PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER-Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Chapter 11 A tough fight.

Desmond approached his last quarry; despite all the conviction he had gathered this morning, he still felt uncomfortable every time he took a life. Perhaps he had not thought or felt it so much because all of his previous prey had threatened his life in one way or another, so killing them had been deemed necessary, but the terra wolf was different.

He had chosen it, approached it intending to end its life. He stalked the wolf slowly while waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to present itself, and it did. After that, everything happened naturally. He used his skills, the tools he had at hand, and his intellect to win; the poor creature probably didn’t even know who took its life.

Despite what he felt at that moment, Desmond’s movements didn’t stop. He was aware that the time for the antics had passed, and it was time to take things seriously. It wasn’t just about his current situation and desire to return to his world; it was more than that. His world was not safe either; forget about potentially dangerous Espers. The place where he lived was not safe from mutant beast attacks; Although he tried not to think about it too much, the image of the chaos that occurred 5 years ago was still fresh in his mind.

Shortly after the passage of the strange comet that scared half of humanity, strange events began to occur around the earth. First were the seas; all kinds of boats started to disappear. At first, nobody gave too much importance to it, not until mutant beasts began to appear on the ground. Their appearance was not particularly special compared to what they had before the mutation, but they were many times larger than their old forms, and it didn’t take long for humanity to realize that they were also much stronger.

The firearms managed to restrain them for a time, and the people were safe in the cities, but the beasts kept getting more robust to the point where beasts with Esper abilities began to emerge. A 20-foot-tall Gorilla covered in lightning still appears in the nightmares of those present in the fall of the defensive walls.

Many began to lose hope until Lionel Incort appeared, the first Esper and currently the most powerful of them. He came to the battlefield being a nobody. Still, after tearing up hundreds of massive beasts with his bare hands, he went out of the battlefield, being the Champion of humankind, a symbol of hope and power.

Desmond admired him and wanted to be like him until the day he went to the analysis center and was told that an Esper power would never awaken. The news shocked him greatly, not because he couldn’t be like the man he admired, but because he knew exactly what kind of new world awaited him and Claire.

.....

Despite what many might think, Desmond was not a fool. He knew that although humanity seemed safe at the time with the Espers; the world is no longer what it once was or, to be more precise; it went back to what it was a long, long time ago. A place governed by the oldest law: The jungle law, where the weak get eaten by the strong. And both Desmond and his sister were weak.

It might seem that Desmond has been very unlucky with the way things have turned out so far, but he thought differently; this could be a difficult test, but it was also an opportunity. One to get stronger, stop being at the bottom of the food chain, gain the power he had longed for, and protect what he held dear. And Desmond would never pass up an opportunity like this; he would do whatever it took to secure his and Claire’s future, take every advantage and resource.

For that reason, although he still felt a bit of guilt for killing the terra wolf, he still approached the wolf’s corpse intending to claim his prize. The meat of the wolf Terra might not be a delicacy, but that didn’t mean that nothing was valuable; its heart was very precious, and Desmond planned to collect at least that.

Aware that the number of resources he could collect was limited, Desmond had decided to only gather the most valuable parts of his prey and leave the rest to predators.

Seeing the corpse of the terra wolf right in front of him, only a whisper escaped Desmond’s lips.

“Was necessary”

He bent down and proceeded to open the earth wolf’s chest with his steel dagger. Not having much experience in this kind of thing, he went through a lot of trouble to be able to see the wolf’s heart; he had lost count of how many times had to break or go around the various bones of the wolf’s diaphragm to get to what he was looking for.

Without many other options or the necessary knowledge in anatomy, it was only natural that Desmond could not do the whole process quickly and cleanly. Fighting back nausea and trying to ignore the strong smell of blood, he proceeded to rip out the heart crudely, just using the dagger to cut anything that would keep it connected to the wolf’s chest.

When he finally finished, he had time to observe his prize; the heart was the size of two fists together; it was earthy in color and much heavier than it looked. Desmond thought that wasn’t unusual, considering the wolf’s earth elemental affinity and the fact that the heart was supposed to be a material used to make defensive armor. Wasting no more time than was already used, he used the collection function to store it.

Having finished everything he had to do, Desmond intended to leave the area before other creatures were drawn to the scent of blood that abounded in the air. 𝒇𝔯e𝚎𝘄𝑒𝑏𝙣𝑜𝚟𝗲𝑙.c𝘰𝚖

He only took a couple of steps forward and realized that perhaps the goddess of fortune was not smiling at him today, probably because she considered him a pervert or an idiot. Still, the reasons weren’t significant now.

Because about eight meters from him, he could see a creature that was unknown to him; it was there, simply watching Desmond, but despite its apparent tranquility, Desmond was sure it wasn’t here to make friends. Taking advantage of the calm demeanor of this stranger, he quickly pointed the hunters’ s book at it and used Analysis.

A six-foot-tall ape with light brown fur was in front of Desmond. It might be the most normal animal he had seen so far; the only thing that differentiated it from an ordinary ape was the sporadic light green spots on its fur and its slightly larger than regular fists.

Desmond didn’t dare to belittle it; similar to the dark predatory spider, the ape in front of him carried an indicative in its name about its behavior; swift fist probably implied that the monkey was focused on close combat with its fists.

Trying to test this new rival, Desmond fired a quick shot with his bow, focused on speed, he couldn’t prioritize targeting a vital area of ??the ape, but that was never his intention. He wanted to test the ape’s speed reaction; although its name said its fists were fast, Desmond guessed that a beast whose elemental affinity was wind would not be slow.

When he saw the ape calmly dodge his arrow, he verified two things; the first was that his bow was not a threat to certain beasts. His second discovery was undoubtedly more important: This would be a tough fight.