Doing so brought a pleasant surprise to Arthur, as the pieces of meat had fallen into the pool of blood, absorbing more nutrients from it, as each piece was soaked into the blood for a few minutes, enough to absorb a suitable amount of it.

At first, Ouly was disgusted by what Arthur was doing, as the latter picked each piece, put many leaves, plant roots, even squeezed some fruit juice over it. The general look of each piece of meat was really unpleasant to the eye, but Arthur felt great content regarding his work.

“Listen carefully Ouly, the secret to make good dish isn’t just the ingredients or the seasoning, but to let the meat take its time to absorb the good flavors of these seasonings.”

Arthur kept throwing remarks here and there, and Ouly ignored them at first, though his mind couldn’t miss a single word said to him, and memorized it all.

After the two finished their preparations, done over a place covered entirely with tree leaves, they headed to make fire.

“Good cooking needs good suitable fire, not too strong, and makes the meat fried, not too weak and makes the meat uncooked, especially the inner pieces.”

Arthur kept remarking again over the cooking process, while digging a shallow pit, putting tree branches, selected carefully by him, into the hole he just created. He then formed a handle using special tree barks he extracted keenly, and he didn’t stop after that, as he kept creating such things over and over again.

There were three monsters being butchered, with the fourth one he entrusted it to Ouly after they all woke up. Arthur cut each monster into ten pieces, seasoned each carefully, and thus he created thirty pits.

“It’s time to start fire,” he finally said, as he started the fire in each group of woods he put in the pit. Beside each pit, he laid a whole large group of dried thick branches, cut carefully into similar pieces, then as the fire was igniting, he went to prepare the meat for cooking, putting a long, thick, spear shaped tree branch into each meat, then hanged each on its designated holder, on suitable distance from the fire.

It wasn’t just a hobby, Ouly felt astonished at how organized Arthur was regarding cooking, like it was a life or death science.

After putting all the meat on fire, the amazing scent of cooked mea started to appear in the place, covering the area in a pleasant cloud of scents. Ouly was more astonished regarding this, as he never smelled something great as this, making his stomach crave for this meat, but he had to control himself.

The place of Arthur in his heart ascended a whole grade of worship, as he felt he was looking at a special man, not from this era, not from this world.

He felt lucky following such a man, very lucky indeed.

The cooking process didn’t last for a couple of hours, during which Arthur kept rolling the meat pieces on fire, which he controlled professionally, while adding some fruit juice he mixed together after adding some rock salty powder.

But this process was destined to be interrupted by a sudden howl appeared close by, followed by many other howls, indicating the presence of a pack of wolf monsters nearby, attracted to the pool of blood scent here plus the scent of cooked meat.

“I hate being disturbed while cooking,” Arthur mumbled to himself, before he sensed the approach of a pack of over twenty wolves. He sensed their presence hundreds of meters away from him, and he could sense their powers too.

“What should we do now?” Ouly stressfully asked, as the night had fallen since an hour ago, and the vision in this place was nearly limited.

“Don’t worry, I will handle them,” Arthur said as he grabbed his bow and took a few arrows, fixed them on the ground around him, “they are weaker than the bear monsters, but I believe their meat will make a fine addition to our reserves,” he added while putting an arrow in the bowstring, and readied himself to shoot.

Ouly looked amazed towards him, as he couldn’t see tens of meters in front of him, neither could he sense the presence of these monsters. Arthur managed to sense them, and assessed their strengths as well. Ouly swallowed his throat, as he thought of the way Arthur knew all this info without moving a finger.

Arthur didn’t bother to explain anything, despite feeling the amazed expression over Ouly’s face lightened by the fire. A minute didn’t pass and these wolves were nearby, and Arthur launched his arrow, controlling its trajectory perfectly to be inserted deeply into one of these wolves’ bodies, howling loudly in pain, alerting the other wolves in the pack.

They felt a sense of danger coming from their prey, as they were now hunted by Arthur’s arrows, one after another. As Arthur expected, they were much weaker than the bears, being monsters in grade two only, but their lack in strength was compensated with their high numbers, an advantage they started losing by the arrows hitting them in deadly locations.

