Chapter 329: Shirou's Wilderness Survival
The natural selection between titans and the ruthless law of the jungle was several times more raw and visceral than any documentary; it was profoundly shocking. In those final moments, as the Emperor Crocodile revealed its full form, Shirou estimated the beast to be at least thirteen meters long.
"Where exactly am I? First, a mammoth from the Ice Age, then a Deinosuchus from the Cretaceous... don't tell me there are dinosaurs here too?" Shirou said in astonishment.
In that final instant, Scheherazade had stood her ground against the divine avatar for his sake. Otherwise, with Shirou currently suppressed by the Witch's curse, he wouldn't have been able to resist for long.
Scheherazade had likely been defeated by the avatar and returned to the Throne of Heroes. She had left him with her final words, but her wish—to vanish forever and never again feel the terror of death—was simply too pessimistic and bleak.
If there were ever a chance to meet again, Shirou hoped to be a friend who could give her a reason to hold onto hope for this world.
Perhaps it was because she was too lonely. In the legends, she stood up for the women of her country, summoning her sister every night to help her weave stories for a tyrannical king. If she could find someone like that sister in this world—someone to offer support, encouragement, and companionship—perhaps things wouldn't have turned out this way.
"But... for now... I'd better think about how to survive," Shirou said with a wry smile, looking around at an environment teeming with ferocious, ancient, giant creatures.
To survive, Shirou had to hunt. His ideal targets were low-risk prey like wild chickens or rabbits. However, the "chickens" here were twice the size of the largest ostriches in modern zoos. Their crimson crests stood tall, their hard, thick wing feathers resembled iron fans, and their sharp beaks glinted with cold intent. Their feet bore long, eagle-like talons. They were aggressive from head to toe.
"OOO-OO-OOO!" The two-meter-tall giant rooster let out a piercing screech upon seeing Shirou. Instead of fleeing, it flapped its massive wings to build speed and charged directly at him.
"Is this a man-eating chicken?" Shirou quipped. He immediately projected a crimson spear, gripping it as he faced the giant fowl.
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Sometime later, on the rocky bank of a stream, Shirou had gathered firewood and used stones to clear a circle. He cut down wood and large leaves to create a makeshift windbreak and built a hearth out of river stones.
He placed dry wood inside, igniting it with flammable pine cones and resin. He arranged the fuel in concentric circles to allow airflow, creating a high-burning bonfire. Sparks danced above the flames, accompanied by the occasional sharp crackle.
Large chunks of chicken meat were skewered on sharpened bamboo sticks and placed on a flat stone slab over the hearth. The bottom of the slab glowed red from the heat—a primitive version of teppanyaki, or stone-grill. Once brushed with rendered fat, the meat began to sizzle.
He had processed the giant rooster by the river after piercing its heart with Gáe Bolg.
Because of the recent series of bitter battles and the lack of a Holy Grail as a power source, Shirou was relying entirely on his body's internal magical energy, which heavily taxed his physical stamina. He was currently quite exhausted and needed to rest and recover his spirits; otherwise, a mistake in this dangerous land could be fatal.
Shirou didn't dawdle. He decided to turn the giant wild chicken that had delivered itself to his door into his first meal in this world. Finding a small tributary near the river, he boiled water, bled the bird, and plucked it. After processing the meat and adding a few gathered ingredients, he had his energy source for the day.
Even the stream provided; ancient loaches with mouths full of sharp teeth were lured by the blood. Thus, he had ingredients not just for meat, but for soup.
When boiled with bracken, the ancient loaches released a unique fragrance. Mustard greens gathered nearby were blanched in boiling water to serve as a cold side dish. He stir-fried the gizzard, liver, and intestines in fat rendered from the rooster until they were fragrant.
The only pity was the lack of salt. It would have been even better if he could have rubbed the meat with a layer of salt and slow-smoked it on a rack.
When stranded in a resource-rich wilderness, a human with survival skills can live indefinitely as long as they have iodized salt. While acquiring salt isn't impossible—most organisms contain it in their blood, secretions, or bodily fluids, and it can be found in certain soils and rocks—storing food is the real challenge. With salt, one can make jerky or dried fish that lasts months or even years.
(He thought of famous preserved dishes like Nordic surströmming, or Kiviak—the Greenlandic dish where a hundred auks are stuffed into a seal skin and buried in a permafrost pit.)
