The days were coming along nicely, and spring seemed to be nesting it's true end at this rate. I can't help but sigh a little at the idea that it's about to be an entire bleeding year since I came to this world.
Granted I did say that it was nearing the end of spring, but in all honesty, there's not a whole lot for me to take a look at in this small itsy bitsy spot that I so proudly "claimed".
But then again, I was more than willing to begins and end a feud with wolves of all creatures, so I suppose my mind isn't at the right place right now.
The little one was still asking for my help within her spars, but I was more than confident that she just does this to make me feel like I still have a purpose with keeping her strong.
I couldn't really find anything else that I could be working on, except for the bricks finally drying out enough for me to begin the process of creating a proper little hovel for me to live in with the kid.
Sure, the tree shack is nice and all, but a tree shack isn't going to keep things safe for all the time. Some cases you just wanna be on the ground itself, at a neutral point so that you'd be able to figure out what you could do in your unfortunate little situation.
I had this little idea, for a nice, beautiful little brick home with a chimney, attic, around the bedrooms, and wooden floorboard. But then seeing as how many bricks I have, I severely underestimated just how much I would actually need to make this work.
There are many things that you could do with about five hundred bricks, building something that's two-stories is not exactly amongst them. Granted, it would just be more vertically inclined, but I have to appeal to common sense.
So, how exactly was an senile old fuck like me, supposed to do to make all of this a niche little reality?
The realm.
Terrible idea, absolutely horrendous, downright abominable. I just did it, I had the mental duress to create at least a couple dozen more of them, but considering just how big I was visualizing this thing to actually be?
It wouldn't work forever, that much, was absolute. And absolution was not the solution, so I had another idea. Expansion. I know, I know, I did say that I would try to keep the perimeter, but I made sure that it would a perimeter that we could handle, and if I clear most of our line of sight from the trees that were all around us, then we'd still be able to handle it.
I could almost hear the sounds of basic old construction occuring within the grounds, wondrous. I made sure to use my tools to the best of their ability, the serrated axe, was, well, it wasn't exactly the best thing that you'd use to cut a log, but my head was suffering from what was by far the heaviest brain-cleaving headache that had so graciously fallen upon me.
Annoyance indeed, and it lessened my productivity toa crawl, in which I promptly went back to sleep, letting the work be done for the next day instead.
It was a dreamless rest once again when I awoke and saw that the two creatures that have been kind enough to "keep me company" we're currently tussling it out again in the dirt, with the child making herself out to be the target of my exasperation from how she tumbled in the dirt and covered herself and her clothes in a heavy, heavy layer of dust.
I could almost hear the two of them laughing, oh wait, no no, that is them laughing. Ah, silly me. I almost thought I could anticipate them to be genuinely mature. Oh wait, I'm talking about an elf and a deer, maturity is not the sort of thing you'd expect when the elf looks like a vagrant.
"Alright alright you two, you're filthy enough as it is, now one of you is supposed to go and clean herself up now. I can't say that you two are unreliable, but you have some moments that just make me outright question what is going in within your minds."
The two of them looked at each other as the girl frowned and slowly walked over to me.
"By whatever being above that could be staring down right now, you look like you've been rolling around in the dust. AH YES, YOU DID DO THAT!"
My voice, was not necessarily that loud, but I couldn't help but feel a bit peeved off from the sort of things that I had been made to experience in the last two days.
Can I trust any of these two goofballs to not do anything to make things worse? Perhaps. That would be me having a couple blunders. But do I trust myself? Of course, up to a certain point.
She didn't even flinch as she blinked at me, acting like she didn't understand a single thing I had just said, or expressed to her. I groaned as I marched her onto the closest place that came to my mind to get her clean.
The watering hole. Oh but that's a terrible idea, she could be attacked by something new in the hole! Did I ever tell you that I went to the hole just this morning? Oh, did you assume that my sleep was completely and utterly interrupted?
An internal clock is always something that proves to be very very very useful whenever you're a man wanted by the various governments of the world. And it proved useful for allowing me to check the quality of the water within the hole, that, and ensure that there weren't going to be any new tenants.
I handed her a sizable towel, and her fresh clothes, and set off to scout the waters one last time before I ultimately let her handle her own thing.
On my end, well, I don't necessarily need to go and wash up all that often. There are occasions where I feel that a bath is absolutely needed, but that would only really be for any stressful moments where things don't seem to go right.
Ahh phooey, I'll stop thinking about these sorts of things later on. I need to get back to making the new bricks within my realm. It's a terrible headache, but a manageable one anyways.
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/??? POV/
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I can hear it. I can hear the great ones nearing me. The others have finally left and I'm the last one that's been left standing within the grounds. The lumbering machines were still within the courtyard, with their flaming implements attached to them.
I never found them scary back when I was still training, but by the blood of the Immortal, it was a foolish thought. The Royal Guard were nearly made nonexistent with the sort of weapons that they used.
I lost a limb that day, and they were only able to find the cursed steel of the For'eigner to make a replacement. I couldn't help but feel like all the possible levels of despair fall upon me when I was woken up by my Squad Captain.
The cold, alien steel of that damnable Abomination. As opposed to the blessed bronze that the high priests would graft upon themselves to allow them to go even further into their worship of the Bloody Immortal.
