Chapter 6

I was desperately trying to contain my fury but being sleep deprived and having the reason why, smile at you so widely in the bare minimum of morning lighting, was a new kind of test in self-control. 

I owed him though. For a lot of things. Even if this was a dream, a hallucination or in the wildest occasions an actual game, which made the stakes quite smaller than what you would have thought, he had saved me. I could never forget the sensation of slowly but surely slipping away as my Health, Thirst and Stamina dropped to single numbers. And just like in real life, I was bound to be reminded in a little while since I had eaten a breakfast or drank any water since-

It had felt like the cold and warm hand of Death and for some reason, it had been ominous enough to shake something inside me. I wasn't feeling grateful for this right now, however. I had woken up stiff and numb from the position I took while sleeping on the floor but I had been pleasantly warm enough to wish for some more minutes of rest and that had taken me by surprise. Then I remembered the piece of cloth he had thrown at me and I checked it over. 

It was one of the coolest things I had ever seen! Now I could finally feel like I was getting the full experience!

This game was obviously making everything difficult for me so colour me surprised that I had actually acquired something this good without having to go through a terrible ordeal first. It looked like a leaf cape at first but when I tried to pass my head through the hole and wore the evergreen hood, the cape didn’t just cover my shoulders. In a bubbly sensation, it fit right into my size and elongated itself until I was fully covered with a darker green leaf shirt and pair of pants. Out of seemingly nowhere, my feet glowed a warm light and in a glimpse they were covered in dark woodcoloured boots with ropes tightly tied around my leg.

I looked like a creature of the Oasis, like a wood elf ready to take down evil lords and call nature to answer to my magic. By prodding it and rubbing its material into my fingers, I activated the voice in the game that let me know the names of stuff. “Cloak of Trees” wasn’t a very helpful or even that cool of a name but nothing could ruin my sheer relief at being out of my pjs and finally feeling like an official player and part of the game. Of course, the delirium of happy energy was quickly dispelled.

First, I had to go scour for materials. No, don’t let the word deceive you. It isn’t a third of how cool that actually sounds. Maybe my new cloak had made me a bit cocky but I had expected a boss fight or feral animals or something. Their droppings were supposed to be the materials that would be made into some legendary weapons. Did I know how to fight them? No. Did I have any weapons? Negative. Still, it would have been much better than literally working around the plains in the mounding heat and rising sun with just the instruction of looking at the ground until you found some stuff. And not even the good stuff. Tough rocks, shiny rocks, sharp rocks. Some fallen branches and even handfuls of mud were the exciting part.

Then, of course, I didn’t even get to use any of them.

“Scrub the forge” You really don’t wanna know the burning feeling of rubbing your hands raw with a flimsy piece of cloth in an enormous metal installment that looked like the pit to Wonderland. I considered taking off my cloak to seriously dive into it, seeing as at one point I even had to hold onto the edge and just balance my whole body inside that oversized pill, but it was my only clothing and I didn’t fancy doing any of this in my underwear. Fortunately, it didn’t look like it got dirty.

“Sharpen the blades” I thought I could that cool shit they do in movies where they keep rubbing two blades together but apparently there is more to it. More time, more effort, more repetition, more patience needed. He only gave me the crudest ones to make sure I didn’t ruin any of the good ones but that made them even harder to manage since they were all hard edges and no actual sharp side. As I put one hand on top of the blade and tried to move it on top of the vertical surface with the other, I kept getting shallow cuts and the sparks flying looked mesmerizing only for the seconds before they came too close to my eyes or my leafy cloak.

“Polish the blades” I did my best not to groan and stomp my feet. I was already exhausted, hungry and irritable. The least he could do was give me another material to work with. The seething look he threw my way was enough to shut me up.

Before starting to polish them, I had to make a peculiar concoction that smelled even worse than it looked and it was so slimy that my hands felt like snails afterwards. For some reason, that activity seemed to raise my level of Potion Making to 2 even if what I had in my hands could only classify as poison. I desperately wanted to wash my hands but Erlong didn’t look to be done with me. I was amazed, however, at how silent he had been. Okay, he was an UP that shouldn’t talk unless spoken to. But his behaviour last night and this morning when he woke me up with absolute glee at my misery, showed otherwise. He hadn’t made fun of me, he hadn’t tried to correct me after showing me the basics and he had seemed entirely focused on what he was doing.

That was why I could let go of my petty leftover emotions from being left to sleep outside and being woken up to go in a fool’s errand to just simply admire him in that small reprieve before he thought of another way to torture me. He was so meticulous and careful. His eyes were twinkling and his hands were sure. His breaths deep and even. His stance, loving. The more I watched him, the more I couldn’t look away until suddenly everything was moving in slow motion and I could tell every exact movement he was making and the names of all the processed materials.

I felt a piercing and impending presence only to blink away my scattered thoughts and see that he was looking at me in a threatening and suspicious way. I flinched, not sure what I had been doing but still feeling guilty. I smiled awkwardly and moved my hands around. I wanted to ask what my next task would be. We hadn’t talked for so long that it felt wrong to break the respectful silence of good labour and something prevented me from doing so.

“Hammers next” His voice was testy. None of my previous endeavours had felt criticized but I was already getting sized up for this one before even starting it. I gulped. And then I was taken over by what I could only ever call a blacksmith demon. I had to peel the molded and scratchy wood from the handle and polish it before I started caring for the hammerhead. My moves were precise, calculated and perfect. No place for errors but no place for emotion and expression either. I felt numb. I finished it before I could even blink, the sole proof that what I had in front of me was really my doing being my tired forearms and blistered hands. “Hmph”

I couldn’t tell what that single sound hid behind it but I whipped my head towards his, connecting our eyes pleadingly. I didn’t understand what was going on, did he?

“Go get us some lunch before you faint again!” He put a fishing rod in my hand. His voice was rough, his eyes were closed off but kind. “They may look different now though. They evolve after a fight.” At my dawning dread, he smiled wolfishly. “And they tend to hold a grudge” He hit me with such force in the back that I almost rolled down to the river of Ikawa. I didn’t want to do this but I was hungry and it was an opportunity for distraction. Only when I reached the river and one of them jumped out of the water did I realize what I was getting myself into.

It covered the sun and made my fishing rod look like a toothpick.

“Oh sweet momma of sushi!”