Alex’s glee was quickly cut by his hunger. The last thing he had eaten was at that inn, and he doubted his stomach contents carried over to a new body. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go without eating.

Alex usually just went to a market and bought some food, but that was out of the picture. He had no money, and he couldn’t communicate with the vendor. And that’s even if he found a way into a town without getting killed. If not that, he would have bow hunted a wild animal. That was also not an option. Even if he had a bow, he wouldn’t be strong enough to pull back the string. Right after that thought, Alex picked up a new scent. He wasn’t sure what it was. He looked to where it came from and saw a rabbit. It had dark brown fur and was almost Alex’s size.

Alex’s mouth started watering. That rabbit is the first edible thing he’d seen all day. The rabbit stood up to look around, its head swiveling back and forth, looking for danger. It didn’t notice him and took a few short hops. As it moved, Alex noticed it had a limp. This rabbit was injured, making it much easier for him to catch.

Alex slowly crawled towards his new prey, careful not to make a noise. He had to avoid any dead leaves or twigs and stay behind enough cover to obscure the rabbit’s view. Once he finally got close enough to the rabbit, he pounced and clamped himself to its back leg with his jaws.

The rabbit immediately started kicking with all its might free itself. Alex could taste the metallic flavor of blood pouring into his mouth. It tasted better than he could ever imagine. He reached over to its throat to slice it with his claws when the rabbit dug its teeth deep into his hand.

Alex yelped and sliced at the rabbit with his other hand, the rabbit let go, and continued kicking. Alex dug into the rabbit’s body with his claws, unclamped from its leg, and bit down as hard as he could in its neck.

It only took a few more moments for it to die.

It was a bittersweet victory for Alex. On one hand, he now had food. On the other hand, he was barely able to kill an injured rabbit. Not only that, but it had also managed to hurt him pretty bad. Rabbit teeth weren’t that long, but his limbs weren’t very thick either. The bite had gone almost halfway through his hand, and it was bleeding pretty severely. This was really bad. He had absolutely no first aid equipment or even any water to wash the would. Plus, it hurt like hell. He searched around for anything he could use to apply compression to the wound, but all he could find were filthy leaves.

Then Alex noticed something strange. He had the sudden urge to lick his wound. With no other options, he followed his instinct. He began licking the cut, and within a few moments, it stopped bleeding. After about five minutes, the wound closed up. It was nowhere near fully healed, but it was enough for him to walk on it without causing too much pain. He still needed to be careful, though, as the wound could easily reopen.

Alex was pretty thrilled with this discovery. His healing saliva would be useful in the future. His mind began racing with its possible applications for alchemy. Maybe he could distill out the chemical that caused it, or use it to mix with another potion to create a regenerative effect, or maybe he could finally invent the famed healing potion and get rich! The possibilities were endless!

That is if Alex stayed in this body. It was too bad he would need to give up that monumental discovery to get his life back. Not only that, but he would also need to give up flying permanently. He heard of some wizards using magic to lift themselves, but he was never good at that kind of thing, and those spells were very advanced.

And then Alex realized something. He was bleeding. Monsters can’t bleed. He wasn’t sure how important this was, but it comforted him to know he was still an animal, if not human.

After his excitement died down, Alex remembered why he got into this fight in the first place. Now he had a dead rabbit. He didn’t really think this far ahead. He had no equipment to clean or cook the rabbit, and even though his tastes were a little altered, eating it raw wasn’t the most appetizing idea. Without a knife to skin and clean the creature, he resorted to using his claws. They were plenty sharp enough, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Alex started preparing his food. He had learned how to skin and clean an animal carcass during an elective hunting and trapping class at the academy. He had always thought it should be a standard class in the adventurer course. There were many animals and monsters across the country with valuable body parts that many adventurers just left behind to rot away. The thought of just leaving so much profit behind disgusted him, so it was clearly the right choice to take the class.

After peeling the rabbit clean, he gutted it. Before, he would’ve found the guts disgusting, but now, they made him drool like crazy. He leaned in to take a bite. He could almost taste them. They looked so warm and juicy, and he was so hungry...

Alex had to slap himself to snap out of it.

What was he thinking? Raw guts were just laying out on the ground, and he instantly tries to take a bite? They were covered in dirt, uncooked, and completely unseasoned! If his alchemy professor saw him do that, he would’ve killed him on the spot!

Alex had been letting the instincts built into this body run rampant. He needed a little discipline, or he might just fully become an animal.

After he finished cleaning the rabbit, Alex decided the best way to cook it was to spit-roast it. Without a pot, pan, plate, or utensils, food on a skewer was the best option. It was going to be rough without any salt or spices. He found his claws were very good at digging a small pit for the fire. He gathered some branches and kindling and placed them into the pit, then found a stick long enough to puncture through the rabbit. He scraped off the bark, sharpened one edge into a point, and skewered it through the rabbit. Then, he tried to make stands to put the skewer on. At first, he tried tying some sticks together to hold it up, but making knots with just grass and sharp claws did nothing but frustrate him. He ended up just stacking random items on the ground next to the fire to hold up the skewer. Finally, he used his ignition spell to light the fire.

