I managed to sneak within jumping range of the large stag and somehow managed to remain undetected. I couldn’t tell if that was necessarily true or that the beast just had no interest in me, but from my earlier observations, I’d have to conclude it was the former.

These animals had proven to be quite aggressive. 

Not wanting to let the opportunity go to waste and after quickly warning Cellestra to hold on tight I jumped right next to it, my weapon high above me, and used the momentum of my jump, and all my strength to bring it down. The result was nothing short of astounding. With a single strike and a precise cut in the neck, I managed to cleanly sever the creature’s head from its body.

The animal collapsed and continued to bleed as I looked at the eyes of the now lifeless head which were locked in a state of shock. At least it hadn’t suffered; the way I preferred things to go.

“Ok, I’ll admit, I wasn’t planning to do that, but the opening was there and I took it.”

“That was one hell of a jump. I’m incredibly thankful for this armor though. I didn’t even have to do much in terms of holding on to remain in the… saddle?”

I grinned at her apparent inability to find the correct word. I guessed this was as close as it got anyway.

“Question,” I said as my spiderlings slowly approached. They seemed eager to get to eating, but I ordered them not to as they couldn’t get any upgrades as I was the one that killed it. I quickly apologized to them as I turned back to Cellestra to finish my question. “Can we leave it like this for a while without things going bad?”

“You mean for the meat and pelt?”

“Yes”

“It is fairly warm on this floor but the air is quite dry. Theoretically, it can remain here for quite a while before going bad and it certainly won't spoil in the time we are inside here. A few hours is definitely no problem, especially if I cool the body down.”

“Then, I suppose that’s the way to do it. We’ll hunt some Firags, bring them back here, and then get all the eating out of the way in one sitting at the end where we can skin as the spiderlings eat. Does that sound like an idea?”

“That sounds like a great idea. Let me get to work.”

She hopped off my back and did her magic on the dead Firag, lowering its temperature considerably. It wouldn’t hold forever, but we didn’t need it to.

“Alright,” I said as she finished and stood up. “Now the real question is: can I do what I did before, but instead of killing the Firag, I incapacitate it.”

“Would a hit to the head work?” She suggested.

“With the blunt part of my weapon? Perhaps. I’m honestly in a bit of a situation here as my silk is probably not going to hold as it will simply be burnt through and I’m trying not to damage the fur, either. The only other thing I can imagine is cutting off the beast’s fire-creating organ and then trying to overpower it. I suppose trying to hit it is a good place to start. Worst case scenario, I daze it, but even that’s useful.”

“I trust your assessment,” Cellestra replied. “I’m ready to go whenever you’re ready.”

I turned to look at the spiderlings who were still trying to stay as close to me as possible and nodded, spotting another Firag in the distance.

We made our way over to it, slowly, and in a wide arc so we ended up behind it, but unfortunately for us, it spotted us right before I got in range. In reaction, it immediately turned, lowered its head, and launched two balls from the tubes on its head.

I was too far away to properly block the attack and opted to jump to the side, commanding the spiderlings through some sort of mental connection to do the same. Thankfully for me, it worked, and I had two fire walls up in time to negate the small part of the flames that could have potentially hit us.

Then, the animal started a charge and in the middle of it, used the attack again.

Thanks to the now smaller distance between us, I was able to absorb the attack before it could explode. I had to quickly cancel one of the walls in order to surprise the animal with a last-second earthen wall.

It had never seen it coming.

With a terrible crash, it hit the solid piece of stone I’d placed before it. I felt my mana reserves take a hit from the impact for even if it wasn’t quite as powerful a charge as the bisons had, it was still significant and easily enough to kill even armored adventurers.

I instantly forced the wall to disappear and looked into the eyes of a confused and dazed but incredibly angry Blazing Firag. Without giving it a second thought, I raised my halberd and brought the blunt side of it down upon the creature’s head. It was insult to injury, maybe, but it did help as the creature’s rage was replaced with inability.

It was left stunned and didn’t seem to be able to attack and I wasn’t about to let it.

I jumped on its side, using my powerful legs to bring it down to the ground and restrain it. I then told my spiderlings to do their thing quickly before the Firag regained its wits.

They were quick, but it still took a while for their venom to take effect. I was afraid the animal would regain its composure several times, but somewhere during that, I’d given it another hit on the head which knocked it out cold.

This gave the spiderlings plenty of time to kill their target, which turned out to be needed as their venom was quite a lot weaker than mine, but eventually, it proved to be lethal.

“Well, that worked,” I let out with a sigh. “Let’s get this one back to the other, cool it down, and then continue the hunt.”

We did just that. After repeating the exact same sequence of actions a few times, with the exception of one time, where I was able to properly sneak up behind the animal to knock it out with my weapon, we had caught five Blazing Firags.

After the first two, they had become more scarce, but we had continued nonetheless. When we finished dragging the last of the beasts to the others, we decided that that was where we would stop for the day.

In order to best preserve the animals’ hides, I created a cut neatly in the middle of the belly and folded the hide up. It allowed the spiderlings (and myself) to eat without causing excessive damage, and as soon as I was done with my single Firag, I started properly skinning.

I was unfortunate to not get any kind of upgrade, but was eagerly looking at the others each time they went to a new corpse.

I hadn’t forgotten about the part where the meat was actually poisonous, and as I had asked my blessing before, a message did show up telling me exactly that. For me, it was completely fine. As powerful as I’d been made to believe it was, I could still completely negate it.

As for my spiderlings…

Unfortunately, their basic resistance wasn’t enough to deal with the effects of this strong poison. The good news was that I had anticipated this, and I had the perfect tool to help them out in the form of a spell called detoxication. I used it several times to remove any ill effects and aided them some more by using the healing tides spell, healing whatever damage the toxins had done. Then, during the fourth Firag, a message, or rather, two showed up.

There was a lot of text, but what was written there could be summarized in only a few words. As much as I liked seeing these kinds of messages, I did ask my blessing if it was possible to consolidate them so there wouldn’t be so much to dig through.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I’m just gonna assume that means you got some good news.”

“I did,” I said happily, smiling at Cellestra who shyly smiled back. “I most certainly did.”