Kaiser of the New World

The bear's body trembled as the head of the sword was plunged into its brain, killing it instantly.

Sadly, Kai was caught off guard by the sudden movement as it died and ended up falling off the back of the bear and onto the thick snow beneath them.

You have gained XP

Kai sighed. It had been a little over a month since he was first summoned here, and things had actually been going really well.

He trained with Ezekial every day and had been slowly getting better with wielding a sword. Of course, he wasn't perfect, but he had managed to get rid of a few bad habits like his flinching and how he would loosen his grip on his blade when panicked.

Still, his swordsmanship had also improved, mostly thanks to all the training he had done with his wrists. Ezekial was always on about creating your own style, so Kai decided to implement Wristology into it to act as a base.

The book had ended up being even more valuable than he originally thought. The dexterity of his hands had improved drastically and he had even gotten better at a variety of other things that had nothing to do with sword fighting.

Using a knife to cut things when cooking, scratching hard to reach places on his body, even something as simple as turning the pages of a book was ten times easier because of the way the training worked.

Still, not all could be perfect in this land of cold. Even though Kai had only been hunting these rhino bears for the last week, and this was the first one he actually managed to kill himself, he had been hunting other things for the last two weeks and he was still yet to level up.

It was a bit of a shame, but he just assumed it was because the way XP was gained changed after your second class selection, which did make sense.

He hadn't checked his Status Screen at all in the last month as there was no real reason to, there were no changes to any of his skills or anything like that so why bother?

He had also gotten closer with some of the people in the castle, Ezekial obviously being one of them. But he also often hung out with Yelena, even if it was something as simple as helping her do her duties. She was fun to be around, and she was also really nice.

... Not to mention that she also gave Kai some change whenever he wanted to venture into the city.

He had also spoken to Anastasia quite a bit in his time here. At first he thought it would be incredibly awkward dealing with her after that night, but it honestly wasn't that bad.

While she didn't mention what had happened, she did calm down a bit when it came to Kai. She began teasing him a lot less and just talking to him normally instead of trying to make him squirm.

And while Kai wasn't sure if he was happy with that development or not, he knew that it was for the best so he just accepted it.

Surprisingly, Castillian seemed to hate Kai less now. He had moved on from scowling whenever he saw him to just ignoring his presence in general. Not a big change, but a change nonetheless.

Petunia though, the last time he saw her was the day she came to his door. After the city was opened to Kai, he didn't spend as much time in the castle so he ended up not really having dinner with everyone else.

He had asked Ezekial about her a couple of times though, so he was sure she was fine, probably.

And of course, the person Kai had spent the most time with in the last month was the blue haired swordsman himself. They trained for a couple of hours each day, which Kai accidently found surprisingly enjoyable. He wasn't that big into exercise before, but his time in the white room must have changed his opinion on it.

From training with swords to training with weights to even the odd theory lesson that Ezekial gave, Kai was always training with him.

And today was no different, only today was the first day that the swordsman actually complimented him.

As Kai got up off the snow, he saw Ezekial approaching him in the corner of his eye. He looked as attractive as ever and was completetly undisturbed by the gruelling blizzard around them.

"Good job. While it was reckless, you did have a plan in mind, so I'll commend you for that."

Kai smiled weakly. He then decided that he wasn't going to mention that he had no idea the bear could shoot snow bullets from its horn and how throwing his sword at the bear's eyes was an impulsive decision that somehow ended up working out.

"Thanks. Still, why are we only hunting these bears now?"

Ezekial's expression darkened for a moment before he answered.

"Because that is all you are ready for, and I would much rather avoid some of the other things that live out here."

Kai shuddered in response. If even Ezekial wanted to avoid them...

"So what now?"

Ezekial glanced at Kai before looking back to the body of the dead bear.

"Now, you do as you've practiced."

Sighing, Kai grumbled something under his breath as he took his sword back out and began badly butchering the bear.

Turns out, Ezekial was one of the many hunters of the city. If they hired him, he would go out and hunt animals for various different reasons. Their meat, pelts, teeth and other things that were to do with their magical aspects, such as the horn of this rhino bear.

While he had no idea what the horn actually did up until now, he had been told that it was valuable and sold for quite a bit back in the city.

Still, Kai was absolutely terrible at his butchering duty, so he was definitely losing some money with how badly he was cutting the corpse.

And no matter how many times Kai asked, Ezekial would not step in to help. The swordsman would just say that this was an essential skill that Kai had to learn, especially in an area like this where anything and everything could be of value.

It took another twenty minutes before Kai had finally finished cutting up all the important parts of the bear.

The pieces of flesh that could be used for cooking, the strongest parts of its fur, its teeth and claws and lastly, its horn.

Sighing, Kai placed them all on the ground before storing them in the spatial storage ring that was on his middle finger.

Obviously this wasn't his actual storage ring, this was just one that had been lent to him by Ezekial. He only got it whenever they went out hunting and he had to give it back whenever they got to the castle.

Even though a month had passed, the closest Kai got to exposing any of his trump cards was in that duel with Ezekial a month ago, where he made use of Partial Transformation to claw out a win, literally.

While he was now sure that this place was actually pretty safe and the people here weren't that bad, that didn't mean he was just going to share everything about himself.

Groaning as he stretched, Kai turned back to Ezekial and asked:

"Is that everything."

Sadly, Kai already knew the answer before he asked.

"You know that it is not."

The storage ring that Kai had been given by Ezekial was far too small to be able to store the whole body of the bear, which is why he had to butcher it in this insufferable cold.

But according to Ezekial, leaving a blood soaked body this close to the city, even if it was over a kilometer away and the body of the bear was probably miniscule in comparison to some of the things living in the blizzard, could prove to be fatal if anything dangerous caught scent of it.

And because of that, after each animal they killed, they had to burn the body.

But a normal flame was instantly put out in this blizzard, so they had to use a special flame designed specifically for this.

Grimacing, Kai pulled out a small incense candle from the spatial storage he had even loaned. God he hated this thing, and it was for a very valid reason.

When he pulled out the candle, the wick was already lit, one of the properties of the spatial storage. Instead of preserving everything that was put inside, it specialised in preserving flames.

And if you were wondering if the flame would affect the body parts of the bear that was being stored inside, Kai made sure that he always kept them on opposite sides of the storage.

Lowering the flame down to the furness corpse, Kai held back a gag as he felt that insufferable stench infiltrate his nostrils as the bear's entire body was lit up by a dark purple flame.

Instantly backing away, Kai put the candle back in the spatial storage and turned back to Ezekial.

"God I hate doing this, why can't we just bring a bigger spatial storage?"

Ezekial shook his head before answering.

"Because I said so."

Kai hid a scowl, slowly getting sick of the swordsman's petty answers that reminded him of his parents.

Both of them stood there in the cold, watching the body slowly be devoured by the growing purple flame.

And after a couple of minutes of it burning away, the remaining ashes were carried away by the blizzard as the flame died out because there was nothing left to burn.

Even though Ezekial said the process was essential, Kai still wasn't sure if lighting a fire in this sort of environment was a smart idea. They said that the blood could attract bigger and more dangerous beasts, but couldn't the same be said about heat?

Unless the purple flame also had some sort of property that prevented that, that would make sense.

"Now." Ezekial said as he turned around and began walking deeper into the blizzard. Even though Kai couldn't see it, Ezekial somehow had a way to tell where the city was.

"Let's go sell our goods to the Singing Vixen."