Chapter 3

In the middle of the wide-open plains stood a nearly collapsed shack.

When the wind blew it creaked and howled in pain, and because the falling raindrops greedily swallowed it, mold blooms sprouted as if its rotten insides were twisting.

That shack had been holding death for a long time already, but it served as a place for the poor, the homeless wanderers, and vagrants to lay their shabby bodies.

Now even those had all left.

When I saw the mottled ceiling through my narrow vision, I vaguely recalled that shack.

A space so old it wouldn’t be surprising if it collapsed at any moment.

When I swallowed the stale air, I couldn’t help but cough.

“…Ugh!”

I felt a pain as if someone were relentlessly hammering down on my lungs.

I instinctively tried to arch my body, but even that was impossible, so I spat it out as I was.

Something black and lumpy soaked the front of my garment.

After my lungs, my throat, ribs, and shoulders ached as if they were being twisted.

It was actually harder to find an area that felt fine.

I had no strength left to open my eyes, so I hung limp and kept weakly breathing until consciousness returned.

Only after a long while was I able to slowly raise my body.

I was in terrible shape. My insides were completely twisted and I couldn’t even swallow spit properly.

Above all, the worst off was my left arm.

I couldn’t move a single finger.

To assess the exact condition, I slowly turned my head.

Within the deep gash I saw a white lump.

Whether it was bone or cartilage, it didn’t really matter.

I barely steadied myself and tried to feel the energy in my heart.

A huge, unidentified energy was still coiled up inside my heart.

It lay motionless as if asleep.

For some reason, a sense of unease began to rise.

It felt like looking at a cup of water filled to the brim.

I hesitated for a moment at the unfamiliar feeling, but dying one way or another made little difference, so I decided to try to use the energy somehow.

I immediately recalled, and began to draw out the strand of energy that had become wholly mine.

Even trying to draw out the energy filling my heart, I could barely move a thread as thin as a hair. Fortunately, the massive energy showed no reaction.

A normal human body cannot contend with beasts.

Even if one could somehow defeat the weakest creatures, they never traveled alone, so it hardly mattered.

In my case, one could only call it luck.

It just so happened there was a beast separated from its pack, and the sound of the fight was drowned out by a sudden downpour and thunder.

If not for that, you’d need numbers to barely contend with it.

Beasts always possessed abilities far surpassing human strength, and that gap widened even more with higher-tier individuals.

Therefore, for humans to defeat beasts, they had to swallow more beasts’ hearts and train their bodies accordingly.

A power that grants greater strength and swifter movement.

Strengthening physical abilities and many other things were possible, but there was a fundamental reason why those who swallowed hearts could face beasts.

‘First, the injured arm.’

I pierced the thin membrane I felt inside my body with the drawn energy and drove it down to my fingertips.

Then familiar pain spread through the stiff arm, and the swollen hand began to regain color.

After a little more time, most of the wounds on my shoulder had healed, and the last of the energy straightened the twisted bones and organs throughout my body.

An extremely inefficient method that completely exhausted the energy stored in my body.

But it was a miraculous ability that could heal most ordinary wounds.

Only after using up all the energy I could did I finally let out a sigh.

I would need some rest, but that wasn’t very important.

I returned to square one.

I naturally began to examine the gigantic energy sleeping in my heart.

‘What on earth is this?’

Even sober, it was an overwhelmingly large energy source I’d never seen before.

Despite having swallowed so many beasts’ hearts in the past, I hadn’t even grown half the energy I now had, and I couldn’t understand how, raised in a rural backwater, I had come to hold such immense power.

Even the hearts of the mighty beasts I’d slain countless times didn’t contain this level of power.

The only comparable force might be that of an evil dragon.

“…That can’t be.”

A tremendous force that could rip the sky apart and trample the ranks of beasts and humans like insects.

A power so great it was unimaginable for a mere human body to contain.

And this half-grown body supposedly held such power?

It was unbelievable even seeing it, but no other explanation made sense.

As I thought that and tried to draw out more energy, I could only pull another hair-thin strand. No matter how hard I tried, nothing beyond that budged.

If I could use all of that power, what would happen?

I pictured the evil dragon that once roared fiercely atop a mountain of corpses.

If I could wield such power, wouldn’t I be able to easily defeat the packs of beasts I’d face again?

Then, perhaps this time I could finally live the peaceful days that would follow.

“Have you decided what to do?”

To make the gigantic energy within my body entirely my own.

And to find the method to do so.

The moment I resolved that, my dizzy mind began to clear.

