Saturday, May 4th, 2069

“Stop it Dana!” Alexus said, as the woman who just slapped me seemed to square up in preparation to fight with me. I went as far as to purposefully place my hands in my pockets to show I wasn’t going to fight back. I realized now that I had made some terrible assumptions.

And in this case, I’d really put the ass in the word.

“You can’t fault him for caring for a friend. Wouldn’t you want someone to speak up if they saw this situation?” Alexus continued. To my surprise, Dana’s reddening face and wide, wild eyes vanished almost like they’d never been there. Her shade even went slightly white.

“I’m sorry. She’s right, but for you to accuse Alex,” Dana whispered her apology but then regained a bit of heat as she explained her reasoning for the reaction.

“I realize now that I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I said. “Still, I don’t like seeing Eva like that. Can you explain what’s happened?”

“Dana, come look after Eva,” Alexus said, not letting the young, skeletal woman go until Dana followed her instructions and took her place. The other Mana Bank moved over and did the same.

Only then did Alexus stand up and move to stand with me. “I’m sorry for Dana, she’s… very protective of me. You see, Eva isn’t the only Mana Bank I’ve rehabbed from similar situations.”

My anger flared again as my eyes grew wider. This had happened to others and Alexus was involved—

“Now there you go assuming again,” she said with a bit of a chuckle and I shook off the rising surge in large parts because of her soft understanding tone. “Sometimes, the first Mana Pull from a Bank can cause… issues,” Alexus explained. “In Eva’s case, she contracted with a member of Garneau in Toronto, and her Mana Pool cracked—”

“Ohhhh!” Smegma interrupted, and my head jerked to his position. He was studying the interactions between the three Mana Banks.

I was the only one who heard him, but my strange head jerk alarmed Alexus enough that she spun with a hand on her weapon. She performed a thorough scan before asking over her shoulder, “What is it?”

“Uhh, my bad. I thought I heard something…” I lied—well kind of—I had indeed heard something. I wanted nothing more than to interrogate Smegma, since he seemed to know something more about Eva’s condition but instead, I let Alexus turn back to me and continue.

“As I was saying. When a Mana Pool cracks, it’s like a fragile glass of water. It may leak, or it may not, but continued use will definitely make the problem worse. In Eva’s case the Mana is ‘leaking’, causing her to feel physically ill. She has barely kept food down and I had put her on an IV until recently. But the good news is that the Mana Leak has grown smaller now, and in time, like Dana and Lauren, it can heal.”

“Uhh, what’s this ‘in time’, Felhound Feces? Is she just another example of how all of you humans are idiots? You could fix her right now!” Smegma scoffed indignantly.

My heart began hammering in my chest as I sucked in a deep lungful of air out of surprise. After a blink, I found Alexus looking at me like I was not reacting normally. I deliberated on what to do for a split second longer, before sighing out an exhalation. Revealing what Smegma had just told me could raise questions, but this was Eva!

“I think I can fix her,” I whispered.

“Fix her?” Dana shouted, clearly being riled up again. “She’s not a broken toy, asshole.”

“No!” I raised my hands, shaking them back and forth. “That’s not—I mean, not her. I meant—her Mana Pool.”

“What?!” Lauren the redhead from the two Mana Banks exclaimed as she shot to her feet. Alexus’ look had morphed into one of clear suspicion, and perhaps more telling—her hand had moved to her weapon on her hip again. I scanned down to the blade, and tried to figure out if it was a long dagger or a short sword.

Why was that important?

“A long dagger wielder will likely castrate you, where a short sword wielder will only stab you in the stomach,” Smegma answered, and I gulped.

My reaction caused Alexus to realize what she was doing, and to a man who still had his hands in his pockets. She quickly let go of her short sword. I refused to think of it as the former after Smegma’s words.

“I’ve visited thousands of the top Alchemists, Healers and other Experts in the past. Everyone said the only cure was time. So, you can excuse Lauren and my reaction to your words. I know she is your friend, so, I’ll let you take it back if you have some half-cocked idea. I’ll also let you know that I’ll kill you if your idea hurts her!”

Lauren and Dana were glaring at me from beside Eva, and Alexus was glaring daggers from a foot away. Mentally I screamed at the Demon for not immediately offering me the method, I rather liked being alive, and having my balls.

[Smegma!]

“What? I want to see if she’ll actually stab you,” Smegma stated, “you know—for science,” and he actually sounded like he meant it.

[If I die, don’t you die, asshat?]

“Well, not exac—”

I mentally ‘glared’ at the Demon.

“Fine—fine. It isn’t anything super special. First, you’ll need to Cook her a meal with high calories, ‘cause what we’re about to do is going to take a lot out of her—“

[You do recall that she can barely keep food down?!]

