章 25: Accepting reality

He was shocked by his own calmness and bloodthirstiness. He had never killed a living being in his entire life and he had just taken not one but several lives and he wasn't even regretting it. The thought unnerved him yet he felt oddly satisfied as it felt amazing to have the power over life and death.

But his euphoria barely lasted seconds as he shuddered violently before throwing up his breakfast and other stomach fluids.

His legs buckled under his weight as he looked around coughing hard after he had nothing left in his stomach that wanted to jump out of his throat. He stared at the zebra corpses as his hands grew numb and trembled a little.

His grip on the dagger loosened and it took him quite some time until he regained his senses.

Jason heard some noises a bit farther from him which helped him distract himself. He followed the direction of the source of the noise and spotted a two-star wild beast fanged coyote fighting another two-star wild beast scaled wolf for a horned zebra corpse a few meters away from him.

He noticed that they were fighting over the food that had fallen into their laps easily and they weren't going to let go of it. As he saw the two beasts trying to snatch the corpse of the third horned zebra from each other, Jason slowly began to understand that outside the dome the strong ruled while the weak could only cower and in misery.

Being at the bottom of the food chain, the horned zebras were considered an easy prey of all carnivore beasts, while five star wild beasts were the strongest in this wild zone with the exception of humans.

Earlier, Jason's situation had been no different than the dead zebras as he was also seen as a nuisance and useless. He was a weakling, and a burden because he was blind, even if his theoretical results were more than excellent.

Everybody knew that knowledge was important but what was the use of it when you couldn't even stand a chance against the weakest beast during beast tides or other accidents.

Relying on others? Don't kid yourself!

There were only a few humans who cared about strangers and even fewer with enough strength to help them.

Jason started thinking about it as a sudden thought appeared in his head.

'The rules of the jungle don´t solely apply outside the dome.'

Jason noticed that the whole society including the government and the federation system's foundation was set upon power and strength.

The stronger one was, the higher his or her position was

Excluding the fact that some strong humans didn't have any leadership or managerial qualities which made them useless as executives, humanity was still relatively well off, compared to 300 years ago.

In rare cases, powerhouses understood their shortcomings and stepped back to let more knowledgeable authorities take charge but that wasn't always the case. Laws could only protect someone to an extent if the person was innately weak not just physically but mentally as well.

It was the same with his mother's death.

He had received some credits but Jason doubted that the mysterious heir was punished for killing innocent humans.

Though, as he began to see the world around him, Jason understood one thing for sure.

If he wanted to live his life without getting forced to do something he didn't want to, Jason had to get stronger as quickly as possible. He lived in a dog-eat-dog world and there was no one but himself to rely on.

Greg was a friend to Jason but he had to understand that he couldn't believe everyone naively.

If Greg was a bad person, he could use Jason as a marionette and get away with it without receiving any punishment, as long as Greg´s family was powerful enough.

Suppressing his disgust, he stored the horned zebra corpse inside the storage device off his quantum bracelet before looking at the fighting two-star wild beasts.

None of the two beasts was willing to back away even after both were injured and it looked like they were evenly matched at one point.

Jason inched closer as the scaled wolf leaned forward as the coyote lashed out at its opponent with its claw. But, the wolf ducked and rammed its jaw into the coyote's abdomen, sinking its fangs deep in the skin while using its claws to rip the flesh apart.

He saw this and began to rush towards the two which were a few dozen meters apart.

His speed was slower than before because he didn't use any mana to reinforce his lower body as he had used up a lot of it previously.

There was only a little mana left in his core to make a quick stride.

The coyote which was now heavily injured tried to grasp the wolf with its paws in order to bite in its shoulder while using its hind legs to slash at the wolf's lower body.

Blood was oozing out of a dozen cuts and bites from both of the beast's bodies. The coyote was the first to slump to the ground and was gasping for air when it noticed a human behind the wolf.

It shrieked in fear but unfortunately, it was already too late and the wolf's neck had been slashed by a bloodied dagger that now sported a deep crimson color.

But the dagger didn't stop there, as the wolf's neck was only a means to reach the coyote.

Jason could see terror shaping up the beast's face that was cowering under his gaze which caused him to almost hesitate before the dagger penetrated the coyote's chest.

The least he could have done is give them a painless death and that was what he hoped for as his dagger's thirst for blood seemed to be insatiable. Though he threw up once again after witnessing a large amount of blood and organs spilling out of the bodies before he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gathered himself.

He felt still disgusted to kill a living being but the second time had been far easier than the first time.

It took him only a few seconds to regain his senses before he picked up the two two-star beast carcasses and the third horned zebra corpse which lay only a few meters away. He surveyed the small battlefield one last time before he spotted a tree and climbed up.

Not many beasts were able to climb up trees in this one-star wild zone except a few four and five-star wild beasts in the core areas.

Jason was at the outskirts of the wild zone and extremely close to the dome but the dense mana he felt was perfectly fit for him to replenish his mana.

It took him no time until his mana was completely replenished.

He had enough time to think about many things like his attitude towards beasts, how he fought, and the errors he had committed during the short fight.

The biggest problem was his mental state. Though he was getting a hang of killing beasts, the fact that he was responsible for the deaths of some living beings was discomforting. But, he sternly reminded himself to get used to it. This unpleasantness would only last for a few more fights until he made up his mind.

Following this Jason climbed down the tree and searched for more one-star beasts.

He wanted to use the one-star wild beasts to clear his mind before he would try fighting two-star wild beasts.

His dagger was sharp enough to penetrate all kinds of wild beasts and Jason focused his mana consumption on his lower body to look after his speed.

Following this, a few hours passed until the sun went down and Jason went into the dome again with his clothes soaked and dripping with blood.

Jason attacked another three small one-star wild beast groups but he killed only four beasts because one time he made a noise missing his timing while another try caused him to almost die as he was almost crushed by the one-star bison he attacked.

But, Jason found out something important.

The closer a beast was to him, the easier it was for Jason to predict where he would be attacked. This was a trait that he attributed to his eyes.

It was still a theory but Jason found his eyes to be more and more interesting which made him curious about all the things he could do with them.

'What special eyes did my mother have and are my eyes a mutation from her eyes or is there something else I don't know about them? I doubt these eyes are normal mana eyes.'

But there wouldn't be anyone to answer his questions so Jason had to disregard this thought.

He had to find out everything by himself but that was okay with him.

Jason had to wait a few minutes before he found a shuttle to take him home.

Gazing inside the storage space he saw seven one-star wild beast carcasses and two two-star carcasses.

It was more than Jason had expected on his first day and as he played the fights in his mind while waiting for the shuttle to arrive he noticed many flaws.

But for Jason, the whole day had turned out to be much better than he had previously thought as he was still uninjured and healthy.

He had expected to sustain some injuries but he had only sustained minor scratches and as such everything was fine.

The shuttle arrived in front of his apartment and Jason was back in the familiar surroundings of the city, 40 minutes later.

After ordering food through the AI for home delivery Jason went inside the apartment to rectify his flaws.

Battling with wild beasts had definitely been an eye-opening experience for him. He realised that Greg's parents had given him a chance to realise what the real world was because fighting beasts head-on was different than training at home. Today, Jason had understood that he had to hone his technique with real combat experience.

Otherwise, he would always stay behind others.