Once inside the cave I deactivated my hiding spell. I then went to store some of the plants in storage. I then sent the remaining plants to be crushed into simple spices. After all that was done, I began to dismantle the bodies. This makes it easier to store more meat. If only there was some salt then I could preserve the meat better. The best I could do though is simply smoking it. Usually that would be okay, but since we are hiding we can't even do that since the smoke could give our position away. I would just have to throw it in the storage and hunt whenever we are running low. I once again feel really blessed that the winter months aren't close by.
While I was busy dismantling the bodies I could hear digging. In fact I heard it all the time I was inside the cave, but didn't really pay attention to it. I decided that I would go check out how they were coming along after I dismantled say 20 bodies. It was very tedious work that I didn't particularly enjoy doing. I would first have to find the area in which I killed the demonic beast. Then from there I would have to separate the skin from the flesh using my dagger. This would have been easier if they weren't demonic beasts. It takes a lot of effort to get through a demonic beast's fur, so skinning said fur is equally as bad. For some of the more sturdy ones I would even have to reinforce myself or else I wouldn't have enough strength. I am honestly surprised that this dagger has lasted all these years.
Well today there weren't any insanely difficult demonic beasts so skinning the fur was easy. After the fur was separated, I would then have to separate the meat from the bone. I am honestly not that good at it and some pieces of the meat would stick into the bone, and getting those pieces out is a hassle. The good thing though is that this part is really forgiving. The meat itself is very easy to cut through. It's like my knife is just gliding through it without the need for much force. The bones however are a different story. Much like the fur they are extremely tough and hard to cut through. This makes the process much easier as I just need to avoid the parts my knife can't glide through.
After separating all of the components the next part would be to wash everything. This is to wash off all the blood and other gunk stuck inside. Usually in the beginning one would hang the bodies and let out all the blood. While that does make the work less messier and the meat tastier when cooked, it is a lot of extra work. I would definitely do it if I wasn't focused on dismantling around 50 bodies, but time is more essential.
Once the 20 bodies I set out to dismantle are finished I throw them into the storage. The storage has different sections for different items. I believe we categorized the meats and plants by species so we could see which we have in stock. Although I haven't talked about it the storage isn't really that impressive. It is basically just some wooden shelves to hold stuff. Also further in the wooden shelves are replaced with stone shelves. The stone shelves are built into the walls of the cave. I put all the items in their proper place before heading out and into the kitchen.
The entrance to the storage and dismantling room is placed within the kitchen to make accessing the ingredients easier. The exact spot it is at is behind the counter used to prepare most of the ingredients. Ingredient prep mostly consists of cutting, marinating, or mixing. This place is also where the stove for cooking is. Anyways if you keep walking from that direction then you would head into the dining room. It is still part of the kitchen, but that is where we all gather to eat the meals we make. The kitchen then branches off in two directions, left and right. If you head left you would head towards the cave entrance. Yes the kitchen was the original cave that I found all those years ago. If you would head right then you would head to the area were all of our rooms are in. It is just a hallway with 3 rooms. 2 of the rooms are on the right side of the hallway and belong to Ana and Astra. The last room is on the left and belongs to me.
Ana and Astra aren't expanding the hallway as I thought they would. Instead they are expanding out a side of the kitchen. They are expanding out the side that has the table we eat on. Though they have been working in digging for a significant amount of time there is little indication of that. The dirt is just too compact and hard to effectively dig through without magic. While they could use magic, only very powerful destructive magic would make significant progress. We can't start blasting powerful spells though since it could alert the foxes to us.
Since they have been so earnestly working on expanding the kitchen I decided to cook for them. I don't know why, but I felt like pulling out all the stops this time. I went into the storage and found some plants similar to grains used in making bread. I set them to be crushed while I worked on other components. I then got a flower out. I called it sweet flower as it had a very sweet taste when sucking on it. I started crushing it myself, making sure to take out all the flowers leaving me with a viscous fluid that was like sweetwater. I then got some various nuts out.
