The acrid smell of necrosis permeated the clearing, forcing Lloyd to keep walking away from the corpse and sit around to avoid retching. Despite this, Lloyd was able to slowly dig into the walls of the lizard’s mouth, prying out the bony plate bit by bit.

  He had to cleave through thick sinewy tendons, and veins full of acidic mucus, leaving him coated in a vile mix of blood and slime. He had resorted to plugging his nose with mana to avoid the smell, but it somehow still got through.

  After an hour of work in grotesque conditions, Lloyd finally had reprieve from his torture when the final tendon snapped, letting light flood into the lizard’s maw. Lloyd stumbled into the plaza gasping for air, finally getting some fresh air to breath instead of the putrid miasma he’d been dealing with since he killed the lizard.

  Unfortunately, his work wasn’t done just yet, and he still had to clean the gore and blood from the bones before he could utilise it. He started scraping away at the bone until all of the tissue and sinew was gone, and the coating of leathery skin had been removed. Leaving him with a solid slab of hard, bloodstained bone, perfect for reinforcing armour.

  Once it was cleaned and polished, Lloyd put it into his spatial ring before sighing, knowing that the worst was yet to come. He had gathered all the materials needed to make the armour itself, but the process for preparing the leather needed two more things. Bones, and the heart.

  Without these important additions, Lloyd wouldn’t be able to treat the lizard hide to bring out its full potential. Treated, this hide would be the best armour he had made so far. Untreated, it would only be as good as, if not worse than what he was already wearing, not a good outcome from material that was so superior.

  Naturally these incredibly important materials would also be located in extremely secluded areas of the slowly decaying lizard corpse. At least the heart was, anyway, the bone wouldn’t be as bad, since he had already exposed a lot when blocking the lizard’s finishing move.

  Lloyd got up and walked over to the tail of the beast while trying to think of the best way to extract the heart. From what he could remember from Mr Reed’s biology class, a lizard’s heart would rest below its throat, in between its front legs, so he at least had an idea of where to look.

  An amused grunt escaped from his lips when he realised that this was the first time he’d used anything he learnt from that class, but reinvested his attention in cutting out a bone from the lizard’s tail, trying to avoid the difficult topic of his class.

  While Lloyd and Mr Reed didn’t get along well, the rest of his class was another matter entirely. That class contained several of Lloyd’s closest friends, who shared his interest in prehistory, but most of them would be less than capable of surviving their harsh new reality.

  Another point for anxiety was the fact that Lloyd didn’t know what kind of situation they were in. Lloyd had been stingy and naive, going out camping the day before their trip so that he could try to cross the bay himself in an effort to save some money, and to be fair, he did make it. Just at a very unfortunate time.

  His landing had been a rocky one, and the sudden and inexplicable integration of the system had put him in a less than desirable position. If it had happened just an hour later, or Lloyd had slept in for a bit longer, then it was more than likely that he would have been within the ten kilometres needed to enter a tutorial with them.

  Alas, that didn’t happen, Lloyd had been stranded by himself, with his classmates probably not faring much better, since the only place nearby was the business they were hiring the ferry from. Hopefully this wasn’t the case, and they had been close enough to a town to get at least a few hundred people in their tutorial.

  A sudden jolt ran up his arm, pulling him out of his thoughts, he had hit the bone. The sharp blade of his cleaver had no problem carving away the flesh of its tail, large chunks fell to the ground but unfortunately after the fight they were in no condition for him to eat anymore. The meat was covered in coagulated blood and most of it exhibited signs of third to fourth degree burns, others however seemed to have different opinions.

  A small miscus creeped around the body of the lizard, looking with great desire at the burnt lizard meat but holding itself back trying to gauge whether Lloyd wanted it or not. Lloyd didn’t act immediately, in the distance he could see a flustered looking older miscus searching for something which he assumed was the child in front of him.

  This wasn’t the only reason though, he felt like there was something familiar about this miscus. Wait a minute, oh shit… this was the child that Lloyd had so kindly punched in the face when first entering the village to try and hide his tracks, starting the series of events that lead to him fighting the lizard.

  Lloyd might have resented it for getting him caught, but in the end, Lloyd had punched a child in the face. To make it worse there was still bruising across its cheeks from when he attacked it, there was no way he could refuse to give it some food.

