บท 23: Butchering
And then, the Imp made the child help him out, and in a very specific way. The Imp wanted the child to show him how to do things like make fires. He had no idea how it was done, but that was something that he needed to know from now on. After all, he needed some way to dry the tiny child's diapers after cleaning them, and as far as the Imp could tell, people usually couldn't deal with the cold as well as the Imp could.
Especially now, the Imp somehow didn't really feel cold at all, even if he didn't directly understand why that was. Either way, the Imp quickly put the fire out and then looked at the child in front of him. "Show. Make fire." The Imp told it, and confused, the child just looked at him while shaking uncontrollably in response to seeing the dead bodies of the two people that took care of it until now.
It was something that the Imp understood, he felt the same way when it came to Avalin, after all. So, with a sigh, the Imp went over toward the two dead bodies and covered them up with his ripped up cloak and whatever else he could find, and then turned toward the child.
"Make fire." He told it, and slowly, the child nodded its head and crawled up to the pile of sticks that the Imp prepared, before grabbing a small piece of wood, a thin stick, as well as some dry grass, placing the dry grass on top of the small piece of wood before placing the tip of the stick against that dry grass, and then it began to rub the stick to make it move quickly.
It took a little while, but soon enough, slight smoke started rising from the dry grass, and the child then placed his hands around the dry grass and slowly blew into it, causing the slight kindling inside of it to grow larger, before the child placed the dry grass into the center of the pile of sticks and continued to blow into the dry grass, before a small flame started to spread through it.
"H-Here..." The child muttered nervously, showing the fire to the Imp who slowly nodded his head in satisfaction, before looking at the basket with the tiny child in it, and then grabbed the small bottle that was laying next to it.
"This. How get?" The Imp asked, and the Child just pulled his knees up to his body and shook its head. "I...don't know..." It replied, "It-It's cow's milk, I think..."
"Cow's Milk?" The Imp once more asked with a frown, and the child nodded slowly, "We have some of it in the carriage... but otherwise you can get it at most farms..." It replied, and the Imp just pushed his eyebrows together annoyedly.
What was this 'Farm' place supposed to be? He never heard of it before, but at the very least the Imp might not need to get more, depending on how much of it they had in the carriage.
Now, was there anything else that the Imp might need to know? He didn't think so, so he probably didn't need the child anymore. As such, the Imp swiftly stood up and stepped in front of it, holding his dagger up above it.
But just when he wanted to stab the child with it, it quickly moved backward and shook its head violently. "No, no... d-don't kill me please...!" It exclaimed out of fear and pulled its body together into a ball, before letting its eyes drift toward the carriage, at which point it got an idea that might save its and the other children's lives.
"I-I can drive the carriage for you!" The child yelled out, and the Imp looked at it confused, slightly hesitating to actually stab it now. Seeing that this might actually work, the child slowly stood up and looked at the Imp in front of it. "Y-You're going somewhere, r-right? The carriage can bring you there more quickly!" It explained, and now that the Imp thought about it, it was true that the carriages it saw before were moving a good bit quicker than him back then. If that was how it was, then it might really be useful. However, he didn't know why he needed the child for that.
"I drive." He said with a frown, but the child shook its head again, "P-Please, we're going to be useful! My father was a coachman, so I know how to handle horses!" It exclaimed, and the Imp just stared at the child after hearing these unfamiliar words.
At the very least, he understood that the child was trying to say that it knew how to drive the carriage, and if the Imp was being honest, it did seem pretty troublesome, so he was happy being able to leave that to someone else. And on top of that, he might be able to have the children teach him words that he didn't know yet. That was something the Imp was really interested in as well, after all.
So, with a deep frown, the Imp just nodded in response and turned toward the carriage. "We go when sun there. Sleep." The Imp told the child with a frown, before stepping up to the carriage and removing the wooden bar in front of it to let the child back inside there, and confused and surprised, but also more than just glad, the child hurried inside of there without hesitation, before the Imp shut the door again and placed the bar back where it was.
And then, the Imp had to deal with something else.
First, he made sure that the tiny child was really okay. He figured it was a bad thing if it died, so he had to be sure it wasn't injured. After seeing no blood or wounds anywhere, he slowly nodded to himself and then went ahead and stepped in front of the two people that were laying on the ground. And if his sniffer didn't lie to him, then the dead body of the third person was also still nearby, so he would get to that later too.
