Kapitel 8: Alone in Emerallia I — Ambrosya

"Aaaaah! Damn it!" I roared as I slammed my rusted dagger into the wild ram I encountered. "Just die already!"

There were several wounds on the body of the ram, all in random places with clearly no synergistic benefits. It was the result of my flimsy abilities.

This ram was both stronger and faster than me. The only reason why I hadn't been cursed with any broken bones was that it lacked agility. That, and I could climb trees while it couldn't.

Slam—!

I felt the tree I climbed shake as the ram slammed into its trunk. Tree bark was sent splintering through the air, threatening to blind my eyes.

I swiftly leapt from the branch that I was clinging from and stabbed into the wild ram again. Together with all the weight of my body and gravity, my rusted dagger pierced into its back.

But the wild ram just grew angrier with this new wound. I hurriedly pulled my dagger out and dove to the side, bruising my arms and shoulders in the process.

"Why won't it die?!" I cursed once again. I know I made beasts much stronger in the world of Emerallia, but I can't believe how this damn thing was still standing!

The ram was staring at me with its remaining demon-looking eye that glowed in the darkness. I had stabbed into its other eye and by god, it was not a nice experience.

That icky feeling I felt through my dagger as it dug through soft tissue and some weird liquid... Unpleasant, I tell you.

Just a moment earlier, I had even stabbed straight through its spine. Unfortunately, it did not seem deep enough to paralyse it. Daggers were truly a weapon made only to kill other humans.

That was why Virion wielded a battleaxe.

Oh, how I wish I had the same weapon right now.

I scrambled to my feet like an idiot who dropped a stack of papers. I then dove to the side once again, cursing as the ram charged me with its horns at the ready.

I also did not understand how this bastard could see me so clearly. Did I give every single beast in the world dark vision? I'm perfectly sure I did not!

Inversely, the only reason why I could see the beast was thanks to Mana Vision. The mana in the air seemed to be drawn towards the beast's horns, creating a weird distortion in my field of vision.

"I'll take out your other eye! See how you like that!" I threatened, but I knew that the beast couldn't understand me.

The ram simply changed directions and went straight for me once more.

I ran away again and climbed another tree by pulling myself up from its low-lying branches. The ram mindlessly slammed into the trunk once again, and I repeated the process of leaping from the branch I was on and stabbing the ram with the aid of gravity.

Although I missed the eye, I stabbed its nose. The ram shuddered and groaned. It was likely that it was once again in quite a bit of pain.

But now, I had my legs wrapped around its neck, and I could not easily leap off. The ram kept writhing its head, slamming its horns into my legs again and again.

I could feel my bones threatening to crack with every hit I took.

Desperate, I pulled out my dagger from its face and tried stabbing wherever I could.

What was once a cool battle now devolved into who would suffer the most. I kept stabbing, and stabbing, and stabbing.

The ram kept using its horns against me, but the pointed part of its horns was directed towards its front, and not towards its back. It saved me from lacerations and puncture wounds aplenty.

Blood splattered all over the place, and every time I hit bone, I could feel my dagger threatening to break.

Ssuk—!

I felt my dagger pierce into the ram's remaining eye.

I smiled. "Finally!"

I then pushed my dagger even deeper into its skull. When I felt that it had hit its limits and the ram was about to throw me off of its back, I twisted my blade and wrenched it out of its eye.

A trail of blood spewed outwards in a beautiful crimson arc.

And finally.

Finally!

The ram fell.

Maniacal laughter sprouted from my lips. I laughed and I laughed. The exhilaration born from the battle finally settled on my shoulders. The remnant adrenaline in my blood fueled my excitement.

I almost died there.

I would have been mauled to death had there been no tree branches to hang on to.

That realisation coupled with the fact that I was still alive instilled this sense of victory within me.

I gulped up heaps of air into my lungs as I sat on the carcass of the ram.

It was as tall as a fully grown six-foot-tall man, and at least twice the size of Earth's sheep. I could've used it as a full-blown mount if I had any resources for taming.

From both of its eyes, blood flowed through the soil like the river just several feet away from us. Its wounds dyed its fleece in a beautiful crimson that shimmered in the moonlight.

"Too bad, I don't know how to properly harvest the different parts of this beast..." I smacked my lips, "This beast could have sold for a decent price despite all of the stab wounds I gave it."

I blinked, and Mana Vision enlightened me of a fact that I almost forgot.

The horns. It was a natural magnet for mana. It was the main tool that rams made use of to absorb mana in the air.

This part of the beast would account for half of the carcass's price. After all, it could be turned into a variety of tools due to its size, or it could be used as medicine after being ground into powder. Some nobles were also fond of collecting beast horns, so there was practically a guaranteed market for them.

The only problem was cutting through such a strong material.

My dagger could barely even scratch it.

"Should I just take the entire head?"