Alan ambushed a white-tailed deer, bringing his machete down precisely on the buck's spine. Its legs gave out, and it collapsed to its knees, helpless.
After killing it, he dragged it to the river and began butchering and washing the carcass.
The river was full of fish. Alan tossed the buck's entrails into the water, immediately drawing two pike.
Alan reacted in a flash, plunging both hands into the water. He caught a large pike barehanded and hauled it up. It weighed at least ten kilograms.
He gutted and cleaned the pike, then happily headed back with two deer legs over his shoulder, the fish in one hand, and a bucket of water in the other.
Suddenly, he heard birds taking flight behind him. Alan turned warily. Across the river, birds were crying out as they fled the woods. Something was clearly about to come out.
Alan backed away, keeping his eyes on the trees. Others might not believe in monsters, but he knew there were Lizardmen here.
Yet even after he had retreated more than ten meters, nothing emerged from the woods across the river.
Deciding this was no place to linger, Alan ran toward the gathering point with the food.
After he left, the river splashed. A humanoid creature surfaced with a pike over his shoulder and waded ashore.
The creature stood only 1.2 meters tall and looked like a child. His mouth and eyes were large, and his pupils were sharp as a snake's.
His skin had a rocklike texture and a dark blue-black sheen. Fine black scales covered his entire body, without a single hair, while the ridges of bone on his head resembled a helmet.
Hundreds of overlapping folds patterned his abdomen like a seashell. An animal-hide skirt wrapped his waist, and a snake tail