While I took the lead to avoid further discussion, I didn’t really know where to look.

  “Frank, the closer bunny cluster is over here.”

  Nelson, who tagged behind me, pointed leftward.

  “So you did map out the area.”

  He didn’t answer with words, just a stupid grin.

  As we got closer to where the rabbits gathered, we switched to hunter mode—walking on the tips of our toes, crouching to make ourselves harder to spot.

  We hid in a bush and communicated with hand signs.

  I locked onto a bunny and bolted toward it, yet the damn thing spotted me and immediately ran away.

  I sprinted as fast as my legs allowed.

  “I almost have you!”

  I lunged at the thing and almost it, falling and scraping my hand on a rock.

  Nelson chased it for a couple more seconds, and when the bunny was within his grasp—

  “Come here, meat!”

  His debuff cucked him out of his meal. It was surreal how he lost all momentum, as if someone had hit the slow-mo button.

  “GOD DAMN IT! FUCK YOU HE—”

  I covered his mouth before he exploded again and reset his timer.

  We tried again and again, but each new sprint was shorter and slower.

  “This is harder than I thought.”

  I sat down to catch my breath. Meanwhile, Nelson was—

  “Meatmeatmeatmeat.”

  —losing it.

  “Frank, we can't catch those walking meat bags. Do something!”

  “What am I supposed to do?! It’s not like I can force them toward me… or can I?!”

  The fact that I’m not solely a shitty healer but a crappy tank too had escaped my mind for a moment.

  After I caught my breath, I attempted a new sprint. I breathed in deep, focused on my throat, trying to gather mana into it—just like when I heal.

  Then I sprinted toward the closest bunny. Yet again, it evaded me.

  Just as I began to slow down, I yelled at it, “Come here, you little shit!”

  I felt my mana drain. My burning chest became unbearable.

  The critter, big as a medium dog, turned around and lunged, sinking its teeth deep into my shoulder.

  I crashed forward with the thing latched onto me. I landed on my back, and tried to pull the damn thing away from my shoulder.

  “Hey! Help me out! Attack him!”

  Nelson bolted, trying to use the momentum of his sprint to offset the debuff’s speed reduction, and landed a kick… in my shoulder.

  “Dammit, Nelson!”

  “Fuck!”

  He clasped his hands together and tried to hammer down on the bunny, but the critter snapped out of its frenzy and began squirming, trying to free itself—scratching me with its paws and kicking the air out of me with its hind legs.

  “Hold him properly!” Nelson shouted, locked into his swing.

  “Don’t run, piece of shit!” I taunted the bunny again, but before it could bite down, I clamped its mouth shut and covered its nose.

  I felt horrible watching the critter struggle to breathe. I closed my eyes until it stopped moving.

  “That was a nasty way of killing him.”

  “Because you can’t land a single blow!”

  I handed the bunny to Nelson and got up. Only then did I tend to my wound—it was bleeding heavily.

  “This little fuck bites hard.”

  The bite may have ripped a major blood vessel. I knew what I had to do and did it right away, calling upon the name of my Gremlin Goddess to stop the bleeding.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Ever watchful Helena…”

  I saw how Nelson had recoiled from it yesterday and braced for the pain.

  “It fucking huuuuurts!”

  I jumped around from sheer agony.

  “Just call upon Lumina—”

  “NEVER! I won't betray my goddess.”

  He stared at me in silence, but soon returned to the bunny. His hunger grew louder with the prey in hand.

  “Are you done? I need you to dismantle the bunny. I need meat now.”

  “Yeah.”

  I rolled my shoulder. The gaping wound was still there, but the bleeding had stopped.

  “The blood drainage will take a while.”

  “I know. I'll endure… or I can eat it raw.”

  “Don't speedrun a second diarrhea. Endure.”

  We arrived at camp, butchered the bunny, and got the fire running while Nelson walked in circles like an impatient beast.

