Kira, in the forest while waiting for the invasion force to return.
Kira was trying to make spears. The knife she had, made of Nitram, was sharper than a stone knife, but it was still hard to sharpen spears out of wood. She had been trying it for a few hours, with varying results.
At lunchtime, she had three decently sharp wooden sticks. One could call them spears. She went over to Ula and Akro to help slice up the meatshroom and vitashroom. It tasted good, but she had begun to be a little sick of the taste. She had never eaten any meat that was not some sort of slop, so she was not really complaining.
"What are you going to use the spears for?" Akro asked worriedly.
"Hunt." Kira answered.
"We have the traps for that." Akro answered, now even more worriedly.
Kira did not blame Akro for not wanting to fight. That was just who he was. He had failed the lessons from the human trainers, and she knew he silently did not like setting up traps to kill rodents for food. But she was different. She did not want to be made a slave again, and from what she knew, she was going to have to learn how to kill to be able to stay free.
"Traps do not give much exp. And they do not work on the big boars." She was not angry in her tone but slightly short with her brother.
Akro's eyes widened. "You can't kill the forest boars with those spears. They are almost the size of horses!"
"I know. I need to make better spears for that." She took a bite of a seared slice of meatshroom.
Akro looked down at the ground and used a stick to poke the coals in the little campfire they had by their huts. He was troubled by the risks his sister was taking. He had listened as she described when she had entered the Mushroom Pool. He had disliked it and thought they should wait for Toqlan before doing stuff like that.
Kira was increasingly more impatient with just sitting around making traps. She did not know what she wanted, really. She did not expect freedom to be so suffocating. That was why she decided to make spears. She needed to hunt and gain levels so she could go with the invasion force to the next village or the one after that. She needed to.
Kira picked up her spears and took a satchel made of plant fibers that she slung over her shoulder. It contained some food rations and dry wood, a fiber bandage, and another Nitram Knife in a simple hide sheath. She looked at her brother and Ula and told them she'd be back in a day or two.
As she walked through the territory, she felt her mind being pressured to accept a link. She knew that the screaming would follow if she denied it, so she allowed the connection. It was Mafu.
"Where are you going?" His voice was unique. It did not sound human or beast-kin. It was male, but it carried a feeling with it, one that reminded her of decay and wet leaves. It was uncomfortable to her, but she also had talked with Mafu enough to know that he or "it" was on the beast-kins side. So she shrugged the uncomfortable feeling away mentally. Toqlan had also vouched for the mushroom.
"To hunt." She answered simply.
"What will you hunt?" His voice was inquisitive but in a kind tone.
"Rodents, small boars maybe. Not the big ones."
"Hmmm. Okay. When will you be back?" Kira was surprised that the mushroom did not try to stop her. Toqlan would have.
"Why are you allowing me to go?" She asked incredulously.
It took a couple of seconds, and she could feel the mental link pulsing. She thought it was doing that when Mafu was thinking, but she had no proof of it.
"Do you want me to stop you?"
"Toqlan would have."
"I am not Toqlan."
"You are an adult."
Another few seconds of thinking, and then she felt something like sadness through the link, followed by acceptance.
"You might get hurt. You might even die if you have a run-in with the goblins. But this world is cruel, with levels and strength ruling what you can do. I think you know this more than Akro or Ula. To live free, you must be strong. Especially as a beast-kin."
It waited for Kira to respond. And she agreed with what was said. It was what she had thought all this time.
"Why not make us go out and hunt, then?" She asked.
"I will not order or make anyone do anything. It is your choice, your risk to take. I will keep you fed, and I will fight to defend you inside my territory. But what you want to do is up to you. If I send Akro to hunt, do you think it would turn out well?" Mafu had taken on a tone that she recognized from Toqlan. He was a teacher now.
"No. Akro would die." She was certain of that.
"Yes, so he can help here. If you want to grow stronger, that is up to you. All I ask is that you make sure you know what you are doing. And that if you hunt successfully, that you share what you get with the territory."
"Share? If I kill a juvenile boar, what do you want?" She was confused. If she hunted, should she not decide what happened to what she hunted?
"You live in my territory for free, with food and shelter. I do not take payment from those who cannot pay. But if you can pay, then you will pay. In this world, maybe in all worlds, nothing is free. Akro helps with menial labor, carrying things around. Ula will probably help with construction and planning. So if you hunt, you help with furs and meat."
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Kira thought about it for a while. She had never had to pay for anything. But she understood the basic idea.
"Okay. I understand. But how much?"
"How much will you pay with what you hunt? Hmm. Say you hunt three juvenile boars; I will take the hide and anything you do not want from one of them."
"Only from one?" She was surprised. She thought Mafu would take more.
"Only from one."
"Okay. I will be back in two days, maybe."
"Travel safe."
With that she was on her way. She left the territory and went deeper into the forest. She was on the lookout for small game trails; Toqlan had taught her how to spot them. She was not very good at it yet.
As the sun started to set, she had found a couple of tracks, but nothing resembling a game trail. So she found a fairly big Melian tree and climbed into the foliage of it deftly. She hung her satchel on a branch and fastened herself to another branch. She went to sleep, hoping that in the morning she'd find more.
As the gray light before dawn was starting to appear, she woke up with a jolt. She had heard an unusual sound and quickly took out a spear and made sure her knife was ready.
It sounded like human footsteps, but it was smaller. Smaller and quicker, even though the footsteps seemed to be of a creature walking. Goblins, most likely. She had heard from Mafu about them.
Soon, she also smelled it. A stink that made her want to vomit. It was only one, and it was coming closer. All her senses were tensed up to the maximum. Every sound placed another clue in her head as to where the goblin was.
