All hell broke loose with Elrhain’s irrevocable authorization.

Like a mob of preschoolers high on magic glucose, the children squealed and scrambled. They giggled and bantered as they started crafting the second article of the first real Earth technology Elrhain had at last unveiled in this primordial world.

“We need a grip,” Elrhain said.

He dusted off the rest of the sand from Agwyn’s skirt and sleeves. Her hair had just been washed and dried. He had also removed the twigs and shells from what had been a veritable bird’s nest.

The little princess was eager for another try at fishing immediately. But Elrhain wanted no more mishaps. Failure was only valuable when one learnt from it.

“Hmm, let me think.” He picked up a Zakky vine and smashed one end with a stone to split it. Looking at the individual strings, he happened upon an idea. He went to his trusty handyman Vesiphis and got him to wrap the Lontwood shaft of the fishing pole with the split Zakky vines like a bandage. After that, he slathered the whole thing in Rubra sap.

As it dried, it turned rubbery. Elrhain tested the grip and found the friction acceptable.

「Then this time, you guys can’t let go either and will be dragged through sand like me?」 Agwyn innocently asked.

「Good point.」

The fifteen odd kids had just about finished crafting their own fishing poles. They looked too impatient to waste any more time on tedious safety precautions. So Elrhain could only drop the idea of forcing them to make the grips too.

Roodles’s group bowed to captain Anouk as the watch captain handed another hooked tooth over. Next in line were two other children, both servant girls from the village.

“T-Thank you, lord cultivator.” Roodles stammered, then excitedly fastened the hook to the fishing line.

Just like that, the seven odd fishing poles were completed. Elrhain took that in, then called out to everyone including captain Anouk into a huddle.

“The last time was dangerous. Annie was almost dragged down under. So avoiding that, each group will have no fewer than two big kids, okay?”

Everyone nodded.

“Howell, Vesiphis. You can fish alone. But keep an eye out so that no one gets dragged away again. Captain Anouk, can you do the same?”

Again, nods.

“Good. Then what are you waiting for? Let’s prove to the adults that even mortal children can safely hunt gheists if they use their brains!”

Everyone cheered with a cacophony of childlike exclamations. Under the lead of Elrhain and the ever so excited Howell, the first-ever organized fishing party of Uorys Diosca officially started.

***

“Wha-, a gheist ate our Zakky vine!” One little girl who looked around six or seven screamed. She was in Roodles’s group with four others, all spectacularly dumbfounded at the abrupt turn of events.

As this unsuspecting giddy group lifted the fishing line from the water under Roodles’s lead, everything under the float was already gone. Only leaving bite marks.

A fish had dined and dashed, with the culprit nowhere to be seen!

Four of them broke down crying, while Roodles hurried to cheer them up as he repaired the fishing line with one of the extra hooks captain Anouk had crafted under Elrhain’s orders.

At the same time, another group of children joined in the tear-shedding activities. The Lontwood pole lying on the sand in front of them was snapped into two pieces at the narrower top.

Perhaps it was a particularly brutish gheist, but this relatively weaker fishing pole broke like a twig during the tug of war, shocking this group of children mightily.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Everyone else had better luck.

Well, kind of.

“Heaveeeeee!” Elrhain yelled, and his toddler army pulled the shaft with all the strength they could muster, planting their feet into the sand. Finally, sweating like oily braised beef, the kids roared and dragged whatever was tussling with them onto the shore.

It was a worm.

A nasty thing with nineteen spikes jutting out of its body randomly. It had smaller, even more terrifying worms living inside its round, grinder-like mouth. Not to mention its tongue, which had its own miniature second maw of doom.

This second maw was biting onto the hook, gnawing on the tooth like some delicacy.

Ysbail screamed, then ran away.

“Ah, a wiggly. This one is so spiky!” Ruba said. “Father said you could only eat spikey wigglies in winter when they come out of their hiding holes. My lord’s rope-stick can even catch these, awesome!”

“It’s a fishing pole!” Elrhain protested. “So, these, uh, are edible?”

Ruba nodded, “They’re delish. Their meat is all soft and bouncy, not like the hard, chewy ones of land gheists. Can I take a bite? Please?”

