In just this brief moment, Brian Carter felt the wound on his palm was already excruciatingly painful, and blood had started to seep out. Brian Carter didn’t dare delay; holding the hunting knife, which was still covered in snake blood from cutting off the snake’s head, he wiped it hard on his clothes, then, gritting his teeth, pressed the tip of the knife to the bite mark on the edge of his palm and slashed down hard.

Brian Carter was ruthless with himself—so much so that the tip of the knife scraped bone. The pain made Brian Carter howl at the top of his lungs, and then he made two more vertical cuts across the bite mark.

When fresh blood began to spurt from his left palm, Brian Carter shivered all over from the pain. But seeing the wound start to swell and the blood stop flowing, Brian Carter knew he had to suck the blood out with his mouth.

If your gums are bleeding, sucking out the poisoned blood with your mouth will only kill you faster. Unfortunately, Brian Carter had always had a problem with bleeding gums. Even in this extreme agony, Brian Carter didn’t lose his senses; on the brink of life and death, his mind was working even faster than usual.

The condoms in Brian Carter’s waist pouch now came in handy. He had originally packed them in his PSK just to use as water containers, but now, they had a much more important use.

Brian Carter tore open a condom and put it on his hand. Then Brian Carter brought his hand to his mouth, preparing to suck the blood through the condom so the poisoned blood wouldn’t get into his mouth.

Pathetically, this was actually Brian Carter’s first time ever using a condom. As he put his hand, now covered with the condom, into his mouth, a ridiculous thought flashed through Brian Carter’s mind.

“Damn it, other people use condoms for pleasure. My first time using one is to save my life. Other people use condoms with women, but me? I’m the one tasting the damn thing myself. Shit, might as well just die.”

Though he was full of grief and indignation, Brian Carter still sucked hard at the poisoned blood. His efforts had some effect, but soon, no more blood would come from the wound.

Looking at his left hand, now swollen like a steamed bun, Brian Carter suddenly remembered something: if he kept his left hand tied with the paracord for too long, the lack of blood flow plus the snake venom would quickly cause his hand to die. If he couldn’t amputate it then, he’d be doomed.

With no other choice, Brian Carter loosened the paracord tied around his wrist. Once blood flow returned to his hand, he sucked out more poisoned blood, then after a while, tied the paracord around his wrist again, repeating this process over and over.

The intense pain, excessive blood loss, the effects of the snake venom, and hunger all combined—Brian Carter felt his head spinning more and more, and he started to see stars.

Afraid he’d pass out and not be able to untie the paracord in time, Brian Carter untied it, then tore open another condom and tied it around his wrist. The condom was elastic, so while it helped slow the spread of the venom to his heart and the rest of his body, it also allowed his left hand to keep getting some blood.

Brian Carter didn’t know what kind of snake had bitten him; he only knew it wasn’t a cobra. And Brian Carter didn’t know if what he was doing was right or wrong, but he could only try everything he knew.

Thinking back over his actions, wondering if he’d missed anything, Brian Carter suddenly remembered that his hunting knife had recently been used to butcher a hyena, and hyenas are scavengers—just imagine how many bacteria and viruses are on them.

To die not from the snake venom, but from an infection caused by bacteria from the hyena on his knife—just thinking about it made Brian Carter shudder. Luckily, his medical kit might lack many things, but it never lacked antibiotics.

Brian Carter’s medical kit was very small, but it contained quite a lot: antibiotics, anti-malarial drugs, medicine for diarrhea, and mosquito repellent. The only problem was that, due to space, there was very little of each. This time, the antibiotics would come in handy.

Brian Carter took out all the antibiotics from the waterproof vial, unwrapped them all—sixteen pills in total, of various types. Without a second thought, he threw them all into his mouth, tilted his head back, and swallowed them down hard. He knew this was a bad idea—a very, very bad idea—but Brian Carter was more worried he wouldn’t even get the chance to take them.

As Brian Carter craned his neck, rolled his eyes, and forced the pills down, his already blurry vision seemed to make out several people running toward him.

Brian Carter’s first thought was that his pursuers had finally found him. This shocked Brian Carter, and he couldn’t help but stand up from the ground. After a bout of dizziness, Brian Carter looked carefully and saw that, sure enough, four people were running toward him.

Brian Carter couldn’t hold on any longer. He fell backward to the ground, and just before losing consciousness, Brian Carter thought, “Whatever, I’m going to die anyway. Let it be.”

Chapter 6: Hunting

After the start of the dry season, it hadn’t rained for a long time. Most of the grassland’s marshes had already dried up, and the grass that had grown waist-high during the rainy season was now short and withered.

Under the blazing sun, searching for tracks left by prey, Brian Carter was diligently tracking a large antelope.