  Even I was craving meat, I went ahead and took the liver of the prey—only I could eat it.

  Nelson turned a blind eye, avoiding witnessing my casual desecration of the body.

  “Your fire starting has leveled up a lot!”

  I answered while trying to harvest the liver.

  “I know. I hope I’m not burning my luck leveling garbage skills.”

  “It may be garbage later, but for now it’s a must-have.”

  “I guess so.”

  He sat close to the fire, losing himself in the dancing flames.

  I stuck the liver onto a skewer and held it near the fire.

  “Is the bunny ready for cooking?”

  asked Nelson, his feral gaze devouring the skinned critter.

  “Yeah.”

  I cut a chunk for him and set it to cook.

  “Frank.”

  “What now?”

  “We fucking suck.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  We stared at the crackling fire, gathering our thoughts.

  “Meat’s rea—”

  Nelson grabbed the bunny chunk and wolfed it down. I cut another, anticipating him asking for seconds.

  I ate the liver leisurely, ignoring the pulsing of my gaping wound.

  “Won’t you heal that?”

  “Not yet. I lack mana.”

  “It looks painful.”

  “It is painful.”

  We munched without uttering another word. I kept cutting more chunks while Nelson tended the fire.

  The sky turned orange. The bunny was gone.

  “Phew! I can think clearly again,” Nelson said, satisfied, patting his belly.

  “Now you believe me?”

  “Shit’s so weird.”

  “We survived an assured death fall. I got pulled back together from a broken body. You were reconstructed after turning into a bloody mist. Going feral for meat isn’t that weird.”

  As the orange sky turned dark blue and stars adorned it, we reached our mental limit. Nelson’s feral episode had taken its toll, and so had my mana usage.

  We went to sleep. I slept like a sack of potatoes and woke up to the rising sun of the fourth day.

  I went to do my dirty business and took a dip in the lake.

  “Not having to scrub my clothes is such a bliss.”

  I cut my moment of respite short. I couldn’t indulge too long—complacency leads to catastrophe.

  I sat on a rock under the sunlight to dry my pants and began fumbling with the wound the bunny had given me.

  I pressed the loose flesh together and concentrated, trying to mend the edges of the wound. I began to sweat and breathe roughly during the process, and after a long while, I managed to close it.

  The scar was rugged and leathery.

  “Ugly as sin.”

  I grazed the larger wound—the one that wasn’t just torn flesh but a gaping hole.

  “How bad could it be to use Helena’s power…”

  My scholarly self assessed the risk: no imminent danger, just pure pain.

  So I dug my finger into the hole and began thinking of Helena, recalling the feeling in my heart when I used the anti-bleeding spell.

  Red lightning cracked from my fingertip.

  “GOD DAMN IT IIIIGH!”

  The pain was far worse. My entire arm went stiff, and my clenched fist wouldn’t open—I lost total control of the limb.

  “GIVE IT BACK!”

  I yelled to no one.

  Nelson heard me and came rushing.

  “Frank!”

  He jumped out of the brush, manzango in hand as an improvised projectile.

  He found me on the ground, my arm stiff as if I had tetanus, drooling like a rabid dog.

  “Talk! What happened?”

  He scanned the area, searching for the threat.

  “Helena…”

  I managed to say. He quickly relaxed and tossed the manzango aside as he exhaled.

  “Stop whining.”

  Still, he squatted beside me, waiting for me to recover and making sure I didn’t drown in my own saliva.

  I didn’t recover until Nelson had to stand up because his legs had gone numb.

  “Done shrieking?”

  “Kinda.”

  I touched the place where the wound had been. The skin was smooth and without a blemish.

  “Actual healing is way worse than stabilize.”

  As I caressed the new patch of skin, my stomach began to rumble, asking for meat.

  “Nelson, I think I found out what made us mad with hunger.”

  He touched his ugly scar.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I need to get the fire starting.”