“Er, after cooking, alright?”

Ruba yay’ed. Agwyn poked the ‘wiggly’ with a stick. Apparently, according to Ruba, it had some other name. But the kids called every worm-like thing that could wiggle, a wiggly.

Said wiggly snapped at the offending stick, crunching it into fragments.

“It also eats with the little mouth! Wow~” The princess was awed by wonder. “It’s like a Bobbit worm.” She poked it a few more times.

“Hehehe. Ysbail! Come back here; I found you a new friend.”

“Nooo! Stay back. Gwynnie, don’t be mean to me!”

Elrhain sighed, then went back to mending the fishing line with Cati and Ruba. The wiggly had punctured a few holes into the Zakky vines. It’ll probably snap if they cast it again as was. For now, all they could do was cut off the tattered part and then re-tie the float and hook anew.

These fishing poles were after all, DIY. Elrhain was sure that there were better materials to make them more robust, flexible, and efficient overall. Heck, even magic could play a part.

But he didn’t want to be the one to make those changes. For one, he simply had insufficient knowledge of this world and the raw materials available. Two, he would use this as the spark for innovation. The carrot to the stick, the driving force fueled by need and greed!

Elrhain sorted out a few of the steps of his future master plan.

A little further away, one adult and three Earthloch scions furiously fished away, not minding his creepy snickers.

The village kids had made six poles. Apparently, two of them were for Captain Anouk and the gloomy Cadfael.

The watch captain received the ‘rope-stick’ with interest after carving the final hook. He didn’t really need any repayment for his work as Elrhain’s wish was literally his command. Still, he looked pretty engrossed in the prince’s new toy. Perhaps as an adult and an essential member of the clan Watch, he could already gleam its significance in the coming days of the collapse.

Besides, from the past few months of knowing the guy, Elrhain couldn’t really see someone like him turning down the glistening puppy dog eyes of so many twiddly village runts.

Howell had made his own, refusing any and all help even when carving the hook. He had spouted cryptic theories about fish hunting. How he as a veteran applied them to his masterwork… that looked exactly like the ones the others made.

But as if to prove Elrhain wrong, it performed far better. Incomprehensibly so, that Elrhain suspected if there was foul magic at play.

Whatever the case, there was now a pile of thirteen flopping fish, each weighing over five kilograms, inside the basket-deep hole Howell had dug on the shore to store them.

One of the village kids, a toddling girl a little older than Elrhain, hoisted a wooden club and thwacked each of those flopping fish on the head once, and they ceased flopping.

Dead… unconscious? The girl carefully checked them over, then ran to the basket holes of everyone else and repeated the process. Only the fat catfish shuddering with panic with the wiggly inside Elrhain’s group’s basket-hole were free from her wrath.

By now, the sun had about set into slumber. The sepia sky turned a blazing orange at the horizon. Above, it was a greyish black with the twinkle of the barely peeking stars shining out. The first moon had been unveiled, but the hazy crescent was waiting for her many friends to join her in her celestial dance.

All that luminance and the fiery light of the cooking and bonfires of the feast leaked over to where the kids were having the time of their life.

It kissed the back of the giddy Howell, highlighted the sharp border of a Cadfael’s impassive face, and bounced off the fuzzy yet leathery wings of Vesiphis, who cheered as he caught his second crab.

And as the club-wielding demonic little girl bashed to death her nth aquatic victim with blood splatters painting her face, the same orange light graced her with a terrifying aura no preschooler, primitive or not, should ever have.

Agwyn clapped her hands with a peep, then ran to the club-wielding girl while towing a scared Ysbail along.

Elrhain shuddered, the premonition of danger shooting through the roof.

Just when he was about to call Agwyn back using the repaired fishing line as an excuse, he spotted a group of dhionne approach them from the corner of his eyes.

‘Finally!’

He put the bad influence the club-wielding girl could have on his future bride at the back of his mind and observed the new arrivals with a calculative gleam.

Four men, two women, and five youngsters looking to be in their teenage years. They were being led by one of the village girls Elrhain had sent away. They would be Elrhain’s key to hijacking today’s feast into being something far more purposeful.