Cooking with Wild Game (LN) - Volume 1 - Chapter 2.4

4

“Hey! What happened, Ai Fa?!” I cried out, getting up into a kneeling position.

There was still a chance that she had just slipped or something, and if I messed up this time, she would kill me for real. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

But I wasn’t getting an answer back.

All I could hear was the sound of the water violently splashing and the echo that followed, which was more than a little disconcerting.

“Hey! I’m looking over that way! If it’s nothing, then just let me know in the next three seconds!” I yelled out, worrying all the while that she may not even understand what a second is.

Sure enough, though, I didn’t get a response back.

Despite feeling so impatient that I thought my heart was going to burst, I still stopped and counted to three.

“One... two... three!”

I shot to my feet, turned around, and looked at the river. And... there wasn’t anybody there.

However, I spied familiar wrappings and blades on a rock a little further away, and then a rather impressive splash shot up from the surface of the water.

I threw aside the fur cloak, climbed over the rock I had been resting my back against, and took off running in that direction. It was then that Ai Fa’s face suddenly appeared from beneath the water. And not just that: she was clearly in pain.

“Ai Fa!”

She desperately gasped for air, but the river water mercilessly flowed into her open mouth instead.

It was only so deep that it would come up to her waist if she stood, but she didn’t seem to be able to get up any further out of the water.

“What are you doing?! Hurry up and grab on!” I yelled, holding out my right hand from atop the rock.

As I desperately struggled like a madman, Ai Fa’s eyes just stared back at me listlessly.

“Don’t come... any closer...” Ai Fa eked out, her voice sounding a bit hoarse. Her body slowly began drifting downstream.

“Don’t give me that crap! Just grab on already!”

I had no other options left, now that it had come to this. And so I plunged my right leg into the water while bracing myself so that I wouldn’t get swept away, then reached out to grab hold of Ai Fa. The second that my hand grasped Ai Fa’s silky-smooth shoulder, though, I felt something snake its way around my right arm.

“Whoa!”

In no time at all, a sharp pain shot through my arm, and I heard the sound of my bones creaking. Whatever it was that was wrapped around my right arm, it was constricting with some seriously insane strength. It was a strange creature about as thick as my arm, coated in bluish-black scales... In other words, I had been grabbed by the tail of a huge snake.

The moment I realized that, Ai Fa let out a pained “ugh!”

With an eye-catching splash, both of Ai Fa’s arms shot up above the water. Thanks to that, I could see that her fingers were wrapped around the neck of the massive snake. Its crooked, sickle-shaped neck looked to be about the size of a rugby ball, and it was baring its fangs at Ai Fa.

Beneath the surface of the water, Ai Fa was battling the huge serpent.

“Bastard...!”

I tried even harder to brace my legs, enduring the pain in my right arm all the while. The foot I hurt yesterday was throbbing in pain, but I didn’t pay that fact any heed.

It was so insanely strong that it felt like it could crush bone, but I couldn’t help but feel grateful that it wasn’t letting go. I’d just keep on at it and pull it straight out of the water!

The flow of the river was nothing, and Ai Fa didn’t weigh all that much, so I could do it! No, I’d do it even if it killed me!

“Grr...!” I yelled out, wringing out every ounce of strength in my body to finally pull both Ai Fa and the giant snake towards the riverside. I planted my right foot on the shore, then put my left hand around the snake’s throat just like Ai Fa was doing. After that, it was pure weightlifting.

Well, not that I had any weightlifting experience, though...

“Graaaah!”

Once again, I squeezed out every bit of strength I had. And with that, I finally succeeded in dragging Ai Fa up atop a rock.

“Ugh...” Ai Fa let slip in a weak voice.

The gigantic serpent had wrapped itself several times over around Ai Fa’s naked body. It was coiled around her chest, waist, and right leg, and the excess stretched up over her shoulder and then tangled around my right arm. At its fattest point, its body was probably as thick as my thigh. In terms of both thickness and length, this thing was far beyond the norm.

Looking at it closely, the giant snake’s blackish-blue scales were torn and broken here and there, and it appeared to have a rather serious old wound to its eyes. If it weren’t for that, maybe all the bones in Ai Fa’s body would’ve been long since crushed down to a powder.

“Alright! Don’t let go of that hand, Ai Fa!”

With that, I grabbed hold of a nearby rock and started pounding away at the huge snake’s head. Its slick, shiny, scale-covered body spasmed in response. It’s just a superstition that says snakes can’t feel pain, and I sure could see that now.