For now, Shirou had to abstain from using his creation abilities to make salt. While simple projection was fine, using "Creation" might immediately alert the White God to his location.
The worst part was that he didn't even know if he had arrived in the right place.
Suddenly, he heard the dense grass a few meters behind him rustling. It seemed a dangerous predator was approaching.
"Roar!"
It was a lion cub—but a cub with a "Saber-face." She opened her mouth and let out a roar that was meant to be terrifying!
Judging by her expressive face, her intelligence was very high, but she could only make "awoo" and "roar" sounds. Watching her roar reminded Shirou of a famous movie studio's opening sequence, though she looked more like a cute creature from Tom and Jerry trying to be tough.
"Want some?" Shirou picked up a whole grilled chicken thigh, bone and all, placed it on a wooden plate, and set it on a stone in front of the cub.
"Awoo! Roar!" Lion Saber looked at Shirou warily. But when the aroma of the grilled "terror-chicken" hit her nose, she couldn't resist. She pounced on the thigh, which was as big as her head.
The moment she took a bite, she looked up in surprise, her eyes sparkling. She began tearing at the meat, swallowing large chunks, completely forgetting her guard.
After a full meal, the cub patted her slightly bulging belly and walked over to Shirou. She reached out and licked his mouth to show affection.
"Wait, that tickles! Hahaha!" Shirou quickly hugged the cub to avoid a direct "kiss," but his face was still covered in saliva.
Squeezing the paw pads of the "Lion Saber," Shirou mused after some observation: "You really are more of a lion than a human, aren't you?"
"Roar?" Lion Saber tilted her head in confusion, her expression saying: I AM a lion. What are you talking about?
Lion Saber looked like a chibi baby in an animal onesie, but more miniature. Standing only about sixty centimeters tall, she looked more like a doll than a human. Paired with Shirou's current elementary-schooler form, they looked unexpectedly natural together.
Through contact, Shirou realized the onesie wasn't fabric—it was real lion fur. Her paw pads were living tissue with blood vessels and warmth.
Accepting his situation, Shirou prepared for the night. He scattered wood ash around his stone hearth circle. The down feathers plucked from the giant chicken weren't wasted; he stuffed them into a projected bedsheet. He spread a layer of insect-repelling ash on the ground, covered it with clean leaves, and laid down his warm down blanket.
In the wilderness, many luxuries are gone—no hot baths, no choosing meals based on mood, no clean toilets. Precisely because of this, one cannot compromise on food and warmth.
Without a house, even with a makeshift leaf tent, the elements were harsh. Temperatures fluctuated wildly; by dawn, the humidity and mist would be enough to soak a person's clothes within an hour. With this down blanket, he could sleep soundly tonight.
The cub seemed to love the blanket, rolling around on it. Once everything was ready, Shirou lay down on his makeshift bed with the cub.
The dry wood he had gathered occasionally popped and crackled because of trapped moisture. As night fell, the uninhabited mountains became eerie. Wolf howls and the shrill cries of apes echoed through the woods. It wasn't hard to understand why ancient mountain dwellers told stories of monsters and "Spiriting Away."
Since this world was in a season of growth, insects occasionally flew toward the firelight, kamikaze-ing into the embers. Looking across the stream, he could occasionally see flashes of green eyes—unknown beasts passing by.
What caught Shirou's eye, however, was the stream, the wide river further off, and the ripples on the surface. Reflected in the water weren't just fish, but a brilliant sea of stars.
He didn't know the era, but without light pollution, the starry sky was incredibly clear. With his exceptional eyesight, Shirou took in the millions of stars. Gold, red, blue, and purple stars converged into a river in the sky. Humans had used their imagination to give these stars names—Eastern mansions and Western constellations.
Suddenly, a strange point of light appeared in the night sky. Shirou looked toward the far side of the river and saw a golden starlight shoot upward, turning into a meteor that flickered a few times before descending back down. Even without using his Mystic Eyes to analyze it, Shirou felt there was something special over there.
Perhaps the key to everything lay there.
"Mmm..." The sleeping cub rolled over and snuggled against Shirou.
"Heh." Seeing this child—who looked like Artoria in her childhood—showing such an undefended sleeping face, Shirou felt much of his loneliness wash away.
The boy lay back on the down blanket, gazed at the stars, closed his eyes, and entered his dreams.
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