“urgh..”

The two’s journey continued uninterrupted as they strolled through the forest. The journey was boring and uneventful, if everything around you was not new of course. Iris was still taking it all in, the small insects that skittered across the ground, the distant birds flying off in the distance, and the weirder looking creatures.

“urp…”

While they kept their distance, the more weird creatures that looked more akin to that toothy Screuncher, multilimbed, large toothed, growling sorts of creatures that Iris herself would like to approach, but being mindful of Lily, was thankful they were keeping their distance for what ever reason.

“uuuuh…”

What were they called, monsters? At least that was what her atlas said about that ball shaped mouth…thing… it was also what Lily called her mother, which now that she was taking the time to think about it, wouldn’t that make Lily a monster? She never got a chance to look at the Arachne in detail but Lily was on her back, it wouldn’t hurt to peek, just to get what she needed…

>>><<<

Name: Lily

Race: Arachne

Age: 7

Gender: Female

>>><<<

“Bleeeeh”

She cut it there, looking for one of the monsters in the distance and appraising it.

Iris squinted her eyes in frustration, Lily’s was structured much like her own, while the other was clearly stated as a monster, was there something she was missing? Or was she overthinking it, did it matter? ‘eh’ for now, no, Lily was Lily, if she was a monster then that wouldn’t change anything she thought about her…

“eergh”

This was more her anguishing over the thought of killing her mother, was she as sentient as Lily was? Lily was very nonchalant about it and didn’t seem to care, if anything she was…thankful? Was that appropriate? It didn’t feel like it, it was just way too complicated for her.

“blech.”

“…”

And then there was the thing she was trying to ignore this entire time, Lily trying to force down that brown brick. What even was it?

‘Quality F, what does…wait…’

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Rotting?!” Iris spun around taking the lump away from the girl.

“H-hey! I was eating that.” Lily protested.

“Eating it? You were forcing yourself to! Why are you even eating this rotting thing, it sounded horrible.” With every bite she took out of it a pained expression would spread on Lily’s face, before she would slowly chew and then swallow, followed by the disgusted groaning. Then Iris finds out this thing was rotting… Hrm…

“I need to eat! And rotting isn’t anything to worry about! We’d eat that stuff all the time.” Lily defended herself, reaching out for the pemmican “We can eat spoiled and rotting meat, it’s what we did. I cant eat nothing!”

Iris sighed, she really needed to get this child some good food, and for that they needed to leave this forest and get to somewhere with more people “look, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but from the way you were eating this I doubt you are telling the truth.” She shook her head “Can you at least wait till we get to town to eat something better?”

“And how long will that take?!” Lily shouted, “I used a lot of silk yesterday on your dress, my bed, and running away from mother, I’m hungry and need to eat.” She pouted.

“yeah but…” Iris glanced between the two, conflicted on what to do. This would be so much easier if she could just create something… “wait, duh.” Iris slapped her forehead.

“…?”

Ignoring the confused look on Lily’s face, Iris tossed the rotting lump away and began focusing…

“Hey! My food!”

While she didn’t think she could make something new, she now had a template for a food item, the pemmican, that should be enough to make something out of it, right?

Iris smiled ‘Yes! The Quality is still F…and it’s incredibly cheap for once.’ Noticing it was also no longer rotting this was a good start, but Lily deserved better then F.

“Iris, what are you doing?”

Ignoring the curious tapping from Lily, Iris focused on increasing the quality of the item “huh.” In doing so she found herself confused, as no matter how much she increased the quality of the item the point cost did not increase, it remained at one.

While a pleasant surprise she could not help but wonder why, especially with how expensive things usually were when she created something. Even when she increased it further to SSS+ it still only cost 1…More questions to add to the list, for now, going any further than B would be over kill, so she lowered it to B and made it, creating a Pemmican that appeared in her hand.

“There! Made it better.” Iris said, triumphantly.

“….” Lily stared at it “What did you just do?”

“Created a pemmican.”

“Pemmican?”

“The thing you were eating, created a new one.” She said in a matter-a-fact manner.

“Created? You didn’t just, take one out of your inventory?”

“Nope, brand new!” She then passed the lump back to her “Try it, it’s quality B, what ever that means, but it’s better than F and not rotting so…eat up!”

“…” Lily slowly reached out, grabbing the thing. She looked it over, rotating it in her palms and inspecting it closely before slowly looking up at Iris “you…created it, how?”

“Creation points, I can create anything… I think. But don’t worry about that, try it~ try it~”

“…” lily glanced between the two, from the brown lump of meat and tallow to Iris who was smiling happily towards her. Sighing, she gave in and took a slow bite out of it.

“Well?” Iris asked “How is it? Does it at least taste better then the other one?”

There was no answer, Lily had frozen in place, staring at the brown lump in her open palm.

“Lily?” Iris waved a hand in front of the girl’s face “Hello? Are you ok?”

“….”

Lily looked up at Iris, then slowly lowered her gaze towards the pemmican, she then slammed the thing into her face.

“LILY?!?!” Iris shouted, Lily was frantically chowing down on the lump “Lily slow down!” she shouted in vain.

Lily shoveled mouthfuls of the stuff into her tiny mouth “S-SO GOOD!” she yelled in between frantic bites.

“That’s great and all but SLOW DOWN!” Iris tried to grab what was left of the lump but was avoided.

“NO!” Lily turned away, desperately munching away “I-it’s the best thing-the best I have ever had!”

“The pemmican??!?” That thing was just meat and tallow, Iris wondered how that could be the best thing she ever ate, it was only quality B for crying out loud.

“YES-GWAFAU?!”

“I TOLD YOU TO SLOW DOWN!!!”

In the forest, the screams of two girls could be heard from far away…