By this time the grains had become finely crushed so I took them. I added the sweet water and the nuts into the grains. I then began to thoroughly mix the ingredients together. I would also add a little water here and there to make sure everything was thoroughly mixed. I even added an egg that I had found a couple days back and was saving. I then once again mixed the ingredients before cooking them on the stove.
Soon my homemade cookies were done. I tried tasting one after waiting for it to cool down, and found it to be surprisingly good. It couldn't compare to the ones made for me by people in the village. I however thought they were pretty good for the supplies I had. Now all that was left was to see how the foxes liked it. Taking the tray of cookies I brought them over to where Ana and Astra were working.
"Hello, I made a quick snack for you guys if you want." I say as I offer the tray of cookies.
"Thanks sylvi, you're the best."
"Yeah thanks Sylvain. I was starting to get a bit hungry. It's a real shame we can't use magic though. Otherwise this room would be finished by now."
"Well we still have plenty of time. I would rather waste some now than regret that later."
"Yeah, they also might find us if we do use magic. Any new information on Watson and his group, Sylvain?"
"I don't think they will be able to find us. They were following the trail of blood that was left when you were injured. However I fixed that up by putting some dead bodies around to mask your blood. I also followed them when they were searching and they were horrible. They definitely won't be able to find any clues with how horrible they are. All I have to do is be more careful when I venture out."
"Well that's good sylvi, but don't push yourself. We don't need to gather any more food for the time being, so don't go out."
"Don't worry Ana I won't. I still need to dismantle the remaining carcasses. I'll also be trying to make another spell. I already have 7 different spells, but I don't have a detection spell. That would be very helpful to find enemies and demonic beasts."
"Don't you also need a healing spell. You do take a lot longer to heal than us."
"Yeah I do and I have already tried making one. It's just that healing spells aren't that compatible with my wind element. So I can't create any healing spells."
"Isn't our mana linked sylvi. Why don't you just try to use my mana. Water should be very compatible with healing spells."
"Yeah and while you're at it why don't you make some fire spells? That would give us more power."
"But we don't know what will happen. Our mana could be crippled or worse. I don't know about you, but I am only strong thanks to my spells."
"Sylvain you won't know what will happen if you don't try. You could be passing up an amazing opportunity. Besides you will be using our mana so it won't be yours that's crippled. Even if our mana is crippled we will still be able to survive."
"Fine fine, I'll try to create some water and fire spells and use your mana to create them. I'm going to start with spells that actually exist though to limit the risk. However I'll do that after I finish my detection spell, and after I finish dismantling the carcasses."
"That's fine sylvi. We'll just continue digging out this room then."
With that we then parted ways. I forgot to ask them how they liked the cookies, but I have things that need to be worked on. I can ask their opinion later. They will probably answer that it is the best they have ever eaten. They have responded that way for many of my dishes.
I then head back to dismantle the bodies. I have dismantled 20 of the 50 bodies meaning I only have 30 left to go. It's been a long day and it is almost night time. I should be able to dismantle 10 more bodies before going to bed. While dismantling the bodies my eyes begin to droop. I am beginning to feel extremely tired. By the time I finished up the 5th body I can already tell that I need rest. The crazy thing is that through all of this Ana and Astra have still been digging. I think they will continue digging through the night. As demonic beasts they don't need as much sleep, but it is still insane to think about.
Anyways I am really tired. I leave the dismantled bodies in the dismantling room while I walk up to the kitchen. I then head straight to my room and fall asleep once I am in the bed. I wake up and find myself grabbing something soft and fluffy in both my hands. In my groggy state I stroke and massage the item. Soon I hear two moans coming from my left and right. These instantly awaken me and I see the whole scene. Ana and Astra, in their human form, are on my bed and my hands are stroking their tails. It seems like they are both in a dream though which is my only saving grace.
I immediately leave the room as quickly as I can. As if to hide my shame I start dismantling the bodies once again. I also store the meat that has been dismantled yesterday. I am able to finish another 5 bodies before I decide to make breakfast. It is a simple breakfast which is a meat sandwich. I make each one differently to make sure we all enjoy it. Ana and Astra soon come down, in their human form, and begin to eat.
While they are eating I ask, "what were you doing in my room?"