And nothing happened.

Damn it! After all that work, and he couldn’t even start the stupid fire! Why did this all have to happen to him? He went out and saved an entire town from certain doom, and what does he get? His life gets torn out from right under him! Alex yelled out in rage, and all that comes out is a puny sounding cry.

And a few crackles of electricity.

Wow. Alex did not expect that. He’d heard of dragons breathing fire, but lightning? If only he’d known about that while he was fighting that rabbit, or escaping those goblins. Then those fights would’ve been so much easier! Right now, he was just glad he had a chance to light the fire.

Alex stuck his face right up to the kindling and yelled as loud as he could. Not a single spark appeared.

Ok, it must not be the yelling part that causes the lightning. That would make sense, as silencing curses prevented any verbal spells from being cast. The magical breath of dragons must be linked to something else. Magic wasn’t all about chanting words and drawing special patterns; there was something else required, something from inside the user. He tried to recreate the feeling he had when he first shot lightning, took a deep breath, and blew.

A few sparks fired out and started the kindling. Shortly, the tinder caught, and then the rest of the fuel. Alex could smell the cooking meat. Its scent was heavenly, and it was much stronger than anything he had smelled before. It took all of his willpower to wait for it to finish cooking before he took it off the fire. In his eagerness, he knocked the skewer off the flimsy stand, and it fell right into the fire.

In a panic, Alex quickly reached into the fire to retrieve his meal. Alex immediately realized his mistake. In most cases, sticking your hands directly into the fire was a bad idea, and would cause serious injury. But for him, nothing happened. It actually felt kind of nice. He pulled the rabbit out of the fire as fast as he could. It wasn’t too bad. It was a little burned on the bottom from its fall, but other than that, it looked delicious.

Alex opened his jaws and took a bite. It tasted like what he expected. Gamey and a little tough, without much nuanced flavor. The lack of seasoning certainly didn’t help on that front. The plain meat flavor was more than enough to satisfy him. Dragons must be hard-wired to love the taste of meat, cause this should’ve been dreadfully bland. Instead, he tasted a fantastic flavor. The meat was impossibly rich and juicy, and his sharp teeth were meant for tearing into flesh, making every bite perfectly tender.

After eating only a fifth of the rabbit, Alex couldn’t take another bite. Curse this body, and it’s tiny stomach! He tried to carry his meal with him, but it was much too heavy, and it would need to be left behind. He nearly cried. After all that time being so hungry, he had so much food, and all of it would be going to waste. Alex knew he couldn’t stay forever, and waiting there with the food would just be wasting his time. He continued heading towards the camp he saw. It wouldn’t be long before he reached it.

After a few minutes of walking, Alex smelled something unfamiliar. He stuck up his snout and looked around. The smell was coming from his left. Right when he turned to face it, an arrow flew towards him. It scraped his back, deflected by his scutes. It was very close to going directly through his wings. Whoever it was that started that campfire found him first!

Alex immediately leaped in the opposite direction, flapping his wings to gain some height. He did nothing but stall in the air for a moment just long enough to be batted out of the air by a mace. He heard a loud crack and felt sharp pains shoot across his chest. He was flung a good 10 feet and skidded across the ground. Another arrow flew by, just missing him. There was no way he could just run away anymore. He saw the two adventurers leave their hiding places in the bushes. He didn’t recognize either of them; they must’ve graduated before him. They looked to be in their late 20s.

Alex was just glad that the adventurers were low ranked. With such a heavy weapon, the one with the mace should’ve been able to take him out with one swing. And the one with the bow’s aim was just terrible. They barely grazed him, even when he was just slowly walking through the forest, and from such a short range. If these adventurers had a modicum of talent or skill, he would’ve been dead before he knew they were even there.

Alex’s safest bet was to climb a tree and hope neither could follow. He rushed as fast as he could to the nearest tree and began climbing. Every step he took shot a spike of pain throughout his chest. The archer shot a few more arrows at him. One landed right above him. Another almost pinned his tail to the tree, but he swung it out of the way just in time.

THUNK

An arrow hit him right in the head. More precisely, it lodged itself into the back of one of his lower horns. The momentum of the arrow flung him up away from the tree, and he slammed into a branch. He tried to grab onto it, but his claws didn’t dig in enough. He oped his wings to help himself glide down, but he only succeeded in creating some distance between him and the adventurers. He plummeted over 50 feet into the ground, landing a short shrub.

Alex’s vision went blurry. He could tell the adventurers were looking for him, but when he tried lifting his head to spot them, it hurt so badly he gave up. The shrub hid him from the adventurers, and he could hear them yelling at each other.

“Come on, it’s gotta be dead. There’s no way it survived. I hit it right in the head!” One said.

“It should’ve been crushed by my mace hit, too. I just want to make sure we killed it for good. The last thing we want is one of those beasts roaming near the town. Especially one that remembers we tried to kill it.” The other yelled.

“Fine, whatever. This isn’t even what we’re out here for” the first one grumbled.

Alex’s final thoughts before drifting into unconsciousness were how stupid that one was for not wanting to find him. Dragon parts are very valuable.