Iris takes out a stick, its tip sharpened and light. With the tip of the unicorn's horn uncomfortably close, she manages to quickly stab the unicorn's neck.
Neigh!!
The unicorn stops its charge a finger's length away from Iris's stomach. Moving and screaming in pain as the blood continues to fall.
Iris's legs shake; she is so close to dying, that she feels pleased to have survived. Seeing the unicorn bleed smiled at her. The stick has some pieces inside the unicorn's neck.
Iris, struggling to walk, starts to find more sticks strong enough to pass through the skin to deal the final blow. Iris finds a stick and gives it back to the screaming unicorn.
Boom
Iris feels her spine feel substantial damage after the powerful unicorn's kick, sending her flying. She falls down her body, sending her signals of excruciating pain going up and down her spine. She looks back to see the unicorn's healed neck; however, its body decreased in size to half its original.
Iris groans in pain, moving her body through the grass to try and alleviate the pain. Her mind is now more determined to kill that unicorn, but it is conflicted about how it will complete its goal.
The unicorn prepares to launch itself towards Iris, preparing to finish her off, its eyes full of fury and hatred.
Iris raises her head, seeing the unicorn running towards her; she prepares her shield in front of her, trusting that it will be enough to defend her from the imminent attack. Closing her eyes as she sees the unicorn approaching her.
Boom
Thud
Iris opens her eyes; she feels intact, only her spine in pain but alive. Her eyes widen; she looks down, seeing the unicorn's horn stuck to the shield, with the unicorn on the ground.
She sees how the unicorn begins to gradually age, changing many shapes, the blood from the horn changing colors every second until it all eventually ends. The unicorn looked at Iris, its eyes filled with pain as it took its last breath, dying as it looked deep into Iris's soul.
Iris let out a sigh of relief seeing the dead unicorn as its body gradually returned to its normal age, leaving Iris to have a relatively young unicorn's meat. However, she feels a little suspicious about why it changed ages.
This forest always surprises me. She breaks into laughter. " I finally have meat!! And I killed him." Iris raised her hands in happiness, but the pain in her spine hurt the more she laughed.
What do I do now? How am I supposed to cut it? I have no strengths? I am so lucky to be alive.
The pain in Iris' spine gradually lowered until two hours later, when she was able to stand up and cut the meat.
With some minor discomfort, she gets the stick she found and begins cutting the skin of the unicorn, paying attention to her surroundings to not alert any wolves like last time. Quickly cutting the skin, her arms red and the stick-breaking, she has to find more sticks.
Standing up like a grandma, she awkwardly walks to find sticks while not losing sight of the unicorn's fresh meat.
After finding ten more sticks, she continued cutting more meat, cutting it into smaller and easier sizes to bring back.
Her entire day consisted of cutting the flesh and finding more sticks to cut down the thick pieces of bone. The more she tries to cut the neck, the more surprised she is about how she could stab the unicorn's neck.
She cuts all of the unicorn's neck skin, finding her in awe to see that the only spot that has no protection is the spot where the stick landed; touching the neck, she senses the pieces of wood still inside.
The entire night she cuts and collects enough meat to last her for at least a month if she can supplement it with fruits. Her weakened body couldn't cut past the stomach and thighs, leaving a lot of extra meat that she ultimately decided to leave for the other enemies.
With her hands filled with unicorn meat and blood, she walks back to her new home; she plans to come back for the other pieces before other animals get to them.
Arriving, she positions the meat a footstep away from Apatura's cocoon to protect it as she leaves for the remaining.
She goes back and finds the remaining meat intact; she quickly and quietly grabs the remaining meat and runs away, leaving the animals to fight for the meat.
Iris, feeling extremely hungry, drops the meat and quickly finds enough wood to create a fire. With more experience, she has an easier time creating the fire. Let it consume the wood until the flame is large enough to cook the meat.
Iris is now facing a new dilemma. She knows that meat goes bad, but she has no idea how long it has to be out and if it applies to a unicorn which is a unique species.
She decides to ignore that issue, concentrating on cooking the meat and resting for another day.
The minute the meat began cooking, the smell of the meat didn't excite Iris; the smell was that of meat that had been maturing for a while while having a deep smell of iron. Her stomach begged for the meat, so she took a bite. The meat had a very rubbery consistency; however, when she finally cut a piece, the flavors increased, becoming delicious tender meat, almost dissolving in her tongue.
The rest of Iris' day consisted of her eating some meat with some fruits that had completely different tastes. She let the other meat beside Apatura sleep below her leaf blanket inside the frame of her house construction.
…
Iris wakes up to a sudden loud sound; she scaredly looks around, trying to find where the sound was produced.
Thud! Thud!! Thud!!!.
The sounds gradually increased, shaking the ground. She is preparing to see the mysterious creatures, but with no fog, she is increasingly more anxious about what could be producing that sound.
Suddenly she begins to feel a shiver down her spine and a familiar feeling of being watched with bloodlust in their eyes. Iris noticed how it was looking at her and not the meat, discarding her idea of it being a hungry animal.
She looks back and sees bone-chilling yellow eyes staring directly at her.