Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 227: Ch225. First hunt

Chapter 227: Ch225. First hunt

The underbrush pulled at their legs as they moved deeper into the forest.

Each step was deliberate, slow, and as silent as possible. The soft ground muffled their footfalls, but it also gave too easily, and every misplaced step threatened to sink them knee-deep in twisted roots or strange, sponge-like moss.

The deeper they went, the more the forest seemed to watch them.

Miles kept his eyes ahead, sweeping the strange terrain for any signs of movement. Sarissa flanked him, eyes flicking from tree to tree, her mind working through half-remembered tutorials about tracking, back from a time before she ever had her Perception stat higher than twenty.

There were no tools here. No Skills, no perks, only hunger and instinct.

"Something’s been through here." Sarissa whispered, pointing to a faint line in the soil, a place where the moss had been crushed in a curving arc.

Miles knelt, frowning as he ran his hand over the disturbed earth. The indent wasn’t deep. No claws, no hooves, but something large had definitely passed by.

"Not crawling, though. Bipedal, perhaps?" He asked, and Dee raised its head, looking at the trail curiously, almost intently, with them.

"Maybe. But... Look." She pointed farther down, where the trail bent around the base of a tree. "It circled."

They followed the marks in silence. The trail led them into a thinner section of the forest, where the canopy opened just enough to let a pale, colorless sky bleed through.

The light here felt wrong, as if it didn’t belong to the sun at all.

A faint crackle echoed above them, like the popping of dry bark. Miles froze, his hand instinctively going forward to summon his scythe.

Nothing but skin and empty air.

He clenched his fist as Sarissa crouched beside a tangle of low brush, running her fingers across a flat, pressed-down patch of ground.

"Here. It laid down here, or rested."

The earth was still faintly warm.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t far.

"Okay." Miles whispered, standing up slowly. "We try to catch it. I’m not betting on a chase. We’ll have to ambush it."

"With what?" Sarissa whispered back. "Fists? Harsh language?"

"We’ll make do." Miles cracked a thin grin.

It took them the better part of what felt like an hour to build what barely passed as spears. Branches stripped of bark, sharpened with jagged rocks. Primitive, fragile.

"It brings back memories..." Miles almost smiles as he handed Sarissa one of them and took a second for himself. The shaft was rough in his hand, the weight unfamiliar.

"We’ll flank it." His voice was low. "If it comes back this way, we strike together. If it runs..."

"I’ll try to spook it toward you." Sarissa nodded.

They waited, hidden in the shadows of unfamiliar trees, watching the place where the tracks had ended.

Another hour passed, and then, movement.

A low shuffling, a rustle of leaves.

Something emerged from the brush. It was roughly the size of a large dog, but bulkier, with long limbs and a twisted, knotted back. Its face was flat, like a frog’s, but with too many eyes and no visible mouth. Its skin shimmered like oil on water.

Sarissa’s breath caught in her throat, but Miles didn’t move.

The creature sniffed the air, or something like it. It didn’t seem to have a nose, but the ridges along its head flared as it stepped closer to the clearing.

And then it froze.

Sarissa held her breath, and the creature turned suddenly, as if hearing something from miles away, and bolted.

Miles lunged.

His spear struck its flank, driving deep into the creature’s side. It let out a high, vibrating screech that set his teeth on edge, and thrashed, knocking him off balance.

Sarissa emerged from the side, stabbing down with her makeshift weapon, but it glanced off the creature’s armor-like skin, and she nearly lost her grip.

The creature charged forward, barreling through low branches, bleeding from its wound but not slowing.

Miles scrambled to his feet.

"Go! Don’t lose it!" He shouted.

They ran, following the trail of broken branches and blood, chasing through the underbrush with lungs burning and legs trembling.

The creature slowed after a few hundred meters, limping badly.

Sarissa surged forward and slammed into it with her shoulder, knocking it sideways into a tree. It shrieked again, flailing, but Miles was there a second later, driving the broken haft of his spear into its neck.

It stilled. Panting, trembling, and bleeding.

But so were they.