  Feeling very awkward about what he had done, Lloyd happily threw over the slabs of meat. The miscus looked very thankful, grabbing what it could and calling out over its shoulder. From behind the body of the lizard a small entourage of miscus children emerged, picking up the meat and running off into the village.

  Lloyd scratched his head, surprised so many clumsy miscus children had managed to sneak up on him so easily, not that he minded. For once Lloyd actually felt happy, it was a good feeling seeing the children run back to their homes to show their parents what they had found.

  “Perhaps I’m not as vigilant as I thought.” Lloyd said watching the children try to evade the adult he had seen looking for them earlier. Feeling uplifted, Lloyd got back to work, cleaving the flesh off the bone and throwing it to the side in case anymore miscus children wanted some.

  After a drawn-out struggle, Lloyd managed to remove a decent sized bone from the lizard’s tail, just leaving him with the heart left to collect. The position the lizard’s corpse had settled in had made a much more awkward process to extract the heart than he would have hoped.

  In an ideal scenario Lloyd would have been able to make an incision in the lizard’s chest and remove the heart that way, but with the lizard’s whole stomach flat to the floor, that wasn’t an option.

  As much as he disliked the idea, the heart was too important to the process to leave behind, and there was only one way to get to it. He had to go through the throat.

  The quickest and easiest way to get to the heart besides the chest, was to go into the lizard’s oesophagus and go down landing him on top of the heart. This method just had the caveat of him having to spend extensive amounts of time in the necrosis ridden innards of the lizard.

  Unfortunately, this was the only feasible way, as Lloyd had no means to flip the lizard on its back, and he had a feeling the chief wasn’t in any condition to help either. It was already gracious enough to let him stay.

  Steeling his heart, and covering him mouth, Lloyd stepped through the gaping maw of the lizard, and onto the soft, blood-soaked tissue within. The dark, fleshy tunnel was lit only by the scarce light creeping through the beasts mutilated mouth, giving Lloyd very little insight into what he was doing, but he continued nonetheless.

  Lloyd gagged at the patches of flesh that had begun to decompose prematurely thanks to its failed acid attack. Without any pulse to speak of, and too little time for guesswork Lloyd had to find the heart based off of memory alone.

  From what little he could remember about lizard anatomy the heart was generally in the chest cavity below the oesophagus and in front of the lungs, so if he could find where the throat diverted off into the lungs, he could find the heart.

  As luck would have it, Lloyd soon found two tubes deviating off from the tunnel he was following, both of which appeared to lead into large empty chambers that had blood pooling at the bottom. With a point of reference discovered, Lloyd pushed his blade down into the floor of the tunnel, looking for an artery but finding nothing.

  He had to dig deeper.

  The massive size of the titan’s body made it hard to accurately guess how far he would have to dig to reach the heart, but he assumed it couldn’t be much more than a meter.

  He was wrong.

  Sweat dripped down Lloyd’s forehead as he tried to avoid breathing in the foul smell, he was standing in the bottom of a grisly two-meter-deep hole carved into the lizard’s throat. The lizard’s heart was located much closer to the belly than would be normal for something of its species.

  This was likely because of how dense the hide on its stomach was, as well as the mysterious sack full of acrid green liquid hanging above his head. The acid it was able to spit at its enemies had forced it to relocate its heart into a different place, making Lloyd slightly off target.

  Lloyd had realised he was in the wrong place when he ran into an artery in a peculiar location. After figuring out where he was, Lloyd was quickly able to locate the heart, he just had to figure out how to remove it.

  Cutting away at the rancid tissue surrounding the heart, Lloyd realised it was far too big to simply cut off and grab, as it was larger than he was. If Lloyd was going to take it, he would need to do so in a container, and luckily, he had just the thing.

  The barrels set up for shooting at in the guildhalls built in archery range were very large, resembling massive wine barrels stored in cellars. By his estimates, the barrels would be just big enough for the heart to slide into, making a good place to store it until he utilised it in crafting.

  Lloyd positioned the barrel in a hollowed-out cavity below the precariously dangling heart, careful not to let the organ burst. All that was left supporting the heart were the coronary arteries and a patch of tissue attached to the roof of the chamber.

