Ch 77 – Hunting Wild Beasts

Emerging from the river with a splash of water, Braun could be seen now cleaner with no drop of dried blood on his body, the pungent odor he used to exude now fully gone.

Walking towards some pile of clothes on the ground, he picks a relatively clean towel and wiped his body dry, then puts on his new pair of clothes consisting of a long-sleeved white tunic shirt and black pants. The wet towel was then squeezed to be a bit drier and put inside the sack on the ground beside him.

Taking out the sword, he puts it on his waist on the left side while pocketing the dagger on the right side of his pants. Then he puts the quiver behind him while grasping the bow with his left hand, his right hand then grabs the sack and hangs it over his shoulder.

'Preparations done.' Braun thought, letting out a burp as the river behind him could be seen dripping with blood and remnants of fish bone, seemingly devoured clean by a certain somebody who just emerged from the same river.

As he takes a last look at the burned village and charred forest around him, Braun nods his head and sets out on the dangerous task of going towards the Pendragon Kingdom.

Running forwards at a rapid pace, Braun looks at the dense forest around him with analytical eyes. From slight smells to indistinguishable markings on the ground and trees, a whole slew of information entered his mind to process and use.

And as he runs forward, one can smell the scent of blood in the air if one has a strong sense of smell. A scent weak enough that only certain beasts could smell and detect it.

As he rushes forwards, Braun continues to increase his mind's prowess with each passing second but his nutrition was too few.

'I could make some Calorie Pills or something similar but I don't have the time nor resources to do that as of now. So I'll have to resort to old-school hunting.' Braun thought, his irises dilating as the rapid sounds of footsteps entered his ears.

'Hypnosis and Charisma are sure to fail, and ruining my only set of clothes this early would be bad. So bow and arrow.' Braun thought, his breath suddenly changing patterns, and the muscles over his whole body, though slim, bulge outwards and seemingly holding strength vastly superior to the average human.

"Hup," Braun unconsciously grunted, his body twisting to the side and he could sense the pack of wolves running towards him, 15 distinct sources of sound could be heard to the east of him.

Quickly taking out 5 arrows from his quiver, Braun put it over his arrow and stretched the string in one swift motion as if he has been using the bow since he was a fetus in his mother's womb.

*Pa pa pa pa pa*

The five arrows shot off from his bow, leaving behind wind trails and whooshing sounds. As his echolocation heard the five arrows piercing through three wolves each, the fifteen wolves that darted towards him dropped dead to the ground with the arrows not damaging their precious skin and fur that he could sell for a hefty price if he skins them well.

But Braun has more than enough money to last him for a while, so he ignored the earnings he could have and vigorously ate them one by one in less than 30 minutes, it took him so long as he didn't want to dirty his clothes, though he did purposely left some blood and claw marks here and there to lessen suspicion once he enters the Pendragon Kingdom, better to be safe than worry was his motto in the first place considering he wields the legendary ability, Paranoia EX.

After he was done eating, Braun stands up and continued on his way, the corpses of the wolves looked like a wild beast has ravaged and eaten the wolf pack, nobody would think a human has done that in the first place. But in this wild world of magic called Terra, there was definitely a way to find that he was the one to do that. But the chances of that happening were abysmal that Braun just let it be.

The pungent smell of blood then returned around his body, now this time it was stronger than before as his slim body gained more muscle, but with each passing second, the muscle on his body quickly became slimmer and slimmer until it looked like Braun has no muscle in the first place and was instead a weak skinny kid.

'A wolf in sheep's clothing. To act weak when strong, and strong when weak.' Braun thought, continuing his path forwards while his mind quickly got better and better, though it was vastly inferior compared to his previous brain that was made with thousands of years of effort and development.

'Before, I was able to simulate countless realities with just a casual thought, now I am struggling to multitask, parallel processing is still a bit of a way to go. But due to the limiter being removed for my mind, the calorie expenditure is lowered by a lot.' Braun thought, his mind darting around while a clear picture of the area around him continuously plays in his mind due to echolocation.

'West.' Braun thought, quickly loading two arrows to his bow and shooting it to his side without even looking, accurately hitting the two boars that were rushing towards him, hitting them straight in the middle of their head and puncturing their brain.

Then the same process happened. Braun walks up to them. Takes back his arrows. Eat them. But this time, he grabbed the two tusks as it is pretty useful for when he needs to craft something later on, though he does have a slight change in plans once the concept of enlightenment kept replaying in his mind.

'This might actually be my chance to attain enlightenment. Starting again from zero, not using science and only using the natural power system of this world… I'll have to develop more of this plan later.' Braun thought while munching on a slab of raw bore meat in his mouth, deep contemplations regarding his future kept entering his mind like an endless stream.

As he ate the last bit of flesh from the two boars, Braun left once more like the wind while his strength increased by a large margin once more compared to last time.

