"I have finally secured food. Now I gotta keep it from going bad," he said proudly while slowly dragging the corpse across the ground. Thankfully, he hadn't built the ditch far away from his base, making the trip difficult but not impossible.
"I wonder what this idiot's power was? I'll figure it out later. For now, I gotta chop it into pieces."
First, after getting a fire started, he began by skinning the beast and then chopping it into pieces. A little while later, however, he came across something interesting. Instead of the beast's heart, there was a fist-sized, shimmering yellow crystal in the shape of a rhombus.
Roland's eyes widened as he jumped up in excitement.
"I totally forgot about these. I read about them in passing once. They're contained in beasts and can be absorbed to help humans get stronger. How could I have forgotten something so important?" he said, his eyes brimming like a child who had found a new toy to play with.
Wait—did I actually manage to kill a Yellow Heart one? That's supposed to be for the best of D-rank adventurers and above. I just killed a second-level monster. I'm actually amazing.
He was happy, as he should've been. It truly was a great achievement for a three-year-old to have been able to slay a monster that some of the strongest adventurers wouldn't be able to defeat.
Still, he didn't have much time to celebrate, since he first had to finish his work. Chucking the crystal into his house, he took the hide of the beast, made two holes, and then put his arms through, checking it for size.
After carving out a bit more space for his throat, he began to make small holes in the front so that he would be able to tie it together with some twine.
He had finally made clothing.
Something akin to a black flannel—but instead of buttons, it had strings as its attachment. It looked more like a tank top than a shirt, since it had no sleeves. However, he hadn't used the rest of the hide, so he decided to lay it out in the sun and let the grease dry out, hoping to use it as a blanket in the future. He did the same with his newly made shirt.
While his new shirt wasn't as comfortable as the one he had worn previously, made by the best craftsmen, it was made by his own hands—and that alone made him happy.
"I'll need to make pants in the future as well. Since I'm sure these will be ripped in no time, but that can be dealt with by future me."
Then he took the thin pieces of meat he had cut from the bull and hung them high over the smoldering coals so that the maximum amount of smoke could reach them without too much heat, allowing the meat to be preserved for longer.
He also placed some meat directly above the embers so it would be ready to eat as soon as possible, since his growing body was desperate for food.
***
Soon after, he enjoyed a proper meal and continued relighting the fire, placing thin strips of meat over it to preserve as much food as possible, so that he wouldn't have to hunt beasts larger and stronger than himself any more than necessary.
He was finally stable—with shelter, water, and food. It was surprisingly relaxing. Somehow, he was even enjoying it.
Later that night, he worked out again, managing a not-so-clean push-up. His phoenix blood shone through, allowing him to improve that much in just two days. It was honestly a great feat.
However, to Roland's disappointment, he still couldn't see abs forming on his body.
The next two weeks passed peacefully, without many differences. He had a set routine: wake up, eat, make traps, carve things out of wood—cups, a table, utensils, and even a sword. No one knew why he had made a sword. Perhaps it was simply boredom.
But around that time, he realized that in fourteen days, he hadn't spoken aloud even once. He was alone, and at night all he dreamed of was talking to other people. Yet there was nothing he could do—because as far as Roland was concerned, there weren't any humans within thousands of kilometers.
So the best thing he could think of was creating an imaginary friend, and he named him Shaka.
Shaka was the same age as Roland, had black hair and black eyes, and was slightly shorter—maybe by three centimeters. But simply imagining someone wasn't enough for Roland, so, as the genius he was, he wondered if he could change the appearance of his clones.
***
Clones were supposed to be just that—clones. They were meant to look exactly like their creator. But somehow, after a month of trying, talking to his imagination, and to his clones that looked just like him, while occasionally hunting and going through the motions of survival, he managed to do the impossible.
It was achieved through an idiotic idea that wouldn't work for most people. But since Roland had grown slightly delusional over the past month and a half, he took all the ash he had accumulated over the weeks and rubbed it furiously into his hair. Then he created a clone.
A clone with black hair instead of his usual golden hair.