As the bright morning sun slowly began to rise, I continued to watch the cave, making sure nothing came close.
Stopping to look at the girl for a second to see if she was awake, I found she had bright red cheeks and unnaturally pale skin.
The bandits must have done more damage than I thought. I looked toward the outside, where I had tied up a medium-sized demonic boar. It had extremely large tusks for its size and an even longer tail.
It wasn't easy dragging something still alive and fighting back — I even had to tie all four of its legs just to keep it from escaping.
I thought of ways to kill it without my involvement, one being making the girl kill it with my gun.
But after a few minutes of thinking it through, and not wanting to traumatize a little girl even more, I came up with a way to kill the demonic boar.
I was going to strangle it to death.
Not with my hands, but with rope.
Leaving the cave, I found an extremely heavy rock that was about three times as heavy as the boar. Trying my hardest, I slowly rolled the massive rock up the side of the cave and onto the top.
This took about an hour, but was well worth it. Going back to the cave, I grabbed my bag and rummaged around, looking for the last bit of rope I had left.
After I had finally found it, I quickly went outside and began making a large enough noose to tie around the boar.
Once I finished making it, I looked toward the boar currently tied up — its sleeping form on the sand.
I jumped down from the roof of the cave and began walking toward it. This caused it to wake up.
It moved its eye toward me and began to panic. It felt something bad was going to happen to it if it didn't escape.
I grabbed the rope holding it and began to drag it through the sand. It squirmed and fought as hard as it could.
But all the effort was in vain once I began dragging it up the side of the cave and reached the rope I had set up.
I dropped the rope holding the boar and grabbed the noose attached to the rock, placing it around its neck and making sure it was as tight as possible.
It tried to bite me, kick me, and even screech for help, but all it did was delay the inevitable.
Once I secured the rope, I began cutting the rope holding its legs — and now came the hard part: luring it to the edge.
Once it was free, it immediately bolted away from me, trying to escape, but the rope around its neck stopped it from getting far.
It struggled for a bit until something hit its head.
I looked down to see a small pebble on the ground, and as it stared at it, I threw another pebble at it to get its attention.
This caused the boar to look a bit mad, though it still didn't want to come closer to me.
I thought for a second, then grabbed my nail from my back and dropped it by the entrance of the cave.
The boar noticed this and had something close to a smug face. I threw another pebble at it to make it angry again, and this time, without fear, it charged at me, intending to hit me off the roof of the cave.
Predictably, I jumped over the boar and onto the rock. The boar noticed this and tried to turn, but it was too late.
It had already reached the edge, and with its current momentum, it slipped from the edge of the cave.
It used its front legs to grab on and tried its best not to fall.
It looked around the area, trying to find a way to escape, but all it saw was me behind the rock.
Its red face turned pale as I grabbed a small pebble and threw it at its eye.
It winced in pain before quickly falling down. It couldn't reach the ground as the rope around its neck tightened and slowly strangled it, stopping it from breathing.
It tried to escape, but each time it did, the air from its lungs quickly left it.
This lasted for ten minutes until the boar hung completely limp from the rope. I stared at it for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen, and to my relief, nothing did.
It didn't turn into black sludge like the rest. This confirmed that as long as I didn't directly kill it, I could harvest it.
Grabbing my nail from the ground, I began to drain the blood from the boar, and once I drained all the blood, I began to skin it — making sure not to damage the pelt or meat. Once I removed the pelt, I began chopping it piece by piece, fully utilizing its hanging form to more easily harvest its meat.
This didn't take too long, and once I finished, I had about ten kilograms worth of meat.
After finishing the harvest, I threw the bones away, seeing as most were either shattered or too brittle to use later.
After finally disposing of the body, I used the remaining wood to make a fire and began to prepare the meat.
---
As I stoked the flame, making sure it was cooking the meat evenly and avoiding burning it, the boar meat was skewered using some sticks I found outside. After seasoning it with salt and making sure to toast the sticks before impaling them into the meat, I cooked it for about two hours to allow it to soften and stay tender during the slow process.
Once I knew they were ready, I grabbed one of the sticks and began to smell it. The aroma was amazing — it didn't smell half as bad as I thought it would, seeing as I'd never cooked a demon boar before.
I opened my mouth and took a large bite out of it. It tasted like regular pork but was far meatier.
As I took another bite, I finally noticed the girl was awake. She was staring at the boar meat I cooked, her mouth open and slowly drooling.
I waved at her to get her attention, and she immediately noticed me. I grabbed one of the sticks and handed it to her.
She quickly grabbed it and began eating like she hadn't eaten in weeks.
Well, I hadn't eaten in weeks, but you don't see me devouring things like that.
I continued to eat with her, and after finishing the last of the food, she gave a loud burp and fell down on the sack she was in, a large smile on her face.
I looked at her for a second before she looked up at me. She slowly got to her feet and spoke.
"Thank you for saving me, brave knight," she said, giving me a bow.
"No problem," I said back to her — until the realization hit me.
My voice and mouth usually scared off most people and, on occasion, made them faint.
Closing it quickly, I wanted to apologize to her, but as I looked at her, she was now directly in front of me.
"Woah, that's so cool! Are you, like, an insect demon? What kind? A beetle? A centipede? A butterfly? Oh, I love butterflies!" she said way too quickly, right in my face.
This… caught me off guard for a second, but if she wasn't scared of me, maybe I could ask her more questions directly.
Once more, I opened my mouth, revealing rows of needle-like teeth, and to my shock, she stared at them with wonder.
"Greetings once more. I am Stygian. Would it be alright for me to know your name?" I asked the excited little girl.
She seemed to quickly compose herself as she stepped back and introduced herself.
"Greetings, Sir Stygian. I am Princess Charlie of House Morningstar. I am thankful for the bounty you have so graciously provided and for aiding me in my hour of need," she replied, giving a curtsy bow.
Princess, huh. That means her dad must be a king… and Morningstar — where have I heard that before?
Brushing my thoughts aside, I asked her a few questions about why she was here.
She didn't look too happy to answer, but apparently, she was going to her uncle Satan's to stay the week.
She didn't tell me the reason why, but it wasn't my business. Now the real problem was getting her home.
I couldn't just leave — if they ever found out I left their precious princess alone in the desert, I'd be hunted all my life.
The conversation went on, and I found out that Satan lived inside an active volcano, and she knew the way there. The only problem was that the place was filled with bandits, beasts, and, if what the bandits said was true, cannibals.
So, not wanting to leave her, I volunteered to accompany her until we finally reached her destination.
This made her face beam with excitement, and she then enveloped me in a bone-crushing hug.
I swear I heard my exoskeleton crack a bit.
Packing up, I dried the rest of the meat for her to eat and made sure she was covered from the blazing heat.
Using the sack, I made a makeshift bag where she could stay in to protect her from the rays and to make sure she didn't slow me down.
Once I did all that, I checked everything and began our journey.
This is gonna be a long walk.