Though the whole situation reeked of trouble, Lingsha had no choice. She either ate the meat now or risked a complete fallout with the Beast-Eared Girls.
She placed the chunk in her mouth, and the instant her lips closed, she secretly sent it to Elysia through the Chat Group.
There's no way I'm actually eating this, she thought. Who would eat some strange, unidentified thing?
The next moment, Lingsha watched as Ikezawa, as if having made up his mind after seeing her "eat" the meat, resolutely threw his piece into his mouth, chewed a few times, and swallowed.
Lingsha: "..."
Dude, you actually ate it?!
Upon reflection, Ikezawa really had no other option. His persona in the Chat Group was that of a "Cultivator," and sending out a piece of raw meat would shatter his carefully constructed image.
Ikezawa's dilemma was this: either expose his secret identity in the group or eat the meat. Perhaps because a doctor was nearby, he ultimately chose the latter.
Forcing down a bite of raw meat couldn't have been pleasant. His face pale, Ikezawa asked, "So... what exactly is this meat?"
The leader immediately declared, "It's our tribe's most precious treasure—the flesh of Lord God!"
Ikezawa was stunned. "What the hell?! You made me eat a bite of a god?!"
The leader replied, "Yes, so what's the problem? Aren't gods meant to be eaten?"
As he spoke, his face wore only a faint look of confusion, as if wondering why Ikezawa would ask such an obvious question.
Ikezawa wanted to press further, but Lingsha placed a hand on his shoulder and gently shook her head.
It was clear that the leader wasn't lying or joking. This entire tribe—every Beast-Eared Girl and Beast-Eared Man—genuinely believed:
Gods are meant to be eaten.
It was like someone who had drunk water every day since birth suddenly being confronted by an alien upon reaching adulthood. The alien, horrified, would exclaim, "How can you drink water? Isn't it deadly poison?!"
In this situation, Lingsha and Ikezawa were the aliens. Challenging the tribe's deeply ingrained worldview would be utterly pointless.
Ikezawa suddenly realized something: when they first encountered the Hunting Team, their leader had asked if he was a god. He was fortunate he hadn't agreed; otherwise, these people might have captured and eaten him!
Lingsha seized the opportunity to ask the leader, "Have you ever seen a god? What do they look like?"
Theoretically, since they possessed the flesh of a god, they should have at least seen one, or even killed one, right? But the leader shook his head. "This piece of meat has been passed down since my grandfather's generation. I've never seen Lord God myself. But I've heard He looks much like us, except His ears are round and flat, positioned on the sides of His head, and He doesn't have a tail."
The leader was clearly using his own people as a template for his understanding of gods. If these Beast-Eared Girls lacked ears and tails, wouldn't that make them human?
So, to these natives, pure humans were gods?
This explained why the Hunting Team had initially asked Ikezawa if he was a god, but not Lingsha.
Another question immediately arose: how had the human flesh in the leader's possession remained undecomposed for so long? Lingsha hadn't detected any preservatives, and the liquid in the glass jar was just ordinary water. The problem clearly lay with the flesh itself.
Regardless, Lingsha temporarily abandoned her plan to connect this world to the Main World. Soon after she had shed her Lingsha identity and materialized here, Elysia, leveraging her authority within White Eagle, initiated a global search for newly emerging Dimensional Rifts.
The search yielded nothing. Elysia then contacted Scholar, requesting a dimensional positioning device. Utilizing Scholar's expertise and the cutting-edge technology being developed in Sakura Prefecture, she planned to transmit the device to Lingsha through the Chat Group. This would allow Elysia to actively open a Dimensional Rift to this world.
Her original plan had been to "coincidentally discover" a new Complete World, then extract Lingsha, Ikezawa, and even the Beast-Eared Girls struggling to survive in this realm.
But now, it seemed impossible to proceed as planned. Aside from anything else, would "rescuing" these Beast-Eared Girls from this world truly be a salvation? What if they unleashed a group even more terrifying than the monsters?
These Beast-Eared Girls, each far surpassing ordinary Evolvers in strength, would arrive in a comfortable environment, free from natural predators, and teeming with "food." Wouldn't they simply start gorging themselves?
Wouldn't this be pure paradise for them?
But for the people of the Main World, it would be hell.
After the God-Eater's welcoming feast, two young Beast-Eared Girls stood guard at the entrance of the Mountain Cave, preparing for their night watch. The Hunting Team, exhausted from their day-long expedition, had already settled down to rest and recuperate for the next day.
Lingsha and Ikezawa were assigned two small grass mats close to each other. As soon as they sat down, Ikezawa couldn't help but ask, "Lingsha, that meat... won't it cause any problems after eating it?"
Just imagining himself swallowing a bite of raw human flesh made Ikezawa want to vomit.
Lingsha shook her head gently. "We need to investigate that piece of meat further to understand its true nature."
Ikezawa stared blankly. "Investigate? How? We already ate it..."
Before Ikezawa could finish his sentence, Lingsha opened her palm, revealing the soft, pink morsel of flesh.
"?!?" Ikezawa froze, his face contorted in utter shock. "Y-you didn't eat it?!"
Lingsha replied matter-of-factly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "Of course not. Would anyone willingly consume something of unknown origin given by another person?"
Ikezawa was speechless.
Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees, bowing deeply. "Lord Lingsha! Save me! I don't want to die..."
"Don't worry," Lingsha assured him. "This piece of flesh won't kill you outright, but I can't guarantee what might happen."
As she spoke, she closed her hand, and the morsel of flesh vanished into the Chat Group. Research was definitely necessary, but not by her. This required a professional.
If the Scholar was currently occupied, perhaps the second-in-command of his White Tower—a renowned researcher himself—could take on the task. It was time to find him some work.