The adrenaline faded like a retreating tide, leaving Finn shaking on the ground beside the massive corpse. His hands wouldn't stop trembling as he stared at the blood under his fingernails, the gore splattered across his clothes. In his old life, the most violent thing he'd ever done was swat a fly. Now he'd just helped kill something the size of a small building with his bare hands and a piece of wood.
Around him, the villagers moved with grim efficiency that spoke of too much practice. No wailing or dramatic grief, just quiet tears as they checked the wounded and covered the dead with whatever cloth they could find. A middle-aged woman with graying hair bound a young man's broken arm with strips torn from her own skirt. An elderly farmer closed the eyes of someone who hadn't been fast enough.
This is normal for them, Finn realized with growing horror. They're used to this.
The old man with the cleaver, now wiped clean, approached him. He was stocky and weathered, with scars crisscrossing his arms and a beard more gray than brown. Despite his age, he'd moved through that fight like someone who'd done it many times before.
"You alright, lad?" the old man asked, extending a callused hand. "Took a nasty shock there."
Finn accepted the help up, his legs still unsteady. "I... where..." He paused, genuinely confused. The memories of his previous life were crystal clear, but this world, this body, this place, it all felt foreign. "Where do I live?"
The old man's weathered face creased with concern. "Finn, boy, you took a harder knock than I thought. You live in the old cottage by the east wall. Been there since..." His expression softened. "Since we lost your folks to the Mightyena pack three winters back."
Orphan. Of course. The convenient backstory practically wrote itself. Parents dead, living alone, perfect cover for not knowing basic things about this world.
"The Mightyena pack?" Finn asked weakly.
"Aye, you remember. Dark season that was." The old man studied Finn's face carefully. "Beast-shock can scramble a man's head something fierce. Had a cousin once who forgot his own name after a Tauros trampling. Came back to him in time, though."
A woman approached, the same one who'd driven the pitchfork into the spear shaft. She was tall and lean, with auburn hair tied back and Pokemon leather bracers on her forearms. Her clothes were a patchwork of rough-spun cloth and hide, practical and well-worn.
"Chief Aldric," she said, nodding to the old man. "How many did we lose?"
Chief. So cleaver-grandpa is in charge. Finn noted it to himself.
"Four dead, six wounded," Aldric replied grimly. "Could've been worse if not for the lad here." He clapped Finn on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over. "Quick thinking, that coordination. Most folk just panic and swing blindly when the beasts come."
The woman looked at Finn with new interest. "That was good work with the flanking. Not many think clearly when facing down an Ursaring."
"I... thanks?" Finn managed. He felt like he was walking through a waking dream. These people were talking about fighting giant murder-bears like it was a job review.
"Beast attacks happen often?" he asked.
Both adults exchanged glances. "Every few months," the woman—he still didn't know her name—replied. "Usually smaller ones. Poochyena, maybe a lone Mightyena if we're unlucky. This Ursaring..." She shook her head. "Haven't seen one this big in years."
"What defenses do you normally have?" Finn pressed, his mind racing. In his old world, a single bear attack would make national news. Here it was apparently Tuesday.
"Watchtowers at the passes," Aldric explained, pointing toward the mountainous terrain surrounding the village. "Bell system to warn of incoming threats. Two guards… well, had two guards." His face darkened. "Wooden palisade keeps out the smaller ones, but something like this..." He gestured at the Ursaring. "Not much stops a beast that size when it's determined."
Finn took in the village properly for the first time. They were nestled in a mountain valley, surrounded by steep slopes covered in pine and scrub. Stone and timber houses with thatched roofs, maybe sixty buildings total. A single dirt road wound down from the mountain pass and disappeared into the forest beyond. Isolated, but not completely cut off.
"Are there other settlements nearby?" Finn asked.
"Millhaven's about a day's walk south," the woman replied. "Ironbrook's two days east, if you take the mountain path. We trade with both when the seasons allow." She paused. "Why all the questions, Finn? You've lived here your whole life."
