Chapter 16: Chapter 8 – Elven Feast

I snarled violently as I tried to rip away a chunk of particularly delicious-smelling flesh from the claws of a competitor, only to be forced to let go as the woman snarled back and abused her superior strength to steal away my prize.

Seeing the hopelessness in my cause, no matter how righteous, I gave up on that particular corpse and instead targeted another, ripping into it with a vengeance.

I barely chewed anything, instead opting to just stuff everything down my gullet, trusting my stomach to do its, heh, magic. It'd never failed me before, somehow managing to digest the obscene amounts of food I always shoved into it, so I had little reason to doubt it.

Eventually, after barely ten minutes, the more than thirty corpses had all virtually vanished, and as my tribe members began to pick away at the bones, I forced myself to cool down from the habitual madness that came with the ritual feast.

I'd been living in this body for five years now, something that I could proudly proclaim as an achievement, especially considering the number of times I thought I would die.

Alright, that's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like it. Mother had taken it upon herself to bring me up to par with the other northern foxes, and although I highly doubted I was anywhere close, I was still making considerable progress.

Although my mother loved using and abusing my hunger as a motivational tool, and I can't say it wasn't effective, I still grew far faster than I should, especially thanks to the obscene amount of meat I ate whenever these feasts occurred.

I let out a small sigh of annoyance as I trudged my way back to my tent. Although I now possessed a body that looked to be 10-11 years old, I was still considered naught but a pup by the tribe, so I enjoyed certain benefits such as not having to clean up after the feast or other such chores.

Honestly, I wouldn't have minded doing that, but my mother didn't seem to think it appropriate for me to, and I quote, 'waste my time on such useless tasks when I could be learning to become a productive member of the tribe'.

So, instead of wasting my time being unproductive by helping out my tribe, I wasted it by being unproductive and taking naps or hunting rats for fun.

Talking about rats, the poor things had become nothing more than playthings now. It was far too easy to find them by using my ever-improving sense of smell and hearing, as well as my growing reservoir of experience in murdering innocent critters.

Unfortunately, while I wished I could just go and do some rat-murdering for the rest of the day, mother had already told me that we would be going hunting tonight, and if there was one thing I learned by living in and hunting with mother, is that disobeying mother was not something to be done lightly.

I'd never dared to do it myself, and nobody else had or at least done so while I was present, but the few times mom got angry at someone were enough to put the fear of God in me.

And so, like the cute little puppy I was, I waited at our tent for mother to come pick me up. Thankfully, it didn't take long for her to show up, licking away at the marrow of a large, broken bone.

She nodded at me and beckoned for me to follow her, which I did. Once we were at the edge of the camp, she sprinted away on all fours.

Running on all fours had become almost natural for me, which made sense, since our bodies, while humanoid, were indeed more adapted to it, so I unhesitantly did the same and ran after her.

Unsurprisingly, I'd gotten a lot faster since my first hunt with mother. After all, doing rigorous exercise that could put bodybuilders to shame every day tended to do that for you, especially if you were a magic-eating fox that could survive in extremely cold temperatures with naught but some furs.

This time, mother stopped after one and a half hours of running, our destination being a rather random spot in the forest.

It was a bit further away from the camp than I was used to, but that wasn't a big problem. I stared at my mom with an expectant face, waiting for her instructions.

She hummed lightly, holding her chin in the universal thinking pose. After a bit, she decided to finally speak. "Just hunt whatever you find. If you hunt something good enough, I'll give you a... special... gift at home." She winked at me before walking off, probably to laze away while keeping an eye on me.

I wasn't bothered by that. Instead, I was far more interested in the so-called gift she spoke about. Our tribe had no notion of gift-giving, as we were rather communist in nature, preferring to share everything. Hence, my curiosity only continued to grow the more I thought about it.

"Don't count your eggs before the harvest, Kira..." I murmured to myself, my voice barely more than a whisper. Puffing myself up on the inside, I began to stalk the undergrowth of the forest.