As Ai Fa held its head in the air, I brought my rock down upon it again and again. Around the fifth blow red blood came spurting out, and Ai Fa let out a shriek at the same time.

I could feel my right arm creaking, too.

“Damn it! Don’t coil tighter! Let go already!”

Though it was being held in place, its head was still up in the air, which seemed to be softening the impact of the blows.

What about the stomach, then?!

I took aim toward the part on the ground, and swung down as hard as I could. I could clearly feel the disturbing sensation of flesh being pulverized, even through the rock.

Finally, the massive serpent’s grip on us slowly loosened.

Without a moment’s delay I scooped Ai Fa up and kicked the fleeing snake back into the river. With a heavy splash, the monstrous beast sunk below the surface. After making sure it was swept away downstream, I turned to the girl in my arms and yelled out, “Hey! Just hold on! Are you okay? Please don’t die on me, Ai Fa!”

After laying her down on the surface of the rock, I started firmly shaking her exposed shoulders. In response, she let out a weak groan, then vomited up a mass of water.

Usually her long golden locks were worn up, but now they were clinging to her face and chest. In this weakened state, she looked like a completely different person.

When Ai Fa dug her nails into the back of my hand, her eyes still firmly shut, I called out, “Are you in pain? Do you still need to get more water out?”

I moved the powerless Ai Fa onto her side and gave her a firm hit on the back, and sure enough she spat up even more water.

“Ugh... Asu... ta...?”

“Are you alright? I knocked that damn snake back into the water, so we shouldn’t need to worry now.”

Her blue eyes were still unfocused, and she looked at me in a daze. Ah, what a pitiful expression...

But still, she was at least alive.

I picked Ai Fa up, and hugged her slender body tight with both arms.

Thinking back on it now, I’d reprimand myself for doing that to Ai Fa just after she had gotten away from that snake’s grasp, but I hadn’t quite been myself at the moment, either.

“Thank goodness... Don’t make me worry like that...”

I’d become dripping wet too in an instant, but I didn’t give a damn about that.

However... Ai Fa’s arms pushed back at my chest with with a strength I didn’t think she had left in her.

“Let go... Take your arms off of me!”

“Huh?”

I was caught off guard so badly that my grasp naturally loosened, just as she had asked. She gave me a strong push at the same moment, sending me falling straight onto my rear.

“W-What is it?!”

Ai Fa’s eyes practically looked like they were ablaze.

In an instant, she grabbed her sheathed blade, which had fallen by her feet.

“W-What’s going on? I have no idea what’s happening right now!”

As I was left dumbfounded by this sudden transformation, Ai Fa drew her savage blade from its leather sheath.

Her face had been like that of a sick child just seconds ago, but now it was filled with an unmistakable bloodlust.

Had I broken some sort of unforgivable taboo or something in regards to Ai Fa? Was it because I had seen her naked, even considering the unexpected circumstances involved? Or because I’d went and hugged her without thinking?

Well... If those are such serious crimes around here, then I guess there’s no helping it.

Too much stuff had happened out of the blue, so maybe I wasn’t thinking straight myself. But the only thought floating through my stupid head was that it was way better to be killed by Ai Fa than to have to watch her die.

Ai Fa readied her sword, completely naked and down on one knee. I wondered why she was pointing the back of the blade at me rather than its cutting edge, but I’m sure that thing was hefty enough to bludgeon someone to death with even so.

I stared straight into Ai Fa’s eyes. However, her eyes weren’t looking back at me. Those blue flaming pupils weren’t pointed in my direction, but towards the space behind me.

A noise like the heavy rumble of an exhaust pipe resounded from behind me, far closer than I would have thought. There was something... right behind me.

“Grah!” Ai Fa yelled out, and I could hear the overflowing fighting spirit in her voice.

The savage blade drew a silver arc through the empty air beside me. And then, I felt myself being squashed by something.

“Ugh...”

Something unbelievably heavy had come down on my head with some serious force. It felt pretty damn stiff, but it also had an overpowering animal stench to it.

“Phew...” Ai Fa sighed, then plopped down on the ground. I could see her blue eyes staring back at me with their usual force between her disheveled golden hair. “Don’t let your guard down just because you’ve escaped from a single threat. You won’t possibly be able to survive at the forest’s edge like that.”

She sure was pompous, considering she was buck naked.

But, well, I’d finally grasped just what had happened, too.

The heavy object cloaking my head and back was a twitching giba whose skull Ai Fa had smashed in with her blade.