Just yesterday, while gathering wild fruit, Senku Ishigami had spotted wisps of cooking smoke rising from the woods. The weather had been clear for days, ruling out a lightning strike. In other words, someone else had awakened.
But Senku had no intention of approaching them right away. For one thing, he wanted to give them time to adjust to life here. For another, their ideals might clash with his, and he had no idea how old or big they were.
If he could beat them in a fight, great. If not, he could still run, right?
So Senku had spent the remaining time making simple weapons. "This is exhilarating, isn't it?"
Back in the present, Senku and Li Xiang stared at each other. Senku greeted her first. "Yo."
Whatever happened, he could only pray that she was peaceful and didn't have any extreme ideas.
Li Xiang stared blankly for a moment, then thought it over and said, "Hello."
A language barrier? It's fine, it's fine. Back when I wanted to travel, I specifically spent a year learning basic everyday conversation in Sakura-Country's language.
"Are you from Sakura-Country?"
Senku nodded. "Aren't you?"
"Heh, no, I'm not." Li Xiang smiled. "I'm a child of Flower-Country. Anyway, when did you wake up?"
"Hmm... about three months before you. Roughly 3,700 years have passed by now."
"Don't tell me..." Li Xiang was stunned. If he remembered the time that precisely, there was only one possibility. She swallowed and looked him in the eyes. "Were you counting the whole time?"
Senku nodded.
"My name's Senku Ishigami. Yours?"
Li Xiang pressed her lips together. If that was true, Senku was definitely a supergenius. Wasn't a supergenius exactly what she needed to save the world? If she recruited him, wouldn't she be one step closer to her goal?
"My name's Li Xiang."
April 1, 5738 CE-Senku Ishigami awakened.
July 1, 5738 CE-Li Xiang awakened.
"Anyway, I didn't expect you to be this capable. You've already reached the Stone Age?" Li Xiang chatted with Senku as they walked back.
"Yeah, it's not hard. The only problem is that it takes physical strength." Senku looked at her and spoke deliberately. "My specialty is brainpower. My friend would be better suited to the physical work."
"Seriously?" Li Xiang looked him up and down. "Shouldn't a high schooler have more energy? It makes sense for an office drone like me to be out of shape."
"Of course, if it's research that interests me, I can work on it for three days without eating. But that only applies to research."
Li Xiang considered that. "Then maybe you ought to get some exercise. If you ran into a wild beast or something, wouldn't you be screwed?"
Oink, oink, oink-oink, oink.
Surely it couldn't be that much of a coincidence...
Both their faces twisted as though they had swallowed shit. A wild boar stood right in front of them, its eyes frighteningly red. It pawed the ground with its front hoof, poised to charge, its tusks sharp.
Senku and Li Xiang both knew they were in trouble. "Seriously, what kind of jinx is this? Why does everything I say come true? It's never worked this well when I wanted to win the lottery."
"Forget that for now. Shouldn't running be our priority?"
The wild boar charged straight at them without hesitation, its momentum outrageously fierce.
Li Xiang and Senku blanched, spun around, and ran.
The boar sprinted incredibly fast. Its hoofbeats drew closer and closer as it stayed right on their heels. Senku's stamina drained rapidly, his breathing grew ragged, and his legs began to weaken. Little by little, he slowed down.
The boar was about to pounce.
The next instant, Li Xiang reached out and scooped up the nearly exhausted Senku, carrying him as she kept sprinting without breaking stride.
Senku froze, utterly stunned.
"Snap out of it!" Li Xiang spoke rapidly, the rushing wind battering her ears. "Take the spear and stab its eye. Can you do that?"
They kept racing onward, bouncing all the way. Senku couldn't steady the hand holding his spear, and his vision shook so badly that aiming was impossible.
Li Xiang immediately shifted her hold. Supporting his backside and legs firmly with one hand, she hoisted him onto her shoulder.
His view steadied at once.
"Senku, aim carefully and throw." Her voice grew serious. "Both our lives are in your hands."
Senku instantly focused, fixing his gaze on the boar pursuing them relentlessly.
Using the momentum of her sprint, he snapped his arm forward and released.
The spear sliced through the air and plunged straight into the boar's eye.
The boar let out an agonized shriek. Its massive body lurched out of control, thrashing and twisting wildly on the ground. Its charge stopped short, and it tumbled into the dirt, reduced to helpless wriggling.
Li Xiang immediately stopped, her chest heaving as she gulped down air.
She gently set Senku down, bent to pick up a large, hard rock, and rushed forward without another word.
