“Absorb!”

Light shone around Ike’s fist, but only for a moment, far shorter than the Salamander Healing orb had shone, and much, much shorter than Lightning Dash. The light poured into Ike’s arm, and a surge of mana reinforced his core, but only a small one.

He checked his skill list.

[Name: Ike | Age: 15 | Status: Nm | Rank: 1 [Salamander Slayer]]

Skills: Common: 6 | Bronze 1 | … | Rare 1 | … | Unique: 3

Common: Sprinter Lvl 9 | Distance Runner Lvl 10 | Razor Handling Lvl 8 | Spear Handling Lvl 2 | Axe Handling Lvl 4 | Primitive Crafting Lvl 2

Bronze: Sensory Enhancement Lvl 1

Rare: Salamander Healing Lvl 4

Unique: Lightning Dash Lvl 6 | Lightning Grasp Lvl 4 | Lightning Clad (Forearm) Lvl 1

Sensory Enhancement. Ike lifted his head, gazing around him. He frowned. I don’t think my vision is that much better. Or my hearing, or my nose. Is level one too low a level for me to notice a real difference? Or maybe it’s quiet and dark, and I can’t see or hear much anyways.

A second later, Ike rolled his eyes at himself. Or I need to activate the skill for it to take effect. He activated Sensory Enhancement.

Mana rushed to his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. It coated his skin, too, a thin, thin layer circulating just under the surface. Instantly, the world grew sharper. The darkness faded away. As if it were daylight, he could pick out the leaves on the trees, the small creatures wiggling in the undergrowth. He heard the tiny bugs chirping yards away, the rustle of mice in the grass, the flap of the bat’s wings overhead. The smell of leaf mould became overpowering, as did the stench of the bone pile and the reek of iron blood. A brush of air rushed by his skin, and he felt the moistness on the wind.

He released the skill and shook his head. That was a bit much. The skill didn’t take too much mana, but that wasn’t the problem. More than anything else, I have to get used to having it active before I can use it properly.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he walked over to the owl. He grabbed it by the head and lifted it. Not too heavy. Birds are usually pretty light. Those weird hollow bones of theirs help a lot.

He planted his foot on the stuck claw, careful to step over the glue trap himself, then hacked the owl away from its claw at the ankle. Ike draped the monster over his shoulders and headed home. It draped to either side, dragging on the ground behind him and trailing blood.

Nothing bothered him on the way back. Whether that was thanks to Silver, or because of the bloody corpse on his back, Ike wasn’t sure, but he arrived at the cave unmolested. He tossed the monster to the side to chop and clean it tomorrow, and headed for the cave.

“Silver, you back?” he called, pushing the ivy aside.

Silence. He strode deeper into the cave, toward the homey part.

An empty cave awaited him. The indent in the soft grasses stretched emptily. Ike walked over to it and hovered his hand over the grasses. Cold. Did he follow me all the way there? He must have hung far back, if neither I nor the owl noticed him.

He looked around the small cave, then shrugged and laid down in the grassy nook. If Silver isn’t using the bed, I might as well use it. He had his tent, but it was more for when he was backed into a bad corner and had to use something, not for when he had a nice, cozy, nigh-impenetrable cave house right here. The previous nights, he’d slept on the cold stone floor. But if Silver wasn’t using his bed, there was no reason for him to hold back.

“Last call. I’m taking your bed,” Ike announced to the silent room.

Silence.

Ike shook his head at the empty space, thinking of the cats he’d known back in the slums. What would get them to come? He knelt and rubbed his fingers together. “Here, kitty kitty.”

Silence again, but this time, there was an ominous pressure to the silence. A chill ran down Ike’s back, and he swallowed, suddenly sure that saying that phrase again would reveal Silver, but perhaps not in the way he wanted. More likely, in a way that involved a lot of teeth and his imminent demise.

“Right, well. Bed, taken,” Ike said, backing up to the nook. He sat down, then shrugged to himself and curled up to sleep. If he wants to play it cool, that’s his call. I’m getting a comfortable snooze in.

He woke up to the gentle sound of birdsong, and a shaft of light filtering down over the cave’s central fire. The fire smoldered, almost out. Taking a few logs and sticks from a nearby wood stand, he coaxed it back to life and gave it enough fuel to last it the day, then headed outside.

Silver stood there, gazing into the pond as if nothing had happened.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Ike let out a little sigh of relief. I thought he’d keep hiding. Good. He walked over. “Good morning, Silver.”

A grunt was his only reply.

“Last night. Was that your true form? The panther, I mean.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Silver said. He turned away.

Ike crossed his arms. “Come on. It had the same exact scar you did. I know what I saw. Silver, are you a monster?”

Silver stiffened. He peered at Ike over his shoulder, eyes narrowed behind the smoked lenses.

That’s better than a yes, as far as I’m concerned. Ike laughed. “Honestly, Silver—”

Silver’s body blurred. A hand grasped Ike’s neck. Very un-human-like claws bit into his jugular, not yet breaking the skin. “If you know—”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Ike said quickly. His heart raced despite himself, thudding against those terrible claws.

“A secret can only be kept by one person,” Silver returned.

“How would I benefit by telling someone?”

Silver gave him a look.

Ike swallowed. Right. I’m a hunter. It’s obvious, isn’t it? “You’re going to give me a sword skill and make me swords. I have no reason to sell you out.”

“And afterwards?”