His body was already a blur to the naked eye, his strength allowed him to lift the dead boars from before with one hand each like they were a bag of feathers, but Braun could already feel he was nearing the limit and needed to eat more to gather enough energy to break his already small limit for his physical body.

'Lute truly has mediocre talent just like me from before.' Braun thought, remembering the harsh times from Eldia, and continued to run forward. Each of his breaths invigorated his body like adding fuel to the flames, a driving force of a wide margin. His previous fast speed increased further upon entering a new state of breathing compared to before that was even supernatural.

'Oh? From east, north, and west?' Braun thought, sensing the pack of horned rabbits from the west, foxes on the right, and three bears from the front, each being more than a hundred meters away.

Stopping in his tracks, Braun quickly takes out his already dented arrows but his skill could make up for it, and started to load them on his bow.

"Hup," Braun sucks in some air, his eyes dilating while the world around him slowed down. The vague silhouettes of the beasts surrounding him from three directions entered his eyes.

As he spun on the tip of his heel, Braun shot arrows to the left and grabbed more arrows. He then pointed to the west and shot more arrows, and shot the remaining arrows forwards towards the incoming bears in one swift motion.

*Puk*

Consecutive sounds of arrows piercing flesh and bones were heard from three directions as Braun grinned in satisfaction. His absurd aim and accuracy already surpass the limits of humanity. Being able to bend the direction of his arrows, spin them to increase piercing, and shoot one arrow to the other like balls hitting one another, he did them all and more like a divine archer being blessed by the gods.

As he took out some ropes made of cloth from his sack, Braun starts to drag all the slain beasts into one neat pile to feast. The sun was still high in the air and Braun estimates that at the rate he was going with his inhumane speed, he should arrive at the Pendragon Kingdom in the late afternoon, just before the day hits night.

'If things go well, I'd already have enough calories to break my body limiter and reduce the cost to an absurd degree to do a large physical augmentation before I arrive at the kingdom.' Braun thought, stuffing his mouth with flesh while cutting the horns of the rabbits and putting it inside his sack.

'Horned Rabbits are F Rank monsters, while Boars are E Rank monsters. With this proof, I would directly start at E Rank once I join the Adventurer's Guild.' Braun thought, his violet eyes glowing with intelligence and Braun kept eating like a ravenous beast, his stomach seemingly an endless hole that can never be filled.

After eating the pile, Braun stood up once more and continued his long journey. From increasing the smell of blood and slaying more monsters, by the time he finds himself out of the forest, his body was now full of claw marks, and scratches, his white shirt covered in scarlet blood, and his black pants had tears and holes, and weirdly enough, his body remained the same slim body structure except for his face.

From the relatively average appearance of Lute, it was now much more… beautiful to say the least. A hint of masculinity and femineity that one would not be able to determine his gender, his hair now longer and reaches below his neck and was thicker, the aura his body exude was a lot calmer like a peaceful lake, an aura that belongs to a person who has experienced a lot of things throughout their lives.

'I'll be officially now known as Lute. There's not really a reason to replace my name considering my appearance, soul, and even body structure are vastly different from the original Lute, the Lute from this world is already gone, and correlating me to him has a very, very low chance to happen.' Braun thought, walking forwards out of the thick shrubs and finding himself in an open field of grass, the erect walls of the Pendragon Kingdom in the distance entering his eyes.

Estimating its size relative to the surrounding area, he knows it's more than five hundred kilometers in diameter and that's on the low end with a margin of error, so it could be a lot bigger than his estimate. It's probably more than a thousand kilometers if he was being generous considering this world was on the higher end in terms of size.

Taking in a deep breath, Braun walks forwards away from the forest as his new life as Lute is finally going to start.

As Braun steps on the brown path that leads towards one of the gates of the kingdom, Braun wonders about his future in terms of magic and if he would have to use other means to attain it if he can't wield it in the first place.

But he puts his focus back on the real world as he lined up along with other people like him, either from villages or towns all around the central continent that wants to enter the Pendragon Kingdom. Or traveling merchants, wandering mages and adventurers, and all sorts of humans could be seen.

Some were even elves and demihumans that come from the western and eastern continents.

And soon, it was his turn. As the two guards finally looked at his appearance, they let out a forced cough, and Braun could sense their body temperature was already increasing, their heartbeat thumping louder and faster as they got infatuated by his appearance.

'Whoever says appearance doesn't matter is just fooling others and themselves, for appearance does matter.' Braun coldly thought, quickly paying the 10 silver toll for entering the kingdom as Braun's life in the Pendragon Kingdom now starts.

AN: This is 2108 words, you're welcome.

Future author here, just wanted to brag that Arc 2: Bootleg Summertime Render in Another World's Dungeon is fucking over. And damn, I can't believe I turned the useless Light Piercer from Esper World into something very useful, especially when I eventually venture into cults and religion in later arcs.

Writing takes a lot of time, so send me some powerstones.

(July 1, 2022 – 219th day of writing)