“Oh really?” Smegma asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I thought she just liked the anemic look. Now shut up and husking listen…

“...Next, you’ll need to mix the KnuckleNut and Sea Grass into a Pill. For that you'll need her exact weight—because too much or too little will cause… issues. And third, you’ll need to apply constant Healing and Cleansing, to deal with the slight poison that KnuckleNut and Sea Grass will create.”

[You do realize that these three women aren’t going to believe a word I say, right? How am I going to convince them to let me feed her an unknown mixture of Portal Herbs while claiming it’s only somewhat poisonous.]

“You should probably say something to the women first, you’ve been silent for about thirty seconds and I do think that’s a long dagger, the more I look at it.”

My paling face caused Smegma to howl with laughter.

I pulled a hand out of my pocket to scratch at the back of my neck. “I do have a method to heal her, I’m just trying to come up with a way to make it safer.”

“Yeah, no!” Alexus exclaimed her voice barbed. “Dana, Lauren take care of Eva. Let’s escort this idiot to the Cleaners.”

With that Alexus simply began walking away, and so did Dana, Lauren and Eva supported between them. I stood still for a moment, before deciding that I would follow from a distance that might make them feel like I wasn’t about to try to force some sort of strange healing method onto one of their numbers.

I’d really messed this up.

“There is another option,” Smegma said from near my shoulder.

[What’s that?] I asked, truly curious.

“If you get an Alchemical Pill Cauldron we can create a much better Pill by burning off the toxins and poison in the KnuckleNut and SeaGrass. However, since you have next to no experience in that—I doubt you’d succeed, which was why I offered the other alternative that could heal her today.”

I had Smegma explain more about an Alchemical Pill Cauldron and how it worked as I walked behind my escorts. The way he described the process sounded highly theoretical, telling me he didn’t have any actual experience in the method. It brought into perspective a few things. Smegma had been a researcher with the Abyss Sect, and he had a great deal of knowledge—but that was likely mostly theoretical. He did say that he’d had real-world experience inside of Portals but, it seemed like the rest may be ‘book smarts’, at best.

For example—the Gardening tips I’d handed out and performed this morning. Smegma likely had never performed those tasks himself, but had read about or studied them. Thinking about it that way caused me to shiver. Our time in the caverns negotiating with Nagina, the massive Universe Eating Snake thing, had been him acting as a leader with minimal actual experience…

Just how badly that could have gone became apparent enough that I fixated on it, until Smegma said, “Stop it, moron. Just because I learned things from a book, doesn’t mean I don’t know it. Also, at least I’ve actually learned it—you have no clue!”

Any response I might have given fled, as we exited the trees into a clearing. Not a System-created clearing, like the Gardening one. This clearing was Hunter made. Well, Hunter and Monster made. I froze, staring first at the destruction of the massive trees, which were reduced to splinters, kindling, and campfire sized segments.

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But then my eyes crossed over numerous mounds of flesh and once my brain realized what I was looking at, I couldn’t look away.

My eyes were frozen on a mound. It wasn’t the largest mound I’d seen, but it was the only one that had the Monster’s face pointed in my direction. I swallowed when I put together the hills of flesh with what they actually were. Some sort of Pig?

No, maybe a Porcupine?

Hedgehog?

Either way, they stood three meters tall with their legs broken and collapsed beneath them. There were sparse quills intermingled along their backs, and they seemed to have the heads of predatory canines. Not only did they have a mouthful of fangs, they had elongated snouts that were meant to rip and tear.

“Ahh, Gwyls,” Smegma said. “I thought your people said this was a D-rank Portal?”

“Uhh—what?” I answered, accidentally forgetting to keep my question internal.

“Porcu-hogs,” Alexus said. “Frickin’ pain to deal with. They shoot those quills out at high speed from range, before charging in to fight like wolves amongst the sheep. The only good news is that they have tough hides, and good-tasting meat!”

“Yes, on the meat,” Smegma retorted. “Hell no on being a pain to deal with. These are F-Ranked Gwyls. They bombard you from range, and then charge in stupidly—fighting by themselves mostly. They have no tactics or pack dynamics, and are relatively easy to deal with—other than a slightly high defense and strength.”

My brain felt like it was short circuiting. Why would Smegma claim they were F-rank, while Alexus was clearly describing the difficulties of the fight as a D-rank Hunter? Plus, this was definitely classed as a D-rank Portal by the UNMH. I thought back on that, and nodded, recalling our first-semester classes discussing Porcu-hogs. They were low-D-Rank, but still D-rank.

Smegma heard my thoughts and floated over to one creature. He began hovering around the body as he tapped talon to tooth. “Maybe the System upgraded them since my time?”