Now, here's the thing about hunting for big game in our lands: It's easy to find them once you find a clue, but finding that clue is extremely difficult. Most animals are too stupid to cover up their tracks, leaving behind things like poop, piss, or even just footprints in the snow.

Those kinds of signs made it fairly easy to track them down once found, but again, finding those leads is difficult as hell. Thankfully, I hadn't spent these years twiddling with my thumbs.

During my search, I easily caught a squirrel on the way, eating it as a snack. I'd long since graduated from squirrel hunting, partially because I'd gotten really good at finding and catching them, but probably also because mother got bored of eating the same thing every time.

Finally, five hours into my search, I found my much sought-after hint. A small pile of poop hidden near a felled tree.

From it, I could somewhat follow the trail left behind. Sometimes, this trail would be weeks old, sometimes only hours old, hence, it was also a question of whether following the trail would be worth it, as it might be a dead end. Luckily, this particular trail was only a couple of hours old if my nose didn't lie to me, so I happily followed it.

It took me till the sun was high in the sky the next day to finally find my sought-after prey: A male boar about a meter long, add or take a dozen centimeters. It wasn't small, but it wasn't large enough to make it an impossible hunt.

I hadn't yet killed any boars, so I lacked specific know-how to go about murdering it, but thankfully, I wasn't just an inexperienced pup anymore.

I took to the trees above, abusing my claws to climb onto them using the natural grace us Northern-Tailed Foxes were blessed with to do so in utter silence, or at least silently enough for the dumb thing to not hear me, making sure I was downwind as I did so.

The boar was digging down into the ground, searching for roots to eat, so it completely failed to register the threat above it. I stared down, feeling a bit daunted by the 8 meters separating me from my prey, but this was no time to hesitate.

When I sensed the moment was right, I launched myself, directly aiming my leap onto the boar's exposed back.

I landed rather heavily and clumsily, but nonetheless, successfully. The panicked squeal of the boar as I latched onto it with claws and teeth definitely said enough about the success of my ambush.

It couldn't turn its head enough to utilize the sharp tusks on its jaw, and it couldn't charge me either, so it was effectively defenseless. Furthermore, it wasn't smart enough to do complicated tricks like rolling on the ground to throw me off. Instead, it attempted to force me off by having me go through a rodeo, jumping up and down while running aimlessly.

Needless to say, it didn't work. My claws held me firmly in place while scoring deeper and deeper cuts upon the boar's flanks and back, all the while my teeth ripped away at its exposed neck.

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For five minutes, even though it felt way longer than that, we engaged in this deadly dance, my endurance facing off against the boar's deceptively immense resilience.

After all, despite it being a stupid and rather small prey, this was still a northern creature, and as such, was to be regarded with the respect it deserved, for failure to do so would lead only to pain.

Unfortunately for the boar, however, I was also a northern-born, and more than that, I was a trained, deadly hunter.

While it was no easy feat to hold onto it for the entire five minutes, all the while slashing at it with claws and teeth alike, it wasn't difficult enough for me to not to do so. Finally, at the mark of the sixth minute, the boar fell, the blood loss from the horrifying wound I'd inflicted onto its neck and sides felling the beast at last.

I let out a tired cheer at my victory, glancing around my surroundings to make sure nothing would come and steal my kill, or worse. Then, after letting out a depressed sigh, I grabbed onto the boar's leg and began to drag it away.

It was heavy, and I was tired, but the rules were rules. I had to bring this all the way back to my mother.

It was once again night when I finally arrived at mom's resting spot, where she laid casually with her back against the tree, munching on the flesh of a mauled carcass of some bird, likely a vulture of sorts.

She gave me an approving look even as I flopped onto the ground, panting for breath. I didn't even have the energy to complain as mother stole away part of my kill, ripping out a huge, bloody chunk from the boar's side.

"Good job, Kira. I'm impressed, this is a pretty decent prey, something that even I would find as worthy enough to seek out." Mother complimented me as she happily bit into the boar's flesh.

I just let out a tired moan, forcing myself to my feet and crawling over to the beast, quickly digging into its delicious flesh.

As expected, the food that you hunted yourself always tasted the best. Even though it wasn't as rich in magic as the flesh of the beasts that partake in the weekly feast, this was still pretty good.