They stood over the corpse, staring down at it. Neither spoke for several seconds.

"Looks... Edible?" Sarissa exhaled.

Miles didn’t laugh, too tired and thirsty to let out a sound.

"Let’s hope." He muttered.

***

It took them another hour to drag the creature back to a safe clearing, if there was such a thing in Tir’Serene.

They chose a spot near a rise in the terrain, where the roots of a massive tree had formed a natural barrier on three sides. Miles built a small fire the old-fashioned way, with moss, flint, and friction.

It took several painful, sweaty tries, though.

By the time the flames caught, Sarissa was slumped against the tree, barely awake.

The meat, if it could be called that, was strange. Marbled, like fish, but fibrous like muscle.

It bled blue, and the smell was sharp, almost citrusy.

"It’s going to kill us, isn’t it?" Sarissa murmured.

"Probably." Miles said. "But we have to try."

He roasted strips of it slowly, letting the fire blacken the surface. Sarissa stirred only when the scent reached her nose.

They didn’t wait for the pieces to cool.

The first bites were strange. Tangy, chewy, oddly numbing on the tongue, but it didn’t burn their throats, it didn’t make them vomit. And so, they kept eating.

After the fourth or fifth bite, Sarissa looked at him and managed a smile.

"I think I can feel my soul coming back."

"Could be hallucinations." Miles replied, chewing, and then gave a small piece to Dee, which it chewed on with a voracity that didn’t match its size. "This might all be a fever dream."

"Don’t ruin it." She rolled her eyes.

They ate until the numbness faded and the hunger lessened. It wasn’t gone, but it dulled. The sharpness in their heads softened, and their limbs stopped shaking.

There wasn’t much to say, so they didn’t talk much, and after they ate, they turned to water.

The stream they found half a klick downhill ran clear over white stone, bubbling quietly. It looked almost like water, but smelled like metal.

Miles didn’t drink it at first, sitting on a rock and staring at it, thinking.

"Wait here." He turned to Sarissa.

"What?"

"If it’s poison, I’d rather be the one to find out."

"You’re not-"

He approached the stream, and drank.

A slow sip, then another. The taste was clean. Crisp, slightly sweet, like something melted from snow.

He waited. Thirty seconds, one minute, no pain, no burning.

He drank more, and Sarissa followed soon after, carefully.

For the first time since arriving in this place, they were full. Not comfortably, but enough.

They returned to their clearing.

The fire had burned low, and the sky above was shifting, streaked with violet and gold. It looked like sunset, but here, that could mean anything.

"We actually did it." Sarissa sat beside the fire, leaning back on her hands.

"Day one, survived." Miles nodded.

"Think we’ll keep it up?" She smiled faintly.

"I don’t know. Depends on whether the forest decides to play nice."

"The forest doesn’t care. You’re not prey, yet." Cheshire’s voice drifted in from above them, casual and amused.

They both looked up. The cat lay sprawled across a high branch, watching them.

"You watched the whole thing...?" Sarissa said flatly.

"Of course. Had to make sure you didn’t eat the spleen. It’s hallucinogenic."

"Wait, that was the spleen?" Miles blinked several times.

"You’ll be fine. Probably." Cheshire purred, stretching.

Sarissa closed her eyes and sighed, the fire popped quietly, and for a while, the three of them just sat there. The hunter, the warrior, the cat.

No System, no answers, just survival.

"So what now?" Sarissa spoke softly, breaking the silence.

Miles didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at his hands. Calloused, dirty, real.

"We learn, we adapt, we hunt again tomorrow. Maybe find a better shelter, maybe find out what lives farther in."

"No plans about going back yet?"

"Can’t plan anything until we’re alive long enough to plan."

"Now you’re speaking like someone from Tir’Serene." Cheshire purred softly.

Sarissa stared into the fire, the embers flickering like distant stars.

Somewhere far away, too far to reach, and maybe even too far to remember, there were gods and monsters and broken Systems and wars that still needed to be won.

But here, for now, it was simpler.

Hunger, thirst, fire, shelter.

And whatever lay deeper in the forest.