Chapter 25
We t with Mirianna briefly to rge our party in the guild records and headed out of town.
“The forest close to the town tends to be safer than further out but you should still be on your guard. Occasionally people get lax when they’re just gathering near the town and end up getting killed after an unexpected attack,” Morrigan told as we were heading out of the town gate.
“We should probably stick to the formation we talked about earlier then, even if we’re in a low danger area it would still be good practice,” I said to the group. After a few nods we arranged ourselves. Since Torien was leading us to the herbs we walked side by side and Morrigan watched the rear.
We were walking in the icy forest for about thirty minutes when Torien pointed to few plants growing near the base of so trees. “Those are Sorphom flowers, the apothecary told they were used to ease fevers and helps when breathing becos difficult.”
“Interesting, how are you supposed to harvest it?”
“This plant is easy, you’re supposed to cut the stem about this far from the base. You’re not supposed to cut too far or else it will have trouble growing back apparently.”
“Neat, do you guys mind if I take so ti to draw it and take notes in my journal?”
I got so confused looks and ultimately so shrugging before I took that as assent. I pulled the leatherbound journal I bought yesterday and opened it to a blank page near the beginning. I’m not really sure where the impulse to draw the flower ca from but this felt right to , like I had done this before. I pulled out a dip quill and so ink and began to draw the flower into my book, the feeling ca naturally, the instincts felt more real to than the sword instincts I stole from Bitch. This felt natural to , this felt real to , drawing made sense.
I only spent around ten minutes before I was satisfied with the image of the Sorphom flower I had drawn. I had a surprisingly accurate and lifelike image of the flower in the book and I was happy with how it ca out. I made a mistake here and there but I worked it into the drawing, at no point did I hesitate to build the picture up despite the expensive paper or the permanent ink. It ca naturally to .
[Drawing Lv. 1 unlocked - Created a representation of an object through observation.]
[Drawing - Uncommon Skill]
The Drawing skill governs the ability to accurately reproduce and create images. Higher ranks improves the ease of these tasks and improves instincts related to this skill.
Neat. I’m pretty sure I was so kind of artist in my past life. This cos naturally to in a way that nothing else has so far. I can feel the difference between the ‘instinct’ I get from the swordsmanship skill and the ‘muscle mory’ I have with this. And the system clearly wasn’t helping out, this was all . I suppose this ans that even having a skill isn’t quite the sa as being experienced in an area even if there’s obvious overlap. Those with a high skill are likely to have a similar amount of experience to go with it otherwise they wouldn't have a high level in the first place. I'm probably the anomaly here, being soone who has practiced so skills outside of the system's influence.
When I moved on from drawing to writing notes about the flower’s properties and uses Torien ca to look over my shoulder. “Oh wow, that’s amazing. I’m surprised your drawing skill is so high, that’s not sothing I would expect a swordswoman to dabble in… And you can read and write too? That’s amazing.”
“Yeah… I suppose.”
“Guys there’s a monster coming!” Bella yelled out.
I set the book down and drew my sword in one fluid motion as I stood up. In an instant all of us were in formation facing the direction Bella had pointed. The monster looked a little bit like a mangy dog with long bony protrusion sticking out through its fur. Its eyes glowed red as it walked around our group and tried to circle us.
Now that I was looking at the monster stalking up to us, everything suddenly felt real in a way it hadn’t up until then. When I ca across the wolves in the woods that felt more like hiding from a giant animal, this was different. I had my sword drawn and I was going to face off with a creature that had a level of malice that I had never felt before. This creature’s existence felt wrong, like it didn’t fit in the world, shouldn’t be here.
But this is the first ti I ever held a sword with a real desire to use it. The first ti I held a weapon with the intent to kill sothing. I don’t think I had ever been hunting in my past life. I likely got in a fight or two but I was not a soldier, a warrior. I was probably an artist of so kind and now I was standing here holding a sword against sothing that could only be described as a monster.
If I was alone I might have ran, might have tried to escape from it, but now I was with a team. A group that was relying on to stand in front and protect them. I took a breath and gripped my sword. The weight felt familiar in my hand, after having drawn and getting a feel for an actual trained skill, I could tell this felt different. But I also knew that I could trust these instincts and I would grow into them until they felt natural to .
The creature continued to circle us, looking for an opening. This ti I circled it back, tried to flank it and put it in a vulnerable position. At first I thought it was too focused on to notice it slowly being surrounded but I miscalculated. As soon as it was near my other teammates it started to turn, its glowing eyes looked away from as it was preparing up to spring at Bella.
It all happened in a split second. The mont the creature’s eyes flicked away from onto Bella, my instincts guided to attack. I slashed in a sweep in tandem with my step forward and my blade cut through the creature’s tendon just as it was releasing the built up energy into it’s leap. However, with it’s new hamstrung leg the leap didn’t go as planned and it crashed headfirst into the dirt on its side.