  As these last remaining supports were severed, the heart was tentatively lowered into the barrel, with Lloyd making sure it didn’t break.

  Glad that this gruesome ordeal was finally over, Lloyd jumped down next to the barrel and strained himself as he lifted the massive container. When he managed to get a good grip, the system accepted that he was holding it and allowed him to banish it to his spatial ring until further notice.

  Making his way back out into the light, Lloyd took a deep breath glad to be out of the gruesome chambers withing the lizard. This gladness was not long lived however, as even the air in the plaza had been filled with decay by the corpse of the lizard.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  In the hours he had spent in the lizard’s gullet, digging down towards the heart, it appeared the miscus had also been hard at work with the clean up effort. Small groups were moving in organised paths as they disassembled and disposed of the carcass’ of the lizard and its smaller brethren.

  The lizard’s hulking frame had reduced significantly, with its legs being removed, and large portions of its torso cut away. Lloyd guessed that in only a day there would be no trace of the lizard left, its only mark being in people’s memories.

  Lloyd turned away from the corpse, examining the miscus around the village. Most were busy in the disposal of the bodies, while others were preoccupied with rebuilding lost infrastructure, taking advantage of the daylight.

  The sun was high in the sky, shining down uncomfortably hot beams of light upon the forest, likely the reason the lizard was decaying so fast. While the light was not the most pleasant to be standing under, it was a nice thing to have, as the only thing worse than seeing a horrific monster charging at you, is not seeing it charging at you. This was why he stayed inside at night.

  Lloyds false leg clacked on the branches as he waved goodbye to the village, he had no reason to remain here, and he didn’t want to overstay his welcome. The settlement was soon swallowed by the forest, its busy clamour swallowed by the calls of beasts throughout the trees.

  Lloyd nimbly clambered down the trunks of the trees, unhindered by his missing leg as he reached for the ground. Withing minutes, Lloyd was back in the cool, damp air of the forest floor, happy to be back on the ground after so long in the trees.

  Eager to get back on the road, Lloyd began trekking downhill towards the centre of the island in hopes of finding some water to wash the blood from his clothes. After a long walk, Lloyd’s patience was rewarded, in front of him was a sprawling marshland, in the middle of the forest.

  Titanic trees sprouted from the water, their bulbous roots thick with lichen and moss, while strange, lanky waterbirds prowled the reedbeds looking for food. Lloyd carefully stepped into the cool, murky water making sure not to get the attention of the many creatures surrounding him.

  As he scrubbed the blood and mucus from his clothes, Lloyd couldn’t help but stare at the creatures all around him. Even after the world had changed so much, so suddenly, the ecosystem had already adapted to its new reality. If not for the birds stalking the water being twelve-feet-tall then he might have thought nothing had changed at all.

  Sufficiently happy with how clean his armour was, Lloyd stood up ready to continue on his journey until he felt a strange object brush against his calve. It was long and thick like a snake, but slimy and moist like a frog, and the way it had ran into him had not felt accidental.

  Wary of what was lurking in the cloudy waters of the swamp, Lloyd summoned his halberd and started backing towards the shoreline. Lloyds eyes were locked onto the surface of the water, darting across to any ripple that he couldn’t explain.

  It felt like forever as he slowly exited the water, clearly having gone far further out than he had initially thought. Lloyd’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted when he was thrown face first into the water by an attack from behind him.

  The slimy beast from before wrapped itself around his legs, holding him below the water. Lloyd writhed, trying to get out of its grip until the beast finally let go, allowing Lloyd to push his head back out of the water, gasping for air.

  Lloyd spun around in circles, looking for the beast that had attacked him and noting that it had dragged him further from the shore. Suddenly the slimy beast slid past his leg again, he slammed down his halberd, hitting the creature but drawing no blood as he had only managed to strike it with the flat of the blade.

  Trying to catch it off guard, Lloyd slashed forward, his false leg slamming down and catching something by accident. He was about to dismiss it as a water plant or a fallen log, but before he could reposition it started moving.

  Lloyd was thrown off balance, his leg pulled out from under him as the beast tried to get away. Realising that he must have impaled the creature’s tail with his sword-like false leg, Lloyd reacted quickly, stabbing down at the water with his halberd, trying to finish it off.

