His eyes swept over them, cataloging their gear: coarse clothes, belts strapped to their waists, bamboo water containers dangling, recurve bows, and the small deer-like creature slung by its hind legs over their shoulders. Squinting, Aris noted the hunting knives at their hips, their postures slack, their conversation casual.
They moved with the careless gait of men who had never known a real predator, only the orcs, and the orcs didn't bother with silence. They assumed the forest was theirs, and that arrogance was a vulnerability Aris intended to exploit.
Their belongings; the bows, the deer carcass, the bamboo containers, and the knives, ignited a spark of greed in him, a secondary flame beneath the simmering heat of vengeance that now seemed inevitable, stoked further by avarice.
Without conscious command, his fingers closed around a heavy branch to his right. He held his breath, gaze narrowing on the men, calculating the odds. Only one conclusion surfaced: Fast. I have to be fast, or I won't walk away unscathed.
Then the ambient forest sounds seemed to dampen and the men stopped talking. One paused, his hand moving to the side of his neck as he glanced over his shoulder, eyes tracking through the dense undergrowth, piercing the shadows where Aris lay flattened against the ground.
The second man squinted, his gaze scanning the green gloom of the brush line just meters from Aris's hiding spot.
Did they sense me? Aris quickly wrapped a strip of cloth across the lower half of his face, then hesitated, fingers pausing mid-knot. If one escapes, they won't recognize me. But the thought died as soon as it formed. What does it matter? I've already abandoned that village.
The realization sharpened his murderous gaze. He had sufficient combat experience against villagers who had never fought a fellow human to the death, villagers fattened and conditioned like sheep. His odds of winning were high, if this body hadn't been beaten and wounded by these very men and their fellows.
The two men stood frozen, their senses pricked by the weight of a predator's stare. They leaned into the gloom, searching for a scent, a shadow of the danger they were feeling. But the forest stared back as it always did: vibrant and indifferent.
After a long moment, the tension drained from their shoulders not hearing heavy footsteps. They relaxed. Orcs didn't bother with silence, and these men measured danger only by the sound of approaching heavy footsteps.
As they stepped past his hiding spot, Aris lunged.
The heavy branch whistled through the air and connected with the first man's skull. A sickening, wet crack echoed through the trees, and the man folded, stumbling forward into the mulch. The second hunter snapped his head around, his expression cycling from dread to instant, boiling recognition. Fury ignited in his eyes.
Not an orc. Just the brat from the village. And that realization didn't bring him fear, but a smug, lethal confidence.
He threw a fist, forgetting the knife at his belt. But Aris was already moving—past life experience and the biochip's scan overlaying the man's silhouette in flickering blue.
[Dodge right.]
Aris sidestepped, the punch sailing harmlessly past. The deer carcass slung over the man's shoulder served as a lethal anchor, its weight dragging his balance wide and exposing his flank.
Aris dropped the branch in the same heartbeat, closed the distance with a lunge, and drove an uppercut into the man's jaw. The snap of bone echoed against the trees.
[Secondary target entering range. Kick incoming. Move back two steps.]
Aris recoiled, his body snapping back on command. The first man's bare foot swept through the space where his ribs had been a second before. The man stumbled, his recovery flawed, his rhythm shattered.
Before he could regain his footing, Aris drew his knife and slanted forward in a single, fluid motion. He didn't look at the man's face—only his throat.
Shnnk.
The blade pierced soft tissue. Aris wrenched it free. The man collapsed, hands flying to his neck, but the blood was already slicking the bushes. He fell into the mud, clutching the wound, eyes wide with a terror that finally eclipsed his fury.
The second man staggered upright. He saw his companion; the blood spray, the clutching throat, and the bravado vanished, replaced by pure panic. He turned to flee, bare feet scrabbling for purchase on the slick, leaf-strewn ground.
Aris already had a knife in hand. He tracked the man's trajectory, compensating for the stiffness in his own shoulder. He threw. The blade spiraled wide, biting into the bark of a distant tree. Expected of this body, even with enough experience mismatch was something he foresaw.
