Gaius placed another gemstone into his cloak. It was padded with the same material that lined the inwards of the pockets of his Harvester attire, so Gaius figured that the inwards of his cloak would serve the same function. It was getting rather heavy, however. The gemstones were lighter than the ones he was used to, but even then, stuffing sixty-odd stones into his cloak and tunic would require some acclimatisation before he could move as agilely as before.

Nine blue cores were stuffed into his tunic.

The tenth…well, when Gaius picked that particular core from the floor, it turned into a mist that entered his palm. It was the only core that behaved that way, and even now, he could still feel it in his system, chilling around as it coursed through his blood vessels. It didn’t seem to be anything dangerous, but the fact of the matter was that there was something foreign inside him now.

It didn’t really feel good, but Gaius didn’t have a choice in this either. He picked up the last gemstone and stood up. He’d spent hours luring those monsters one by one, to pick them off without running the risk of being overwhelmed. Taking a sip from his water pouch, he got up and started walking.

The wind continued to howl without end as Gaius made his way through a particularly steep hill. His arms moved methodically, pulling himself up using the ice picks step by step. It was backbreaking work, and the young boy had occasionally wondered about his thought process when he decided on climbing the rather steep hill in front of him, but as it turned out, his instincts were right.

When air warped, it indicated the presence of many gemstones in a small area, but the inverse wasn’t necessarily wrong. A breathtaking sight entered his vision as Gaius pulled himself up onto the hill.

The hilltop was dotted with a field of gemstones, and Gaius got down to work immediately, plucking them out like one would do with turnips. There were all kinds of gems scattered there — emeralds, rubies, sapphires, even some gemstones whose names he wasn’t confident about. It was fortunate that he had listened to the other Harvesters and brought a bag along, because all his pockets had been filled, and his lecturer’s cloak couldn’t take in any more gems.

If he had been on Earth right now, Gaius would probably be set for life. By the time he was done, Gaius’ body was laden with hundreds of gems, each of them worth a good amount at any decent jewellers.

A chill ran up his spine as Gaius stood up for the first time in a few hours, and he instinctively threw himself to the side. A blade of ice sliced through the space he was occupying just a moment ago, sending snow flying into the air where it hit.

Gaius turned to regard the new assailant. If one went by the figure alone, it looked very much like a human, complete with limbs, head and the male reproductive organ dangling between its legs proudly. The only thing that made it different was the balls of icy fire it had burning in the holes where eyeballs should be.

The sound of ice scraping on ice rang out as the assailant opened its mouth, but Gaius didn’t need to know what it just said to know its intent. The icy flames burning in its head was enough of a giveaway — it was a snowpyre, one of the many beings that walked the surface of Heritage. They were one of the most numerous lifeforms in Heritage, but that didn't make them any lesser of a threat than the others.

Gaius unsheathed a knife with his right hand, keeping his left hand by his side. So long as the target had a corporeal form, freeing up the other hand always permitted the possibility of a grab.

And, well, there were other things a free hand could do.

Gaius brought his left hand up, and fired the wrist-mounted crossbow on it. There was a muffled phut as the dart smashed into the snowpyre’s face, and taking advantage of its imbalance, Gaius vanished from the monster’s line of sight, reappearing behind it and striking at its exposed back twice.

As the monster staggered forward, Gaius’ right leg swept out, and tripped the snowpyre over. Without any hesitation, his right knife plunged into the exposed throat of the fallen monster, oscillating as it tore through skin and flesh.

The monster was dead before his knife severed its entire neck. Did it count as the first human that Gaius had killed ever since he woke up in Orb? That question appeared in Gaius’ mind, which he promptly discarded a second later. It would be an insult to the human race if he likened a snowpyre to them.

At least humans would probably put up a better fight. Gaius, using the tip of his right foot, tipped the dead snowpyre over, revealing a set of hollow eye sockets. The flame in them had extinguished, it seemed, when the snowpyre died. Flourishing his knife, Gaius cut the snowpyre open.

Stomach, check. Liver, hearts, lungs, kidneys, intestines…all check. Huh, what’s this? Gaius raised his eyebrow. Around him were the innards of the monster corpse, but he had removed everything he knew, leaving onto two blue orbs. They looked like the small balls that the energy monsters Gaius faced earlier had inside them, but unlike those monsters, the snowpyre clearly wasn’t dependent on these cores to live.

Other than these cores, however, the snowpyre had the same organs as the humans that Gaius knew back on Earth. Of course, he hadn’t had the chance to dissect the living beings of Orb, but he was quite sure there the vital spots and organs were still the same. Still, Gaius made a mental note to file the dissection of Orb’s native living things under his secondary priorities. It wouldn’t be funny if he struck at where a heart should be, only to learn that the heart was actually in somewhere like the stomach.

Killing was a science, after all. Now that he had confirmed that snowpyres had the same weak spots as humans did, Gaius wouldn’t need to be so cautious the next time he met one of them. Especially since snowpyres hunted in packs.

Gaius tilted his head.

Yes. Snowpyres supposedly hunted in packs. Which meant that the snowpyre laid out around him was perhaps a vanguard. Caution flashed through Gaius’ eyes. Keeping his body low, Gaius crawled to the edges of the hilltop, and an unbelievable sight filled his eyes.

Tens of snowpyres were climbing up the steep slope leading to the hilltop, while hundreds more were sitting around the foot of the hill.

It didn’t seem that they were going to leave anytime soon, either. Gaius checked his equipment once more, and then readied himself to ambush the newcomers.