  This time, he found purchase, his blade sinking into soft flesh as the beast writhed in pain, a second stab and the movement stopped. Lloyd sent Thunder Bone back into his spatial ring and bent down to inspect what he had found.

  Feeling around in the water, Lloyd’s arms wrapped around a slippery body about eight inches thick. Detaching it from his false leg, Lloyd pulled it into the air and examined what he had been ambushed by, and honestly, Lloyd should have figured out what it was sooner.

  You have slain a Razor-fin eel -lvl 4

  Experience gained, + 20 credits

  Of course it was an eel, what else was long slimy and lived in rivers? It wasn’t like it would be an octopus. After examining the kill message, Lloyd’s main takeaway was the level, it had been big, but weak, only toppling him over because his balance was poor in the muddy water of the swamp.

  Had it been a higher level, Lloyd might have had something to worry about, but when he was over triple its level it couldn’t really pose much of a threat. Lloyd thought it had probably tasted the blood in the water, hoping to find something that was injured and sickly that it could hunt, it was just unlucky enough to encounter him.

  Lloyd was about to throw the eels body away, as it was too weak to make armour from, but reconsidered as he had no food reserves, and was rather hungry after fighting the lizard earlier.

  With the sun beginning to get lower, Lloyd decided to find some shelter for the night. Wanting to keep exploring the island in the morning, Lloyd decided to try and cross the swamp, though not by swimming.

  With how easily the eel had toppled him while being so weak, Lloyd didn’t want to fight an equal levelled foe while out of his element. Lloyd’s solution to this problem was to stay above the water, he planned to do this by climbing across the branches and roots of the swamp trees.

  Clambering up the side of a tree, Lloyd grabbed hold of a thin branch a few metres above the water. The true canopy of these trees was very close together, and unlike the main forest, Lloyd was unable to fit between the branches, meaning he had to swing across the branches like they were monkey bars.

  Lloyd was accompanied on his climb by small groups of wiry, spider-like creatures. They used hooked feet on the ends of long spindly legs to swing themselves forward with practiced ease, much better than Lloyd could manage.

  While Lloyd had no issue with supporting his body, he still had to be careful with which branches he grabbed, as one wrong move would drop him straight into the predator infested water down below.

  The lighter creatures better adapted for this environment had no such issues with this, with even the thinnest branches being able to support their weight. What these creatures did have to do however, was stick to the shadows, the nimble spider beasts were hunting fist sized fireflies, grabbing them with their hooked legs and consuming them before they could try to escape.

  Grabbing the fireflies, while easy, was not as safe as it looked, as down in the water man-sized fish were lying in wait. The fish sat perfectly still, watching the flies and whenever one was grabbed, they would shoot water at it like an archer fish, and they were accurate. While many of the spiders were able to snatch a meal, a lot of the smaller ones would end up failing and becoming a meal themselves.

  Even the giant fish were not entirely safe, as the giraffe sized herons stalking the waters were happy to snatch one up. It truly was an eat or be eaten world, and it was a lot scarier when even the creatures at the bottom of the food chain were capable of taking down a pre-system human one way or another.

  Lloyd continued to swing his way across the vast swamplands, engrossing himself in the ecology of the marsh that seemed to go on forever. Before he knew it, night was beginning to set in, the fish started to swimming into reedbeds and roots, while the spiders nestled into the branches in small groups.

  Even the massive predatory birds took flight, removing themselves from the swamp and roosting in trees far above the water. The swamp suddenly becoming so quiet was very eerie, as if the creatures were hiding from something. And quite frankly, he had no desire to find out what it was they were hiding from.

  Lloyd made his way over to the nearest tree with a hollow in it, and made his way inside. The hollow was very secure with near no space for light to get through bar the entrance, which Lloyd quickly closed up with a sheet of lizard skin.

  With his residence secured for the night, Lloyd was comfortable lighting a fire to illuminate the chamber. The trees innards had eroded downward significantly, to the point that several large rocks from the riverbed were poking through the bottom, giving him a safe place to start a fire.

  Underneath a particularly flat one of these rocks, Lloyd lit a small fire using electrify, flooding the tree with light. Feeling hungry after swinging across the branches like a spider monkey all day, Lloyd set about preparing a meal.

