A Hearty Meal

[ YOU ARE DEAD! ]

Zip! Bang!

[ You have been Resurrected! ]

[ Lives Remaining: 4 ]

Pete hid behind a boulder and sobbed quietly. He had caked himself in mud and animal dung to mask his smell. The wolverines chasing him skittered past without noticing him.

[ Difficulty- Nightmare ]

[ Title: ---- ]

[ Class: ---- ]

[ Inventory: Short stick ]

[ Level: ---- ]

[ HP: 4 ]

[ MP: 0 ]

[ Lives Remaining: 4 ]

The boy had died nine times already within an hour. Every death had been more bloody and excruciating than the previous.

The dashboard section displayed all instances and manners of his deaths.

[ 1- Gored by an Irish Elk ]

[ 2- Gobbled by a Man-eating Tree ]

[ 3. Snacked on by Were-rabbits ]

[ 4. Fell from a Cliff onto a Sharp Obsidian ]

[ 5. Beheaded by a Dullahan ]

[ 6. Consumed Poisoned Berries ]

[ 7. Stunned to Death by a Banshee ]

[ 8. Drowned in a Swamp ]

[ 9. Hunted and Ripped Apart by Direwolves ]

Finally, Pete understood what the NIGHTMARE difficulty level meant. In video games, Nightmare was activated after a player cleared Beginner, Intermediate, and Hard levels. Lady Aisling had spawned him down to play at the most challenging level! She wanted to torture him to death thirteen times! 'All because of a misunderstanding…' he thought bitterly. 'They were nice tits but not worth this hellish torment!'

Pete had forgotten that he was supposed to be Robin Hood. The game system looked like it had been stripped down. 'No tutorials. Not a single help prompt. This is no way to begin a reincarnation!'

The boy was barely trying to prevent his mind from shattering following the traumatic deaths he experienced. He had not made past two hundred feet of the location where he originally spawned. 'How am I supposed to finish an entire game at this rate?'

Pete had never felt so miserable. He had not yet found a single piece of clothing and was going commando. Mosquitoes as large as bees settled and stung him every time he stopped running. Boils and red swellings covered his body.

Yet the boy had survived somehow. Pressing his back against the boulder, Pete reckoned he was gradually making progress. He had heard human voices and had followed them down a hill.

Staying clear of monsters and carnivorous plants, the boy glided down the grassy slope and hid behind a trunk at the tree line. Below was a modest field, or perhaps a paddock.

A band of people had set tents in the area. Pete could see a campfire over which the limbs of an animal were being roasted. The smell was heavenly for the starving boy. He had stayed clear of things that looked edible for fear of poison.

"Oh, finally! Humans!" he exclaimed. "Oh, thank God!'

Pete rushed into the wilderness, calling out at the top of his voice. "Help! Help me! Please help me, guys!"

The boy was splattered with mud and dung from head to foot, naked as the day he was born. However, he did not care. The food smelled good, and he was dying to hear a human voice.

Pete was halfway down when he saw their faces. 'Yes, they are human! Thank God!.' Plock! Something like a stalk or branch hit his face. Pete shook his head and kept going. It wasn't the time to complain about forest litter.

However, he realized half of his vision had turned dark. 'Did I get resin or mud in my eyes?' he asked himself. The boy stopped and touched the affected eye. He felt something… a long shaft… jutting out of it.

Then the pain arrived.

"Aaaaaaaaa!!!"

Someone had shot an arrow into his left eye!

Thock! Thock! A couple of arrows embedded into his torso as soon as he screamed. One of the shafts punctured his heart. "Guck!"

[ YOU ARE DEAD! ]

Zip! Bang!

[ You have been Resurrected! ]

[ Lives Remaining: 3 ]

Pete's body respawned behind the tree. He fell backward, hyperventilating. It took him a few minutes to stop checking his eye for arrows. The pain was still raw in his mind.

Once the boy calmed down, he walked back to the streamlet, washed himself, and fashioned clothes from leaves and roots. The entire activity took the better part of an hour.

Finally, Pete approached the camp and walked toward the humans with raised arms. He progressed slowly and steadily, stopping whenever his movement caused alarm.

"I mean no harm, good sirs!" he announced to the strangers.

"Who are you, tramp?" one of them asked with a thick accent.

"I'm just a lost kid, sir. I'm unarmed and in dire need of help," Pete replied, surprised that he could both understand and speak their language.

"If you're a kid, then I am a grandfather," a boy not much older than him joked. The group laughed. This punctured the tension.

"You're right," Pete continued. "I am hungry and hurt. But I am not a freeloader. I can work."

"Come here, laddie," one of the older men said to him warmly, gesturing to join them at the campfire. "Let's get some warm food in you. We can talk about work later." The others went about their business again.

"Thank you!" Pete blurted out gratefully. He joined the raggedy group of people. Most of them were his age. However, they were tall, lean, and looked strong. A couple of men acted like leaders. They looked like they were in their late twenties.

The kind man offered him roasted meat in a large stone bowl. Pete gobbled down the food ravenously. The food tasted like nothing he had ever tasted before. 'Probably an extinct animal?' he wondered.

"It's delicious, sir!'

"I'm glad you like it, laddie. Let me know if you need more. There's plenty."

Pete nodded. After a heavy meal, he was sleepy. However, the fear of monsters barging in kept him awake.

"What's wrong, laddie?" the leader asked. "Are you worried about paying for the meal? Don't worry about that. Get some rest, and we'll discuss chores when you are awake."

Pete shook his head. "No, sir. It's something else. I need to be alert in case monsters attack your camp."

The man chuckled and patted Pete's pack. "Oh, don't worry about them wee beasts, laddie. We are veteran monster hunters. There's a magic circle around the camp to ward off monsters. You can sleep without fear."

"Thank you," Pete murmured with relief. Perhaps it was the first time he had meant those words in his life. The leader had been warm and affectionate, something his father never extended to him.

He kept his head against a rolled-up rug and slid into his thoughts. 'Hey… if I am supposed to be Robin Hood, these men could be my followers…"

Pete drifted off momentarily.

Crackle!

The boy woke up to find his head reeling and his skin burning.

'Did I drink ale before sleeping?' he wondered with his eyes closed. 'Did I contract a fever? Why am I burning up?'

Pete's eyes fluttered open. The scene before him filled him with bottomless horror. He saw himself fastened to a horizontal pole. Under him was the campfire.

"No, no, no! What's going on?" he whimpered, struggling in vain as the pole rotated slowly.

The leader's face appeared close to his. "Ah, you are awake, laddie. That'll get your juices flowing."

"Wh-what do you mean??"

"I think it is pretty clear. You're going to be our dinner…" the kind gentleman said with a warm smile.

The realization hit Pete like a boulder. He was being rotated over a roasting pit, naked again. The fire singed his body hair and charred his hanging fat. The men were cannibals!

Pete screamed. It was a raucous, desperate cry that echoed throughout the woods.

The boy would have continued to scream, but the man shoved a large apple into his mouth to gag him. Next, the cannibal inserted a spit-roasting rod through his cheeks to keep the fruit in place.

Overwhelming pain rushed over Pete. "Bbbmmmmmm!!"

"You'll be done in no time, laddie," the cannibal leader explained, almost drooling from the corners of his mouth.

The mind-numbing pain hit a high when the man inserted a spit plug up his ass to prevent leaking. "We don't want you to lose the succulence, eh?" he explained.

It took Pete at least thirty minutes to be roasted alive. Death came when he had stopped wishing for it.

[ YOU ARE DEAD! ]