Noble, huh?
Under the single burning candle, its dancing flame throwing dim, shifting shadows, Lucian's ash-gray eyes were fixed on the cast-iron stove. He knelt before it, opened the firebox door, and fed dry pine kindling inside, small twigs and sticks layered in.
Lucian, from his old life right through to now, transmigrated into this nobody of a side character, had never once tasted the so-called lavish life. Maybe it was just destined to be that way. He laughed awkwardly in his mind, though deep down he knew there had been some hope. That hope faded fast when he remembered he needed to survive first.
Once the kindling caught and he had added a few larger pieces of wood, he waited for the iron plate to heat and glanced over at Karin. She had been quiet this whole time.
She was working fast, crouched beside the sack, pulling out three rat carcasses at once. She drew a short, sharp knife from her boot, her amber-gold eyes fixed and steady, and skinned each rat in quick, peeled back the hide, gutted them, and set the organs aside in small piles.
"Survival, huh," Lucian said suddenly. Karin glanced up at him for just a moment.
A loose strand of wolf-gray hair had fallen across her cheek and she didn't bother to push it back. Her eyes still carried that earlier guilt, and when she noticed he was looking at her normally again, without a glare, her jaw tightened. Like she was chewing on a word she didn't want to spit out. But finally, after a couple of seconds:
"Sorry about that, Croft," she said without looking up, eyes fixed on the half-skinned carcass in her hands. Her knife kept moving, even faster than before, cutting rougher.
But after saying it, the words felt small and wrong, like a stone she hadn't meant to drop. Her jaw tightened, and the knife got faster.
Lucian didn't answer right away. He waited a beat, then looked over.
"You didn't say anything wrong," he said, tilting his head. Honestly, if anyone should be apologizing, it was him, if his inner thoughts were ever laid bare. But now she had gone and said this.
This musclehead... is really unpredictable. Is this about how she ambushed him? Hadn't she already apologized for that?
"Yeah I did," she said, still avoiding his gaze. "I was joking about our room. You're just as broke as I am. I knew that." She shook her head slowly, as if annoyed at herself.
Oh... so it's about that. Lucian stared at her, at a loss. The joke hadn't gone too far, in his opinion, and he wasn't that thin-skinned. But maybe in her mind a noble was, by definition, thin-skinned.
"Tsk. Anyway, here are your gross parts." Then, as if she wanted to cut short the awkward moment where she had let her softer side show, she pushed the organs from the small piles toward him and kept the clean meat fillets for herself.
Once both were done, and after seasoning, they stayed still in silence.
Karin's hand hovered over the plate. Lucian's tongs stayed poised above the stove. The sizzling filled the space between them, popping and hissing, and neither of them spoke.
"It's just like this?" Karin broke the silence. She leaned forward slightly, elbows on her knees, eyes narrowing at the little pile of salt, looking baffled at how simple the seasoning was.
Her head tilted to one side, her ponytail sliding off her shoulder.
Besides the coarse salt and black pepper she had brought, there was nothing else.
"Is this the way you remove the toxin?" she added, frowning at him, clearly not impressed and not convinced. Her lips pressed into a thin line and one eyebrow slowly climbed.
Of course I have a system, and right now you only ate the meat with less toxin in it, he wanted to say, but he wasn't that foolish. Instead, he looked away from her squinting stare.
His tongs clicked against the plate, flipping a strip that didn't need flipping. Then he said, "Yes. The key is in how long you cook it."
Karin's squint sharpened. He could feel it on the side of his face like a knife point.
Of course he's spouting nonsense.
Each kept their own thoughts. Lucian flipped his strips with tongs and Karin flipped hers with the back of her knife.
Another sixty seconds passed, and now the smell was smoky and meaty with a faint sweetness. It was enough to make Karin's eyes light up just looking at it.
She was reaching for the meat with a fork when Lucian's hand stopped her.
"The cooking time," he said simply. The light in her eyes went flat. Right. She had just remembered the meat had toxin in it, and he had said the removal depended on the cooking time.
Under her watchful gaze, Lucian picked up the fork, speared a piece of meat, blew on it slowly, and ate it in front of her. He chewed without hurrying.
"Y-you." She jabbed the fork at his face like a weapon. "Who told you to be the taste tester?!"
Lucian kept chewing, unbothered, his eyes on the transparent screen hovering in his vision.
[Digesting Function is triggered!]
Hehe, it's finally here! His ash-gray eyes, usually calm and flat, crinkled at the corners as his lips curled into a faint smile at the next screen.
Ingested: Hollow Needlerat (Rank 1)
[New Trait Engraved: Predator's Scent (Tier 1)]
"What are you smiling at? What's so funny?" Karin caught it mid-glare.
But why would Lucian spare a glance for this musclehead?
His eyes skimmed past the beast's name until he hit the name of the new passive skill. Predator's Scent? One eyebrow went up, and he read on until he found the description.
[PREDATOR'S SCENT (TIER 1)]
TYPE: PASSIVE / PERMANENT
EFFECT:
- Olfactory perception amplified by 200%.
- Capable of tracking blood trails, miasma signatures, and chemical toxins within a 30-meter radius.
- Unable to be fooled by common masking scents.
Hooh! Olfactory perception? Capable of tracking blood trails, isn't this just like the game I used to play, the Mitcher!
Right at that moment the physical effect kicked in, and his nostrils... flared.