Chapter 189: Get That Pig!

Ren moved through the forest with the stealth of a hungry tiger—or at least, that’s what she told herself. In reality, she was tiptoeing through the mud in a scratchy wool dress, looking for anything edible that wasn’t a leaf.

“Okay, System,” Ren muttered, scanning the underbrush. “We need recovery food. We need protein. Lots of it. I’m talking bodybuilder levels of protein.”

[System: Correct. High-protein intake is essential for tissue regeneration. Recommended sources: Red meat, eggs, or fish.]

“Fish implies a river, and I don’t know where that is,” Ren mused. “Eggs imply climbing trees, and I do not trust my luck to be on my side. So, red meat it is.”

She sighed, pushing a large fern aside. “But what can I catch? I’m a chef, not a huntress. Unless a steak falls from the sky, we might be eating mushroom stew or seasoned leaves.”

As if the Forest Gods had heard her plea and decided to throw her a bone, the bushes ahead rustled.

Ren froze.

In a small clearing just ten feet away, a round, brown creature was engrossed in digging.

It was a pig.

Well, it looked like a pig. It had a snout, floppy ears, and a corkscrew tail. It was burying its head under a massive root, snuffling loudly as it searched for truffles or tubers.

And the best part? It was small.

In a world where rabbits were the size of Great Danes and eagles could carry off grown men, this pig was shockingly reasonable. It was maybe the size of a chubby bulldog.

Ren’s eyes turned into dollar signs. Or rather, steak emojis.

“Bacon,” Ren whispered, salivating. “Pork chops. Braised pork belly. Tonkatsu.”

[System: Analysis Complete. Subject: Earth-Boring Boar (Juvenile). Nutritional Value: Extremely High. The meat is marbled and rich in collagen. Perfect for recovery.]

Ren grinned. “Jackpot.”

[System: Suggestion: Mark the location and retrieve the Snake Beastman. Viper is like a venomous assassin. He can secure the target with 100% efficiency.]

Ren scoffed, offended.

“Excuse me?” she whispered aggressively at the blue screen. “Retrieve Viper? For this? Look at it! It’s a nugget! It’s basically a walking ham sandwich!”

[System: Appearances can be deceiving, Host. Speed and agility stats are unknown.]

“It’s a pig, System,” Ren dismissed, crouching down and creeping forward. “Pigs are heavy. They are lazy. And this one is distracted. If I get Viper, by the time we come back, it’ll be gone. I am a capable woman. I can catch a little pig.”

[System: Setting odds of success to 12%.]

“Shut up,” Ren hissed. “Watch and learn.”

Ren entered ’Predator Mode’. She narrowed her eyes. She controlled her breathing. She took slow, deliberate steps, avoiding the crunchy twigs.

The pig continued to snuffle, its round butt wiggling in the air as it dug.

’Closer… closer…’ Ren thought, her hands outstretched like claws. ’Come to mama.’

She was three feet away. Two feet.

The pig paused. Its ears twitched.

’NOW!’

Ren launched herself.

“GOTCHA!” she screamed, diving through the air with arms wide open.

She hit the ground with a wet thud.

Her arms wrapped tightly around… nothing?

“Huh?”

Ren looked up, spitting mud out of her mouth.

The pig was standing five feet to her left, looking at her with beady black eyes. It didn’t look scared. It looked unimpressed.

“Oh, you think you’re fast?” Ren challenged, scrambling to her feet. Her wool dress was now brown instead of greyish white. “Round Two. Let’s go.”

Ren lunged again.

The pig didn’t run. It drifted. It literally side-stepped her lunge with the grace of a matador, letting Ren fly past it into a bush.

“Hey!” Ren yelled, untangling herself from the branches.

The pig squealed—a sound that was suspiciously like a laugh—and trotted away.

“Get back here!” Ren roared.

The chase was on.

Ren sprinted after the pig. For a chubby creature with short legs, it was defying the laws of physics. It bobbed and weaved through the trees like a pinball.

Ren dived left. The pig went right. Ren dived right. The pig went left. Ren tried to corner it against a tree. The pig literally ran up the trunk for a second, did a backflip over Ren’s head, and landed running.

“Parkour?!” Ren screeched, spinning around. “Since when do pigs know parkour?!”

She was panting. Her hair was a bird’s nest. She had mud on her face, leaves in her dress, and a cramp in her side.

The pig stopped ten yards away. It looked back at her. It wiggled its tail.

Then, with a final, mocking snort, it engaged its turbo boosters. It shot forward like a brown bullet, disappearing into the dense undergrowth in the blink of an eye.

Ren stood there, hands on her knees, wheezing.

“It… it has… nitro…” Ren gasped.

The forest was silent, save for the sound of her own humiliation.

[System: Amazing. The form. The dedication. The absolute failure. I haven’t seen a hunt that embarrassing since a panda tried to catch a butterfly.]

Ren’s face flushed hot red beneath the mud.

“Shut up!” Ren yelled at the air. “It was aerodynamic! It was greased! That was a magic pig!”

[System: It was a piglet, Host. You were outmaneuvered by a piglet. Shall I update your status to ’Gatherer’ only? Because ’Hunter’ seems like false advertising.]

“I hate you,” Ren grumbled, wiping the dirt off her cheek. “I hate this forest… stupid magic pig.”

She looked up at the sky.

The sun was positioned directly overhead. It was high noon.

“Great,” Ren sighed, kicking a pebble. “I’m late, I’m dirty, and I have zero protein.”

She turned around and began the long, shameful trudge back to the Violet Rain-Caller plant. Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her that she had burned more calories chasing breakfast than she would get from eating berries.

She pushed a branch out of her way.

“I’ll just ask Viper to catch something,” Ren decided, waving her hand dismissively. “Maybe a deer. Or a really big bird.”

She nodded, satisfied with her new plan.

“Yes. A big bird. That shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

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