The morning sun never shone brightly in the great forest, it was dim, and that made it all the more difficult to rise with. It wasn't until several hours after that I finally found the energy to crawl out of bed. My body was mostly healed, but my ribs were still sore, and with the largest issues addressed my body started to let me know about all the little things that were wrong.
My hip left hip ached deep inside the joint from the impact made my leg go numb, and my head felt like I had been beating it against a brick wall for hours with how much it hurt. The little light that did make it through the window only made my eyes go crazy, hurting my head even more.
Goosebumps covered my skin as the blankets fell to the side. My hair hung in my face as I started groaning, wanting nothing more than to crawl back in and go to sleep again.
That was already my third time trying to start my day though, and I knew that despite having finished my quests there was still work to be done. If nothing else I had to collect the reward for killing the minitour. 'I bet I could turn its hide into some pretty good armor too.'
I stood up, taking my time and slowly grabbing my armor off the floor. 'Speaking of which…' I groaned, taking a look at it. It was sticky and gross, still carrying a faint stench. 'The color won't go away, but I can at least wash the scent out.'
I conjured a ball of water and threw it in along with my pants boots, and the rest of my armor. When I picked up my helmet though, I noticed it was cracked. 'Sparks… How did I not notice this?' I thought back to the fight. 'It must have been when it threw me into that tree…'
I walked over to the mirror and took a look at my face. The entire right side was swollen and stung to the touch. 'I mean… It was still totally worth it…'
The bruise explained why my head hurt so much as I self-diagnosed a concussion. 'For today I'll take it easy, let's start with gutting the minotaur to clear out my storage, that will take some strain off my mind at least.'
I threw my helmet into the water bubble and finished washing all my armor, putting it all back on before heading out to gut the beast. My helmet was broken, but it still kept the blood out of my hair, and the same for the rest of the armor, it was already covered in blood, so more red stain wouldn't affect it much… It did mean I just washed it for no reason… But I tried not to think about that.
Everything kind of blurred together as I slashed through the hide with ease. 'I feel stronger somehow…'
"Well, if it isn't our little red streak!" Ted yelled as his party returned from hunting.
I pulled my hands out of the beast's torso, ripping its heart out clean out before scratching my nose with my forearm. "I think the name needs to be workshoped…"
He laughed, placing his hands on his hips, while Dabai bowed and Roaren ashamedly looked to the side. "That's what they call you now. On account of that crazy blood trail, you left all over camp. It's still here you know…" He said pointing down at his feet. "It was you, wasn't it? We heard all about it, how that crazy E rank took down a minotaur and pinned its head to the notice board!"
"Oh… Yeah, that was me." I muttered, admittedly a little embarrassed at how I acted. " What uh… What else are they saying?"
He looked over to Roaren and shrugged. "We've been out hunting, haven't heard too much about it. We thought the story would be better from you. Everyone gets to hear the tales, but it's considered a real treat to hear the story from the person it's about you know. All the more so if it's your first."
I threw the heart in storage and opened up the rib cage wider looking inside for a specific organ. "Sure, give me a few minutes… Oh… You, guys, didn't use fire this time did you?"
Dabai bowed again. "My apologies great streak."
'I knew it wasn't going to be cute… But couldn't my first title at least sound cool?' I sighed, starting to get a sense of just how embarrassing that name was. "Can we maybe just go back to using my name please…"
Ted laughed. "It's an honor to be well known, no matter the name it is the deed that is remembered."
With another quick glance I reached back into the minitours corps. 'Found it!' I grabbed a hold of another organ and ripped it out filling the air with a red mist. Throwing it into storage I wiped the mist from my face and looked back up at their disgusted faces.
"Right… We'll uh… Leave you too that…"
I stepped away from the corpse, putting it in storage. "Wait, where is Taggart? Is he even a part of your group?"
He chuckled, raising an eyebrow, unsure of the answer. "We met some knight out in the woods and they seemed to know each other, said he was an A rank so we figured he'd be fine if we left."
"That guy is an enigma." Even after sending the corpse away, the scent remained just as potent, practically chasing them away, save for Roaren who, if anything, was almost attracted to it. It might have just been his wolf blood, but it seemed almost like the scent was making him hungry.
Trying to ignore his eyes was harder than I thought, especially with the look he had in his eyes. 'This is so awkward… He's just staring at me… Not saying anything… Should I say something?'
I pulled out a few of the spiders and got to work gutting them, but his eyes never left me, and the look never changed, making me almost too anxious to keep my hands steady.
I cut into the first spider, failing to notice fire magic had half melted the acid gland. Distracted, I touched some of the acid. "Sparks!" I shouted yanking my hand out and quickly conjuring a bubble of water in the air, running my hand through it.
Roaren froze halfway to me. "Uh, are you alright?"
"Fine…" I groaned, pulling a special acid burn tonic from storage. I opened it with my mouth, and dextrously readied it with my left hand, applying it the moment my hand left the water. "My resistances have gone up a lot recently, so I won't lose the finger or anything… I guess that's no excuse for me being that careless though…"
He sighed. "That looks difficult, let me help."
I froze for a moment. "It's not really that hard…" 'I've been on my own for as long as I can remember, so I guess I just got used to doing things like this.'
He grabbed the vial and carefully applied the chalky black substance to the burn with his human hand, holding my arm gently with the other. The soft fur from his hand brushing against my skin gave me goosebumps, and with him holding my hand, kneeling down to closely look at it… The whole thing just felt wrong. The acid had already been diluted by some of the spider's other bodily fluids, so it wasn't potent, but he treated it like my hand would fall off if he missed even the smallest mark.
"There." He said, finally standing up.
My heart was beating so fast it almost felt like I was in a fight again.
"I'm not sure if this helps, but my wolf blood trait has actually spread to my tongue as well, the wolf tribes have chemicals in their saliva that treat burns and–"
"THATS— Fine… Don't worry about it. It's fine… I just need to use some recovery magic and eat a lot and it should be better by tomorrow."
He stood up. "Good, these hands of yours are important."
'It's really not fair that I'm the only one who knows how embarrassing this is…' I let out a sigh, trying to relax. "Did you, need something?"
He nodded. "I suppose I did want to apologize to you for refusing your request for aid."
"You mean the minotaur? Don't, your reasoning was sound, there was no reason for you to put your life in so much danger."
"I know, but still. You were a friend in need and I did nothing to help you… Even Theodore gave you that flask."
"A friend huh…" I used earth, plant, and water magic to create heavily basic mud and encased my hand in it to neutralize whatever might have been left of the acid. "Assuming our bones aren't much different in strength, you would have died in half a hit. My armor was enchanted and that much was enough for me to need two healing spells and minor surgery. Of course, it was wielding a greatsword and an ax at one point, so obviously if either of the blades touched me I'd start losing limbs at the very least. I stretched my side, still not feeling quite right. 'Saying it out loud really just makes me sound stupid, instead of heroic…'
He groaned. "I know I am not a failure for staying behind, but that doesn't mean I'm not one for being too weak to follow…"
"Yeah… I get that…" 'I've felt that way most of my life…'
"So then… Please teach me how to safely harvest spiders!"
"What…" 'How did he get there all of a sudden?' "I mean… Sure. It won't make you any stronger though."
"It will help."
We stared blankly at each other for awhile again until his eyes started making me uncomfortable and I turned away. "If you say so… Get over here then…"
'Ted taught me metal magic for free… So it would be too greedy to ask for money for this. Besides, with my rank going up so much I'd probably want to stop doing this for them anyway.' "Let's review the spider's basic anatomy first, you should know most of this already since you hunt them."