Quantum Leap - Vol. 1 The Leap That Starts It All

C018 Feast

We paced our way back to Stone Village, hoping to reach there before dusk. Flocks of birds were returning to the forest and the evening was soon overshadowed by a few dozens of birds returning back to roost.

In the distance, the sound of crickets and cicadas soon filled the forested areas that started chirping and calling out to one another.

After about 2 hours of brisk walking, we saw a distant flicker of a welcoming bonfire. That is meant to show that we were nearing the Stone Village very soon.

The moment we were about to reach the outskirts of the settlement, we heard some deep rustling sounds coming from the bushes on the left.

There was a look of alarm on the brothers' faces as the sounds of deep rustling broke their focus all of a sudden...!

There were sounds of branches being broken and being trampled by an unseen heavy and large beast. We could also see the movements of some tree trunks being pushed aside forcefully as it made its way towards us...!

"A FARKING STAMPEDE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE...!" Wild thoughts ran through my mind as I visualised a large man-eating beast stampeding through the bushes and went straight for us as we were mauled by it and pulled back into the thick of the forest to be fed to its offsprings...!

We were literally frozen and rooted to the ground and our eyes were transfixed on the direction of heavy trampling that was coming closer and closer towards our direction...!

Suddenly sounds of sharp squealings could be heard and suddenly, a wild boar the height of at least 3 feet tall and a length of at least 4 feet long broke through the clearing.

The sides of its mouth were two upturned tusks that could gore a man with devastating effect if it struck and bring its target down to their knees.

Once the target had been brought down to the knees, the wild boar, once feel threatened, would charge forward and fire the target down using its two front protruding tusks.

The moment its eyes fixed on us, it suddenly went wild with frenzy and charged towards us. The distance between us was slightly more than 30 feet away...!

The sudden appearance of the large wild boar that was charging down to us was like a small bull that was facing 4 matadors. It took us by surprise and we knew that danger was imminent.

I immediately pushed the brothers aside out of harm's way as they were fixed to the ground and stood there frozen like statues...!

The fear in their eyes could tell almost everything. I stood with my legs slightly apart and with bended knees to lower it down closer to the gravitational pull.

I was ready to face the darn charging wild boar-like a charging bull meeting its matador...!

I immediately unsheathed the keris and held it in my right hand while holding the sheath in my left. I held the sheath in a defensive position and was covering my front part of the face slightly.

The keris was held in my right and I pulled the keris back behind my waist as I would use it to prod the charging wild boar towards it.

My left foot was slightly outstretched and my right was slight to the rear to support my body weight.

As soon as the wild boar saw me, it let out a kind of squealing they sounded like a war cry to me and changed its focus and changed its direction and lunged straight at me.

I took the only chance I've got!

In one swift movement, as the wild forest boar reached my striking distance, I struck down on its head with my left hand that was wielding the sheath, hoping to avoid the deadly sharp tusks.

Using the momentum, I kicked on my both of my legs and sprung momentarily towards the air.

The moment when I was somersaulting in the air, the nape of the wild boar was clearly exposed underneath me, and I forcefully aimed and stabbed it with the keris in my right hand.

*ZZRRIIPP*

The whole length of the keris immediately penetrates the soft spot at the nape of the beast as I plunged the keris forcefully.

The keris was embedded right into the neck of the beast that immediately severed the nervous system as well as the occipital bone.

Its front legs instantly collapsed inwards causing it is head to immediately plough into the ground and abruptly ended the final run of its life.

Fresh hot sticky blood sprayed wildly as the keris was held down by both hands as I not only plunge the keris deep within the nape area but also twisted the blade to ensure it does maximum damage effect.

I knew the keris was only good for stabbing and not for slicing and the chance I took was a very good one indeed...!

When I made that somersault, I managed to deftly land on its back, straddling it between my legs like taking a ride on a small bull.

The wild boar let out a pitiful whining squeal before its body suddenly went into a spasm and snorted its last breath loudly.

Fresh warm blood flowed out like an open tap from its huge and plump snout and formed a small pool on the ground.

I twisted the keris about and slowly extracted the keris, deftly wiped the blood off from the keris onto its hide that was covered with thick and coarse hairs before sheathing the keris back.

I let out a sigh of relief before slumping beside its body.

"HEY! You told us that your keris does not kill... !" Ding was surprised and hollered out at me as he pulled himself together.

He walked in my direction and kicked my shin.

Actually, the kick was not hard enough to stumble it injure me but I made some noises to show him that I am just as weak as him and as normal like anyone else too.