"Wait we were in your room, Sylvain."
It seems like they were genuinely shocked. They must have entered my room by accident. I could see that happening if they were very tired. The only thing I don't get is why did they both go to sleep together. It doesn't really matter to me though.
"Oh I see, so you were too tired yesterday and accidentally went into my room. Please don't do that again."
"Why can't we sleep together sylvi?"
I looked away while mumbling, "cause I won't be able to control myself."
"Huh did you say something Sylvain?"
"Yeah I said that the bed would be too cramped," instantly making an excuse.
"So if we make a bigger bed, then you would sleep with us right."
Trying to desperately come up with an excuse I say, "but then what's the point of making separate rooms if we don't use them. Anyways I still have some carcasses to dismantle so I'll be back."
I then quickly went down to the dismantling room. They are still perfect beauties in their human form. Their moans were also super cute. Wait no stop thinking these things. Come on don't get your mind in the gutter. They don't like me that way and I don't want to ruin our good relationship. I hope I can forget about all of this while I'm dismantling.
I then focus on my dismantling work to distract myself. It worked and I was also able to finish the remaining 20 bodies in a relatively shorter amount of time. I guess this was because I was so heavily focused. I doubt even 3 hours had passed since I started. Well anyways the next thing in the list is to create my detection spell. I quickly store all the useful parts of the bodies before heading to my room.
Once inside my room I begin thinking about how to create my detection spell. I am still going to be using o spell of wind since I'm going to be using my element. Since I want it to detect I would guess it needs to spread from me. That should take care of the direction and shape. It's obviously going to detect something so that's the action. Finally it would be detecting my enemies since I'm sure there will be multiple.
"O spell of wind spread from me to detect my enemies."
I chanted the spell, but for some reason it didn't work. It seemed to be fine up until the from me part. Maybe I need to be more specific so instead of from me it should be with me as the center. Well the only way to know is to try it.
"O spell of wind spread with me as the center to detect my enemies,"
This time I could feel my mana escaping from within me. The spell seemed to be working, but I couldn't really detect anything. I guess that could only mean there is nothing to detect which makes sense. The only people in the area are Ana and Astra and they certainly aren't my enemies. I would have to actually test this spell out later, but I could practically tell it was going to work. I could probably modify it too for specific scenarios. Like changing the enemies to allies or something specific that I wish to find. I'm pretty sure I would be able to find allies, but I do not know about specific items.
I'm glad that I created my new spell, but now I am scared that I have to try to test out our connection. I really don't want to cripple their mana because if I did it would surely hurt them. I guess that I'll just put it off for a little bit. With that thinking in mind I head out of my room to grab a quick lunch. Even though it might have felt like a small amount of time had passed it was actually a pretty substantial amount. I would have to say it took me another 2 hours to come up with the spell.
I went into the living room and saw Ana and Astra eating some slightly charred meat. Luckily for me they were in their fox forms so I didn't have to worry about any unsavory thoughts appearing. They had also cooked me a plate of meat and left it for me. Even though it is charred I am still grateful for their actions, so I ate it all. It was actually quite delicious and the char really helped boost the flavor.
"So Sylvain have you finished? Is it time to test out or mana link?"
"Yeah sylvi, I'm sure you have already finished those tasks you set out to do."
"Unfortunately I have only finished dismantling," I lie as calmly as possible, "I still need to create my detection spell, so I need more time."
"Then what was that surge of mana that I felt? Huh Sylvain?"
"That was just a failed attempt. I tried to spread my mana so it would detect things, but something was wrong."
"It looks like you're really close sylvi. I know, why don't we help you?"
"No offense Ana, but you don't know how to cast spells so I highly doubt that you'd like help create one. Anyways I should be finished by tomorrow so we will try out our mana links tomorrow."
"Okay Sylvain. I guess we'll just continue expanding the area."
I then checked out how well their digging was coming along. They were doing well especially since they didn't have access to any mana. I would have to say that they have gone twice deeper than when I saw them last. After briefly checking the progress I went back into my room. For the remainder of the day I began testing out my new spell while trying to find other ways to stave off my boredom.