When I stepped outside, the warm sunlight stung my eyes.

I inhaled the fresh air slowly, then headed to a nearby stream to wash off the blood, pus, and flesh from my body and fill my stomach with water.

My reflection on the water looked rather pathetic.

“Awake, are you?”

A man who had appeared without a sound spoke as he watched.

I bowed deeply to him without showing any particular expression.

“Thank you for saving me.”

Because my voice was hoarse, it came out rather laughable.

The man showed no change in expression.

Instead, he rummaged through a damp pouch in one hand and produced the item inside.

“Did you eat this?”

It was smaller in size, but it was a beast’s heart.

When I nodded, the man who had been staring into my eyes turned his gaze to my shoulder.

The torn flesh had closed as if nothing had happened, leaving only a faint scar.

“You know how to use it.”

His peculiar, emotion-restrained tone made it unclear whether that was a question or a mutter.

So I gave no reply and began to gaze at the beast’s heart in his hand.

The pouch he held looked full at a glance.

Unless he had a gruesome hobby of collecting pieces of carcasses, what was inside was likely other beasts’ hearts.

‘If I swallowed more hearts, wouldn’t I be able to use more power?’

I remembered the beast that had bitten into my father’s belly.

If I absorbed more of a beast’s power than that, it was certain my body would burst.

Then the man reached out and grabbed my shoulder.

I flinched with an inexplicable repulsion, but through his firm grip an alien energy began to flow into me.

A familiar pain struck me at once. The man’s scorching energy began to scan my entire body as if searching for something, and the passage widened suddenly, forcing me to scream.

Like a fuse set alight, the energy inside my body began to rampage as if about to burst.

I gagged and spat blood. The man seemed to sense the danger and quickly withdrew his energy.

His face was painted with shock.

Then suddenly, after pondering something intently, he finally spoke.

“Follow me.”

I soothed the miraculously quieted energy and glared at the man who commanded me without any apology.

One who knew of beasts and hunted them.

What could someone who knew that power possibly want from me?

The man, as if it were natural, gathered his remaining things and began to walk away from the shack.

I watched him for a moment, then looked toward the faint gray fortress in the distance and said to him.

“…I still have something to do.”

“Will it take long?”

“No. It shouldn’t take long.”

He nodded without a word.

He didn’t ask what I had to do or how long it would take.

As before, he would appear when the time came and guide the way without fuss. Thinking so for certain, I started walking with heavy steps.

Under the clear sky, the ruined village lay exposed in all its nakedness.

The hunter’s burning house had turned into black charcoal, and most of the buildings beyond were either collapsed or charred.

In a deep puddle, the rotting corpses of people and livestock gave off a stench.

Even more striking were the beasts’ corpses lying without necks.

There were large holes where their throats should have been.

I knew that had been the man’s doing.

Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of living people. Only heads with flayed cheek skin barely holding onto the jaw, or corpses with bellies ripped open and hollowed out.

As I continued walking, a familiar sight came into view through the suffocating scene.

A shop that looked reasonably intact from the outside.

Only the half-open front gate was dented and cracked.

I took a small breath and stepped slowly inside.

A heavy stench, distinctly different from the outside air, hit my nose.

My father’s corpse, already beginning to rot, was basking in the sunlight coming through the window.

My head felt hot and my lungs seemed to swell.

After staring at that sight for a moment, I headed to the storage room.

The storage room, where a few beams of light had barely penetrated, was splattered with blood.

My mother’s head was already blackened and sunken.

A few large flies buzzed around her gaping mouth.

Suppressing the dizzying sensation in my body, I dragged some items from the storage and untied the rope that had been hanging my mother.

With a thud, my mother’s body fell limply to the floor.

After that, there was nothing more difficult.

I moved my parents’ bodies up to the hill, beneath a lone, towering tree.

I found the most intact cloth I could and bundled my father, then carried my mother and laid her on the grass.

I knelt before them and began to dig the earth with my bare hands.

My nails turned back and blood welled at my fingertips.

I buried my mother and father in the pit I dug until the sun began to set.

I covered them with mud and planted a white stone I found among the ruins as a gravestone at their heads.

Then I gathered herbs until the darkness rose.

I stopped by the old herbalist’s house where it had all begun, picked the best bunches, and laid them atop the grave.

‘…With this, I should be able to get through this summer.’

Surrounded by the multicolored scent of herbs, I fell asleep as if fainting.

I didn’t dream. My parents didn’t even show their faces.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the man’s face looking down at me blankly.

I glanced at my parents’ grave for a moment, then began to follow behind the man.