Right. Trauma excuse. "Everything feels... fuzzy. Like I'm seeing it for the first time."
The work was methodical and brutal. Villagers who'd been swinging farming tools at the beast twenty minutes ago now wielded knives with practiced efficiency, sectioning the massive carcass. The Ursaring's thick hide came away in large sheets, destined to become leather armor and warm winter coats. Organs were carefully removed and sorted some for immediate consumption, others to be preserved for the lean months ahead.
Finn watched with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. In his old world, meat came wrapped in plastic from sanitized grocery stores. Here, survival meant getting your hands bloody.
"Here, lad." Aldric approached carrying a chunk of dark red meat and a section of the beast's pelt. "Your share for the fighting. Prime cuts from the hindquarter, and enough hide for a vest or cloak."
Finn accepted the offerings, the meat still warm in his hands. The rational part of his brain knew this was how the world worked: kill or be killed, waste nothing. But another part whispered that this creature had been eating human flesh just an hour ago.
It's just meat, he told himself.
But his stomach churned anyway. Eating something that eats humans won't make him a cannibal though… Does it?
"Thank you," he managed, tucking the hide under his arm. The meat felt heavier than it should.
"Cook it well," the woman with the pitchfork advised, wiping blood from her hands with a rag. "Ursaring meat's tough, but it'll keep you fed for a week." She paused. "I'm Mira, by the way. Don't think we've been properly introduced."
Right, trauma excuse. I should know everyone here.
"Nice to... meet you again?" Finn tried.
Mira's expression softened with understanding. "The shock's really scrambled you, hasn't it? We've known each other since we were children, Finn. My family lives three houses down from your cottage."
Perfect. Childhood friend who can fill in backstory details.
"Sorry, I just..." Finn gestured vaguely at his head.
"Don't worry about it," Aldric said firmly. "Mind fog after beast-shock is normal. Take your meat home, get some rest. Things will look clearer in the morning."
As Finn walked away, still carrying his grisly prizes, he heard the chief's voice behind him, speaking quietly to Mira.
"Keep an eye on the boy. Something's different about him today. Could be the shock, but..." The old man's voice trailed off, too low to catch the rest.
Finn's blood ran cold. The last thing he needed was the village leader getting suspicious. He'd have to be more careful about fitting in, at least until he figured out how this world worked.
His cottage, when he found it, was small and sparse. A single room with a stone hearth, rough wooden furniture, and a sleeping pallet in the corner. Personal belongings were few. Some clothes, basic tools, a couple of worn books he couldn't read in the flickering firelight.
This is my life now, he thought, staring at the chunk of Ursaring meat. This is all I have.
The meat sat on his crude wooden table, dark and bloody. For a moment, he remembered those massive jaws closing around that villager, and he remembered the sound of bones cracking.
Then his stomach growled.
You know what? Finn picked up his knife, testing the edge against his thumb. Fuck it.
The Ursaring had eaten humans today. And now he was going to eat the Ursaring. There was a certain poetic justice to it that appealed to his darker sensibilities. In his old world, he'd been a wage slave, powerless, stepped on by everyone above him in the corporate food chain.
Here? Here he'd just killed something that could tear a man in half.
Survival of the fittest, right? He began cutting the meat into manageable pieces, his movements becoming more confident. Circle of life and all that bullshit. You tried to eat me, you bastard. Now I'm going to enjoy every bite of you.
The irony wasn't lost on him. Most isekai protagonists would be crying about the brutality, trying to find peaceful solutions, probably going vegetarian out of trauma. But Finn found himself oddly... satisfied.
Maybe I'm more adaptable than I thought, he mused, skewering chunks of meat on a makeshift spit. Or maybe I'm just a psycho waiting for the right circumstances.
Either way, he was going to survive this world. And if that meant becoming something darker than his old self? Well, his old self had been pathetic anyway.
He built up the fire and began to cook his first meal as an apex predator.