This journey has been quite fruitful, Sage thought as she continued to listen to the music that was Kaylee’s angry screams.
In the past two days she had explored the forest, interacted with humans and obtained their money and a mage’s spell book. All in all, she was satisfied with how things had gone.
However, she had been away from the tower longer than originally intended. What she had originally planned was to explore the forest in the day and return at night to browse through the necromancer’s tomes to look for a good 5th Order spell to Advance with. Unfortunately, it was already a day later than she planned and she still had not inscribed a spell of the next Order.
It was time to go back and do so.
But before that she would grab food on her way.
The usage of her spells and abilities had consumed almost a quarter of her mana. It was an unfortunate thing that mana took hours to regenerate. If she had one of those clear potions that Zachary had been chugging down like water she would probably be able to recover in an instant. Unfortunately, the geezer was not much of an alchemist. He did not even have a herb garden so the only way to increase her mana recovery rate was to eat something.
She already had an image of what she wanted to eat. The humongous deer from yesterday, the Trenton Gazelle. It stood at a height of more than two metres, which was taller than the huge mercenary Marcus. Considering its body, it probably weighted thrice as much as he did.
To Sage these creatures would make the perfect meal. They were large enough that they could be eaten in more than one sitting, which meant they might last long enough for her to get over her aversion of bird meat.
She flew through the forest, ignoring the cricket sounds, the owl hoots and the wolf howls. She even passed by a pack of these wolves. The beasts were resting when she flew by, so they did not react to seeing her. Either they were too tired or they mistook her for a bird.
She continued on but found no sign of the gazelles. It caused her previous cheery mood to almost disappear.
They were everywhere yesterday, she whined. Where could they all have gone in just one day?
She kept searching and still could not find any. Also, as time passed the constant drain of [Flight] reduced her mana to a two thirds. She was about to call it quits and return to the tower when she saw something.
With a body that stood two metres tall and a figure so large it was several times her own weight, with a snout that was constantly on the ground sniffing for food; the creature she encountered was not a Trenton Gazelle. It was a humongous boar bigger than any she had ever seen, with a spherical body so big one could only wonder how its tiny legs were able to support it. Two long sharp tusks grew from its bottom lip, giving it a vicious look.
Her {index} revealed it to be a Grandhog, a wild boar with a Grade 4 physique. She had not seen it in any of the books she read so she knew nothing about it.
Even so, when she saw it she had already put the Trenton Gazelle out of her mind. This pig was a much better choice!
To Sage, nothing in the world compared to a nice roasted pork, the way its oil marinated its meat and gave it flavour. If she were still human she would be salivating just at the thought of it.
Before the boar spotted her she shot an [Ice Spear] at it, penetrating its abdomen. This caused the giant hog to squeal in pain and begin jumping around violently. Its rampage managed to destroy a few trees. However, its struggles soon came to an end as it had lost too much blood. Having lost most of its strength, it flopped to the ground, its squeals getting weaker, its breath becoming softer, until it no longer moved.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
When the she was sure the boar was dead Sage went to pick it up. She gritted her teeth as she lifted it to her shoulders. The creature turned out to be heavier than she thought. It probably weighed more than a tonne, which was about the limit of what she could lift. She could practically feel the weight of the dead pig dragging her down, causing her to grind her teeth in frustration.
I’m learning [Reduce Burden] when I get back, she swore.
The 2nd Order spell could reduce the weight of objects by up to three hundred kilograms. It was the type of spell that was useful for lugging around heavy stuff. The reason why she did not learn it was because she had not believed there would be a day she would require it. She had reasoned that there was nothing she could want that was heavy enough to warrant usage of the spell.
It turned out she had been wrong.
Flying with the giant pig on her shoulders did not seem like a smart idea, so she decided to get back to the tower using [Dimension Door].
Unfortunately, the tower was not close enough to make it in one leap. She used more than ten jumps through the door to get to the foot of the mountains. After that she used the spell six more times to get her to the clearing.
Using [Dimension Door] to ascend the Highlands was hard because she had to maintain her altitude after opening a door in the air, which was not an easy thing with the pig on her back. She could not stop complaining as she struggled to maintain her altitude with [Flight].
What kind of fucking moron decides to build their tower six thousand metres above the ground? She cursed. Fuck! Not even Kilimanjaro stands that high!
When she made it back to the clearing the first thing she did was toss the boar on the ground. Then she took a few minutes to message her shoulders before rushing into the tower, climbing the stairs all the way up to the third floor. Here she threw her stolen bag with the mercenaries’ belongings and coins on the table before continuing to ascend the stairs. At the top was Bori’s room. Here she found the warrior skeletons standing still, awaiting instructions from their master.
“Follow me,” she told them, before turning to head back down.
She might not have been their master but they still complied with her wishes.
The next stop Sage made was the kitchen. Here she grabbed the sharpest knife she could find and a bag of salt, which was the only seasoning Bori had.
“Follow me,” she ordered the two skeletons that stood quietly and watched her.
Then she rushed back to the clearing with the skeletons trailing her. Quickly, she set them to work.
The skeleton cooks she tasked with collecting dried branches and straw while the skeleton warriors she ordered to hold the hog while she took out its entrails. When she was done with this she tasked one of the warrior skeletons to rush back and bring water for her to clean the hog.
As for the skeleton cooks, after they collected what she believed to be enough wood she ordered them to stand aside so she could create a stove using 1st Order spell [Pit]. The hole she created was not big, just enough keep the fire inside from spreading out. After that she ordered the skeleton cooks to start a fire by using the old fashion way of rubbing two sticks together. It was unfortunate but it was the only way to start one. Her darkness infused fire spells were not suitable for the task.
The act of starting a fire took nearly half an hour, which frustrated her endlessly (No wonder no one uses this fucking method anymore!). When it was finally done she erected supports to rotate her skewered pig on. Then finally, the roasting began.
It took another excruciating hour for the meat to cook. When it was done she could not act fast enough to cut off a piece and shoved it into her mouth.
Immediately the juicy pork flavour melted into her taste buds as she savoured the meat. After all that work preparing it the end result was almost worth it. The taste was simply divine! She chewed on the piece of pork until it no longer had a flavour to yield. Only then did she swallow it, after which she felt the speed of her mana recovery speed increase.
The near twenty [Dimension Door] jumps back here had practically drained her mana, so feeling it recover at a visible rate calmed her down a little.
I’m never doing that much work just food, she promised herself.
Right now as she was, in her drained state she probably would have had a hard time with the bandits, or maybe she would not even have been able to handle them. Having one’s energy drained to the point where could no longer cast spells was fatal. Even if she were in this place where she felt safe, one could never really be sure. It would really suck if she died because she had wasted her mana hauling food she, as an undead, did not even need.
Even so, she took another bite of the roasted boar.
It tasted heavenly, that much she could not deny.
When her stomach could hold no more she ordered the warrior skeletons to keep turning the meat above the fire to keep it warm and fresh before heading inside the tower.
Dawn arrived as she stepped on the third floor. Its light passed through the window as her eyes fell on the scrolls and tomes located on the shelves.
It was time to Advance to the 5th Order.