Another wave of angry howls appeared, followed by the order of attack from their alpha, which was a third rank monster. just as they started to approach the place, they kept losing more of their numbers, crippled by the arrows, lying helplessly on the ground.

Arthur was an excellent archer, and using the amazing bow he took from grandpa Regil, and the moderately powerful arrows, he managed to injure each single one of the pack, alpha included.

“Wait here, I will be back shortly,” Arthur said before he disappeared, carrying his sword, leaving the bow behind. When he reappeared again in Ouly’s vision after quite long minutes of waiting, he was grabbing the bodies of a three meters wolves, dead by his sword.

“Go there, and grab the other bodies here,” Arthur ordered, before he started dissecting the wolves bodies, and cutting the meat into pieces as usual. Ouly followed the orders blindly, as he went and returned on many trips before he brought every single slain wolf out there.

“Shouldn’t we wait for others, as these wolves vital organs might be useful?�� Ouly asked, in a low respected tone.

“No,” Arthur just answered shortly like this. These wolves had nothing special, plus their grade was lower than the bears. From now on, he had to aim for grade four or higher monsters.

He finished cutting the meat with the help of Ouly, who started to grab a hint over a thing or two here. Arthur then left Ouly to season the meat, and started to give him pointers every once in a while. after they finished, Arthur stored the meat on the leaves area, while saying:

“After we collect the bear meat, we will put these on fire.”

Just as he finished speaking, a long and strange shriek came, from a place unexpected for him, the sky! He looked up, feeling the watchful eyes of a sky predator, making the angles of his mouth curved in a satisfying smile.

“It seems our luck isn’t that bad,” he said, before he went to grab his bow, arranging many arrows on the ground around him, “Lily is lucky, she will be happy when she wakes up,” he said, as he sensed the grade of this monster. it was fourth grade at least, rivaling the strength of that horned bear.

“I will need your help here,” he said, as he grabbed three arrows, putting them into his bowstring, and launched them at once.

He didn’t need to control them, as his target was easily spotted, hovering in circles around them. He aimed for its body, which was roughly five meters at least, with wings spanned for three meters for sure.

The arrows hit the body of this monster easily and rapidly, stirring its rage, but before it could do anything except roaring from pain, he controlled the arrow after another, creating holes into the wings of this monster.

Wings with holes were useless to any bird, no matter what rank it was. After launching the tenth guided arrow, the flying monster couldn’t keep its altitude anymore, crashing heavily tens of meters away from them, luckily near the place of the last living bear, which lay helplessly there, accepting his miserable fate.

“Now!” Arthur yelled at Ouly, who disappeared to reappear again over the monster, cutting its body with his daggers. Arthur didn’t leave Ouly alone, as he grabbed his sword and started hacking the body of this monster in vital places.

The monster had a horn as well, just like that of the bear, and when it sensed its helplessness in facing this barrage of attacks, the horn started to glow, creating a gale of wind, so severe that it felt quite threatening to Arthur.

“Retreat, fast!”

Arthur ordered Ouly to retreat, while he kept hanging himself to the tail of that bird. Any bird needed his wings intact, and its tail free to be able to fly. Grabbing the tail added more hardship to this monster, which tried to use the gale of wind it summoned to fly again, but it failed.

Arthur didn’t stand there motionless, as he used his sword over and over again to attack the tail of such a monster, until he managed to cut it a whole, flying away from the monster.

Just as he flew away, Arthur was afraid that monster would escape, so he desperately yelled:

“Grab that monster!”

He ordered Ouly, but as his fears were about to come true, a shade appeared rapidly, to fall on the huge body of this bird monster, rendering it motionless. Arthur’s eyes widened, as the one to respond to his words wasn’t Ouly, strangely was the bear monster.

“Really?!” Arthur exclaimed in surprise, before the bear hit the head of that bird, knocking it unconscious.. The bear stood there, on the weak body of the bird, enjoying its moment of triumph.