In layman’s terms, what Ara was telling me, was that I could understand what an object consisted of and exactly by how much.

Flipping heck, I was still recovering from the last episode where my brain nearly fried itself. I don’t think I’d totally recovered from that. It was no doubt a rare opportunity, and so the emboldened engineer in me overrode my scepticism.

A burning sensation shot through my eyeballs.

It burnt like someone sprayed pepper spray into my eyes. I had to restrain myself from crying out in pain while tears ran like waterfalls.

Mistake? Bloody hell it was a painful mistake.

“Hey, Shane are you okay?”

Orilay’s voice sounded softly below so as not to wake up the rest of the camp. He was working a night shift and was replacing a guard on the other corner of the gate when he heard strange noises and came to check on me. I looked over the watchtower rail, waving back I replied in a hushed voice,

“Yeah, yeah…I’m okay. Just got a bloody bug in my eye.”

Orilay silently nodded, in his life he had enough bugs in his eyes to know how painful it could be. He waved back, his curiosity satisfied and continued to his post. I on the other hand was only just recovering from the pain that was swiftly subsiding.

It became possible for me to focus once the pain subsided. I touched my arm and at once a menu popped up in my mind as if I were looking directly at it. When I opened my eyes, the wording stayed there for as long as I willed it to. The list was simple and when I focused on something else, it promptly disappeared. It read,

Name: Shane Karosaki

Race: Human

Occupation: Blacksmith

Class: Apprentice

HP: 30/30

SP: 25/25

EE: 1045/1050

Skills: Translation (Native), Transmutation, Appraisal, Healing

It was simply amazing! There was a translation skill that said something about native. I assumed that the native descriptor was referring to my now native language. The only problem was I just didn’t understand some of my appraisal.

Well, that explained it then. My challenge going forward was to know my limits. I realised that utilising Ara’s ability to aid me with these things could be a major boon if I capitalised on it.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Bugger, no point in crying over something I couldn’t change. Then focusing on making more efficient uses of the energy and to increase the total amounts could be lifesaving. My father always said the best way to improve on savings was to limit expenditure so one could save more or to increase the interest; the former tended to be the easier of the two. The same applied to Ethereal Energy and that’s where my focus would be.

To see how much EE I used at one time, and not have to transmute in public, I could only use appraisal to use some EE. I appraised my bow first.

Class: Normal Bow

Material: Eacorn Wood

HP: 50/50

EE: None

Max Damage: 25

Attribute: None

Cost: Unknown

When I appraised myself, I discovered my EE dropped to 1041/1050.

That made sense because in the brief time I was mucking around, my body gained an extra EE point between my two self-appraisals. Which made for wonderful news because it meant my EE could eventually restore itself.

< That’s an example of how I can improve your appraisal by adding values I can calculate based on information I can gather or have at hand. Since I don’t have any information, there is no appraised cost for the bow for now. Goodness you are full of questions. >

From then on, like a teenager spending with their first credit card, I appraised everything around me with reckless abandon; every pole, nail, and rope. Clearly every appraisal cost me five plain EE. From that exercise I learned that the guard rail planks were made from Blister Oak hardwood, excellent for defence purposes, poor for blade sharpness. Grenfell must have been busy in those early days; I was only too glad I arrived after they built the camp. They used both copper and iron fastenings, the majority I assumed was the cheaper copper. The rope originally came from a flax plant, there seemed to be a few earth types plants around. The anecdotal evidence of earth affecting that world seemed stacked up to more than just my lonely intrusion.

The morning broke without any incidents that night and for the first time in my brief history on that world, it rained as if catching up with all the days it previously missed. Heavy, rain forest drops started falling before my shift ended. Never designed to be waterproof, the log roof leaked like a sieve. That meant I spent more time dodging mini waterfalls, not successfully I might add, and my sodden apparel was proof of that. As soon as my relief came, I headed back to my tent and tried to dry up as best I could, at least my tent was still dry.

“Here, put this on.”

