“Fantastic.”
My sarcastic remark wasn’t aimed at the situation, but at the meat I was currently eating—it had belonged to my assailant. It was the day after the shadow owl’s attack. The scattered children had lost their happy little campsite and would now learn the true meaning of survival. With no safe haven to return to, they would soon be forced to choose between grouping up and rebuilding a base or, for the kids who couldn’t, spending the rest of the training hiding.
Though the dragon girl had laid waste to most of the extra wolves last night, their numbers were still greater than when training had begun. You would need to have nerves of steel to endure the remaining time alone. I would’ve liked to join up with a few more children—it would be good to have as many meat shields as possible—but for some mysterious reason, they still hated me. I bet if I approached them, they would turn their knives on me like I was a bear that had wandered down from the mountains. Their cruelty had to come from the fact that, unlike me, they had never been taught morality.
I lamented the state of the youth around here as I took another bite of owl. What was worth mentioning was that dead animals gave off miasma too. You had to cut off the parts that produced it so that you could eat the rest. The miasma came from the source of essence in the living: the heart. I had gouged out my fair share of hearts and studied them. They still discharged essence after death, but it wasn’t long until that turned to miasma. You could stop the emission by burning the heart to ashes, which I found by testing on humans and animals alike.
I forced myself to swallow the piece of owl. It really was disgusting. I’d thought a bird would taste like any other poultry, but maybe its carnivorous nature made all the difference. Though it wasn’t bitter, it was...an acquired taste, to put it mildly. That said, you never knew where your next meal would come from in the forest, so it was imperative not to waste anything edible. I was sure the shadow owl would be overjoyed to know that I was eating every part of it too.
My hunger staved off, I went back to our camp intending to do some repairs. I found a girl I recognized inside. It wasn’t the dragon girl. Her hair and eyes were the same green found in nature, and there was a dreamlike quality to her translucent appearance that made it all but impossible to look away. She regarded me quietly as she sat on the log where the dragon girl and I settled to eat our meals.
In my previous life, her beauty would have placed her at the top of the social pecking order. Here, where might made right, her frailty put her somewhere near the bottom. If she was going to gain any prestige here, it would be once the boys were old enough to take an interest in girls.
I ignored her and started inspecting the base for any wolf-related damage. The grass we used for bedding was slightly damp thanks to the salmons, but that was easily replaced. Though the “oven” had collapsed, it was only a simple arrangement of rocks and would take no time at all to fix up. In fact, I could use this opportunity to make a proper one using dirt.
“Hey.”
“Hm?” I quickly disguised my overly complex thoughts and fell back into the role of a child. That meant keeping my tone gentle and not too low.
The girl fidgeted with her hands, pressing them against each other as she fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Where’s that girl?”
“What girl?”
Our lack of names proved inconvenient at times like this. Naturally, I could figure out who she meant since she was asking me, but I feigned ignorance just in case.
“You know. The dragonborn girl. Isn’t she here?”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess she isn’t,” I replied, slightly annoyed. The meat had made me a bit sleepy, but I couldn’t risk sleeping with a stranger nearby. “Tell me what you want with her.”
“Um...” She responded only with more fidgeting, twisting and untwisting her fingers together in front of her chest. Just when I thought she had finished, tears sprang to her eyes. She gripped the hem of her clothing in a bashful manner. I found it beyond irritating. “Um...”
Spit it out already.
“You know...”
“So, you don’t want anything with her,” I said. “Then get out. This is my base.”
Out of patience, I went behind her and pushed her toward the entrance.
“No,” she protested, “I—”
“I got it already.”
If I asked her again what she wanted, she would only respond with more fidgeting. I had no intention of entertaining her while she killed time. As I was herding her out of the camp, I heard footsteps approaching. I sighed and stepped away from her, already knowing that this spelled trouble. She must have noticed the footsteps first, because she fell silent before I reacted.
From the bushes emerged a head of silver hair and two golden irises split into slit pupils. The dragon girl’s palms were moist with blood. She said nothing but moved her gaze toward the inside of our base. Those eyes swept over the scene, taking in the sorry state of affairs. She turned to me, her eyes gleaming critically. She was probably seeking an apology.
“Sorry.”
The dragon girl clicked her tongue. My humility had only made her angrier. That said, she didn’t take it out on me. She probably blamed herself in part for allowing the attack to reach our camp. I guess she was capable of self-criticism under certain circumstances. She might have considered this a “loss” in the sense that our defenses should have been tougher.
The dragon girl made to walk past us, treating the girl who had sneaked into our base as nothing more than air.
“E-excuse me!” stammered the elf girl. “I-I would like to be your friend—”
Before she could finish, the dragon girl’s thick tail swatted her out of the way like she was a random pebble. The elf croaked as she rolled over the ground repeatedly, then slowly got up and put on a brave smile. Given her race, it was no surprise she had surrounded her body in essence to protect herself the moment she fell.
She kept the smile on her dirty face as she crept toward the dragon girl. “Sorry, I know that came out of the blue. I just wanted to thank you for rescuing—”
“Get outta my way.”
This time, the elf let out a grunt as she was knocked into the air. She landed flat on the ground with another cough but showed another saccharine smile. It sounded to me like she had been lucky enough last night to have been saved by the dragon girl.
I guess she’s here to seek long-term protection.
However, the dragon girl was more complex than the elf naively assumed. So, either the latter would give up, or the former would get annoyed with her clinginess and respond violently. Either way, the elf would be gone very soon, so I was good to go out and hunt something to eat.
Now that the wolves were gone, I quickly dispatched a rabbit I found milling about and made several detours to gather materials on my way home. I took special pains collecting dry firewood. By the time I was ready to return, I had a bundle of logs on my back like one of those bronze sculptures. On my way, I also had several encounters with the surviving children.
I was surprised by how few corpses there were. Every child in the cohort had the ability to kill a single wolf if they were willing to put their life on the line. I was starting to see what the instructors’ intentions were for this survival training. Succeeding in this task was possible if we were prepared, kept our guards up, and thought things through without hesitation. Though I thought the shadow owl was a bit much, another kid with sharper senses than me would have been able to figure out the trick too.
I continued through the shrubbery, expecting to see no one back at base except the dragon girl.
“—and you were the one who saved me from the wolf that tried to eat me!”
The dragon girl was chomping on some meat from our supplies and staring drowsily into the forest. The elf next to her might not even have existed as far as she was concerned. I studied the newcomer. Her eyes were bloodshot because she was forgetting to blink. I turned my gaze up toward the sky, listening to her praise the dragon girl incessantly.