'm sorry for earlier, I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. That was my mistake."

"No uhm... I understand why you got mad." Chael lowered her head.

"I shouldn't have said anything like that, I knew that you didn't mind it if I wasn't helping."

"I forgive you, then."

"And so do I." Chael finished her reply with a hug that made Sobelle huff.

"Thank you!" She wiped her eyes as she pulled away, "I thought you hated me for some reason, but I guess not?"

"No, I wouldn't hate you. You didn't do anything wrong." It was Sobelle's fault for misreading Chael's kindness really. She shouldn't have done anything like that when she didn't know how Chael truly felt in the first place.

"I was the one who needed to apologize, but you did it anyway."

"It just felt appropriate, I suppose." Chael grinned and then pointed at the carcass.

"So, what do you want to do with this thing? I know wild boars can be a bit dangerous to eat, so we need to prepare them properly right?"

"We do." Sobelle had dealt with a parasite ridden boar in the past, though this one had something else on top of unseen worms writhing underneath its skin.

"It still has grown a lump of feces..."

"Oh yeah, I think I've heard of this one before. It's why they curl the tails of domesticated boars right? And also why the cut sheep tail... Eesh." Chael pulled back laughing. She rubbed her arms, which now had a series of visible dots across the pale surface.

"My hair stood up! That's so disgusting! How are we going to take care of that?"

"We cut it all off." That was the only solution Sobelle thought of to prevent the potential diseases they'd get from eating such an infested animal.

"It's not worth the risk."

"I guess. So how are you... Oh." Chael stepped away as Sobelle readied her dagger and cut from the boar's lower back. The flesh easily parted under the sharpened blade and the young merchant watched fascinated as the bloodless meat was butchered.

"You met bone."

"Not an issue." Sobelle grabbed her axe by the neck and used that to break away the tougher parts of the boar by chopping them from a low angle. She then went back to cutting with her dagger. Soon the entirety of the boar's rump was removed, and the infected pod of feces came with it.

"And there we go."

"Yay~" Chael frowned when Sobelle tossed the boar tail just a few feet away. She slowly inched closer to the body part like it would jump out and attack her, then with her index finger and thumb she daintily held the tail by its hair.

"I'm just gonna..." The tail was tossed to the river, letting the poor fishes eat the infested meat. Sobelle was focused on butchering the boar so she didn't have time to look at Chael or wonder what the girl was doing. The young merchant left her alone at some point and when Sobelle looked behind her, she saw that Chael was preparing a mortar as well as a few bowls. What was she planning on doing?

Chael caught her staring and explained whatever it was she had done, "I know you're just going to throw out all the leftover meat we won't be able to eat, that's a bad idea! Let's use the intestines and fill them!"

"You wanna make sausages?" Sobelle's heart filled with dread. There was no way that what Chael was doing exactly mirrored her thoughts and fears right? That couldn't be.

"But that's disgusting."

"No? This is how you make sausages. Wait, how do you even know what they are—" And there it was. Sobelle turned green and ran off to the lake to puke. She had been so happy to eat that kind of meat in the past and as it turns out, she got nothing but leftovers. Disgusting ones at that.