I just looked at them and shrugged my shoulders instead while I rubbed at the part where Ding had earlier kicked me.

"We now have something for Stone Village! Wah, Bo... I didn't know that you could move like that! Fuyooo..! R-E-S-P-E-C-T!"

Eun sang out the last sentence like a song and the two of them surged forward to help me up from the sitting position.

The brothers were also surprised that I had suddenly strained the agility of a cat and was able to perform such a move that a normal person would take weeks or even months to perfect it. I just made that kind of move in a single spur of a moment.

"Come on... Let us go meet and greet with the villagers."

Cheng highlighted to us as he took hold of one of the wild boar's leg while the rest of us followed.

As the damn beast was too heavy for us to truss it up since there was no bamboo or branch anywhere, so we dragged the wild boar and left a trail of blood from where it last stood.

The wild boar would have weighed between 400 to 650 pounds due to its size and we suspected that the beast may have thought that we were intruding its space.

These type of beasts were normally territorial and protective, especially towards their young ones.

So most probably it thought that we wanted to capture their defenceless young ones and that's why it barged its way toward us as to draw the first blood.

Right now the only blood it could draw was from the open wound on the top of its neck and also from the snout...!

The moment we entered the perimeter of the Stone Village, the villagers who saw us dragging the wild boar with difficulty, let out whoops of joy as the ran towards us to welcome the hunt and not us. Wuwuwu...

The villagers soon took hold of the wild boar and laughingly slapped our shoulders and bumped their hips with ours, performed chest bumps and carried the trophy to the centre of the village where there would-be hunter and gatherers who would deal with the unexpected windfall.

When we get to the centre of the village, a group of men immediately skinned the wild boar and two kids quickly carried the pelt to wash first at the communal bath area before hanging the pelt onto a drying rack near the bonfire.

Later on, we learnt that the pelt will be dried first before being sent to the tannery to be treated and converting it to raw leather.

The butcher then cleverly used a cleaver and began to work his way around the wild boar and expertly carved one whole hind leg and handed it to one of the men for the feast.

It was a joyous windfall for the participating members of the community. The whole hind leg of the wild boar may look like nothing but it weighed almost 100 pounds after being cleaned.

The innards were being washed and then cleaned before it was kept inside a vat that was filled with brine to preserve it. It would later be cooked in the future for the whole community.

The meat was immediately washed down with clean water and a dagger ran across the meat swiftly, creating some grooves in the meat where the bone could be seen. This is to ensure that it cooks faster and the seasoning will spread evenly.

One of the ladies prepared marination made from salt, spices and other herbs and the mix was smothered over the meat so that it would be uniform before being baked inside the pit.

A few layers of fresh banana leaves were used to wrap the meat up as a few of the men helped the ladies to put the meat wrappings right in the centre of the pit which the fires had burned down, leaving a bed of embers.

Someone from the pit saw and recognized Eun as he walked over and gave a big manly embrace to the later. Eun's friend then helped to dump and layered the ground of the pit with hot embers before placing the wrapped package into the pit.

After layering the wrapped package with fine sand, he then dumped a whole lot of more embers and flat stones on top before he covered it with sand. He then used a stick where he poked some holes on top of the soil to draw in the draft.

Eun was seen talking to his friend from Stone VIllage as they were acting like two long lost buddies that had not seen each other for a very long time.

"It has been a long time, Eun. How are you getting along now?"

"I am fine, my brethren. It seems that I had not been seeing you for some years and suddenly you had become such a fine young man..."

"Go ahead and join your brothers first, I will go and get out village's speciality."

His friend pointed towards a place that looked like a meeting place and Eun nodded his head in agreement. What transpired between them was a secret as we would not know what they were actually discussing about.

I held on to my keris that had tasted its first blood ever since it was handed down to the original Bo right after his parents' demise. I held it in my left hand and somehow I could feel it throbbing like a heartbeat.

"Is this keris awaken and alive since it had already tasted its first blood ever once it was being handed down to me? Weird, I wonder how this original Bo would be handling this keris when the time comes, would it?"

I thought to myself as we sat on wooden logs near the pit. Eun arrived with two short bamboo poles that were the length of 1 rib in between the bamboo measuring under 1 meter in length.

The rib segment of the bamboo is solid thus it could be used to hold liquid. 4 bamboo cups were then passed around to each of us.

Eun's friend was present with us and he cheerily highlighted, "Thank you for the wild boar that came as a surprise for the whole village."

=*=

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