Seeing the herd scattering like that, Nolan didn't immediately go down from the tree and instead waited to see if there was anything else dangerous around the cub.
Taking every chance in the surroundings like a skilled predator, he continued stalking his kill. Except for the blood dripping from the wound, there was nothing else moving around it.
Only after a few minutes did he become sure that there wasn't anything dangerous and he could rightfully claim his kill.
And even then, he was just sure.
Nolan wasn't satisfied yet and instead wanted to wait a few more minutes, but understanding that the wandering Shrooms could find his kill and enjoy a free meal for themselves left him with no choice but to move.
'Nothing is without their risk…' Nodding his head, he began to slowly descend from the tree.
Reaching the ground, instead of directly moving forward, Nolan jumped inside the skull through its eye socket and began picking up dirt from the ground.
Mixing the dirt with some rotting mushrooms, he began rubbing it all around his body.
From all the zombie movies he had seen, he had learned that for some reason, these types of monsters had out-of-this-world smelling capabilities.
Moving ahead, he couldn't help but turn around to look at it once again. Like previously, or who knows from how long, one of its hollow eye sockets gaped up at the sky.
Its jagged, broken teeth stuck out from its wide jaw, sharp as old stone, frozen in a silent snarl. Time had cracked the bone, but its shape still held a grim, haunting presence—like something that had once ruled the land.
'Just whose skull does this belong to... and even something this big can die. The world is truly unfair...' Clicking his tongue, Nolan continued moving forward, putting the matter about the skull in the back of his mind.
There was no time to dwell on how something like that had died—he already had his hands full just trying to survive.
As the distance between him and the corpse got closer, Nolan began sorting out a few things.
'Which part should I cut?'
It was obvious he couldn't bring the whole monster on top of the tree. Even if he somehow lifted it all, the best he could do was to hide it inside the skull. But even that didn't guarantee that others wouldn't be attracted by its blood.
So, he had to be very careful with the choices he made moving forward.
As he thought about what to prioritize, a video he had seen with his father on Nat Geo suddenly surfaced in his mind. Because of his passive ability, he could remember it like it was playing right in front of him.
In the program, it had said,
"So... if for some reason you had hunted something and were about to claim your kill, but a predator came... well, first of all, do not worry, as it is very common in the wild, and more often than not, predators fight with scavengers to eat their own kills..."
"...So, you have little to no time to decide what to do. Well, worry not and let me tell you what to prioritize and what not." The cameraman moved, showing a bloodied boar lying on the ground.
"Organs like heart, liver, and kidney are absolute necessities... they are packed full of essential vitamins and necessary proteins and whatnot. If you have more time left, then you can go for these..." he said, pointing toward a specific part of the body.
"These are generally called backstraps, the muscle strips along either side of the spine. They are high-quality lean meat..."
The video continued playing in the back of his mind as Nolan unsummoned the spear and turned it into a sword.
'So... heart... liver it is... Well, might as well take a leg piece if we are at it...' Staring at the corpse, he tried identifying where these things would be located in this monster.
He had learned about Earth's boar anatomy, but there was no guarantee that the animals from two different worlds had the same anatomy.
Still, it's worth trying at least.
Finishing his thought, he reached the corpse and leaned down, bringing his sword toward the area centered slightly left of the midline of the chest—where the instructor had pointed out—and sliced around it.
'Woah!!'
Nolan was surprised to feel little to no resistance from its hide... the sword went right through it. After making a few more cuts, he pried the area open and saw if it was there.
A smile appeared as he saw the heart was indeed there.
'Hehehe! Memory is sure a great weapon... success in the first try.' He was about to cut the heart out, but stopped after noticing something strange attached to it.
'What is that...' he thought, looking at the stone around the heart.
Nolan instantly understood it wasn't something normal, as the stone wasn't just lying there... No... multiple blood vessels had surrounded it like some sort of parasite.
They were leeching something out of it.
Looking at it, he found the stone no bigger than the size of a penny. Unlike pennies, it was diamond-like in shape, transparent, and seemed to be filled with something that the vessels were leeching.
Frowning, he moved his hand inside and fished the stone out. The moment he touched the stone, a screen appeared in front of him,
[Do you want to absorb the Essence Shard?]
Shocked by this sudden prompt of notification, Nolan turned his head and looked at the screen, reading it again.
'Essence Shard... what are they!?' He was about to question it again when something caught his attention.
His eyes widened as he realized what he was looking at.
'Woahh!! How are they here...' Nolan cursed his luck as he found two Shrooms moving toward him.
They weren't coming from a great distance either. No, they were less than fifty meters away from him.
'When did they come this close... I had checked the area and there wasn't anything here before... shit!!' Cursing his luck, he was about to turn and sprint, but stopped after feeling the ground trembling beneath him.
As he looked around, Nolan felt his throat drying up, 'What is this dog-shit luck of mine... why are they all coming back here...'
All around, tens of boars were sprinting directly in his direction.