Chapter 28: Chapter 028

The wings Henry had yearned for with a burning ache couldn’t have made their appearance at a better time. He thought he would need time to adjust to the new weight sprouted from his back. He thought he would need practice before he could even use them. But as it turned out, he needed to bother with neither of the two aforementioned worries.

The knowledge of flight came as natural as the knowledge of walking to him, or maybe even easier than walking. It was somewhere between walking and breathing. It felt natural to have wings. His back no longer felt naked. It was like the last piece of the puzzle that had been missing all this time finally falling into place.

However, there was a slight issue. These newly sprouted wings weren’t permanent. They were a product of magic, much like the gills, he would grow when he went underwater. Still, Henry was thrilled and excited. Not only could he finally know what it was like to fly but he could also chase down the damn bird that dared to steal his game.

The vulture regained its poise just as Henry took off from the ground. It flapped its wings hard and soared through the sky. Desperation and regret were now racing through the vulture’s nerves. It stole Henry’s game because it was confident it could escape without difficulty. It didn’t see any wings on him. It was assured of its success and the inconsequential aftermath. It had never expected the current outcome where its victim would just grow a pair of wings at such a time.

Though the vulture was strong and fast, with the carcass it was carrying, it was significantly slower and tremendously less nimble. Even Henry, who was just taking its first flight, was quickly gaining on it. It kept glancing behind in a fit of dread and apprehension. It could feel death already perched on its shoulders, whispering its last rite. It was regretting stealing Henry’s prey.

Henry, who was still some ways away from the vulture, had a grin that was growing wider and wider. Due to his inexperience, catching up to the vulture was not easy. He could fly without falling but that didn’t mean he was adept at it. There was more to it than just flapping one’s wings in the air, much like how driving wasn’t just about stepping on the gas pedal and simply steering the wheel willy nilly. There was more than meets the eyes. 

The first thing he learned about flying was that flapping his wings harder did not necessarily equate to more speed. His posture was also a significant factor in flight. Keeping his limbs folded helped with the speed and control but at the cost of making tight and short turns, not that he needed to make any tight and short turns considering he was flying in open skies.

Just you wait. I’m gonna gut you up when I reach you.

Henry declared in his heart, drawing closer and closer to the vulture by the second.

The vulture’s heart would beat faster every time it glanced behind and saw the shrinking gap between it and Henry. It glanced at the carcass dangling by in its talons. He began weighing its choices and wondering if its life was worth the prize it caught. The decision came instantly. Of course, it wasn’t worth it. A cow’s meat wasn’t a rarity nor was it the ultimate delicacy. It had no reason to die for it. 

With that decision in mind, the vulture let go of the carcass just as Henry came within range of his breath attack. Henry clicked his tongue and went after the carcass instead of continuing to chase down the vulture. He folded his wings, straightened his body, and let gravity reclaim him as he swooped through the air. He didn’t want to let the vulture go but his wings wouldn’t last forever. It was draining his Murux as fuel for their conjuration.

Catching the carcass was harder than he had expected. He easily caught up to the carcass but he failed to catch it and flew past it. When he turned around and went in for another attempt, the carcass was already close to the ground and when he did finally catch it, his limbs hit grazed the ground and that was enough to throw his momentum and balance into complete disarray. He went tumbling and rolling once again, crashing through trees and bushes until he slammed into the foot of a hill.

God fucking damn it. I’ll kill that fucking vulture the next time I see it!

Henry screamed in his heart as he got to his feet. At this point, this sort of pain had become a friend and he was no longer too bothered by it. 

Great. Which strange land did I fall into this time?

Henry looked around and found that he was once again in a forest but the trees and foliage were all different. He was relieved by the fact that the plains and the valley were still within sight. From this angle, he was able to see into the valley, making out a large lake that flowed into three rivers in vastly different directions. 

The additional silver lining in this mishap and blunder was that the meat was safe, as Henry had kept it close to his chest and made sure all the harm came to him instead, and his wings were ethereal. Had they been corporeal, they would most likely be torn and in tatters.

Henry wasn’t too worried or distraught. He had obtained the ability to fly. He could just fly back to where he came from now, though he still had no idea how long he could fly with the current maximum amount of Murux he had.

He waited until the mild aches had completely subsided before he began moving. His goal at the moment was to find an open space where he could roast the cow before it got nicked right under his nose again. The forest was colder by a few degrees compared to the plains and the deeper he went, the closer he was to the mountain, the colder it was.

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Fortunately, it didn’t take him long before he found a relatively vast clearing. Tinders were easy to come by as twigs and dry leaves were all over the forest. He quickly gathered them and piled them up into a tiny hill. He then went and got some stones and placed them around the heap in a circle. He lit a small log up he found by his feet and set ablaze the mound, turning it into a bonfire. He almost lit the bonfire directly with his breath but his discretion stopped him at the last second. He still wasn’t able to properly control the strength of his breaths. If he misjudged his strength as he breathed at the bonfire directly, this blunder of his could potentially turn into a massive botch, such as starting a forest fire.

