NOVEL NEXT [Vol-1] Ch.2 Drying Rack and Butchery
I awaken and feel a little off, like my perspective changed slightly. The room I'm in currently feels slightly smaller than it used to be. I look at my arms and legs, and the red fur has darkened slightly, and my talons and claws seem to be slightly larger. I decide I should verify my status.
<UNCOMMON IMP>
Level: 0
HP: 110/110
MP: 24/24
Traits: Mana Affinity
Alright. So I can do some quick mental math to get an estimate for how much HP I kept on prestige. I either get to keep 5% of my gained HP (I ended at 300 and started at 100, so 200 gained, 200 * 5% = 10), or 3.33% of my total, which was 300. Trying to keep this in my head is going to be a pain. I look around the room and find a small patch of wall that is relatively flat. I grab a nearby hard rock and I successfully etch the following into the wall:
200 HP - 5%, 300 HP - 3.33%.
That should be enough to remind myself of this later if I need to. After finishing all that, I decide to check my status immediately again.
<UNCOMMON IMP>
Level: 2
MP: 25/25
Traits: Mana Affinity
Well, that confirms it in my mind. I'm definitely getting XP from just doing activities. That means that the imps that evolved into goblins didn't necessarily do so from fighting. I mean obviously, I didn't fight and I evolved. That said, it definitely looked like they had been fighting and killing each other.
As I sit and think about this, I start to feel myself get a little hungry again. I still have some leftover meat, so I force myself to stomach it. As I eat, I notice that I don't feel thirsty at all. Maybe Imps don't get thirsty? Or maybe there is some other reason. I suppose I could always check the cavern, and see if there is water out there.
I head back out of to the cavern and look around. I don't spot any other live imps now, and the cavern's silence and eerie blue glow create an unsettling atmosphere. I scan the surroundings looking for water, but I fail to find any. I guess if I start to feel thirsty, I'll have to search for it at that point.
There are a few things I spot that would be useful though. There is still the wood that those goblins had made a campfire with along with some spare firewood. I head down to the campfire, and unfortunately, I can't find how they started the fire. Maybe they could cast fire magic like the other goblin, or they found it outside the cavern? Right now I don't want to risk going outside. For all I know, the tall goblin is just outside, and I would just die right away. Instead, I make a few trips into my small cave in the cavern, hauling all the wood the goblins gathered. Once there, I decide to make a meat drying rack. I may not need water, but I do still experience hunger.
I spend what feels like hours using the wood they gathered along side my sharp claws to shave and split the wood such that I can make parallel bars to rest meat on. Normally you would hang the meat, but I don't have any string to do that. I suppose if imps have sinew I could try to make some string equivalent from it. I also don't know if I'm capable of eating spoiled meat, so for now I'll just have to try my best to make do with what I have. Given that's the case, I head back into the cavern, and drag a few dead imps to where the goblin's campfire used to be, and begin my first attempt at butchery. Thanks to my claws, I at least have some ability to cut through the meat and flesh.
The first attempt goes very poorly to say the least. I get a few small scraps of meat that I can maybe lay over some of the wood, but I doubt any of it will be of use. The second imp doesn't go much better, although I do get a couple of decent strips from the legs. The third and fourth imp go better though, as I get some more strips of meat from the legs and a little from the arm sections as well. I just hope that, given there isn't any water in the cave, the humidity is low enough that the meat dries properly. I take the meat and bring it back up to my small cave, depositing it on the drying rack, and then snack on some of the remaining cooked imp from before.
Given the long day of work, I start to feel tired again, so I lay back against the pile of crystals in my cave and check my status as I drift to sleep.
<UNCOMMON IMP>
Level: 21
MP: 30/30
Traits: Mana Affinity
When I wake up, I'm once again hungry and so I eat the the last of the cooked imp. Looking at the drying meat, it looks like it's at least progressing, which means it isn't too humid in this cave to dry meat. My drying rack itself is only about a quarter filled, so I suppose today I should try my best to butcher enough to fill it. The stronger I can get before I run into anything like goblins, the better.
As I head out into the cavern, I notice that some of the imps that were dead, near the entry towards where the goblins came from, are missing. In all likelihood the goblins or something else are also eating the imps. Taking that into consideration, I think I should maybe butcher them in a different side tunnel, and also hide the scraps to leave no evidence. I spend some time moving the scraps from yesterday deeper into the cavern, and then pick a tunnel near my own to use as a butchery hole. The entrance is slightly smaller than my own cave, so I have to hunch slightly to fit through the tunnel, but once inside I again proceed to butcher one imp at a time, dispose of the body, and put the meat on my drying rack. After repeating the process for many hours, I've almost filled my drying rack, and am starting to feel hungry.
I guess it's now or never. The imps I butchered yesterday will have to be my trial run. I take a bite of the half-done jerky, and it's definitely worse than the cooked imp, but better than the raw imp I tried to eat first. I've also built up a bit more of an iron gut, so I manage to keep it down. Well, this is what survival is I suppose. With my drying rack mostly full right now, I should find a new project to keep me busy. I suppose one thing I could do is explore a few of the other caves to see what else is around.
I peek my head out into the cavern, and don't spot anything dangerous, so I head out and look through the nearby caves within the cavern. Some are very small, barely a hole in the wall that I have to crawl through to get inside of. On the high end of size is my cave, and then there are a few in between sizes like the butchery cave, where I have to stoop slightly to fit through. The main cavern seems to have at least 50 of these caves branching off it that I can see, with the cavern itself seemingly coming to a dead end near where I've been disposing of the butchered imps.
If I had a more ready supply of food, this place wouldn't be half bad to live in, but right now I'm a little afraid of those goblins, so maybe when I'm closer to max level, before I prestige, I'll go and take a peek outside.
Today was a pretty full day as well, so I head back to my cave, snack on some more of the jerky, and check my status before going to sleep.
<UNCOMMON IMP>
Level: 52
HP: 240/240
MP: 39/39
Traits: Mana Affinity