My throat trembles. My soul screams.
The flesh is cut, the nerves are affected, and a sharp, excruciating pain that seems to drive you insane strikes your brain.
"Ahhhhhhhh――!!"
Everything goes red in front of my eyes and I can't grasp reality at all.
A black beast has bitten my right thigh. Before my mind could even think about tearing it away, my reaction was quicker than my scream of pain.
--Ouch, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt.
My entire mind was filled with this, and I had no time to even think about fighting back.
Suddenly, Subaru's sense of balance was thrown off. The beast that had been devouring him shook its head with its fangs still bared, and pulled Subaru, who was easily twice his weight, to the ground.
"Ugh――"
The momentum caused him to spin half a turn and he was thrown face down onto the ground. He failed to catch himself and his face crashed into the dirt, feeling his nose get crushed and the taste of earth in his mouth.
The pain continued to assert itself both above and below, and Subaru's throat continued to let out low groans as he spat out dirt. Then, he realized that the fangs had disappeared from his right leg, and hastily turned his body over.
"This is bad..."
Lie back on your back and raise your torso.
He was bleeding profusely from his right leg, and the skin underneath his torn clothes was peeling back. The pain in the wound, which felt as if it had been dug by a knife, returned, but his priority was to get up - but it was too late.
The jet black shadow immobilizes its prey and moves in pursuit, too fast for it to follow.
As the beast approached, bouncing back and forth on the ground, all Subaru could do was protect his upper body with both arms.
The sharp claws were swung at him, slicing through Subaru's right arm in one go, from the back of his hand to his shoulder. Blood spurted out, his sense of pain erupted as the new wound opened up, and Subaru's brain boiled with an orchestra of excruciating pain.
The intention is to crush the limbs to remove any ability to resist before biting off the victim's throat.
Experiencing the cruelty of a wild hunt, Subaru screams in horror.
The meaningless words had no effect on the horned creature's movements. As if going about its familiar task, the horned creature bit into the left wrist of Subaru, who could only scream, and took away the third function of his limbs.
I felt fangs pierce my left wrist.
The sensation went beyond pain, it was something that made him scream. His vision was flickering, and even in a situation where he couldn't think straight, the only thing driving Subaru on was his reflexive survival instinct.
"Aaaahh――!! Shit!!!"
He yelled, and with all his might he slammed the beast, his left wrist, to the ground. The beast's jaws were not strong enough to remove its fangs. Even as its black fur was stained with blood and saliva, the horned beast pressed its fangs deep into Subaru's body, as if mocking his resistance.
On the side of it,
「Don't get carried away――!!」
The quill, which he had still not dropped, dug deep into the beast's left eye.
It was the horned one's turn to let out a roar as his eyeball was crushed and his insides were stirred up.
Subaru's wild side flails about in protest at the unexpected retaliation from what he sees as helpless prey, but he knows that if he misses this chance there won't be another chance.
He not only stabbed the right arm with the quill, but also covered the left arm that had been bitten with his whole body, making no attempt to let go.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch――!"
His right leg, even the nerves damaged, was unable to stand, his left arm was hanging down by just a bit of skin at the wrist, and his right arm was turned up, revealing bone behind the wound.
I felt as if blood was flowing endlessly from my nose, which had been hit so hard, and I even felt as if I was missing two or three front teeth.
Even in such a state, he does everything in his power to escape the predicament before him.
There is pain. There is suffering. There is fear. We are alive.
Both I and the beast were still breathing.
"Ahhh――!"
The blindly swung beast's claws grazed his forehead, and the sensation of his brain shaking made the grip on him loosen. The horned beast took the opportunity to push Subaru away, putting some distance between them with the quill still stuck in his left eye.
With one leap, he was several meters away, and the jet black shadow disappeared into the forest.
Subaru, still collapsed onto the ground, forgot all about the pain as he searched for the missing figure.
There is no reason to be optimistic and think that he will have to withdraw due to injury.
It was often said that a wounded beast was terrifying. And to the beast, Subaru would be a wounded opponent.