Bam, bam-
Several heavy blows rang through the woods, sharp yet dull.
She struck with brutal force, smashing the boar's skull again and again. Before long, it stopped moving entirely. Its skull was badly crushed, blood pooled across the ground, and it was dead.
Li Xiang casually wiped the splattered blood from her face and turned toward Senku, who had yet to recover. Her tone relaxed.
"Little Senku, we're having meat tonight."
Senku stared at her, filled with astonishment.
"Got a knife and some rope?" Li Xiang asked. Senku immediately dug them out of his bag and handed them over.
Li Xiang took them and went straight to work. She plunged the knife into the boar's artery, drained a large amount of blood, then deftly bound its four legs with the rope.
"It'll be a lot lighter once the blood's drained. Easier to move." She looked up and asked, "How far is your place?"
"About two kilometers," Senku replied.
At that, Li Xiang plopped straight onto the ground and let out a long breath. Her back was already soaked with cold sweat.
"That scared me half to death." She gave a laugh.
"You're pretty impressive yourself, Li Xiang." Senku bent down halfway to meet her eyes, and Li Xiang suddenly smiled.
"Hey, I did take an eight-hundred-meter running test, you know. I've still got that much stamina."
Li Xiang reflected fondly. Thank you, my homeland. Otherwise, I'd be dead by now.
Li Xiang narrowed her eyes slightly. "But you, Senku-if it weren't for me, that boar would've eaten you, you know?"
"Shut up, Li Xiang." Senku's ears reddened. Li Xiang laughed. "I'm kidding, Senku. You're so capable, I'm sure you would've managed without me!"
"Don't talk to me like you're soothing a kid! I'm not a child anymore!" Senku snapped in irritation. Li Xiang paid him no mind and nodded along. "Yes, yes, yes. You're right, Senku."
It was already dusk by the time they dragged the boar back to camp. Exhausted, Li Xiang spotted the pile of grass Senku had laid out and collapsed onto it without a word.
Since Senku wasn't very strong, Li Xiang had done most of the dragging. This thing wasn't any lighter than a pig or a cow. Luckily, this particular wild boar wasn't especially robust.
Generally speaking, an adult male wild boar normally weighed 70-120 kg, while larger specimens with plentiful food in the wild could reach 150-180 kg. Adult females normally weighed 50-85 kg.
Young piglets, roughly zero to one year old and still sporting their striped baby coats, weighed 10-30 kg and posed relatively little danger.
Unfortunately, they had encountered a subadult boar. Subadults were young boars aged one to three, generally weighing 35-60 kg. They were sizable and would also actively charge people.
The boar that attacked Li Xiang and Senku had weighed around 55 kg, far lighter than an adult male, but getting rammed by it would still have been nasty.
After dragging more than fifty kilograms of meat home, Li Xiang rested for a while but still couldn't recover her strength.
"Hey, Senku, do me a favor."
Senku turned his head and looked at her. "What?"
"I'll butcher the meat. You roast it. I'm about to die of exhaustion."
"Okay..."
Skinning, then portioning the meat. The sharp knife slid through flesh and blood, quickly dividing the firm boar meat into evenly sized chunks.
Once the meat was prepared, Senku found some thin wooden skewers, threaded the pieces onto them one by one, and set them over the pile of firewood he had gathered earlier.
Flames leaped up, roasting the fresh boar meat. Fat slowly rendered out with a sizzling sound, and a faint meaty fragrance soon spread throughout the woods.
Watching the fat sizzle on the roasting meat, Senku suddenly remembered something. He turned and hurried back to the hut nearby. A short while later, he came running back with a small bag of white powder.
Li Xiang spotted it out of the corner of her eye and casually reached out, dipping a fingertip into it for a taste. A savory saltiness spread across her tongue.
"It's salt."
"Not bad. You even know how to make salt."
"Kukuku. How could I not know such a basic wilderness survival technique?"
Holding the bag, Senku sprinkled a thin, even layer of salt over the meat. The grains clung to the steaming surface, instantly bringing out a rich, irresistibly tempting aroma.
The coals kept roasting the meat, and the chunks slowly turned golden brown. Fat dripped into the fire, sending up tiny sparks.
Before long, the fragrant boar meat was cooked through. They took the skewers off the fire and bit into the meat while it was hot.
Crisp outside and tender within, it was savory and well seasoned, the firm meat deeply satisfying.
The terror of their encounter with the boar melted away amid mouthfuls of fragrant meat.
"Mmm, this roasted meat tastes pretty good."
"Yeah. It's just missing some garlic cloves."
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