That simple explanation allowed my brain to stop frying itself with the worries I’d had. That would have been bad if Humanity was fighting relatively low-ranked creatures and overestimating their strength…

Smegma’s nearness to the corpse also unfroze my locked legs, and I began walking forward to examine it as well. Crossing over the sawdust and splinters eventually brought the nine Cleaners into view. They’d broken into three groups. Two of four, and Dave.

My eyes narrowed, thinking they’d excluded Dave because of his lack of experience. However, the three Cleaned skeletons of Porcu-hogs in his direction told the actual story. I smiled. Cut was revealing its worth.

I changed my course, moving toward Dave, who had seen me and was waving in my direction. I figured studying one corpse would be the same as another.

“This Cut Skill is husking Epic bro!” Dave shouted in greeting. I winced, but he clearly didn’t see it, ‘cause he continued, “Thanks for giving it to me!”

Husking idiot!

“You were definitely lucky to Awaken it,” I answered pointedly. Dave blinked for a moment and then saw the women that were eyeing him and me with a great deal of suspicion.

“Oh, right! Of course, that’s what I meant. Like, getting stuck down in that cave may be the best thing that happened to us—ouch!” Dave said and I punched him in the arm.

“So, how is the Cleaning going?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Good. Great actually,” Dave answered, holding up his clearly much-repaired Skinning Knife. “The others are working in groups to get the hang of it, but as you can see, they’re moving faster and faster.” With the Knife held up, it was clear what he was insinuating.

“Okay, well who has the Bag?” I asked as a follow up. It would be a good idea to Cook some food for them before I joined. Plus, if I could Heal each one of them in a subtle way—that would relieve a great deal of fatigue and go a long way to helping us meet or exceed the quota.

“I do,” Dave said, and pointed to the Bag of Holding. “There’s some really interesting cuts of meat that come out of these big things. Still, I would say, Cook the loins or—“

“The hearts,” Smegma interjected. “If you Cook the hearts with some minced Grackle, it will give everyone who eats it a great deal of Martial Power.”

[Not that I’m disagreeing, but you do remember humans don’t have Martial Power, right?]

“It should still do something,” Smegma said. Dave had stopped talking at some point, recognizing my distracted look. When I blinked and looked back, he smiled.

“What are you planning to Cook?”

“The hearts,” I answered, and his smile grew even broader.

“Awesome—there’s five in there, and they’re each about the size of my head.”

“You’re planning to cook?” Alexus interjected into our conversation.

I nodded distractedly, as I moved to the Bag.

“You do realize that a fire will attract monsters if they’re still out there, right?” She added, sounding very similar to my reminder to Smegma from a moment before.

I blinked and then looked her way sheepishly. Her eyes narrowed slightly at my expression. It was probably clear I wasn’t going to give up on cooking that easily. She sighed. “Okay, let me warn the guards, but you better give us some too!”

It was my turn to sigh, but in relief. Food of this quality would help my workers keep working, and hopefully beat out P-squared. That and my Healing.

We needed to prove to Lynx that we could keep up—or Jagger would likely take any new contracts after our current backlog ran out and our reputation was put in the dirt.

Once I had the Bag of Holding, I used it and my Necklace of Holding to gather up sawdust, kindling and appropriate sized logs. Then, using a simple lighter, I worked at the somewhat damp sawdust until it caught.

I’d chosen to build the fire in a pit that had either been where one of the Porcu-hogs fell or where one of the Lynx’s Skills had carved out the underbrush and trees to a depth of probably three feet. The crater was also about ten feet wide, so whoever created it had impressive power.

I let the fire build and moved back to Dave. I needed to help the Cleaners as the fire built up some coals to cook on. Dave was knowledgeable on what he was doing, but unhelpful.

Why unhelpful?

Well, his Cut Skill just required him to envision where he wanted to slice, and then have Mana supplied, and it happened. Since he had one of our three Mana Batteries—he could make a single Cut and carve off the entire hide.

I needed to understand how to work at the hide in small sections. I was about to join the other Cleaners when Smegma said, “Go to that one over there. I’ll help like I did with the Gardening.”

My moment of hesitation was apparent, probably ‘cause he read my thoughts. “Book knowledge is better than no knowledge. Now get over to that one.”

“Start by removing any remaining quills,” Smegma began, and for the next hour I worked under his direction. It turned out that, once again, he was quite an adept teacher—and it was also apparent that my Stats were immensely useful. When the hour finished, I had cut away one shoulder of the Porcu-hog, but simultaneously was speeding up as the Knife gained sharpness and became denser while still maintaining flexibility.

Still, I took a quick break to add to the fire and check on the progress of the coals. I estimated another thirty to forty-five minutes would reduce the new logs and the remaining ones to coals, and then I could Cook.

