A Craving for Pork
Chester had made a pillow by draping moss over a log of just the right size. After a long, satisfying sleep on his makeshift pillow, he quietly opened his eyes. He woke to a soft, gentle darkness, the blocked windows and sturdy roof keeping the morning sunlight from piercing his eyes. Checking the campfire, which had dwindled to smoldering gray embers, Chester stood up and opened the window set into the side wall.
He propped the window open with a wooden stick, stretching his limbs as he welcomed the incoming breeze and warm sunlight. By the time Chester finished his stretches, Monia was also waking up. Watching Chester stretch with sleepy eyes, Monia poked at the embers to let the air in, then fetched a log from the pile in the corner. She picked up a beast's claw—one Chester had set aside to make a knife but hadn't used yet—and scraped the wood to make kindling, tossing the shavings into the fire.
Though she had initially been terrified of even getting close to the flames, Monia was now quite adept at reviving a dying fire. So adept, in fact, that...
"Yaaawn."
She could do it while letting out a massive yawn.
Having finished his stretching, Chester stepped outside to check the results of his land-fishing lines.
"Oh."
The first and second lines were empty, but the third and final hook was shaking violently. Spotting the beast thrashing in agony beneath the earth, Chester grabbed the cord and carefully hauled it up.
Snagged on the hook was a small, dog-like mammal. Once he had pulled it up a decent height, Chester grabbed his axe. If he hauled it all the way up alive, he risked getting scratched by its claws or bitten by its viciously sharp teeth. He intended to put it out of its misery before bringing it over the edge.
"Hup!"
A loud, chaotic racket broke out.
—Yiiiiip! Screeech!
"Hup!"
—Whimper! Whine!
"Huuup!"
After swinging the axe a few more times, the mammal finally went limp, blood oozing from its shattered skull.
"Phew." Chester hauled the carcass all the way up and pried the hook from its mouth. He drew his stone knife, sliced off a piece of the beast's flesh, baited the hook with it, and lowered the line back down into the pit.
Where should I butcher this? Inside the house? Chester briefly imagined dressing the game indoors. Yeah, absolutely not. Deciding that the river was still the best place for the job, he headed back toward the shelter.
"I'm heading down to the river."
"Oh, I'm coming too."
"Are you? Grab a basket, then."
"Okay."
Monia emerged with a basket and followed Chester as he climbed down the ladder.
"You're getting pretty good at climbing down on your own now."
"I've been practicing! Is that a dog on your back?"
"Probably a wolf."
Monia stared at the mangled carcass with complete nonchalance. Having watched Chester butcher beasts and gut fish so many times, she had grown thoroughly desensitized to the gore.
"Good timing, too. Our smoked meat is running low."
The primary reason they were running low on smoked meat was, of course, Monia.
"But I wanted to eat more..."
Having lived a life of absolute luxury, the concept of 'rationing food' was entirely foreign to her.
Though I've secretly hoarded my own share of smoked meat.
Unbeknownst to Monia, Chester had lined the bottom of his basket with a double layer of leaves, concealing a stash of smoked meat between them. He saved this emergency stash for times when hunting and trapping yielded nothing, getting by on fresh catches whenever possible. The only supply currently running low was Monia's.
"I want to eat pig again."
Pork. Although it was tougher than domesticated pork, it was still far more tender and succulent than any other meat available on this island. Despite the animal's small size, it yielded an abundance of meat, and the belly cut in particular offered a perfect harmony of savory umami and sweet, rich fat.
Moreover, because the pigs fed on the lush, abundant vegetation of the Floating Island, the meat possessed a rich flavor reminiscent of specially raised acorn-fed Iberico pork. When Monia had first tasted it, she had literally wept tears of joy. Since then, whenever they caught a less appetizing beast, she would refuse to eat anything but her smoked pork.
Of course, because it truly was delicious, Chester had also designated the pigs as his highest-priority target. Unfortunately, they were not easy to find.
A dark figure rose silently from among his sleeping kin. A twisted scar marred his face—a punishment carved by his chieftain after he accidentally lost one of the livestock under his care.
The dark figure gathered a unique, flavorful black mushroom and some hard grains harvested from the trees, grinding them together to make feed before heading to his workplace. He strode down the steep, sheer cliff where a waterfall cascaded, and after walking just a bit further, he arrived at his destination.
There stood a crude pen constructed from fallen logs. Inside the fence, pigs oinked softly, peacefully grazing on the grass. The dark figure approached and fed them the feed he had prepared. Then, he carefully counted them.
"..."
And then, he realized.
Once again, a pig was missing.
The dark figure searched frantically to find the pig before the rest of his tribe woke up, but in the end, his efforts were in vain.
