I stare down at my work, frowning a little as I try to figure out how to do the next step. After managing to heal my small wound earlier, I repeated the process until I became more confident in how to go about it. Practice makes perfect and each time I did it I found the steps become more fluid and automatic.

By the last time I sliced into my forearm, Fenrir gazing at me disapprovingly, it only took a few seconds for me to direct my magic to the wound, and I didn’t even need to enter that meditative state. Fortunate, since I probably won’t be able to do that while in the middle of combat.

I do suspect that my ease is only with knitting together flesh wounds right now. I don’t know how I’d fare if I had to deal with a broken bone like I did during my encounter with the crocodile. Heck, I’m not even sure that I can fix broken bones with my new Skill – it’s called Flesh-Shaping, not Bone-Shaping. Though I am rather hoping that ‘flesh’ in this context is being used more generally than just to mean tissue. Otherwise I will definitely have made a mistake.

But that will come later. I’m not keen on the idea of intentionally breaking one of my bones to test, or injuring one of my vital organs just to check the definitions of ‘flesh’. I don’t doubt that an opportunity will come.

I’d also tried to ‘feel the earth’ again, hoping that maybe what was holding me back was the fact that my internal matrix was still damaged. No progress on that front, to my dismay. Maybe I’m just being impatient – Kalanthia didn’t exactly give the impression that it had been a quick process for her either.

Feeling restless, I’d decided that wasting the broad daylight outside was criminal, especially since I have no idea when it’s going to pour again. From what I’ve gathered, now we’ve entered the rainy season, they’re likely to come more and more often until sun will be the rarity. I’d better take advantage of it while I can.

That leads me to now. I’m looking at the frames I’ve spent some hours constructing over the last few days. Although I’ve spent a lot of time in meditation sorting out my internal matrix, I would have gone mad if that had been all I did. No, I mostly worked on my internal matrix at the beginning and end of each day, and spent the bulk of the daylight on other tasks. Namely, making progress towards being able to tan and process the hides I’ve collected.

I used the two long branches that I’d harvested with River and chopped them into shorter lengths. Sticking to a simple rectangular shape which is slightly taller than me in length and almost the same in width, I’ve used some rudimentary carpentry to fix the lengths together. Binding them with bark fibre at their joints has meant that they’re pretty sturdy.

Honestly, I’m pretty convinced by now that there’s some quiet magic in my knife. Although I used my axe to cut the branches into pieces and make notches in them, I needed my knife for the more delicate work. I’ve, frankly, put my knife through hell in the time since I’ve been here.

Yet despite that, it’s still as sharp as when I got it. I haven’t needed to sharpen it, there are no notches in its edge, and when I’ve heated it up in the fire it hasn’t warped or shown any evidence of damage. Frankly, if there isn’t magic, it has to be some amazingly resilient kind of metal. Either way, I’m grateful for it – although I could replace it with a number of tools, they’d both be difficult to make and much less effective.

The reason I’m looking at the frames in contemplation is because I’m wondering where and how to set them up.

I could hang them from a tree branch. That would be the quickest and simplest option. The issue there is that there are no trees on the top of the hill. Hanging the frames from one of the trees at the foot of the slope would mean that they’d be more vulnerable to an opportunistic scavenger who decided that half-dry hide was exactly what it wanted. For some reason.

The alternative is that I could create a stand for them so they could be free-standing. That’s probably the best option anyway – although Kalanthia may not be too pleased with me, I would then be able to bring the frames inside if it looks like rain is likely to happen. Maybe I can bribe Kalanthia with Energy-Hearts or corpses. Then again, if she’s going to be hunting as much as she currently seems to be, she’s not going to need any more meat….

Anyway, I’m sure that if I can convince her to leave the lizard-folk alive – even if it’s with conditions that I’m still not all that happy about – I can convince her to let me bring some smelly hides I’m tanning into her cave.

The only issue is that I don’t have enough wood to create a stand for such large and heavy frames. I’m going to need to go and harvest some more. Actually, thinking about it, I’m going to need far more than just one branch, I realise as I mentally go through the process. I need a basin to soak the hides in my tanning solution.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Since the basin will need to be fairly watertight, that eliminates building something myself. I mean, I could use pitch to coat the inside of whatever to make it watertight, but that would require more pitch than I really want to use. No, there’s a better alternative, one that solves several problems. I think it’s finally time for me to fell my first tree.

