Having Just caught another fish, Edward started to swim towards the ponds’ surface. He was going to boil that one in an attempt to make a good fish stew(a difficult task indeed), since the wind was blowing towards the biggest entrance to the pond area, the creek.

Roasting gives off quite a powerful scent, one that could attract big and scary predators, something Ed would rather avoid if He could help it, even at the cost of culinary experience.

Which is exactly why he tensed up the moment he saw something big and dark in a corner of his eye. Ed quickly turned his attention towards potential threat, and saw what appeared to be a pissed off gigantic otter. He let go of the fish, and faced the snarling lutrinae. He had two choices.

To remain underwater, or stick his head above the surface. Sure, the latter would give him the option of replenishing his air supply, but it would hinder is perception, as surfacing and diving again always has risks of water pushing ones’ eyelashes into their eyes. As Edward wasn’t suffering from the lack of oxygen yet, He decided to stay underwater.

This decision was quickly proven to be the correct one, as Ed got charged by the biggest muskelid He had ever seen.

……………………………

When, after arriving at her favorite hunting spot, She saw a human casually catch her fish, She was enraged. Still, it appeared to be a young, specimen, so if it started running away, she wouldn’t pursue. (She had better things to do, eating delicious silver scaled goodness for example).

Instead, the damn human brat behaved like it was in its own den, looked her square in the eyes, as if challenging her for territory, and waited.

That human was either braver than most bears, or dumber than most clams. Hmm, clams. She could go for a clam now. Wait, no. She had a challenger on hand, however weak he was. Thinking about food could come after She killed that audacious moron.

The otter charged towards her self-proclaimed opponent, and went for its neck. There is no way it could dodge her in water. She would normally be more cautious against humans, but two things that made some humans dangerous had always been numbers and amazing tools. This one had neither.

Just as She was about to take a bite out of its neck, She noticed the human jerking into motion, and slightly dodge her to his right. Not a problem, She would adjust on the next charge.

She was however too late to notice that the human had never intended to create distance.

She tried to block the thing with her clawed paw, but her opponent already closed in on the left side of her head. She saw a face with its’ fangs bare, and felt pain in her neck, behind her occiput.

She dug her claws into its’ flesh, but it was less effective than anticipated, her paws quickly losing their freedom when the human started grabbing them, and her torso lacking flexibility, as her adversary took it between its’ legs and mounted her back.

She managed to hit its’ tight with claws of her rear paws, but the human didn’t let go. That left the tactic of trashing violently until her opponent drowns or gets too tired to hold her, but before She could implement that idea…

The human squeezed, and stabbed.

The otter could feel the canines of her opponent pierce her skin and attempt to crush her cervical spine , her ribcage and stomach pressured by Its’ limbs. The air left her lungs, and She lost some control over her body. She started alternately feeling hot, cold and helpless, and there was just one thought all over her fading mind.

‘Shame I didn’t go eat that clam instead.’

………………..Ed Linden’s direct pov

Honestly, that was scary. I was fishing like a perfect gentleman, and suddenly some crazy ass otter attacked me out of nowhere! I managed to kill it, but the way I did it was weird and a bit disgusting. I mean seriously, did I just hold an animal with my teeth?

And an animal bigger than me, from the looks of it. Did it have any diseases? I hope not, I don’t wanna carry this worlds’ version of aids. I’m gonna have to brush my teeth thoroughly. On the bright side, I have some non-fish meat now.

Wait, not important.

I’m pretty sure I got wounded. Thankfully the thing didn’t manage to bite me, but I still have claw cuts in my arms and legs. I don’t feel much pain, but that’s adrenalines’ doing. I have to get out of the water to treat the wounds, or I’ll pass out and drown.

……………….

Edward grabbed his newly acquired otter carcass, and made his way towards the shore. After He got to his backpack, He took out the rest of his cloth, a needle and thread. Wary of infection, he inspected his wounds, and judged them to be hopefully not life threatening.

At least they weren’t bleeding that bad, but they would still need attention.

A campfire of suitable size once again emerged from his efforts and Ed started boiling water. Not much, just enough to disinfect his would-be medical supplies. While water was boiling, He took a small pine branch, bitten it into a brush, and started taking care of his teeth.

While cleaning, Ed noticed his canines to be a bit longer than they were on earth. He always had prominent fangs, but not to this degree. His teeth still looked like those of an omnivore, but with a hidden weapon option. It really made sense why that otter got immobilized when Ed clenched his jaws.

After that was done, He dressed his wounds, sewing skin together in some places. It hurt, but there was no one nearby, so Ed could make as much noise as he wanted.