Ike took a deep breath. He forced his panic down, killing it the same way he killed his emotions around his uncle. I can’t give in. Giving him what he wants lets him control the conversation. Calm down, and think rationally.

He turned toward Silver, his expression emotionless. “You helped me, last night. You didn’t have to step in, but you did. You trusted me enough then to risk showing your true form. Extend that trust again, now.”

“That wasn’t trust. I thought the owl might get away,” Silver grumbled.

“It was dying. If I could tell that, so could you. It would have killed me before it died, and you would have lost nothing. Instead, you saved me.”

Silver lifted his lip. “My damned soft heart.”

“I don’t harm those who help me. If you trust me with your secret, I will take it to the grave. Cross my heart. Or you can try crushing my neck, and find yourself with an enemy for as long as I breathe. It might be a few moments…it might be years. Your choice.”

“Are you threatening me?” Silver laughed.

Ike shrugged. “You put me in this situation. I can’t be blamed for using whatever I can to get out of it.”

“Is that why you’re mouthing off, instead of begging for mercy?”

“You could have killed me last night, while I slept. You allowed me to wake up. That already tells me everything I need to know. It doesn’t matter what I say now. You’ve already made up your mind. Isn’t that right, Silver?”

Silver’s hand tightened. His eyes narrowed.

Ike tensed. His hand dropped toward the axe on his hip.

Abruptly, Silver released him. Ike stumbled away. He gasped a breath and rubbed his neck, deeply uncomfortable with how close the claws had been to his vitals. That’s it. I’m saving up for some real armor, and I’m never taking it off.

“That damned Orin sent you. I was half-convinced you already knew,” Silver grumbled. He stomped over to the owl, lying prone on the river bank, and began stripping its feathers.

“Wait, Orin knows?” Ike blinked, startled. He could’ve warned me!

Silver nodded. He cast a side-eyed look at Ike and tapped his forehead. “He gave me this scar.”

Ike’s eyes widened. Orin sent him to the guy he’d injured, a monster, no less. A monster who held a grudge against Orin, at that. He threw his hands up at the sky in frustration. “Gods fucking damn it—”

“We were fighting. Over a mate. A…girlfriend.”

“O-oh,” Ike stammered, not sure how to process that. For a split second, he imagined a blushing Orin offering flowers to a giant lady-panther, then shook his head. No, no, no. Silver can turn into a man. They were probably both going after a human woman.

“Cara, was her name,” Silver murmured.

“Wait, they’re married?” Ike asked, startled. For all that they always appeared together, he never got the sense that the two of them were conjugal. Rather, both Orin and Cara seemed like self-sufficient loners, who happened to spend time in each other’s company.

Silver turned to him. He shook his head. “Cara refused us both.”

Ike spluttered out a laugh, then quickly stifled it at Silver’s death glare. “Er, right. What a tragedy.”

Silver snorted. He turned away again. “I thought maybe Orin tired of competition, and sent someone to hunt me once and for all. That’s why…”

That’s why you were an asshole to me out the gate? Ike narrowed his eyes at Silver’s back, then sighed and shook his head. If Silver really thought an old friend had betrayed him and put a bounty on his head, his actions were more than justified. If anything, he went easy on me.

“Let’s put the past behind us. Silver, you can take on human shape? Is that common, among monsters?” Ike asked, finally voicing the question he was most curious about.

Silver shrugged. “I’ve never met another like me. But…” he lifted his head, gazing back toward the city.

Ike followed his gaze. From here, if he craned his neck, he could see the overcity and the ephemeral immortals flitting about it.

“…living here isn’t exactly good for a young monster’s growth,” Silver finished.

Ike nodded. If there were other monsters powerful, or intelligent, enough to take on human form…well, they wouldn’t live near the city in the first place. If they had the ill fortune to be born nearby, they’d likely find themselves hunted long before they gained a human transformation skill. Especially if monster skills developed as slowly as Cara had made it seem.

He settled in beside Silver and helped him pluck the owl’s feathers. They worked in silence, neither of them bothering to speak. Between the two of them, they broke the owl down in record time. Silver piled the claws, feathers, and bones to one side, then took the meat and organs into his cave.

“Can’t we sell those?” Ike asked.

“I need to eat,” was his only reply.

Ike watched him go, then shrugged. My true payment is the swords he makes. Any money I make from the owl is bonus. If Silver wants to have owl thigh kebabs tonight, that’s his call.

Besides, I don’t know how long it takes to make weapons. Everyone loses if I demand to hold on to the meat, only for it to go bad before I go back to town.

He leaned back on his arms, gazing up at the sky. I hunted the owl. What now? He ran through the various back-burner tasks in his mind.

He needed to master, or at least level up, his Lightning Clad forearms. On top of that, he needed to extend the skill to more of his body. He looked at his feet, then tapped his calves. Those next made a lot of sense. Lightning Dash was prone to quick bursts more than sustained speed, and calves provided that exact kind of burst speed.

Aside from that, he needed to adjust to, and level up, the Sensory Enhancement skill he’d gained from the owl. Unlike Lightning Clad, which slurped up his mana at an alarming rate, Sensory Enhancement required a trickle, a trickle so small he barely felt it. I could work on both at once, he mused, gazing at the sky.

A smack to his shoulder jolted him from his thoughts. Rubbing his arm, Ike looked up.

Silver stood over him, a straight stick in hand. He tossed a matching one to Ike, and gestured for him to stand. “Rise. I’ll teach you the sword skill.”