Strangely enough, being able to perform magic had very little to do with how much 'magic' was in your body. I didn't really understand how that all worked, and honestly, I didn't care. As long as it tasted good, I was happy with it.

When I finished the boar, not even sparing its bones from the fate of being broken and eaten, I finally turned to my mother, who'd been waiting for me to finish for twenty or so minutes.

"Let's go back. I'm sure you'll love what I got for you." Mother said, eyes sparkling as she took off, with me eagerly following after her.

When we arrived back at our camp, it was empty as usual. Most members only really gathered for the feasts and spent the rest of their time either hunting, sleeping, or sometimes just fucking around when there wasn't anything important that needed their attention.

Once I was back in the comfortable heat of our tent, I waited patiently for mom to return, having been told that she'd be right back. 'Let me grab my little surprise for you', she'd said. In retrospect, perhaps it had been a bit foolish of me to think this moment wouldn't come, with all the clues subtly given to me.

Thus, when my mother returned with the dismembered, but still recognizable corpse of a person with long, pointy ears, I almost screamed in surprise.

"Kira, this here is a Snow Elf, the delicacy of all delicacies. I found him a couple of days ago by pure accident, and since you've never had the chance to eat one before, I decided that you should eat it. Come, it should be very good for your growth." She happily babbled, not noticing the growing horror on my face.

I bit my lips in anxiety, my eyes glued to the mangled face that stared back at me. Its eyes had been gouged out, and its neck looked as though someone had torn a chunk out of it, which was probably exactly how mom had killed it.

I'd already decided to myself that I would embrace my new identity, that my previous life wouldn't define who I was. However, the longer I stared at the corpse in front of me, the more I realized that letting go of my past life wouldn't be that easy.

"Hm? What's wrong, Kira?" Mom finally seemed to notice my hesitation as she crouched down next to me, looking at me worriedly. It was only then that I realized I hadn't been breathing properly, and I forced myself to correct that.

"M-mom... Isn't eating... people... wrong?" I asked, even as I buried my face into her chest. Mom seemed surprised by my actions and words but quickly responded, giving me a tight hug as she did.

"Of course not, dear. It's a great honor for our prey to know that, even in death, they will continue to live on as part of us." She gently explained to me, grabbing my cheeks and forcing me to look into her eyes. "In fact, the greatest insult is to not eat your prey, as that would be akin to defiling their very souls." She told me, giving me a very pointed look.

I bit my lips hard enough to draw blood as I listened to her explanation. I could literally feel a culture clash happening within myself, as the me from the other world clashed against the new me from this world.

In the end, though, I didn't have to choose as mother's patience ran out after a couple of minutes, and she gently forced me to let go of her, tore away the hand of the elven corpse, and shoved it into my mouth.

I was too lost in myself to react in time, and by the time I did, I was already chewing through force of habit, and when the flavor finally registered in my mind, the battle was decided.

I swallowed the hand, shivering in delight at the sheer deliciousness flowing down my throat. Like a drug addict in desperate need of her fix, I threw myself at the corpse, my reasoning and morality having been thrown out the window.

Mother didn't seem to want to stop me, although she did take away a leg from the corpse before I could reach it. Nonetheless, she seemed all too happy leaving the rest to me.

I dug into the cold corpse like a rabid dog, tearing off huge chunks of flesh with each bite. At one point, I almost choked from one of the larger bones getting stuck in my throat, but after hitting myself hard enough to seriously hurt, the bone obediently dislodged itself.

When it was finally over and the last scrap of flesh had been stripped from the corpse and the last bone broken and eaten, I regained my senses.

As I just kind of laid there, surrounded by tiny bits of gore and blood patches, I felt numb. My eyes watered, and I felt as though I would start crying, but the tears just wouldn't come out.

And then, my body began to feel unbearably hot. It began to itch violently everywhere, and before I could realize what was happening, my consciousness forcefully shut itself down as pain abruptly began tearing through my body.

And in the middle of it all, the only thought that came to my mind was: 'Is this karma?'

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