The slaughterhouse was larger than ever. The overhead was at least ten-foot tall and on the side was a Protector who was watching over the animals caged alongside...Old Ernest?

"Lad!" Old Ernest ran to Gabrio. "It has been too long!"

"Old Ernest" Gabrio looked him up and down. "How come you aren't in a cage?"

"Aye, the meathouse is getting larger and the Miss needs help. We still taste the meat and finally we get something to do other than stare at the cages."

There were test subjects dragging the beasts to their cages, some of them were rattling the cages. The rest of the prisoners, who were listless, were sleeping in their beds.

"I was fine being stuck in the cage, but you see the Miss needed help so I thought of making myself useful. Besides, she treats us better than the old butcher."

"Yeah, you get stomach aches instead."

"Compared to what we've been slurping and drinking? Nah lad, this is nothing more than an improvement," he thumped Gabrio's shoulder. "You were always good to us, lad. We treat you like our son despite you annoyance. So having to work with someone who you trust is good enough for me. Not that we'd try anything when we have someone watching us, ain't that right Miss Mana?"

Gabrio nodded. He know what he was. Old Ernest's past was nothing more than a life of brutality. There was no man in Fort Rava that were not imprisoned there for having petty crimes. He had told Gabrio his tale. The lands he plundered and the homes he broke for the sake of the petty lust for gold.

As he grew older he grew wise and sight of a little girl holding her little knife to protect her dear mother broke something in Old Ernest.

He had let the girl his left hand's little and ring finger. She knocked the little girl out and disbanded his men. He had let the little girl judged him and he was thrown to Fort Rava in hopes that he could be a useful specimen.

But here he was still alive despite his body scarred and sutured to the point that none was left that was smooth. His age didn't held him back from having that strength which made him become a pest to Aon.

That's why Gabrio could believe him when he said that he wouldn't do anything.

"Still," Old Ernest held his chest. "I would dare to piss her off with having that protector near. She's a good lass, better than anyone, but she and that guard of her has the temper of a bull seeing red. As for that guard of her, she's called Mana, but we don’t talk to her since she has this nasty glare on her. And that she might put us down if we try anything.”

“For the love of Jove, I hope you don’t try anything.”

“Relax, we ain’t the Chancellor who'd try to face off an Elven-kin wearing a Protector Treant . Besides, I have no intention of dying because of stupidity. I doubt I can do anything in this Ark other than help," he looked around. "So, I assume that you are helping us today?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, then I doubt we’d be much help other than opening the beasts and dragging them back to their cages.”

After that conversation, the four of them positioned themselves to the beast handled by the Protector. The protector sang words that were strange to their ears and they got themselves in position as Ristina held a large knife. She started with a cut from the beast’s anus to the middle ribcage of the beast. When the knife gets stuck she lets Old Ernest drive the knife further until the guts of the beast was opened.

“It’s still alive,” Gabrio noted. “Looks like they have extreme endurance.”

“From what we’ve discovered the beasts are hard to kill. However, they are susceptible to trauma and the loud sound seems too much for the beast.”

She loaded a gun, pointed it at the beast and fired it. The beast’s crystal-like eyes dilated and before it could even move further. Mana, the Elven-kin woman held the neck of the beast like a feline, preventing it from further moving. The guts of the beast hung from its stomach and Gabrio could only note the yellowish color of its organs and the way their insides smell rocky and wet grass.

“There are no spots in this one’s stomach.”

“How many have you gutted since then?”

“Three at most. One of them was turned into roasted meat for them to eat.”

“How was it?”

Old Ernest looked as if he was savoring the memory of that taste again. His hand on his chin.

“I got to say that it was rather like venison. Though I tasted sea vegetable in the taste, kinda like tasting a wet bark sometimes.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“But I assure you that with the right spices, it can be good.”

“Right, so, what about the other organs?”

Ristina stuck her fingers in the beast’s stomach and pulled what seems to be an orb-like organ connected to both lungs. She pulled the organ carefully and took a sniff of the orb. After that, she took the metal ball that she fired from her pistol and watched the wound for a moment.

“You really should let Old Ernest do that.”

Old Ernest grinned. Ristina pondered for a moment as if wondering if this would have an effect on the beast’s body. Despite the underbelly and the torso of the beast opened. The beast so far hasn’t died and its blood were coagulated that other than the bile-like substance, it hasn’t bled out.

“How come we were able to kill this thing?”

“Bullets causes burnt, laceration, and a heated iron ball inside them causes multiple organ failures and most of the time not even they could escape unharmed despite the point-blank explosion cause by the bombs.”

"I don't see it dying despite being shot this close."

"That's because I wasn't planning to kill, Gab. Multiple shots would do the job."

“Multiple? How come? It’s not like the iron ball could cause that much trouble, even some soldiers survive when shot in the gut and you think that a monster that could survive being dissected open without dying can’t handle guns?”

“It’s not the iron ball, Gab. It’s the black powder that is causing them to die alongside that they are not used to and are rather susceptible to what we call fire.”

“That’s unlikely. These creature should have resistance to the elements.”