Orilay found me there and tossed a thick-weave jacket to me. My appraisal showed the material came from flax which meant the jacket scratched any exposed skin something awful. Luckily, my long-sleeved shirt helped me out there, covering all my exposed skin. Orilay must have known that I was getting miserable and found that for me somewhere. It smelled old and musty, like hemp rope left too long in the damp but I was the last to complain. It was warm, and I would sort out the damp smell soon enough. Nothing a wash and a bit of sun couldn’t solve.

“Thanks. I really needed that.”

He nodded and headed off. Since it was still raining heavily, I discovered the ground around inside the camp quickly turned into a muddy quagmire the moment I stepped off the wooden planking. None of that stopped me from saying goodbye to Haruhime, who while sitting on the open cart was saying farewell to folks. She wore a brown leather hooded shoulder coat, which a lot of people seemed to wear to protect against sun and rain. A shoulder cape seemed a sensible choice, especially when turned into a rain protecting coat.

Two carts of people left the camp and it seemed to be far emptier than it was. Even the number of children decreased. After I watched them leaving through the forest road, I looked around there was more than one woman looking at me smiling while the men just shook their heads. Really?

Since I worked the night shift, I slept the entire morning and after lunch was able to help Grenfell sort out the sharpening of blades and instruments. My double shift of guard duty meant he needed to take up slack from me. He never complained once and I found a lot of respect for him at that time.

The good news was that I had more opportunities to test out my Transmutation skill and discovered I could bear about five minutes with a knife before my EE dropped to serious levels. At least I was then able to catch myself before passing out.

Later that afternoon when finished with my work, I found Orilay standing in the rain, looking out the gate down towards the forest road. He wasn’t on gate duty, yet his eyes showed concern about something, so I went out to find out what was troubling him.

“A cart from Shimmerstal hasn’t arrived yet. It was due this morning and at the latest lunch time but still, there’s no word. Even the carts following them arrived after lunch with no siting. With all the recent monster activity it worries me. When you consider that the cart was laden with all our food and materials, it’s no mere coincidence that specific cart is the only one missing.”

I could sense his unease. The cart drivers knew the road well and there was little doubt the cart driver met with foul play.

“Hey Orilay. Where are all these monsters coming from?”

“It’s said there’s a monster dungeon in the forest some distance to the Northeast of here, on the other side of the main road. It’s only speculation though, and I’m not sure if anyone discovered it yet. I just wish the military types would investigate and deal with it for the last time.”

“Why don’t they?”

“Unfortunately, it’s politics. Aryonne’s nobles control most of the armed forces. Ever since the eastern wars the nobles have more power than what’s good for them and they all have their eyes on the throne. It’s a fact that people like us get used like tools when nobles get greedy. Between you and me, there’s no doubt our friendly mayor is in the pocket of the nobles but don’t get me started mate, I’ll keep you standing here a long time. Anyhow, the time has come and gone. Close the gate.”

Orilay indicated to the gate guards with a heavy heart. My prayers went out to Haruhime and the others who should have made it home okay by then. I hoped that the presence of the monsters towards Shimmerstal meant that Haruhime’s carts travelling in the opposite direction, made it back to Obon without incident.

During the late evening twilight, Orilay stood on watch on the same tower just as I did the night before. After a full-day downpour, the rain finally stopped. On impulse I decided to keep him company and climbed the ladder.

“How are things going here?”

Orilay had a small iron sword at his waist wrapped in cloth without a scabbard. The mayor loaned all weapons as most people couldn’t afford a weapon and the supervisor managed them. He also carried the same bow I kept with me the other night. For people supposed to be defending against monsters like ogres, the weapons were of inferior quality and unfortunately wouldn’t amount to much during a battle.

“The forest seems unusually quiet tonight.”

He was right, perhaps the rain caused it. The usual cacophony of forest noises I became so accustomed to, usually tuning it out of my mind was now, unusually missing. For some inexplicable reason, a poem came to mind from nursery rhymes my father repeated to me many times.

“Pitter patter quiet little feet, small and green but not so sweet, one alone so easy to beat, but in larger numbers face defeat.”

The timing was unfortunate because both of us suddenly sensed a movement in the dark tree line. In the late twilight, perfectly still, stood a pair of large direwolves with their goblin riders looking directly at us. The bareback goblins riders looked like monkeys holding onto the direwolve’s backs.

“Direwolves.”