  After being locked in the guildhall for a month where all he could eat was unseasoned, grilled meat, Lloyd was aching for a decent meal. After a bit of thought, Lloyd decided on a simple yet hearty dish he could prepare with his limited resources.

  Only having a vague idea of what to do from when his grandfather had shown him how, Lloyd did his best to start smoking the eel he had caught when first entering the swamp. While the eel was cooking, Lloyd cut up and fried some mushrooms he recognised as saffron milk caps as well as one of the glowing bugs he had grabbed while travelling.

  Hopefully, these bugs wouldn’t taste like normal fireflies, as when he had accidentally eaten one as a child, he had nearly thrown up at the repulsive taste. Despite his prejudice against the beetles, Lloyd cooked it anyway, as he was curious what it would taste like.

  To finish it all off, Lloyd decided to fry one of several eggs he had stolen out of a nest he assumed had belonged to one of the herons, though its soft, rubbery shell was making him reconsider his guess.

  Paying closer attention to it than he did before, Lloyd realised it likely belonged to some sort of reptile. Nevertheless, Lloyd tore it open and poured it onto the stone he was using as a hot plate, watching as it sizzled and solidified into an orange blob.

  Once all of the food was ready, Lloyd dug in, eager to try something new after so long of eating crappy grilled meat. Lloyd was immediately met with a pleasant surprise, the eggs and mushrooms were still very similar to how they would normally be, but their flavour was deeper, and more pronounced.

  While the unnamed reptile egg was different to a regular chicken egg, it was not a bad thing. It carried a unique taste that paired well with the nutty flavour of the mushrooms, which Lloyd happily scarfed down despite not usually being a big fan of mushrooms.

  The fireflies –which he had subconsciously avoided on account of prior experiences– were not at all that bad, in fact, he kind of liked them. The large abdomen’s texture was not at all like he’d expected, being soft and tender, instead of crunchy like he would have guessed.

  Then there was the flavour, unlike the hostile bitterness of a regular firefly, these bugs were soft and buttery, but they also packed a lot of heat withing them reminding him of wasabi. This was a unique flavour he had not encountered before, and he was quite fascinated by it, even frying two more he had been planning to save for another time.

  Finally, there was the main course, the massive smoked eel he had encountered by accident. While it was the main portion of the meal, it was also the part Lloyd was the least excited about, as it was still just cooked meat, and also one he was very familiar with.

  As expected, it tasted just like a normal eel, maybe a little bit nicer than normal, but still eel. He might not be a massive fan of it, but he was hungry, and there was no reason to waste perfectly good food, so he tucked in.

  While he was enjoying his meal, Lloyd sent his attention elsewhere, as he had forgotten to do something after getting distracted by the valuable lizard carcass, and his desire to keep moving. He still had skill selection to go through.

  [Bolt swarm (Common)] – quality over quantity they say, or at least they do until faced with an endless swarm of mana bolts. Multiply the amount of mana bolts you summon at the cost of their structural integrity. Your bolts will be far more numerous, but they will decay faster and have lesser piercing capabilities. Quantity is just as effective as quality.

  [Ambient infusion (Common)] – release a field of energy in a one-meter radius around you, charging any weapon within with electric energy. Just coming near you becomes risky, your mere presence emanating lightning-filled danger.

  [Plasma mines (Common)] – summon energy dense charges in the air that linger behind you, waiting for something to collide with them. Once an enemy runs into a plasma charge, the dense energy within will erupt outwards in deadly explosion of lightning.

  [Light bolts (Common)] – launch lighting fast mana bolts into your targets before they even have a chance to react, landing deadly surprise attacks before they can muster a defence. Greatly improve the speed of your mana bolts while sacrificing some of their power and durability, better suited for skirmishes and surprise attacks than prolonged fighting.

  [Heavy bolts (Common)] – strike your enemy with powerful projectiles, devastating their ranks and breaking them down. Gain a boon to the durability and power of your mana bolts, while sacrificing some of their speed and manoeuvrability, best suited for aggressive offensives.

  Lloyd was pleasantly surprised by the quality of his latest skill choices, not to say all of them were amazing, but most of them did seem to show decent potential. He looked for any skills significantly better than the others, but Lloyd was unable to find any major outliers.

  This was going to be a hard choice.