Its early afternoon when I make it back to my starting point, about a hundred meters below the end of my favorite stream. Now that I think of it, the wolf I saw yesterday came from about here at about this time.

Uh.

What do you think Bob, if it shows up should I try to provoke it somehow? I have a weapon this time.

Its kind of a terrible weapon though.

Fair.

Well, we’ll see when we get there if we get there. I ran upon a stream in the forest earlier, where I took a break to drink and refresh my layer of muddy sunscreen so I’m quite ready to pick up rocks and hunt birds in the most basic way imaginable. I’m sure it’ll work out.

- - -

I actually did it !

It took hours, and I had to wander back and forth quite a lot as the birds mostly had the common sense of not staying close to the dangerous rock-throwing madman once they noticed I’m behaving like a dangerous rock-throwing madman.

But I did it.

I hit a bird, and I’m crouching over its body right now checking it out. It's mostly unremarkable to me, I can't imagine it looking particularly out of place on Earth : it has a small gray beak, yellowish eyes, short scaly legs... Oh, I do have a fun fact about the birds here, they have two pairs of wings, but I think they are smaller than the wings of birds on Earth which probably leaves them at a similar overall wingspan. Unlike the wolves having extra legs, I can’t think of immediate advantages this evolution might bring. Maybe they just evolved from six limbed stuff. Then again, I don't fly. Maybe four wings is twice as awesome as two. Makes me wonder if I’ll come upon birds with four legs and two huge wings.

Wait. Griffins are like that. Well dragons too I guess but I’ve always been team griffin. Could those be a real thing here?

Lion and eagle chimera, hell yeah. Much cooler than overgrown lizards.

Bob gets it.

I'm not sure if I actually want to see one just now though, because if they aren't friendly... Well I don't like my chances against a huge flying meat eater.

Anyway, sorry about that, I got sidetracked. The bird is still kind of alive, it’s been weakly beating the pair of wings that haven’t broken when it fall. Yeah I nailed it all the way up a tree, it was great!

And I need to kill it in cold blood now. It feels bad to kill the poor creature but it's just suffering for nothing at this point. Still kinda difficult. Ugh.

This would be so much easier with a big knife, but all I have is my hands and blunt rocks (even the pointy ones are still really blunt tools you know) so this will be gruesome.

How low does a man have to go to eat?

You’ve slain a lesser beast (bird), experience gain : 1%

The small bird is now headless and its orange and gray feathers have been slightly stained red in places.

Poor thing.

I think I need to remove the blood from the body. I remember my grandma used to hang the dead chickens from her farm above a bucket with their throat slit for some time.

Sweet childhood memories right? Life in the countryside was still pretty rough around the edges just a few decades ago, I didn’t live it of course but even in the 70s some places didn’t have reliable power yet.

Anyway, am I really going to let the bird’s blood go to waste? I’ve never been particularly skittish around blood. I actually like the taste of my own blood, I kind of enjoy liking my wounds.

Which is not the same as drinking the blood from a small bird I just killed straight from the mangled remains of its neck.

We also love blood sausage, which is made from pig blood cooked with all kinds of good stuff.

Which is really not the same as drinking the blood from a small bird I just killed straight from the mangled remains of its neck.

I sigh.

This is nothing, I’ll have to eat raw bird meat later.

The overpowering iron taste makes me dry heave before I even try to swallow a mouthful of the thick lukewarm liquid.

I close my eyes and power through.

I sure can’t say it’s good, and I really need some water now.

I force myself to drink another mouthful anyway. Yuk.

Right, that’s enough. The rest goes to the earth. I’ll definitely throw up if I try to drink a third mouthful.

The sun is quite low already, its twenty past six and the valley is slowly growing darker from the shadows of the nearby mountains. Time to start the trek back up to my little cave.

I’m holding the dead bird… Lets call it a pigeon since the System was useless again on the naming department. I’m holding the dead pigeon at arms length, letting the blood drip down as much as possible before it clogs. The bird is really quite light, which is good news for my tired arms but bad news for my stomach. Well, even if its small I don’t see myself eat a full raw bird anyway, although I’ve still got a long evening of self-examination ahead of me.

Don’t forget a wonderful session of meditation trying to get a feeling for our mana!

…I can’t wait...

Yes, it… it will be kind of hard for you I think.

By the time I’m all the way back to the little access point I cleared to reach the stream, my pigeon already isn’t leaking much anymore. I was afraid it would create a trail all the way to my cave but perhaps I’m safe on that front. I guess there’s only so much blood inside a bird that doesn’t even weight half a kg.

- - -

I don't want to talk about what it's like to eat a raw bird after having lived 28 years eating proper 21st century food. I think saying I didn't even eat half of it – I had to stop by the tenth bite or so – in spite of not having eaten for about two whole days should give you the gist of it.

I almost threw up a few times.

Still not feeling great now, and its been half an hour.

It’s squishy in a horrible way, bland, but the little taste it has is… I hate it.

And I hate that I’m carrying what's left of the pigeon to try and eat some of it again before going to sleep.

Trying to survive alone out here sucks... I really need to make some fire. Somehow.