I ran through the forest, my breathing ragged. The knife had contained more than one type of power, like it had been, at the very least, three arcane tools in one. Its first effect was the ability to retain heat, and that was its default state. The reason the knife looked red hot all the time was because it was constantly maintaining a very high temperature.
It could also generate heat, an effect that consumed the essence within the knife when activated. That was how it was able to start fires. The third ability was best described as a change in its condition. By channeling essence into it, the knife transformed from maintaining heat into generating it. I wondered why it needed that extra step. Why not just make a knife that could do both on demand? Or was it tricky to make an arcane tool that held two effects at once? Did that mean the effect that changed it didn’t technically manifest at the same time as the effect that maintained its heat?
I regretted being so hasty in turning that one scale I had into an arcane tool.
✦ ✦ ✦
The next morning, I awoke to the sunlight beaming against my closed eyelids. I stretched my limbs where I lay, letting circulation chase away the sleep from my brain. I forced myself to open one eye so that I wouldn’t fall unconscious again and saw our new, unwelcome campmate: Wen. There was a powerful envy emanating from her. She was trembling and biting her lip.
“The day’s barely started, and you already look like you want to kill someone,” I muttered, trying to shake the morning huskiness from my voice.
Wen pointed instead of replying.
✦ ✦ ✦
I followed her finger and understood. “We reptilian types don’t hold our body heat very well.”
I disentangled my tail from where it was tightly entwined with the dragon girl’s. It felt like my body temperature plummeted the moment it touched nothing but the air. It was one disadvantage of sharing both snake and human traits. My tail seemed to really struggle with keeping itself warm, and its movements grew dull in cool surroundings. I had a human torso, with blood vessels running between that and my tail, so there was some heat going down there. However, my human body was trying to keep a whole extra appendage warm, leaving me vulnerable to cold.
I had simply been trying to keep as warm as possible while sleeping. The dragon girl seemed to struggle with the cold too, so sleeping like that benefited us both.
“It’s not fair!” Wen’s envy grew even deeper, dragging me into a state of misery. “I had to sleep by myself! Down there!”
“The bed’s too small for three.”
“I can warm her up way better than you!”
“Sure, but she trusts me more.”
“How come she doesn’t trust me, then?!”
Wen’s eyes were terrifying. They tended to become bloodshot when she spoke to the dragon girl, and she barely blinked. It reminded me of interacting with that one relative who was way too devoted to their religion.
One of the dragon girl’s eyes cracked open. She looked pissed, probably because there was a child screeching right by her ear when she was trying to sleep. She sat up lethargically, one hand pressed to her forehead, and turned her sharp gaze on me. Considering her mood, I decided to put some distance between myself and her.
“Good morning!” Wen greeted. “Can I warm your tail up too? Please?!”
“Shut up!”
“Okay!” Wen sat down obediently, beaming happily at the dragon girl. She was like a dog waiting for a reward from its owner. I mean, she was practically panting.
First, I thought she wanted to be friends with the dragon girl. Then she wanted to be sisters. Now she was a pet? I guess there was something to be said for her willingness to explore her desires.
The dragon girl arched her back like a cat and stretched. And so began another morning in the forest.
✦ ✦ ✦
It turned out that the other children had found a new place to camp and were continuing to live as a group. The only difference was that they no longer had their wall of traps, so there were frequent wolf attacks. However, the kids were indomitable, and most of them fought to protect the camp. I guess the shadow owl’s attack showed them they were capable of actually fighting. I was once chased by a pack of wolves and ran as close as possible to their camp to try and off-load them. They dealt with them better than I expected. Of course, I picked a time when the kids who excelled in combat like Tiger and Monk weren’t there.
Tiger had fantastic senses and would be able to notice me from far away, and Monk would be able to pinpoint my location by detecting my essence. I doubted I would be able to escape their notice unless I suppressed my essence to zero.
The manborn girl who had joined them was also a formidable foe. While she was a jack-of-all-trades with no noticeable skills, she had picked up on the traces I left using purely technique and knowledge, rather than an ability innate to her race. It reminded me of Konji, who was of the same race and also deceptively talented.