That time passed in a near blink to me, as I cleared the other half of my Porcu-hogs body. I wanted to continue, but also needed to get to Cooking.

There was just one issue. I looked down at my hands, arms, and clothes. They were all covered in blood. Dave sidled up beside me, and noticed my scrutiny. “Wash station is over there. You about to get Cooking?”

I nodded at him and he smiled.

“Good, I was getting husking hungry! I’ll finish this hog up for you. Now get your ass over there!”

My smile was short-lived because Dave made one single Cut and finished skinning the hog I’d been working on for the better part of two hours. I looked down to my much-improved Knife, my Mental Fortitude somewhat counteracting my jealousy to remind me that my work had accomplished something.

My Skinning Knife was, of course, covered in blood like my hands. But it had also obviously undergone a great deal of change. The most noticeable of which was the tang and hilt. It was something I hadn’t been able to see when Dave proffered his much-repaired Skinning Knife because of him holding it.

The leather or wooden wrapping had become what it likely was meant to be. A combination of the two. There was now a wooden handle clearly carved to conform to a grip, and there was a leather wrap that kept the blade handle from slipping, even when drenched in blood.

The leather may have even been some sort of plant, because it was porous and squishy in my fingers, allowing me to change its shape easily with my grip. The Knife was the first thing I cleaned when I got to the buckets of water. The station comprised a barrel-sized bucket of water, and then two other buckets, one that was slightly red with blood already but clearly intended for an initial clean off before you used the second bucket to grab a portion from the large barrel.

The leather or twine grip of my knife didn’t become distinguishable even after a good cleaning, but the blade and edge sure shone now. After cleaning off my arms in the now very red water, I grabbed the other bucket, emptied the initial one and refilled both.

Then I used the initial bucket for another secondary clean of my clothes and arms again, before using the other one and a handful of grass to scrub away at any lingering stains. My clothes would never be the brown they started as, again, but I didn’t care.

Once finished, I moved to the fire pit, which was now just a bed of coals. I pulled out the Frying Pans from my Necklace, and the Grackle Fruit. Using the backside of a Frying Pan as a cutting board, I first harvested the Grackle, and then broke it into bulbs—all under Smegma’s directions.

“Skin the bulbs, and set them aside. You’ll want to dice and cook them as a side.” I did so. “Mince the meat of the fruit. Smaller, and thinner. Good!”

“Cut the heart into half-inch or smaller sized shavings.” I gave him a confused look and Smegma added, “You’re essentially looking to create bacon, but like that odd looking Canadian version.”

I rolled my eyes. How had the Demon picked up on that sore spot of Canadian Back Bacon? Still, I did as instructed, having to cut the heart into eight sections to be able to get my Knife to pass through it as intended. When I was finished, Smegma continued, “Sauté the skin first, until the smell of the Grackle goes from sweet to slightly tangy.”

I inhaled deeply, not realizing just how much of a fragrant aroma my butchery of the Grackle fruit had immersed the area in. The smell from the harvest and subsequent grafting paled in comparison. This was to that like a fairground’s fresh cotton candy was to the bags opened from a store. There simply was no comparison.

Still, I added the sliced skins of the Grackle to the heated Huge Frying Pan, and thirty seconds after, I smelled the change. It was akin to the fragrant aroma of caramelized onions, only in reverse. Still, following Smegma’s direction, I spread out the skins, and then placed the heart meat atop it.

I only could fit about a quarter of the meat into the Pan, but clearly Smegma didn’t want me to cook on multiple Pans, or he’d have directed me to split the skin. “Add the minced fruit atop each piece, and then flip them after five minutes.”

My mouth began to water as the caramelized Grackle tang was joined by a rich aroma of pork fat. It was similar to bacon but also not. The exact aroma was difficult to describe because I’d never smelled something so wonderful before, but if I had to try—I’d say it was like a barbecued steak that was wrapped in sizzling bacon, while a controlled fire sizzled from the drippings beneath.

I sucked in my drool even as I flipped the pieces, causing the Pan to hiss and sizzle as the juices of the minced fruit attempted to cook to the metal, but failed. The smell became mesmerizing, morphing from the best barbecue aroma to something only gods should smell.

My eyes were glued to the bubbling fats and juices beside the meat, so when I heard a noise from the lip of the crater, I jumped. All of the Hunters and the Cleaners had ringed the edge. A few wiped drool from their chins, which made me realize I, too, had some saliva to take care of.

[Thanks for warning me about the audience,] I said jokingly to Smegma to distract myself. When I got no response, I looked around and found my Demon missing. A quick peek in my Mental Universe found a newly forming Planet—

Wait—that’s not a single Planet—and there’s another beside the one that I had assumed was Gardening!