NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4 : Task failed successfully
Nathan immediatly reacted when he saw the falling goblin. He got out of his hiding spot and rushed in his direction before abruptly stopping when he saw the boar trample on the goblin. He heard him yelling, before it was replaced by the sound of bones breaking
Still with his body full of adrenaline, he took a throwing stance, with a javelin fixed to his atlatl. He fired at the boar to catch his attention. As the beast started to chase him, he turned right away in the direction of the trap before running at full speed.
He abruptly changed direction when he was right in front of the pitfall, but he felt his feet slip with the change of direction. As he was falling he only had the time for one short thought.
‘fuuuuuuuuuck~ ‘
But at the same time Steeve took Nathan’s flailing left arm before pulling him out of the way of the charging boar. As he was pulled away, Nathan felt the tusk of the beast on his right arm, lightly tearing his skin. While the two goblins collapsed on the ground, they could hear the beast tumbling with a screech in the pitfall.
Without even looking around Nathan instantly lunged in the direction of his spare javelins before arming his atlatl. As he turned around to aim at the beast, he could see its rear legs flailing around and making some weird noises while breathing. He threw his javelins one by one but only a few managed to pierce the skin of the boar. Beside him Steeve followed his example and did the same. When only one javelin remaining, he took it in his hand before screaming heroically, thrusting it in the arse of the boar.
When the effects of the adrenaline dissipated, he dropped on the ground, breathing hard and thought as he looked around, he could see Steeve in the same state as him.
‘Well it didn’t go exactly as I planned … Still, if it works it’s not stupid. Now where are the other goblins ? I can only see Steeve.’
Nathan looked at Steeve but before he could say anything, he heard him yell at him.
“_ You ! Too dangerous ! You could die !
_ S-sorry … and thank you for saving me … errr, where are the other two goblins ?
_They screamed and run away …
_ I see …”
Nathan then stood up and held out his hand to help Steeve up before speaking again.
“Anyhow, as I promised we did not die and we have killed the beast, now let’s go, we still need collect the meat of the boar and to kill its younglings
_ Yes, I follow you.”
Nathan then walked in the direction of the dead goblin, stopping in front of its body.
‘I almost died because of you bastard … Well you did die for me in the end. May you can rest in peace mate … until your next incarnation at least.’
As he finished with his idle thought, Nathan searched the body and took the flint of the late goblin. Following this, he returned to the fat boar in the company of Steeve.
They then started working on the body of the boar by skinning it with their sharpened stones, gutting it then extracted as much meat as possible. After wrapping the meat on leaves they found around, they took the bones and tendon of the boar.
Afterward they trimmed the bones to make some sharpened knifes.
Finally, they tied some wood branches together with flexible shrubs to make a small sledge, before loading it with the skin, meat, bones, and tendons scavenged.
Some hours later when the sun was setting, they finally fished their work on the dead beast and departed to where its younglings were.
When they reached their destination, they found the younglings tightly grouped and backing against the wall as they approached. Steeve and Nathan cleanly cut their throats, they then skinned them ,extracted the meat from the bones, and threw the guts in one of the two holes they dug in the ground. They cleaned the skin of the remaining meat with their bones knifes. After, they wrapped most of the meat, before closing the two holes and placing a stone on the one where the meat is stored to protect it from scavengers.
With everything done, they made a fire before roasting some meat for themselves.
As Nathan watched the meat sizzling , Steeve came beside him with leaves in his hand before speaking .
“_ Give arm to me.
_ What ?! Why the-
_ The wound on the arm … show it.”
Nathan gave him his wounded arm without a sound as Steeve tended to his wound. When the smell of roasted meat started spreading around, they could feel their empty stomachs urging them to eat.
“_ Aaaaah yesss … finally something fucking good. Honestly, I think I was so starved that even my brain stopped reminding me to eat.
_ Yes ! meat good ! Me love meat ! Thank you , it first time me have meat !
_ Yeah ? Then eat more ! Eat as much as you can and grow strong to protect my ass from now on !”
When Nathan finished speaking, Steeve looked strangely at him before immediately taking more meat to roast.
After eating they slept in turn in the small recess until the sunrise. They took their remaining javelins with them and pierced some meat slab with it carrying it in the direction of the gigantic camp. While walking Nathan was already thinking of his new plans.
‘ Now that it is just Steeve and me, I must recruit more goblins, as much as I can. Afterall if we are only two in my goblin gang, I cannot call it a gang, and without a gang to protect me I will probably not live more than a week. With meat as an incentive it should not be difficult to get tens of goblins to follow me around. We can’t eat all that meat with just the two of us before it starts to rot anyway …’