He let out incredibly manly squeaks for a prepubescent child, but He was still glad no one was there to hear them.

Linden rested, and once he felt He can move again, He started dismantling the otter. Luckily it bled out sufficiently from the bite and stab wounds, otherwise it would be too late to cut its neck open. Meat tends to taste better without too much blood inside.

It wasn’t much different from gutting rabbits and such, but there was one significant difference in a form of a huge tail. Edward planned every cut, and took his time skinning and gutting the thing.

He begun with cutting the skin around all four legs and the neck. After that, made a cut along the entire torso, starting with the neck and ending at the anus. He then worked his knife connecting cuts made on limbs with the one along the stomach, and while cutting membrane between hide and carcass, Ed took off the entire hide except for the tail-part. After a quick thinking break, tail was skinned in a similar manner to the rest.

After skinning, it was time for gutting. It wasn’t easy to cut out the anus, freeing the rectum with such a wide knife, but Ed managed to do it regardless.

Same with everything else. He was reluctant to keep the innards for eating, since those are poisonous in some animals.

A lot of expeditions were unpleasantly surprised after eating liver of a polar bear.

Edward had no idea what kind of otter this thing was, and He wasn’t about to risk his life to get a single better meal.

In the end, He was left with a pelt and significant amount of meat and bone. The otter turned out to be a female, which impressed Ed, as He was convinced that a muskelid of such size could only be a big male of some marine otter variant. Then again, this was supposed to be another world. He was lucky It wasn’t the size of a cow.

He would need to eat as much meat as possible, and try to preserve the rest. As for the pelt, He wasn’t confident in his ability to turn it into something usable.

There are loads of internet tutorials claiming tanning to be quick and easy. They are lying. It’s not easy, and it’s anything but quick.

He cleaned the hide of remaining meat and fat, which was an obvious step, but the rest was largely experimental. Ed remembered He should prepare a pelt by rubbing it with generous amounts of salt, and then putting a fatty mixture on. That would replace moisture within the leather with fat, and protect it from going bad.

The problem was that Ed would have to spend all of his remaining salt on this single pelt. That obviously wouldn’t do. That’s why He decided to try tanning the hide without, and hope for the best.

He scrubbed the membrane off the pelt, stretched it between tree branches, and rubbed it with a mix of otter brain and fat. He then Smoked the thing over the fire until it changed colour to resemble a smoked sausage.

As for meat, Ed thought it would smell fishy, but no. It was dark red and tasty, although tough and it cooked slow, so over the course of several days, Ed roasted as much as He could eat, and cut the rest into very thin strips to dry them.

Resinous woods aren’t recommended for smoking, but He tried with pinewood anyway. The conclusion was that He could maybe eat that in an emergency.

As for bones, Ed made a pair of hairpins carved from tibias, and slowly boiled the rest into broth. He remembered He could extract cartilage in this way, and boil the water out of it.

It took way too much time, but Ed was slowly becoming someone who can watch paint dry as long as its’ color is nice. Once He was done, He got quite a bit of nutritious amber substance, a portable broth.

After days, and days of working on all those things, Ed noticed his wounds to have healed.

He was honestly quite amazed by his new regeneration speed, but He wasn’t going to start complaining about it. After all, He would be getting hurt more in the future.

Why? Because young Edward got more than meat and hide out of his battle. He got confidence. Ed killed animals before, and his rabbit pastes were quite liked among his family members.

As for fighting, He subdued rams, horses, roosters and, (of course) humans before. But He never killed in battle. Until now, that is. He was successful in his first fight to the death, and that made him feel ready.

He had to get going. Dead pine wood was almost entirely burned, edible plants started dwindling in number, and even fish didn’t swarm the pond as much as they were when He got there.

It took several more days to finish preparations. Ed wanted to protect his gear from getting wet, so he waterproofed the tinderbox with pine resin, and built a raft.

It was an ugly thing, but it would do, as its’ purpose was not carrying Ed, but only his backpack.

In the end, backpacks’ contents didn’t change much.

Tinderbox, pot, cup, remaining cord, salt, thread and cloth (Ed washed the bloodied fabric instead of throwing it away) adult sized clothing, needle, metal bottle, a spare hairpin, a bedroll, dried food, (both what He made himself and what was given to him), whetstone Ed found at the ponds’ bottom and a gigantic otter pelt.

As for things Linden carried on his own body, there was a knife, leather belt wrapped twice around his hips, self-made pants, and a long, sharp hairpin carved from bone.

Judging himself well prepared, Edward Linden bowed towards places He was leaving behind, thanked for everything, grabbed the raft his backpack lied on, and started swimming downstream.