The mont it touched the ground spikes of wood rained down from the trees impaling it from above. I quickly started to take a few steps around it to get in better position for a finishing blow when an arrow plunged through its forehead.
“Another from the east!” Bella yelled.
I turned, and with the finesse of a practiced swordfighter pivoted my stance towards the direction in one fluid motion. Unfortunately the second dog creature was already in a full bore sprint and coming up fast. It sprung up and jumped, aid right at my face. Following my instincts I lowered my stance and swept diagonally across its body.
This ti the blade didn’t smoothly slice through and instead caught one of the bone protrusions. My instincts told to follow through on the swipe and use the leverage to push the body out of my path but I just didn’t have the raw strength to divert its path. Instead the creature landed on and my blade slid back the way it ca. As it leaned in to take a bite of my face I blocked its mouth with my left arm. It didn’t manage to disarm on the way down but I didn’t have a good angle to attack it from this position. Luckily for I was able to hold it still for long enough that Morrigan was able to finish it off with a large wooden spike shot from a nearby tree.
Its blood poured down from the new hole through its chest right onto my new shirt. Once it lost enough blood the teeth jamd into my forearm lost pressure and I was able to pry them off my arm. I heard a subtle ding in the back of my head but I ignored it for now. I pushed its heavy body off of and took a mont to just breathe before I sat up. That was a rush. I had never felt like I was in so much danger before but I also have never felt so calm. In retrospect I was scared, terrified of the horrible monster that was circling us. But sohow, in the mont, I felt serene. Fully focused on the fight. I’m not sure if it’s because of my swordsmanship skill or sothing else but I felt in control of the situation despite how outside of my comfort zone the situation was.
I looked at my arm, it was covered in a very obvious bite mark and black gunk from the monster’s gross mouth was in the wound.
“There’s no way this is sanitary. Bella, can you heal this? Wait we should probably clean it first I don’t want to get an infection from that gross thing.”
“Hold it out for .” She gently took my hand and inspected the wounds. “This shouldn’t be a problem.” She swept her nature scepter and a trail of green light followed the now glowing green gem. The light then flowed from the scepter back into my arm and wrapped around it. The wound sizzled without pain, the black goo looked like it was boiling away and I watched the blood clot before my eyes. It was like watching a video at 100x speed as the wound scabbed over then fell off leaving an obvious scar on the skin before my short fur grew back in.
“That was trippy,” I said staring at my arm.
Torien dropped out of a tree that she had been shooting from and ran up to . “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, it bit my arm but Bella was able to heal up. I’m glad I bought this new shirt, I couldn’t imagine trying to get this much blood out of my nice one.”
I looked down at the creatures on the ground next to . “What the hell are these things?”
“Bone dogs,” Torien explained. “They are shadow type monsters that have ford into the shape of hounds. They’re uncommon at best but their core should be worth sothing. The sa can’t be said for the rest of their body, now that it’s dead it’ll start to disappear, shadow monsters don’t decay the sa way most monsters do.”
“Core? What’s that?” Torien looked at with a confused look on her face.
“Oh that’s right you said you’re new to adventuring. Still, I don’t know how you got your swordsmanship skill to that level without also hunting a monster or two.”
Torien pulled out a knife and began to carve open its chest cavity. She didn’t even flinch as she began to pull the organs out of her way as she cut into the carcass. Morrigan turned away in silent disgust and I thought I was going to be sick looking at Torien work. And the sll, god damn was it disgusting. I looked over at Bella who seed to be paying close attention, sohow not at all grossed out by what was happening. Life on the farm was probably pretty dirty work in a world like this.
After a few more minutes of cutting Torien finally pulled sothing out, she held a sphere the size of a large egg that seed to pulse with black energy.
“Are either of you enchanters?” Torien asked. We both shook our heads and she continued, “Well how about we sell these and split it four ways like we were planning with the quest reward?”
“Sounds fine to .” I looked to Bella and she nodded in agreent.
“Good, who wants to pull out the other one?” Torien asked while looking at the other corpse.
I hesitated and thankfully for Bella quickly volunteered. Morrigan and I were shocked at the enthusiasm that Bella showed for the task. Once she pulled out her knife and begun to dissect the monster Torien looked over to and I just shrugged. I have no idea what that was about either.
Torien went up and started pointing out places to cut while Morrigan and I stepped away to keep watch for other monsters. I picked up my journal and looked over to the mage demi-beast girl next to . “It’s not just right? That was super gross right?” I asked her sowhat jokingly.
Morrigan nodded. “I’m really thankful I convinced Torien to do most of that stuff. It’s a little silly considering I don’t even flinch at killing them, but a little bit of blood and guts and I want to vomit.”
“We all have our strengths.” We shared a laugh at that.
User Comments
0 comments from readers