For both sides, the other is someone who must be put to an end at this point.
"--Ouch."
With his weak right leg on his knees, he raised his body relying only on his left leg. Both of his arms were in a terrible state, especially his left hand, which was so heartbreaking that he couldn't bring himself to look at it.
He had the illusion of being hit hard against the side of his head. Temporarily pushing the ringing alarm of pain into his subconscious, Subaru glared at the forest where the beast had disappeared.
It will definitely come.
For Subaru, who had faced murderous intent to no small extent up until now, that unfounded conviction was perhaps the product of the few experiences he had gained in this world.
「――――!!」
Was it Subaru or his opponent who let out the breathless cry?
All he knew was that right in front of Subaru, who was bracing himself, was the horned thing that came hurtling towards him like a bullet, its mouth open and lined with sharp fangs.
Subaru felt with his whole body the force of a thirty kilogram creature charging at full speed with no mercy. Even so, this was under the constraint that he was without the protection of his feet.
With an instant decision, Subaru's right arm rose, and the horned creature's bite failed as it was hit directly below the jaw. However, it was not able to completely neutralise the destructive force of the charge, and Subaru's body, entangled with the horned creature's, was sent tumbling across the ground with the force of the crash.
"Ohhhhhhhhh――"
Blown backwards and hit hard all over his body, Subaru frantically swung his arms around. In the process, he felt the sensation of coming into contact with hard fur, and he grabbed hold of it with all his might, not knowing what part of its body it was, but he clung to it, refusing to let it go.
As they tangled and rolled on the ground, Subaru and the beast's bodies plunged into the slope. Instead of stopping, they gained momentum and headed down the slope, and in the end,
"--That's a lie."
Suddenly, the feeling of the hard ground against which he had been slamming disappeared.
Immediately afterwards, Subaru feels a sudden sensation of floating, and realizes he has jumped off a cliff.
"----!!"
The voiceless cry was once again coming from either Subaru or the beast.
As it turned out, the screaming didn't last very long.
The floating sensation was cut off after just two seconds, and my bones creaked again as the impact hit my whole body again. A dull sound rang out, and I thought that something must have actually broken. However, I prioritized the judgment that my body was not in a position to deal with that.
He stretched out his left arm, which had lost feeling from his wrist down, and began clawing at the ground to kill the momentum of his roll. The nails on his five fingers were peeled off from the rock face, and the fresh blood spurted out, drawing spots on the rock wall as if it had been sprayed.
After all that, his momentum finally slowed, and Subaru's body once again barely came to a halt at the edge of the cliff. Stopping with half his body leaning out into the air, Subaru frantically rolled his body towards the ground,
"Buh.... hah.... oh, oh, oh, fuck!"
Pinch your nose and forcefully drain any remaining blood from your nose.
Unable to tell whether the liquid in his mouth was saliva, blood, or stomach acid, he spat it all onto the ground along with a curse.
Breathing heavily, and grimacing at the pain from the lacerations and bruises all over his body, Subaru realized that the beast that had fallen with him was nowhere to be seen.
"Hey, where are you...?!"
This is not the time to feel lucky that you escaped a death by fall.
If it attacked again, Subaru's fate would be decided this time as he was also on the edge of the cliff. Imagining the horned creature quickly flying towards him and threatening him, Subaru shifted his stance and looked around.
And immediately, the black figure came into view.
"...I see, you couldn't do it."
The horned figure was below Subaru, at the bottom of the cliff.
Unlike Subaru, it had been unable to avoid the second fall. Unable to withstand the fall from more than twice the height of the first, the beast had fallen headfirst and was lying on its side on a copious amount of bloodstains, not moving a muscle.
--It seemed that Subaru had once again escaped death.
"Damn it... that's stupid..."
Perhaps it was because I witnessed the end of that life and a sense of relief filled the void in my heart.
Subaru, who was bleeding badly, also collapsed to the ground, and unable to resist the sleepiness that came over him, closed his eyes.
Just like that, without being able to think, his consciousness faded and he disappeared.