Lessons in Blood and Mud

The morning air at the East Gate was crisp, carrying the scent of damp earth and the distant promise of the wild. It was a new day. A meaningless distinction. Time was a linear progression, and the rising of the sun was merely a predictable celestial event.

Rovy was already there, stretching her limbs with an energy that was illogical for this early hour. Bane stood beside her, a silent mountain clad in worn leather and steel, his shield strapped to his back, his gaze fixed on the forest. They were a functioning unit. A system.

"Morning, Einar!" Rovy chirped as I approached. "Ready for your first official day as a consultant?"

"I am present," I replied. The term 'ready' implied an emotional state of anticipation, a variable I did not possess.

The mission was simple, a low-tier contract from the Guild board: eradicate a small nest of Tuskboars that had been harassing loggers in the marshy woods to the south. The pay was minimal, the risk assessed as low. A perfect control experiment.

We walked in silence for the first hour, following a barely-there trail deeper into the woods. Rovy moved with a tracker's quiet confidence, her eyes scanning the ground. Bane's gaze was higher, sweeping the canopy for potential ambushes. I followed, my own senses engaged in a different kind of tracking. I was attempting to replicate the sensation from the previous night—the feeling of mana.

As Sylv had instructed, I focused on the constant, subtle hum that permeated the air. I tried to feel its flow, its eddies and currents as they moved around the trees, through the damp soil. It was like trying to see in a new spectrum of light. The data was there, a constant stream of input, but my mind was still learning how to process it into a coherent image.

"Tracks," Rovy whispered, pointing to a patch of churned mud. "Fresh. Three of them. Big."

Bane grunted, placing a hand on the hilt of his greatsword. "Close."

We moved with a new, heightened awareness. The air grew thick, heavy with the stench of mud and something else, something musky and aggressive. Then, we heard it: a low, guttural snort, followed by the sound of something heavy crashing through the undergrowth.

We found them in a small, muddy clearing. Three Tuskboars, their hides a thick mat of coarse hair and dried mud, their tusks long and yellowed. They were larger than the mission description had indicated. A data discrepancy.

The fight began without ceremony. The largest of the boars let out a furious squeal and charged, its small, hateful eyes fixed on Bane.

"Wall up!" Rovy yelled, already circling to the flank, daggers drawn.

Bane met the charge with the unflinching resolve of a stone wall. He planted his feet, braced his shield, and the impact was a dull, heavy thud that echoed through the clearing. The boar recoiled, stunned for a fraction of a second. It was a perfect execution of his role as the 'wall'. Rovy was a blur, her daggers flashing as she darted in, striking at the beast's exposed side. It shrieked, a sound of pain and rage, and spun to face her.

I observed from the edge of the clearing, as agreed. Their synergy was efficient. Bane absorbed the primary threat, creating an opening. Rovy exploited it with speed and precision. A simple, effective combat algorithm.

But there were two other boars.

The second one, seeing its packmate engaged, charged. But it did not charge Bane. It angled its attack, its target the more vulnerable, agile threat: Rovy. She was mid-strike, her body twisted, her focus entirely on the first boar. She would not have time to evade.

Inefficient, a cold, logical voice—Einar's—stated in my mind. Her probability of sustaining injury is 87%.

Do something! Nora's voice, a frantic, useless plea.

Let her get hit, V sneered. It'll be more fun to watch.

This time, however, a new thought cut through the internal cacophony. A hypothesis. The ambient energy is a quantifiable force. Its properties can be manipulated.

I did not have time to form a spell, to weave some complex incantation. I simply acted. I focused on the patch of muddy ground directly in the charging boar's path. I reached out with my mind, not my hands, and felt the mana saturating the wet soil. I did not command it with fire or ice. I simply... pushed. I imagined the water content within the mud increasing, its viscosity decreasing, its friction coefficient dropping to near zero.

The effect was subtle, almost invisible. The charging Tuskboar's front hooves hit the patch of super-slick mud. Its legs shot out from under it. With a surprised, indignant squeal, the beast lost all momentum, its massive body sliding and tumbling into a heap, landing ignominiously on its side.

The opening was a perfect, three-second window. Rovy, alerted by the sound, spun around, her eyes wide with surprise. She saw the fallen boar, and her instincts took over. She lunged, her daggers plunging deep into the creature's exposed neck. It was over.

The third boar, seeing its two packmates dispatched, hesitated for a moment, then turned and fled into the woods.

Silence descended on the clearing, broken only by our heavy breathing and the drip of blood onto the mud.

Rovy straightened up, pulling her daggers free. She looked at the dead boar at her feet, then at me, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"What was that?" she asked, her voice a mix of relief and suspicion. "It just... fell. Did you throw a rock at it?"

"I altered the soil's friction coefficient," I replied, my voice a flat monotone.

She stared at me, her mouth slightly open. "You... you did what to the what?"

Bane, who had just finished off the first boar, walked over. He looked at the slick patch of mud, then at me. For the first time since I had met him, he looked at me with something other than wary suspicion. He gave a single, slow, deliberate nod. It was a gesture of grudging respect. An acknowledgment.

Rovy just shook her head, a small, disbelieving laugh escaping her lips. "Right. You 'altered the soil'. Whatever you say, consultant." She walked over and, in a gesture of triumphant camaraderie, playfully punched my shoulder.

The physical contact was an unexpected data input. A jolt. I flinched, an involuntary, almost violent recoil.

Rovy's hand dropped, her smile faltering for a moment at my reaction. "Sorry," she mumbled, a flicker of awkwardness in her eyes. "Forgot you're not the... touching type."

We gathered our trophies in a pragmatic silence and began the walk back to Raven. The dynamic had shifted. I was no longer just an observer. I was a variable. A useful, if profoundly unsettling, part of their system. The successful application of a hypothesis was a satisfying data point. But the memory of Rovy's touch, and my own violent, illogical reaction to it, was a system error I could not explain.