Chester laid the drained carcass of the canine mammal belly-up on the ground. The body, which initially had only a shattered skull, now bore a deep gash across its throat where he had bled it.
First, he made a long incision from the throat down to the groin. For this, he naturally used his newly crafted stone knife, having discarded his old, soiled one. After slicing open the hide, he carefully excised the genitals.
Next came the legs. Leaving only the meaty thighs, he shattered and severed the lower hind legs with his axe, then used the stone knife to cut the hide from the central incision down to the severed joints.
From there, he slipped his fist between the hide and the flesh, working it loose to peel the skin away with ease. After stripping the rear hide, he pushed it forward. He repeated the process for the front legs, severing them and peeling the skin further.
As the hide was peeled inside out, it eventually bunched up around the neck, covering the beast's head. Chester brought down his axe to shatter the sturdy neck bone, then sliced through the surrounding muscle and tendons with his stone knife. Severing the head from the torso completed the external dressing.
Next was the interior—the entrails. He carefully slit the abdomen open, removing the inedible organs with caution to ensure none ruptured and spoiled the meat. The heart and liver were edible, so he set them aside. Once the carcass was completely hollowed out, he washed it thoroughly in the flowing river water.
"Done." Chester placed the clean, red carcass into the basket. "Let's head back."
"Oh, aren't we going to check the traps?"
"Dressed meat spoils quickly. We need to cook it right away. We can check the traps later."
"Okay."
On their way back, they gathered a few edible roots and wild fruits before heading to the Beach Villa. Smoking meat required a lot of smoke, making it impractical to do inside their main shelter. Although smoke could escape through the windows or gaps in the bamboo, most of it would linger inside, blinding them and making it impossible to breathe.
Chester carved off a few thick slabs of meat to eat immediately, then began slicing the rest into thin strips for smoking. While he worked, Monia prepared the campfire and the smoking pit just as she had been taught.
In front of the Beach Villa was a pit dug specifically for smoking meat. Once a fire was lit inside, they would pile damp wood on top to generate thick plumes of smoke. All that was left was to lay the meat on the makeshift grill above and let the smoke do its work.
"Do you think this will taste good?"
"No idea," Chester replied, roasting the fresh cuts as Monia stared intently at the smoking meat. Finally, he peeled the outer bark off the plants they had gathered, leaving only the tender inner flesh, and placed the root vegetables on the grill alongside the meat.
"Once we finish eating, let's go scout around a bit."
"Okay."
Mystery mammal meat, tender plant shoots, roasted root vegetables, and a handful of wild fruit. Thus, the two began a hearty morning.
The pig, who had lived surrounded by wooden fences since birth, stumbled upon a hole one day. Perhaps someone had been playing around, but a small hollow had been dug out beneath a log that sat slightly off the ground. Seeing this, the pig eagerly began digging with its tough snout and protruding tusks.
This was not a desperate bid for freedom born of resentment toward its captivity. After all, there was no reason to abandon an environment where it was safe from predators and fed regularly on schedule. It simply wanted to play in the dirt.
Its only misfortune was that it was a piglet, much smaller and weaker than the others. Having squeezed through the gap after digging beneath the log, the piglet—raised in a safe, comfortable haven and entirely ignorant of danger and fear—began to wander the wilderness.
And then, it was chased by a bear. A monstrous beast twice its size.
—Squeeeal!
Fleeing from the bear, the piglet lost its footing near the river and tumbled into the water. Unable to fight the strong current, it was swept away. It plunged down a waterfall, losing consciousness from the impact, and drifted aimlessly until its body snagged on something.
Caught in the fish trap Monia had set, the piglet's drift came to a halt. It thrashed, breaking the trap, and scrambled out of the river. Desperate to escape the terrifying water, the piglet ran and ran.
Just as it was about to collapse from exhaustion, they appeared.
They were bizarrely twisted monsters. They walked the earth on only two legs, had no tails, and possessed hair only on the tops of their heads. They had no tusks, no claws, nor any visible weapons to defend themselves. They were grotesque abominations—true 'monsters' that shouldn't even exist.
Were they cast out of their pack because of their deformities?
As the piglet reached this conclusion, one of the two monsters made a strange movement. It pulled out a wooden stick and a thin branch, aiming them directly at the piglet.
Although the piglet did not understand the concept of 'aiming,' it instinctively knew the intent behind the action. The gaze of that deformed creature was sharp and clear. It was the exact same look the piglet had seen in the eyes of the bear that had chased it earlier.
The eyes of a predator.
It didn't know what a bear was, what this creature was, or what it was doing, but the piglet understood one thing perfectly:
It wanted to eat him.
The piglet bolted.