The smell increased in strength, and soon she could see the dark green skin of the goblin, entering within 20 meters of her tree. She took out the reserve knife and removed it from its hide sheath. She then took the hide sheath, and threw it under her tree.
It landed with a low thump, which she could hear as clear as a scream as her hearing was on full alert. The goblin turned to look at where the sheath was hiding in the grass. It started wandering closer.
She waited. Not yet. Not yet. Her muscles felt like they were on fire; she had tensed up too early, and they were already screaming for her to relax them. She bore with it.
The goblin reached the sheath and bent down to look at it.
And Kira fell. It was a controlled fall, and she had not made a sound when leaving the branch.
The goblin, still confused at the sheath, did not see it coming.
Kira's knife, aided by the force of gravity, split the skull bone of the goblin and lodged in its brain.
Kira rolled away from the goblin as she landed on it, quickly making a few leaps away from it and pointing her shoddy wooden spear in its direction. She was still on full alert, her heart beating a million times a minute. But the goblin was already dead.
She stood there, frozen, listening for any sounds of other threats for a minute. She then slowly inched closer to the goblin, and when she got to it, she used the wooden spear to turn it over. It had fallen on its stomach, and when she could see its ugly face, she realized it was truly dead.
A smile spread on her face, and she felt a feeling of... redemption? No, maybe it was pride. She was not sure. She had done it, is all she knew. She had actually won. She relaxed a bit and felt as if cold water ran over her body. She closed her eyes and felt that she was now level 7. Three levels. Three more left until she would hit 10 and be able to choose a class.
She looked around the area and found some wood that she used to make a stretcher of sorts. She fastened the goblin to it with plants she tied around its limbs. She was going to drag her prey back to the territory so that the others would know that she could be trusted with hunting in the forest.
Maybe some of it was pride as well. Maybe she wanted to brag about it. She did not think too much about it; still smiling, she started dragging the stretcher behind her, setting off for the territory.
The goblin might not be food, or even useful as material for anything, so she would use it as payment to Mafu. Maybe then she could keep other things she hunted for herself. She knew Mafu had gained a lot from decomposing the other goblins. She had listened to his story about them earlier.
---
Mafu, after Kira left.
I was worried. Kira was only 10 years old.
But I also meant what I said to her. This world is cruel, as any world that uses a system with levels to determine strength. Earth, even without levels, was also not fair, but it was more hidden. On earth, at least there was not anyone who was able to kill hundreds with their bare hands.
But thinking about it, with guns and explosives, was it so different? Hmm. Anyway, I digress.
My continuing experiments in the pool had made me able to create seeds. We had yet to find another seed, and I felt like it was a whole mystery I had to unravel. So I had examined all the different plants I could. And now, I had solved part of the mystery.
Seeds require a massive amount of mana. A Melian tree seed would require almost all my current mana. So how do these plants and trees propagate?
I theorize that they have a low mana generation but a massive storage. And when they are ready to propagate, they make the seed almost unbreakable, so that it is safe until it germinates.
I could now edit a lot of different parts of plants and seeds, and decided to start looking into a farm project. I made some seed templates and played around with the editing to make them good at different things. I made a plant that was close to a tomato, but I would not know for sure until it was harvest time.
I also made potatoes, wheat, and a very experimental chili.
All of these are probably not what the earth variant would be, as I was a mushroom scientist before and only had limited knowledge of other plants.
I gave the seeds to Demeter, and he started assigning the builders instantly to make the farmhouses. In the future I would see my mushroom workers run around and farm these areas. The mushroom workers were about half as big as a human at this point but kept their cute proportions.
Another thing I had just left idle was the research. I started research on symbiosis, as I expected that with more plants around, it might come in handy.
In the evening, a day after Kira had left on her hunt, she came back to the territory. I immediately inspected her to see if she was hurt. She was not, but what surprised me even more was the goblin she was dragging behind her.
"You killed a goblin?" I asked, very surprised. Goblins might be the "starter monsters" from the games back on earth, but in this world they did pose a real threat to anyone under level 10 at least.
"Yes. I killed it in one strike with my knife." She said, and I could hear she was proud. She was also smiling, which was unusual for Kira, who was often short with her words and hard to read.
"That is amazing. You have done well, Kira." I was genuinely amazed and felt like encouraging her would probably help with her survivor's guilt I suspected she was carrying around just as much as that goblin behind her.
"Can I pay with this?"
"Yes. If you pay your "taxes" with that goblin, I will not ask for payment for quite some time. It is worth at least 20 juvenile boars." I said.
"Taxes?" She asked, confused.
"Taxes are the payment for living in the territory that we talked about earlier. It can be paid in labor or in resources."
"Okay, then this is my tax?"
"Yes, for a good while. Maybe even 2 years worth." I was not kidding; goblins give a massive amount of exp and mana, and the goblin she had killed was level 7 as I inspected it.
My idea with introducing payment of taxes to Kira was that it was better that the children learned about society early. And as born slaves, it was probably a foreign concept to them. I did not specifically need them to do anything, but I would ask this of adult beast-kin that we could hopefully rescue.
Thus, it would be easier for me to point to Kira when adult born slaves would raise questions about taxes. Kira left the goblin on the ground and went to wash herself. I got the feeling that the smell of the goblin was sticking to her, as she looked at it in disgust.
I made some of my mushroom workers carry the goblin away. I started them on making an underground area for decomposing smelly or otherwise disgusting things in.
A corpse pit, more or less.
Then I continued my tasks, experiments in the pool and expanding my territory. I was not that far away for a new Mycelium Mind, and with that work going on, I waited for the return of the invasion force.
Maybe I can pray to this Omnia for the safe return of my people?