The man had his gap. He bolted. Six steps. Aris was already chasing, the second knife leaving his hand. It found the left side of the man's neck this time, but the man kept running on pure, terrified momentum—four more strides, an arc of blood trailing behind him—before his legs folded. He collapsed into the mulch, twitching.
Aris stood between the two bodies and watched as they writhed. Moments passed. Then they stopped altogether. He crouched and began to loot.
First, the bows which were simple weathered wood, but when he drew the strings, the tension was crisp, a surprising quality that could make a real difference. Then the arrows were nine between them, with tips of simple iron.
Aris patted the bodies further, and his hand struck something familiar. He parted the clothes at the waist and found a dagger, longer than his own, better quality even without the biochip to confirm it.
Beside it lay a small, unfinished wooden doll, the features ninety percent carved. Aris didn't linger on the craftsmanship or the intent behind it. It was just an object, a relic of a life that was now irrelevant.
He slid the dagger into his belt beside the others. Then he stripped them: clothes, pouches, dried meat, down to their undergarments.
Moments later, the men's belongings lay in a heap at the side of the path. Aris turned to their corpses and dragged them into the thickets without ceremony, his movements indifferent, leaving only dark, tacky smears on the crushed leaves.
The deer lay where it had fallen. He heaved the carcass onto his shoulder, gathered the scavenged gear into one of the hunters' cloths, and bundled it tight. He moved like a shadow, carrying the weight of his kills back through the undergrowth.
At the waterfall, he stashed the loot in the brush surrounding the pool and surveyed the area. Minutes passed. Nothing moved. Satisfied, he began ferrying the haul inside; the deer first, then the weapons, then the bundled robes and bamboo containers. Three trips. By the time he dragged the last of it in, a mound of supplies lay piled against the cave's western wall.
He wrung out his dripping clothes until they were merely damp, took the two dry robes of the men, and approached Lilly. She lay exactly as he had left her—unconscious, a faint tremor still rippling through her bodies. Not something mere warmth could heal.
He triggered a scan. [Vitality: 0.3 | Status: Stable/Critical]
Good. The hotstones worked. He exhaled, some of the tension in his shoulders finally dropping an inch. Not better. But not worse.
He stood over her with the dry clothes of one of the men in his hands, the set with the least blood and dirt, and a hesitation came, unbidden, as his eyes fell on her damp garments. Should I? He shook his head, a flash of self-disgust crossing his face the second time. She was dying by degrees in the cold, wet fabric, and he was standing there worrying about an obsolete sense of decency.
He crouched and began stripping away the wet layers, working with haste, eyes locked on his hands. He pulled the dry robe over her head, eased her arms through the oversized sleeves, and laid her back down.
The fabric swallowed her small body; she looked like a child dressed in her father's clothes. He smiled for a moment, then turned to the next task. First, he broke the clay shells from the stones, and they began to radiate fresh warmth into the cave. Then he turned toward the western wall.
He grabbed one of the bamboo containers from the western wall and poured out the water. Then he wrenched a wooden board from the box that had carried the hot stones and laid it on the ground to form a small workspace. He retrieved the bamboo container of orc blood and sat before it, the thirteen nourishing herbs in hand.
"Prime," he said, laying them out on the board. "Optimize a concoction recipe for hypothermia using these herbs."
[Initiating task... Generating recipe...]
[Estimated time: 1 hour 45 minutes.]
"One hour forty-five." He rubbed his eyes, exhaustion weighing on every word. He glanced at Lilly. "Too long. But we have no choice."
His gaze dropped back to the herbs, which were strange, unfamiliar, though their scent wasn't so different from those of Earth. Or at least, what he could recall from the days he'd spent brewing toxic gas. "I wonder how effective the herbs of this world will be in Prime's hands," he murmured, eyes drifting to the bamboo container. "Guess the orc blood analysis goes on hold."
[Commencing analysis.]
He sat back against the wall and let his eyes fall shut. Sleep took him before he could draw another breath.