But before then, the Imp had to properly prepare these bodies. After all, he knew that he wasn't supposed to eat them like he used to, so instead of digging his teeth into their flesh, the Imp took the dagger and started slicing into the meat. He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, though, and basically just hacked at the arm of the strong man for a while, placing the chunks of meat down to the side onto one of the pieces of metal from the man's clothes.
Although soon enough, a notification appeared in front of the Imp.
[Beginner Butchering Skill Learned!]
It really annoyed the Imp a lot that these kept appearing all the time, but he knew that he couldn't do anything about it. And they weren't necessarily bad either, except if they were red, of course. But even then, what the hell was 'Butchering' supposed to be? It was annoying when he had so many new words thrown at him from his enemies!
Either way, the Imp swiftly continued his work, and the new skill that he learned started leveling up a little more, and so the Imp somewhat understood what it was that he was doing. And his 'Dexterity' went up a few times as well while he was taking the bodies of the people apart, althoug at that point, the Imp remembered something else.
He was supposed to have a lot of new 'Stat Points' available to him, so the Imp figured he should try and open his status again to reassign them. "Status."
[Name – None][Race – Lesser Imp][Level – 80]
[Health – 920][Mana – 1200]
[Strength – 12][Constitution - 12][Resistance – 13]
[Agility - 12][Evasion – 20][Dexterity - 11]
[Intelligence - 44][Wisdom – 20]
[Perception – 10][Willpower – 20][Charisma – 1]
[35 Stat Points Available]
[Skills]
-[Apprentice Common Language Comprehension][Level – 73]
-[Apprentice Stealth][Level – 56]
-[Beginner Dagger Mastery][Level – 6]
-[Beginner Concentration][Level – 18]
-[Beginner Overeating][Level – 13]
-[Beginner Exhaustion Resistance][Level – 34]
-[Beginner Cooking][Level – 6]
-[Beginner Butchering][Level – 13]
-[Beginner Water Magic][Level – 1]
-[Beginner Air Magic][Level – 1]
-[Beginner Holy Energy Resistance][Level – 78]
[Blessings]
-[Blessing of the Lonely Naiad]
With a slight frown, the Imp looked through this large notification and then tried to figure out what exactly he was supposed to spend the stat points on.
In the end, the Imp figured he should go for a few more different stats that he slowly figured out to be important over time. For one, the Imp needed higher 'Wisdom'. It made it easier to remember a lot of things, and there were a lot of new things to remember these days, so it would definitely be useful.
On the other hand, he was able to use his Dagger far easier the higher his 'Dexterity' was, and it seemed to help in taking things apart as well. Other than that, his 'Perception' stat also seemed pretty useful. Actually, all of the stats seemed to have a really important use, except the Charisma one, which the Imp didn't manage to figure out yet at all.
Either way, figuring that it was a good idea to do it like that, the Imp tried to split the stat points up amongst three stats. Wisdom, Dexterity, and Perception.
Immediately after the Imp raised his perception stat, he felt a sharp pain literally all over his body, although mostly on his face. His eyes hurt because of the light coming off of the fire, his ears felt like they were about to fall off through the cracking of the flames, his nose was overwhelmed by the smell of the meat and blood in front of him, and although all of these things settled down relatively swiftly, the Imp still needed a little bit of time to properly get used to his comparatively heavily-increased perception.
Either way, the Imp had to calm down a little bit, and then just tried to do one of the things that Avalin did after they ran from the flying island, or when they were trying to leave Zaragon's place. She held her hand against her chest and breathed in and out deeply and slowly while closing her eyes for a moment.
Immediately, the Imp tried to do that, although it was rather tough to do when his hand was twitching around constantly, which seemed to be the result of him increasing his Dexterity.
But by just making his hands hold each other by interlocking them, that issue was fixed somewhat as well. Either way, like this, the Imp was able to use that way of relaxing, and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on his breath, although something else happened while he was at it. He could feel some kind of burning hot feeling inside of his body, it was just uncomfortable, so the Imp really, really wanted to get rid of it, trying to push it out together with his other uncomforts, although he seemed to feel himself grow more exhausted when he did it for some reason. He did feel more relaxed at the same time, though, so it was fine.
Although, when the Imp then opened his eyes again, he immediately felt annoyed after seeing that a new notification appeared out of nowhere.
[Beginner Air Magic Skill Leveled Up!]
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