“Don’t mistake their endurance for resistance, Gab. The creatures might have survive an extensive period of extreme hea oncet, but even these creatures cango soft. These creatures are sentient. This creature feels what we are doing and the pain that comes with it. That's why we can hurt and kill them.”

Gabrio shrugged.

“You’re the expert, not that I have further wisdom in this matter.”

“You Doctors are still so barbaric compared to us, one day you might be wiser in some areas, Gab.”

Gabrio could only smile and shake his head. Truthfully, he had nothing to answer considering that Doctoring had been called a sham by Surgeons despite belonging in the same field. Even now Gabrio thought of it as idiotic. Still, he could only agree with Ristina that his department of medicine was still ‘barbaric’ compared to his peers. All because of a certain accident that caused practitioners like him labeled as shams. Nevertheless, he was rather clueless in the art of dissecting non-human creatures as well.

“Glad that your experiences in Tascam’s Point is working out well.”

“They did say that I was rather strange for accepting the role of being the ‘fool’ who would even go to that place.”

The dissection continued. The beast had its every organ checked and yet it bothered him how this creature could live. Ristina seem to have caught his eyes as she smiled and pointed at the creature’s innards.

“Do you know that this creature had been opened up three times in the following week?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just a few days ago we collected eight kilograms worth of meat from this creature alone. We fed the creature forcibly for about three days and it slowly regenerated its tissues. The flesh of its belly, the meat of its tail, and the thighs of this creature could be harvested. Other than that, it can stay alive as long as its brain and heart functions. I believe that it has superior regeneration abilities and it can regenerate enough tissues to regain their missing parts. The other creatures that came before this one was able to regenerate its flesh for twenty times before it was unable to do so. I believe it wasn't able to regenerate again was caused by the lack of nutrition and thus causing body of the creature to consume itself to repair the damage done to the body.”

She smiled so thinly and yet that smile reached her ears.

“Imagine what could we do if we are able to make livestock out these creatures? Once we domesticate them, fatten them, they would be able to produce enough supply of meat for the fleet. They would become crops made of flesh. The best part? They produce both sexually and asexually, meaning to say, they can produce enough hatchling for us to turn into breeding sows.”

“I am expecting a ‘but’ here.”

Ristina raised her hands and placed it back down

“The constant damage to their flesh would reduce their regeneration abilities and cause afflictions. Not to mention, we’d need a good butcher to handle the ‘harvesting’ of their flesh. So far, I have not seen any part of their body that would cause them to become harmful to the human body. Like every meat in existence, we cooked it in a good fire and then we’re good to go.”

Gabrio gave Ristina a long look before he returned to his chart. The physician in him thinking of the benefits that might come for this.

“Cruel, isn’t it?” Ristina grabbed on to her box of wires and needles that were the size of fingers. “I don’t particularly enjoy torturing creatures, mind you, but in the end we treat all that we see as food as ‘cattle’ and considering that we are in the middle of a long voyage with sparse supplies and one giant island that could barely feed thousands of people daily. We have supplies at the moment because we prepared for it, but as months passes we are drying up. All we can do is look at the creatures we can eat and turn into livestock.”

Arkshelled Island was large enough, but it cannot possibly feed an entire fleet without experiencing problems. Maybe it can sustain the fleet enough that it wouldn’t starve, but if they don’t adapt to this new world they are heading to. Then they are waiting for disaster to strike.

What awaits them past the Icean Spine? What manner of creature can they find beyond that sea? Gabrio didn’t know, but what he does know is that the Island needed food and to be self-sustaining before it could reach the Icean Spine. With the help of the Elven-kin, he was at least confident that they can find a way to find grow crops that could fend off the hunger, but beyond that they needed more options just in case one option fails.

Ristina continued sewing the creature up. After the creature’s belly was sewn. Ristina invited Gabrio witness for himself how the sewn part of the creature was steadily regenerating.

“Astonishing, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Gabrio agreed. “That didn’t even take two hours at most.”

“This creature is rather healthy and we’ve been ‘enchanting’ it to strengthen the creature’s endurance. It could survive a few tests, and I believe that it can do another test in two days.”

“Hmm, were you trying to observe its innards if there are changes happening after you cut it up?”

“Partly, I was focused more on the orb-like organ placed in-between the lungs of the creatures. I had done my observations, but since you were in the island, might as well brag.”

“You’re never going to let that shit that happen in Accad go, don’t you?”

“Never, it’s one of my ‘joys’ in this world to brag about it. Still, it’s been a lot of work. Ah, that reminds me of that strange vegetable that you gave me.”

“Oh that spud?”

“Yes, I think they might try to plant it here.”

“Seriously?”

“The Elven-kin knew oft it but thought it was poisonous. I believe that they called it ‘sweet’ but this one is a different kind of what they thought. Even Mana tried to take the spuds from my mouth the moment she saw it.”

“That’s good then,” Gabrio said. “I don’t know if it can be useful though.”

“Who knows? Besides that, can we continue studying the hatchling eggs?”

Gabrio followed Ristina to the cage where they kept the eggs. After that, Gabrio spent hours observing the eggs. Then, he followed Ristina in the insides of Arkshelled Island.