It’s going to be hard, though. I need to choose a tree which is wide enough to offer a good-sized basin. Yes, a modern chainsaw can cut through a massive trunk in seconds, but I don’t have one of those. What I do have is a flint axe, and my experience of cutting up branches over the last few days has proven that even those take several minutes per cut. And they were only the width of my calf muscles at their widest. I reckon I’m going to need a trunk that’s at minimum half a metre in diameter; cutting through that will probably take hours.

At least my efforts over the last few days have been fruitful – I’ve earned another point in Strength (Endurance) and Dexterity for my pains. Although Dexterity, the lowest of my stats, is still four points off twenty, I feel like I’m getting there.

I eye Fenrir wondering if I should take him out to the forest to get started on the tree. A moment later, I decide not to. While he could help protect me as well as any of my Bound – a lizog’s bite is nothing to sniff at – River could also help me bring the tree back. Actually, he could probably even help me to fell it – we would make more progress if both of us work on it at the same time. I even have that other tool I made for harvesting copper. It might not be specially designed for cutting down trees, but it’s bound to be better than nothing.

So, no tree felling right now. Later, I promise myself. I can’t help but smile as a memory comes to mind. I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK; I sleep all night and I work all day. For now, I might as well do what I can with the hides. I don’t even need to have the frame in place for my next job.

Taking out the crocodile hide, I lay it out flat, scales downwards. My skinning job was decent for the beginner that I still am, but there’s still plenty of unwanted material still attached to the hide. Fat, bits of flesh, blood…. They will just make the hide rot if left.

Hesitating for a moment, I take my trousers off. Ridiculous embarrassment makes my cheeks flush despite knowing that there isn’t a single human within a hundred miles. Heck, in this whole world. And the most humanoid of my Bound isn’t present; even if he was, he wouldn’t care. He doesn’t have visible genitals and his adornments are purely for decorative or practical purposes.

If River and the others come back during this process, they wouldn’t care if I was buck-naked and dancing around a fire. Actually, they might care about the dancing around the fire bit. But not about me being naked. It’s just the stupidly useless sense of modesty which I still have that makes me blush.

The reason I take my trousers off is because I don’t want them getting dirty during my next task. Kneeling on the crocodile hide to keep it in place, I take a tool out of my Inventory. This is one I made earlier – Blue Peter style – in preparation for this very task. It’s nothing special, just a chunk of flint that I’ve knapped so that it’s narrower at the opposite end of where I’m holding it.

I don’t want to actually cut the hide, so I haven’t made the edge sharp – in fact I even knocked off the sharpness when I accidentally knocked away enough flint to create a cutting edge. Instead, I’ve done my best to make it as flat as possible.

Leaning forwards, I hold the edge of the crocodile hide so that it’s as stretched as I can make it. Using the flensing tool, I scrape off the bits of crocodile body still clinging onto its hide. I’m very aware of my inexperience in this task, despite the number of memories I have that try to prove otherwise, and so I’m starting with the less precious hide in case I make a few accidental holes.

Then again, the reason I’m even doing this is because the crocodile hide is damn difficult to penetrate – if I can accidentally make holes when I’m not even trying hard, I probably won’t be able to use this as armour.

I work my way down the hide methodically. First I shift my hand-hold sideways along the width of the skin, then I shuffle backwards to move along its length. I didn’t bother to try skinning the crocodile’s legs, though I did skin the majority of its tail. The skin is therefore a vaguely rectangular shape, though with narrowing and widening in different places along its length.

The work makes my back, knees, and hands ache. My back from its bent forward position. My knees from the hard ground below the skin. My hands shake from having to maintain a specific grip. I have to take breaks every so often to stretch the aches out. Once I even get up and walk around a bit, but I don’t repeat that – returning to my knees after having got off them makes the forming bruises feel even worse.

It would be nice if I could earn a Constitution point from all this, but I doubt that such aches are sufficiently damaging to count. They’re not damaging anyway – they’re just annoying.

Still, I’m making progress, and when I finally scrape the last of the crocodile’s tail, I can’t help a grin from making its way onto my face. Getting up, I link my hands together and stretch them above my head, luxuriating in the release of tension.

Staring down at my newly-flensed crocodile skin, I indulge myself in a little happy dance. It’s probably more what most people would call a ‘dad dance’, even if I’ve never been a dad. Completely uncaring, I gyrate and punch the sky as I let my concentration relax. I’m so sexy and I know it.

It’s as I start doing some hip thrusts in all directions that I suddenly realise that Fenrir’s not the only one looking at me in askance.