I don't blame them, the man was a great one, a sign of hope, a reason to keep battling on, even as he was covered in all of those scars. But the very moment that the For'eign struck him down by the droves it was nothing more but a fading hope that the priests held onto.
I couldn't help but feel like it would have been better to off myself then and there, after all, being tainted with materials corrupted by that disgusting aberration would've been cause for execution by flames.
And yet they allowed me to keep walking. You'll be venerated for being one oft be few that could survive the taint, they said. You are to be made a true warrior, they said. Close enough to the For'eign signature to go deep into their territory, they said.
I laughed dryly at all of the lies that they shovelled down my hatch, making me think that I'd be something anywhere close to the Grand Mage and the old heroes.
Gods-bleeding bullshit, I'll say that much. I hated the thought that I could be used to try and give us all a "chance". There weren't many other ideas left for us to use against the bastard.
Heroes? He'd shattered the great halls to ensure they'd never be able to summon another one of them, burnt whatever instructions or rituals to be able to scry for them.
Gifts from the gods? Bah! All of the things that the gods would've given us just ended up in the bastard's hands anyways. The very idea that the gods themselves didn't want to be connected to us just made things all the worse.
As for the "greatest" forms of magic that the word would've been witness to? He's the bleeding For'eigner, why would any magic ever hurt him? The very mana of the earth and air hate him, so much that they just outright stay away wherever he walks.
They never did find out how the bastard was able to breathe without the mana saturation getting nonexistent.
I could hear it now, they're talking to each other, foul screeches and clicks that made up a language unknown to almost any being unlucky enough to cross their path.
But to me? I had the terrible luck of figuring out what they were talking about. No thanks to this disgustingly oiled slab of steel that they grafted onto me.
They were locating me, sniffing me out. Sniff may only normally apply to wolves, but I'd take a pack of wolves over this any given day. I had to keep my breathing very very still to make sure that they wouldn't find me faster.
I know that I'm going to die today, outside of the grace of the gods and the System itself, but damnit if I wasn't going to take some of those bastards with me, then my name wouldn't be Gu-
[THREAT LOCATED. EXECUTING.]
'By the fucking go-'
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/Elf POV/
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The old man was just staring into the sky again. At the very least the sun wasn't getting into his eyes and making him blind. He was by far the nicest of the beings that I've ever had the chance to meet, which doesn't exactly say all that much since he was the third person I've known.
I can still remember him digging a grave for my brother. I blame him, it's as simple as that. But I like him enough to not kill him immediately.
If I wanted to kill him, I would've just went and done other things to ensure that he would've never been able to come back to life. But as often as he said that I was getting stronger, he too was improving.
He was getting more difficult to read at times, sometimes he'd opt for weapons, other times he made his entire body into a weapon. I wasn't exactly jealous of how he was improving, since most of his improvement was borne from the suffering that he would be forced to take.
But I cannot deny that it was a very good way of going about it. I can think relatively better, and it's somewhat easier to not have to use my very tongue to speak to him, since his mind would've bursted at the first syllable.
I cared for the old man. He's like my parent, a father, I suppose. He keeps goading me to make larger use of the words he spoke in, but it would've only really been a detriment to my routine if I were to just be talking with him for most of the day, never getting any of my training in.
Of course, the baths I had are getting more lonely as time goes by, and I do feel that I should've had him stay with me to clean my hair, but what does it matter anyways? After all, he is someone that I intend to kill, one day.
And killing someone that's as skilled and tenacious as he is will prove to be a very very difficult task, or more specifically, killing him as many times as it would take for him to finally stay dead.
He never did properly have a conversation with me about what I wanted to do with him, which then leads me to the idea that he never really cared if he were to live or die within this world. And yet he said he would struggle for as long as it would take to not be killed, to not be removed from this plane.
'Old man, you truly are one of the most odd beings I have ever met. Thank you for feeding me and my brother your very flesh, and thank you, for allowing me the chance to properly remove you from this world. Thank you. Damn you. I love you. I will kill you.'
I finished my bath thoughts as I towelled off and wore the clothes he had set aside for me.
I hoped that he wouldn't mind me taking another cut of the meat. It tastes really good.
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/MC POV/
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Looking back to the outline of the little brick cabin that I was planning out, there were a few structural issues that came to mind when I looked at them.
There were spots that I assumed would give out should there be tremors, or perhaps a subterranean creature that would try to kill me when given the chance and hunger.
And then there were the questions of the bricks themselves. Now, the bricks that I created from hand, the ones with a mixture of mud, clay, and deity knows what in them were not exactly uniform.
They weren't going to keep together when I add in the ones that I made from my realm. To be fair, it was a terrible idea on my part to allow myself to belay the weekly supply run and change to it to being biweekly instead.
One week would be allowed for bricks, up until I finally finish this damnable project, and the next would be for getting the toiletries and other things, such as crackers for us to consume in a disaster.
Of course I'm not trying to invite a disaster to come and kill whatever's left in this place, but this would suffice for now. And when I'm done building this little cabin, I'll try to see what else could be in my mind to follow along to.
I need a good break, and this fresh and warm shelter would do truly beautiful wonders for me.