I introduced the squirrels to the rest of our ever-growing family.
Fluffy twirled around the scurry of squirrels in what I assumed to be joy, though I wasn’t particularly confident. Fluffy was, after all, basically just a ball of yarn with eyes. It was very hard to read its expressions.
The wolves accepted the new additions without any panic. The dogs did too (with the recent addition of Chai’s friends, it no longer seemed reasonable to group everyone together as “the wolves”), though I did think I saw them stiffen for a moment when we first arrived. But they relaxed quite quickly, looking at me and nodding their heads.
Um... I’ll take that to mean it’s fine. Yep. Cool.
However, the ants—of both the baby and itsy-bitsy varieties—shot into their nest the second they saw the squirrels.
Er...
I glanced at Shuri, and it seemed somewhat spooked. So I gently stroked the giant ant’s head until it relaxed. The squirrels chittered, looking at Shuri and me. One took a few steps forward and nodded slowly.
I think it’s trying to tell me something—or reassure me, maybe? Whatever. I choose to believe everything’s fine... Wait, do squirrels eat ants?
The smaller ants began to emerge from their nest in twos and threes.
I think they’re still a little nervous, but don’t worry. You’re safe.
Karen returned home soon after. The bird had been leaving the mountain at dawn for the past few days in a row, returning late in the afternoon—and, obviously, I didn’t have the foggiest idea as to where it was going every day. It landed on the perch the One Eyes had built near the lake.
Still growing, huh? You’ll need a bigger perch soon.
I called Karen over to introduce it to the squirrels, who promptly fled toward the nearby deck and scampered up the support posts, hiding between the cloth shade and the beams. I curiously glanced back at Karen and received an inclination of the head in return. Recently, I’d realized that the animals had started nodding to signal that everything was okay—a signal they’d developed for my sake, no doubt.
I called out to the squirrels. Cute, rounded faces peered out from atop the rafters, watching me—and Karen—nervously.
“You won’t hurt them, right?” I asked Karen.
It nodded.
“See?” I waved to the squirrels, motioning for them to come down. They crept down cautiously, gathering in a tight huddle a short distance from us.
So the food chain here is something like ants, then squirrels, then birds... I stole another quick glance at Karen. You’re big, sure—strong too, I think. Well, you’re not gonna eat any of our new friends, right? So no problems here.
I decided it was high time for a meal to welcome the new additions to the family. Also, I was hungry.
The antlets had taken to eating fish lately. At first, they’d exclusively eaten red meat. However, since I’d made the fish sauce, they’d started demanding fish on a daily basis—lightly grilled, with a healthy dash of fish sauce. Shuri was the only one who still seemed to prefer red meat.
Well, there was a giant, fresh fish in the storeroom—probably one of Fluffy’s catches—so I decided on fish for dinner. Hopefully it would cheer the ants up after their scare. I tried a new cooking method today, lightly soaking fillets in a mixture of fish sauce and sweet fruit juice before placing them on the grill. A tempting aroma wafted up from the barbecue.
Once it was fully cooked, the fish immediately became the rope in a tug-of-war between the collective ants and the squirrels.
At least they’ve cheered up.
The ants won, which wasn’t surprising, considering how many of them there were compared to the squirrels.
It’s hard to believe you were hiding in a hole just a little while ago— I’m grilling up the next batch now, okay? So quit looking at me like that!
Thirty-four despondent squirrels making puppy-dog eyes was too much for me to handle. I upped the heat level on the grill. It wasn’t until after dinner that they realized Karen was still nearby, at which point they immediately reformed their defensive huddle.
Well, at least they had something to eat.
I examined the chunk of rock I’d extracted from the cave—dark black with shiny lime-green veins running through it. For now, I’d assume it was, indeed, iron ore—or something close enough.
So how do I turn this into an iron bar, or whatever?
Try as I might, I couldn’t form even a vague mental image that would help me turn what was essentially a rock into usable iron. I assumed it had something to do with heat and tempering, but smelting wasn’t really something I’d dabbled in back home.
Heat... Forges... Oh, forget it. I can’t picture anything but third-degree burns.
Using wind magic, I cut the rock into smaller pieces. Focusing on every splash of lime green I could see, I imagined them sliding out of the rock and murmured, “Eject.”
Lime-green shrapnel flew out of the rock and clattered to the floor.
Success! I think. Not particularly usable yet, but at least it’s out.
I prodded one of the slivers with the magnet. It didn’t react—but it did, however, stick firmly to a nearby chunk of black rock.
You’re kidding me... The rock’s the iron?!