"Hm?" Kaelen asked, sitting straighter. Elias also Inventoried his poison sword, which he was inspecting, and focused on me. I continued, rephrasing what my System Workers told me through the Quest's instructions, "We can't kill it with my monsters. It won't work. The only thing I can do is to put it under a temporary illusion. But it has one weak point: its heart, or you can also call that its soul. I saw it earlier too, or at least I think I did. But even the heart is quite tough and hard to destroy, not to mention that it is hard to reach..."

Elias gulped, "Are you implying what I think you are implying?"

I nodded, already mentally preparing for the worst, "You don't have to do it if you do not want to, but we can't win without your corrosion Skill."

"How did you know all this information?" Kaelen asked, not in a suspicious way, just curious.

I pointed at the air before I realized too late that they could not see my notifications. The System world still needed some getting used to, "My System team gave me a quest and there was some information about the Skeleton."

Elias grumbled, "You're lucky, Terra. The only Quest I've ever gotten so far is the Forest Grounds one."

"I'm sure you'll hear from them soon," I patted his shoulder sympathetically, "But are you willing to-"

"Of course!" he grinned, and I relaxed, hearing his response. He added, "If you're willing to catch me when I fall."

Kaelen held up a palm-sized force field ball, throwing it up into the air and catching it again, "Alaric can help you, both in getting up there and coming back down. I'll catch you with my Skill if needed."

Appearing a little more convinced of the plan now, Elias nodded. Seeing his positive response, I grinned, clasping my hands together and ending the conversation before Elias could change his mind, "Great! We'll rest for tonight and strike tomorrow."

I paused, my stomach growling. I was surprised that I did not feel hungry sooner, but maybe it was because my adrenaline overpowered any desire for food. But our bodies still needed the energy, "Do the two of you have any meat from the kills?"

Elias hummed, taking out a large piece of red meat that looked cooked, "I got this from my fight from the guard. It's some kind of deer meat."

Kaelen, however, was a little embarrassed as she admitted, "Not really. The fire fox was my first monster fight, the bees didn't drop any food, and my guard loot... Also has none."

"It's okay, I have enough for both of us," While reassuring her, I took out two Forest Deer Meat items, wondering if they were safe to eat just like Elias' food. Suddenly, two blue boxes popped up in front of my eyes just as I asked that question in my head.

Forest Deer Meat

Category: Item

Food that comes from the System via the Loot system are safe to consume unless their item names are clear about them being raw. However, cooking them often result in better tastes. Food stored in your Inventory does not go bad, but putting food out will result in rotting after a while.

This Forest Deer Meat item does not have any special effects when consumed.

That explains things. Was it a special message from my System Team or if the item had the same description for everyone else? If it was the first one, I had to thank them for the help they were giving me, even though I knew that I would continue to be wary of System-related... entities for now. I sent a mental command to the System to close off the blue box - both of my hands were occupied with the meat - and handed one piece of food to Kaelen, who took it eagerly. I dug into my portion, explaining after swallowing one mouthful of meat, "We don't need to cook these, so it should be fine."

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Fine did not mean that it tasted well, however, and although I was grateful about having some food in the first place, whoever set the System message really was not lying about uncooked monster meat. It was not bland. Instead, it had a weird taste, similar to raw meat, or at least how we would imagine it. But that was not it - there was a leaf-y acidity, laced with bitterness. That was coming from someone who had eaten leaves out of curiosity.

Wincing despite my best attempts to just bear it and be glad for the nutrition, I swallowed the food as quickly as I could without choking on it. From Elias' and Kaelen's expressions, it was clear that they did not enjoy our dinner either. Elias swallowed his last piece of meat, grumbling as he lay down on the soft dirt, "Well, that's an interesting meal. I'm going to sleep now. Wake me up in about four hours. Kaelen, you deserve to rest through the whole of tonight."

Kaelen did not argue as she finished her portion too and allowed herself to slide down the fence she was sitting against, tired. As their eyes slowly closed, I called out my lion claws and placed them in locations where I could reach easily, before taking out the Story Weaver papers and starting to draw with the pen that came with it.

The new 'personality' within me stirred, What are we making?

"A pet," I replied softly. There were some people resting near us, and I did not want any of them to think that I was mad.

Win? it asked, Powerful?

"No, just a pet," I murmured. However, if it wanted to, I could make a dragon. I had wanted a little bird, just like Alaric, or maybe a kitten...

It grew angry, and I felt a pressure radiating from within me as it grunted, Why would you make something that isn't strong? A dragon is fine.

I groaned as its aura caused my bones to creak at places where it was most powerful. It could read my thoughts? It had a bad temper too. Giving in to its demands, I sighed, sketching the rough outline of a dragon on my paper. As I began to use my imagination to fill in more details into my pet project, I gradually tuned the other entity away.

The dragon would be a darker shade of red, and its tail would be charcoal black. Large enough for five people to ride on it, its attacks - both biting and clawing - would also be many times stronger than even my stone golem. I wanted to make it even more powerful, but my head began to hurt, so I stopped, realizing that I had hit my limit. For its magic, I was more than generous. I gifted it fire abilities, while making sure that it was immune to that element - I was still worried about using my own fire manipulation ability because of the drawback. Then, I made its fangs and tail-spikes poisoned. Its scales would also be a perfect shield against attacks, and of course, it could fly.

When I was done, I sat back against the fence, tired out mentally. However, I still had to actually activate the ability via visualization. I held the dragon's picture in my mind's eye, fixing some proportion errors to make it more streamlined for flying. When I was satisfied, I began throwing its powers at it one by one, each one sapping some of my Mana. I could feel the essence slip away, but there were still enough left for the Story Weaver ability, fortunately. Before I finished my creation of the dragon, I added three important things: loyalty, human-like sentience and telepathic communication. The loyalty aspect sucked just a little less energy out of me than all the other attributes combined, and I groaned at the lethargy that washed over me right after.

It wasn't that I had never thought about using the quality of obedience to control my previous creations. The only reason why I had not tried it with the previous monsters was because I only wanted to use them for one battle, so it was easier for them to just die afterwards to prevent any mishaps like the vines incident. I guess I was kind of scared of the consequences of relying on their loyalty when there were others around me too. The risk was just too great for that, but this dragon was different. I didn't create it with any particular scenario in mind - I just wanted to have a sort-of companion like Alaric was to Kaelen, so I had to hope that this would work. If not... I guess I could always kill it on the spot.

Sad but necessary.

When I was finally done, I did not use my Story Weaver Skill to reinforce its obedience. I had to test it first. There was another reason I was refusing to admit to myself: I was worn out after making such a complex animal, especially after bestowing upon it so many special abilties that normal animals wouldn't have. I deposited the dragon a few metres away, and opened our telepathic communication channel as it began sniffing the earth.

I could feel the other me... No, I meant the other entity buzz in excitement inside me as I sent out my first message to my creation, 'Come here.'

The dragon raised its head, staring into my eyes as if determining whether I was worthy to be listened to, before stomping towards me. By now, other people nearby had realized that they were in proximity to a gigantic beast, and some began fleeing, while others were frozen in place, shocked and terrified. I could hear someone whisper, "They are not supposed to come in..." and suddenly felt a little bad.

Don't regret giving life to such a strong creature, Raven, she - the entity - sang in my head.

'Raven, huh. You might have created me, but don't expect to control all of my actions,' the dragon's snarky voice floated into my mind through the telepathy channel, 'Ravens are prey, birdie.'

I grinned as I heard the nickname, 'Wasn't planning on it. Welcome to the world of the living... Hydra.'