With the bonfire in place, Henry simply held the cow’s carcass over the fire and let the heat do its job. Since he was impervious to fire, the only flaw in this was that his limb could get tired before long. However, the “before long” part was a severe underestimation of Henry’s endurance and fortitude. The cow’s carcass was nearly as light as an empty plastic bottle to Henry. He could hold the cow’s carcass in that position for more than an hour if he so wished but that would be because of his state of mind rather than his physical limitation.

When the cow was thoroughly roasted into the delicacy known to Henry as beef, he began feasting on the whole body of beef. He was moaning and gasping as he devoured everything except for the bones. There was no salt or pepper but he didn’t mind. An unseasoned beef was infinitely better than monster meat. There was simply no competition. Beef triumphed all, seasoned or not. Tears were trickling down his cheeks. Unlike the dishes prepared by the Augrus, food just somehow tasted better when it was something he hunted and cooked by himself.

When he was halfway through the entire beef, growls could be heard from the trees and tall grasses. Glints in pairs appeared from the darkness. He expected this to happen. He did roast a cow in the middle of a forest after all. There was no way it wouldn’t have attracted any carnivores at all, especially the wolves and such. But these beasts weren’t a threat in Henry’s eyes. He was practically a hulking mass of nigh-impenetrable muscles to these lesser beasts.

These approaching beasts weren’t even magic. Henry could feel no Murux coming from them. There was absolutely no reason for Henry to attack them unless they attacked him first, which wasn’t likely to happen unless they were starved for days and exhausted all other options of acquiring food. The only reason that these beasts even approached Henry despite knowing full well of their own limitations was because they had never smelled meat that was so piquant.

As Henry was in a good mood, he plucked off two of the cow’s hind legs and tossed them to the edges of the tall grasses. A paw emerged slowly from the grass but as the claws dug into the meat, the paw pulled back into the grass in a flash, taking the meat along.

Instead of diminishing, the growls grew louder after that. Sighing at his own charity, he tore off the front legs and tossed them in the direction of the raising growls. Henry didn’t know what kind of beasts or monsters were hiding in the covers of the flora. It made him jump a little when a tongue shot out from the foliage and retracted with the legs.

The growls lessened but Henry could still feel a lot of eyes were on him. That was to be expected. He was a new lifeform in the forest. The predators and prey would surely be curious about where Henry stood amidst the food chain. From his size and his preference for meat alone, they could already roughly gauge where he would likely be. That was enough to keep the most daring predators at bay and monsters or beasts emerged from their cover and challenged Henry foolishly.

Hmm?

Henry couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at a certain peculiar presence. This unknown creature had been hiding its intense staring amidst the other curious gazes. Now that most of the fauna had lost interest in him, he was able to discern this peculiar presence. He did not sense any fear emanating from this presence. If anything, he felt a tinge of excitement from this unknown creature but since he didn’t feel any animosity or antagonism from it, he didn’t pursue it and just focus on his beef.

Once he had picked the bones and ribs clean, dusk was already on the horizon. He should have started looking for a place to sleep hours before but better late than night. Using his newfound ethereal wings, he took the sky and flew back to the plains. Merely minutes went by and he found the place he was looking for, the ruins he had discovered from afar in the afternoon.

The ruins were in too much of a shamble for Henry to make out what they had been before it was just a host of rubble and debris. Henry made an uneducated and unprofessional guess that these ruins might have been a fortress prior. He came to that conclusion from the crumbled towers placed at precise intervals that form a circular formation.

Mosses and various other plants had long turned these ruins into their nest and abode. The constant uninterrupted exposure to the elements had turned the ruins into a part of nature. The crumbled towers were covered in flowers, growing from vines that ran rampantly from within to all around the surfaces. A few rodents had also taken up residence in the shades and covers inadvertently provided by the ruins. Weeds spread across the ground and grew taller than their kin in the fields.

This should do nicely.

Henry muttered as he scoured the ruins from the air. There was no immediate threat around the ruins, as far as he could tell. However, there was an immediate problem and it wasn’t from the ruins. It was a problem stemming from himself. He did not know how to land. He knew only how to fly and hover. Landing was an entirely different subject.

In fear of reducing the ruins further into nothing, he decided to make his landing a few yards away from the ruins. He arched his wings and slowed the beating of his wings. That seemed to trick as he began descending at a moderate pace but it was not slow enough. He arched his wings and slowed his wings’ beating some more. Instead of a gradual reduction in speed, he lost it all abruptly and he dropped to the ground harshly.

Okay. I know what I’ll be doing for tomorrow.

Henry groaned inwardly as he awkwardly rose to his feet from the ground. His sudden drop to the flat pliable ground had created a small intricate dent in his image.