[Notice: You upgraded your skill 'Crafting' to 'Advanced Crafting'.]

[This will increase your knowledge, speed up the processes, and ensure better quality.]

Since the other options are even worse, it is what it is.

Alexandra promised to return in five days.

The mission to survive until then suggested a week or more.

It's been six days, so hoping for the best means I have one more to spend in this fantasy world.

And there is no way I'd spend it sleeping on that stupid stack of straws again.

It makes me itch everywhere, it gets in this majestic long hair, the fluffy tail, and I can't stand it.

If all the System gave me is the crafting skill, I ought to use it.

I convinced Gitaut to keep my identity a secret, and the rest of the tribe seemed to make themselves scarce.

It's all the better for me, I don't want their curious looks on me while I'm testing what the System can do.

Except for Mabel, that puppy of a girl can come anywhere any time, she's my real hero here.

And she sure shows up as soon as I leave the Vice Commander's shack.

"What are we playing today?"

"Wait and see." Is it possible not to smile back at this cutie?

I can't help it, I'm going to make a bed for her too. And who knows what else?

The camp doesn't have many tools, — or craftsmen for that matter, — but I found an axe, and plenty of trees in the forest.

They have some sheep too, ready for shearing.

The skill makes me confident that this is all I need.

"Who do I ask for permission to use these?" Whispering to the girl, she furrows her messy eyebrows.

"Permission? This is what remained of your Battalion. Everything you see here is yours. If anyone needs permission it's them to do their everyday duties."

Right. As long as they think I'm Alexandra, she's not wrong.

Yes. Why would I ask permission for anything?

Rather, I should act more like I owned the place.

Unbothered by the Orcs, I march to the edge of the clearing and swing the axe.

Without a clue how one cuts down a tree, — it must have a technique, but I have the System and this skill to help, — I smash the trunk.

Yes, I know, it's not a lumberjack skill, but that's all it takes.

Once the metal head of the axe touches the wood, it disappears.

"Wow, that's the Goddess of Luck for you." My little follower exclaims, so I flash her my best smug look, even though I'm as surprised as she is.

Whatever magic the System uses to make it happen, it's in my inventory now, chopped up into nice equal logs.

When I take out one of them, a simple UI greets me that's the most blatant copy of that boxy crafting game from my world.

This has to be the dumbest part. Alexandra must've copied whatever she came across when making the System. But to make it work in her world she must be quite the magician.

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Programming this silly UI is one thing.

But this isn't a virtual reality. Not to my knowledge at least.

So how on earth do these logs turn into planks with a click of a button?

You know what, I won't even ask, let's roll with it.

Mabel won't tear her gaze away from me for a split second but she doesn't seem to see the UI.

I try to make it less obvious that I'm clicking buttons.

Instead, I murmur random words to pass them as spellcasting, then show the planks.

"Amazing." She claps, as the wood materializes in my hands.

I could get drunk from this.

The skill tells me exactly what I must do and what input materials are necessary for making a bed needs. Cutting down a tree and processing the wood took exactly ten seconds.

Shearing the sheep should be a breeze too. Except there are no proper tools at hand.

Mabel's mom is the tailor of the village, she might have a scissor or something I could use. Still, after kidnapping her daughter, I'm worried about asking her for favors.

She doesn't seem to mind that her emerald-eyed pup still follows me everywhere. Still, I'd rather not face a mother's wrath if there is a slight chance that she's mad.

So I'll craft a pair of shears next. How hard can it be with my Advanced Crafting skills? It needs some iron, and my recently healed eyes spot a smithy among the Orc shacks.

It has a bloomery in front, and I can blame my old YouCube watching habits that I know what that is. Don't judge.

If you ever wasted time on random videos and let the algorithm guide you, you've experienced this too. You start with something sensible, like looking up something school-related.

Then it will offer a tutorial for something similar. And the next thing you know, you're watching smithing videos. Or a documentary about the medieval lifestyle.

And if you are not vigilant, you get stuck with these themes. I never would have thought that watching endless hours of smithing videos would pay off.

But here we are, in front of a stubby, open chimney by a shabby shack. I know it's a bloomery, what it is for, and how to operate it. And to make it worse, I'm eager to try it out too.

The shack is empty, and the tribesmen are busy doing tribesmen things. But Mabel's right. As long as I'm in this body, this is my turf. I can use whatever catches my fancy.

There are some ores in the smithy lying around, I have wood, let's fire up the bloomery and smelt some iron. The process takes quite a while in real life.

This is one of the most ancient methods to refine raw ores into iron, and not a very efficient one. But with my Advanced Crafting — which isn't smithing or metallurgy — it's almost instantaneous.

"Come on, this isn't even a challenge like this."