“Hardhead!”
Though the sun was high in the sky, the forest depths were as shadowy as ever. I was eating breakfast when a boisterous cry disturbed my peace.
“You talking to me?” I asked, keeping my tone as serene as my expression as I turned to the flightless fly.
The girl who had grown obsessed with the dragon girl was not an elf but a wind fae. Though they normally had wings, hers had been torn off at birth and the ends burned to stop them growing back. That was what made her a flightless fly. I decided that was what I would call her from now on.
“Yes, you, Hardhead. Everyone calls you that because you’re sneaky in your aggression!”
“They do, huh? Thanks,” I said, pretending this was news to me. I wasn’t grateful being called that.
The flightless fly introduced herself without prompting. “My name’s Wen. Wait. I mean, how come I don’t get as much as you?” She pointed at her bowl of soup.
My bowl was filled with the stock I had made from meat and vegetables. Hers didn’t even have a single drop. Instead, inside was a stem I had removed from the stock vegetables. It was far from fresh, because it had been quite some time since I cut them.
“You haven’t provided any food for us,” I pointed out.
“Uh-huh.” Maybe the fly thought food appeared out of nowhere like magic.
I had cooked the vegetables I harvested and the meat the dragon girl caught. With the amount of food we had, I could easily make enough for three. However, it was more sensible to keep some in reserve, and we didn’t have enough for me to give some out like candy. I especially didn’t want to sustain this pesky fly, who not only contributed nothing but was annoying to boot.
“Why don’t you get your own food?” I suggested after explaining my position politely and thoroughly.
She grumbled and glared at me but didn’t push the matter. I wondered if she was trying to threaten me. The way I saw it, straddling someone and punching them in the throat was the baseline for intimidation, so it really felt more like she was trying to initiate a staring contest. As it so happened, I was educated in the way of the dragon, where intimidation meant roaring right into the victim’s ear or strangling them until they passed out.
The fly’s grumbling was getting on my nerves, so I tossed something new into her bowl. She now had two vegetable stems.
She started to wail, her lips pulled down at the corners. “You’re so mean, Hardhead!”
What are you, a child?
Oh, right. She was.
“Help me!” she cried, and I wondered who she was talking to until she rushed right over to the dragon girl. I thought she wanted to be the latter’s friend, but she looked more like a little sister running for her older sibling. How clingy could you get?
The wind fae threw her arms around the dragon girl’s stomach, then grunted when the elbow came down on her head. She slid down until she lay flat on the ground. The dragon girl then threw her limp body aside.
“Get rid of her,” said my original campmate.
I nodded. I didn’t want an annoying fly hanging around and draining our resources either.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once my stomach was full, I flung the insect girl over my shoulder and headed out into the forest. I walked to a river about a kilometer or so away, then hung her up on the branch of a tree like a piece of wet clothing. She grunted when she landed on the branch, the wood digging into her stomach. If that didn’t wake her, I was sure an attack by some passing duck would. I didn’t have any reason to prevent that, and thus I left her there.
✦ ✦ ✦
I was picking grass on my way home when I came across a lightning wolf. They were easy to spot because the air crackled from the electricity surrounding them and were troublesome because you would get a shock simply by touching them. Their speed and strength were average, but that made them the most dangerous of the remaining wolves. That position used to belong to the shadow wolf, but that had been disqualified ever since I found out it wasn’t actually a wolf.
You could defend yourself against the lightning wolf’s electricity by charging essence, but since I was a little tired, I decided on a different approach.
The beast growled as it launched itself at me. I produced a bamboo needle from my clothing and threw it at the thing’s face. Though I missed its eye, it sank into the wolf’s cheek. The animal shook its head and whined like a puppy. However, it seemed to have learned nothing and snapped its teeth at me again. I threw another needle.
We repeated this charade a few more times before the wolf plodded away, its face spikier than a cactus. I didn’t give chase because it could have led me right to a whole pack of lightning wolves and put my life at risk. If I had been lucky, one of those needles would have gone straight through its brain and killed it, but that wasn’t the case this time. Fortunately, I had a buttload of those needles and considered driving off a lightning wolf a decent investment.
I watched the wolf skulk away, leaving a trail of blood behind it. That made me ponder on its abilities. At first, I thought some facet of essence that I didn’t know about allowed these creatures to control lightning or wind, but perhaps I had been too eager in drawing that conclusion.
I considered what I was capable of. Releasing essence was the first step to controlling it, and I recalled it took me some effort to learn. Charging essence meant surrounding your body with what you released. I learned it around the same time I learned how to release. I also knew how to suppress my essence, though I didn’t have a proper term for that technique.
“Then there are arcane tools...”
That particular art seemed to me to have more potential than the others.
“Maybe that’s it.”
My assumption had always been that arcane tools were inorganic substances with imbued effects, but I had made one out of the dragon girl’s scale. Though I had done it after the scale came loose, there was no reason it couldn’t be done while it was still attached to her body.
“The wolves’ bodies are arcane tools?”
That would explain why their abilities were so diverse. The power wolves had a strengthening effect applied to them. The lightning wolves likely had an enhancement applied to the electricity that muscles produced naturally. I wasn’t sure about wind wolves, but it was probably similar to how fire knives were made.
I was on the cusp of trying to turn my own body into an arcane tool when I stopped short. When the process failed, the object became brittle and crumbled. It didn’t take a genius to work out what that would mean if I messed up using my own body.
Every single wolf in this forest seemed to be an arcane tool of some kind, and I could guess why. This environment was so harsh that they probably wouldn’t survive without special abilities. Was I willing to risk my own body to join them?
I remained still, thinking. This world was dangerous, where death lurked around every corner. Even training could be lethal, and there was nothing stopping the instructors from deciding to kill me one day. There were probably monsters even more dangerous than these wolves beyond the home’s confines. Even if we got through this training exercise, whatever came next might be even more lethal. If I wanted to survive, I needed to become tougher, far tougher, than anyone else.
When I considered those things, I knew this was a risk I was willing to take. I was prepared to throw my life away for the sake of keeping it.
That said, I didn’t quite trust my abilities enough to take my life into my own hands. I thought about how I could mitigate the risks. It was still early, but I decided to return to our camp. It was an environment where I was sure I wouldn’t be interrupted.
✦ ✦ ✦
The intervals between her breaths were steadily getting longer, her tail wrapped around the front of her body. I was focusing on one particular scale on it.
Tougher. Tough enough to protect me. Tough enough to deflect a knife.
I pushed my essence to its limit, imbuing it with my intent. Eventually, I felt the resistance that told me I had succeeded. It had taken a while because I focused more on gaining an accurate result than a fast one. Taking out one of my transformed needles, I pressed it against the hardened scale. The tip bent, and my smile deepened.
“Perfect.”
I was now one step closer to creating arcane tools from living matter.