Hunting for bigger game.

One Monster Race Upgrade Remaining

My girls would be fine for a few days.

I turned from my course towards the cabin and let myself wander. It was not long after dark, and many animals were active.

With the few minutes of stealth that I had left, it was easy to take down a deer and her yearling fawn. I made them my dinner, devouring them raw. It was a bit of an adjustment, but it suited my new form just fine. I was a predator. I would hunt for my food.

Appetite sated, I continued. I knew I could wander for days and not encounter civilization if I chose the wrong direction, so I used my senses to guide me towards a settlement. Along the way, I stopped to find various things I could use to concoct a poison or venom. I didn't find everything I might need, but I found some very useful things.

I arrived at a village. It was very small by human standards, but to me all alone, for what I was thinking, it was huge.

There were a few rows of similar farmhouse-style dwellings, loosely spaced on either side of a main road that split the settlement in half. There was a large inn that doubled as a tavern near the center of the town and a stone building standing alone at one end that looked like a church. A secondary street contained a number of small shops and workshops. Scattered around in the distance were a number of farmhouses.

It was a lovely little community of perhaps fifty people.

I couldn't wait to devour it, but I knew I needed to rest a bit. My mana was quite low, and most of the houses still had lights burning.

I settled down into some bushes a hundred yards from the edge of town and rested without sleeping. The day had been a long one, but I wasn't as tired as I thought I should have been. I became curious about the limitations of my stamina and endurance.

My mana counted back up slowly, helped by my full belly, and I watched and waited as the night grew longer, people filtered out of the tavern into houses, and one by one the lights in the village went out.