As I watched the flames on the boar’s corpse die out, I came to the conclusion that I should have tried to cast an ice lance in its eye socket. It would be gruesome, but it would probably have resulted in a faster kill.

The boar was dead, though, and it had given me enough experience for a couple of levels. I had, however, used up all my lethal venom and a few spells as well. It made me wonder how tough this boar was compared to a wolf.

In my mind, a wolf would probably be easier to kill. I didn’t think they had a hide quite this tough.

Though, they were probably smarter. This boar had been quite stupid. Lucky for me, of course, but still… stupid.

I was still hungry. The beast’s meat was partly cooked, and it smelled divine. I imagined most of the creature would still be edible.

I decided to go to Cellestra first and inform her of this large boar.

Hold on, this was a “Large” boar, right? That meant I would only need two more large creatures for that achievement.

Neat.

I skittered along the stream, back to Cellestra’s abode. I wasn’t in the best condition to fight with my venom reserves low and my mana partly drained so I made haste. Fortunately, I was already quite big. This simple trip back would have taken me quite a while if I’d still been the size that I was when I was just reborn.

I reached her house and noticed that the door was still open. I found Cellestra inside, reading a book.

I skittered up the table while she welcomed me back.

“How did your hunt go?” She asked, looking up from the book at the letters where I started spelling.

“Good. Killed boar with fire. Smells good. Want to come get it?”

Cellestra started giggling.

“By the goddess, Kealyna. Now you’re just overdoing it.”

She then smiled. “But if you’ve killed a boar, we should definitely retrieve it for its meat. It would be a damn shame to just leave it there.”

That’s what I thought too.

The elf stood up and walked out of the building with me following closely behind her.

Minutes later, we arrived at the place where I killed the boar.

It was a large boar, indeed. I imagined it weighed the same as Cellestra. I started doubting whether she would be able to get it back to her home.

“You did this?” Cellestra asked in disbelief. She already knew the answer to the question and shook her head. “You’re pretty damn dangerous to the local wildlife, you know that?”

I knew that. It was a shame I was forced to kill, too. Although, with the amount of experience that this creature had given me, I would not have to kill much. That was at least somewhat of a relief.

“Well,” Cellestra continued. “That’s enough to eat for several days. You’re lucky I got a way to freeze food in the cellar.”

She had a cellar? I hadn’t seen that yet. It made sense, in a way. I hadn’t really noticed where she stored her food.

The elf knelt next to the corpse and started casting some kind of spell on it.

What was that spell?

She then grabbed the boar’s tail and dragged it behind her on her way back to her home as if it weighed nothing.

I imagine that was exactly what that spell did. It made the creature lighter.

Useful.

We didn’t run into anything besides a squirrel. I killed it with an ice lance, only to immediately regret my decision after finding out it gave no experience.

Poor squirrel. If only there was a way to know what creatures would give experience without having to unnecessarily slaughter them…

Elysa, this blessing is turning me into a murderous maniac.

I sighed at the thought. I never wanted to do this. Like all elves, I had close ties to nature. Even if I’d spent most of my time away from the forest after the… incident, I still wanted to respect the forest and its inhabitants. This reincarnation thing had forced me to do the exact opposite of that.

I hoped it would come to an end at some point. Although I was killing with purpose, killing without doing it for the purpose of actually eating just felt… off.

We reached Cellestra’s home and she dragged the boar to the rear of her home where she removed a patch of grass. Beneath the grass were two large, wooden doors that opened to reveal a staircase leading down a dark cellar.

She walked down the stairs with the boar still in tow and remained beneath the surface for a minute or two before she appeared again.

“Thank you, Kealyna. We will make sure to not let it go to waste. Did you also learn those principles in your world?”

I nodded with my pedipalps.

It seemed this world was quite similar, indeed.

We made our way inside again and I asked if there were any creatures in the forest that used magic. I hadn’t found them again, but I knew there was something that had used magic on me.

“Why are you asking?” Cellestra said after watching me spell out the question.

“When you found me my legs were shot off by magic attack.”

“That wasn’t that hawk?”

I moved my pedipalps from left to right in my no gesture.

“What did the attack look like?” She asked.

“Blue projectile. Not big.”

“I think that may have been a blue dart lizard then. They are pretty rare in the forest, but they have quite the way of killing prey.”

I looked at her as she explained what may have attacked me.

“As the name suggests, they use blue magic darts to take down prey from afar. They have quite the accuracy and range. You’re lucky to have survived.”

“Bird picked me up after magic hit me twice.”

Cellestra shook her head again. “You really did have it rough, didn’t you? You had your legs shot off your body, a hawk tried to eat you, fell from the sky, only to have me put you in a terrarium.”

“Yes. was not pleasant.”

Cellestra sighed and leaned back in her chair. I spelled out some more words, which she observed from afar.

“Want practice magic?”

I felt like I had accomplished quite a bit today already. I didn’t know how much time was left today, but I wasn’t planning on heading out until my venom reserves had been replenished. My magic reserves would hardly suffer from something as simple as a barrier spell.

“I’d love to. Thank you. What did you have in mind?”

“Was thinking physical barrier.”

“Sure,” She said with a smile. “Sounds good.”

Cellestra and I practiced for about an hour. Time and time again, she sent her mana flow into me and I felt it coalesce in the spells that I cast. I felt her mana track my flows. Every time I’d finished a cast, the elf was left in utter amazement.

I had to admit it was quite an interesting sight to see.

I actually enjoyed it.

When it was time to make dinner, Cellestra retrieved a good haunch of meat from the boar and started seasoning it. In the meantime, I went outside and headed to the stream, looking if there was anything else I could do while the elf prepared dinner.

I couldn’t help but have my mind wander off to the elf again. Although, this time it was accompanied by more positive emotions. She seemed far happier now. I hoped my actions regarding the boar also helped out a bit with that.

It was unplanned, but I couldn’t deny it was a nice catch.

I observed plenty of fish swim downstream again, but I couldn’t see anything of the size that I needed in order to get experience. The big ones seemed to be concentrated in the lake I visited earlier. It made me wonder about how I was going to kill the largest of them.

The ones I’d seen in the lake were seriously huge. I was about one and a half feet right now, and I was certain that I saw at least one reaperfish that was easily three times my size.

Hell, with a size like that, it could even be dangerous to elves.

It would probably still die if it was left on land for too long.

If their scales were still soft enough at that size, I could probably use my venom bolt on them. I could cast it when they were on either land or in the water, although I would prefer to have the fish flop on land first so I would have an easy time hitting them. It would also allow me to hit it multiple times. I had no idea how much venom it would take to kill one. If they were left in water, they could probably simply swim away before they got the required dose.

Water would likely dilute the venom too…

And I doubted my ice lance was strong enough. I already needed multiple hits on normal-sized reaperfish in order to kill them.

I made my way up the nearest tree after confirming once more that there were no fish worth killing here.

For some reason, my mind kept wandering off to Cellestra, even though I didn’t necessarily worry about her as much anymore.

Why?