Johan moved to position himself to the other side of the desert creature. The wolf like creature was hairless and had instead some sort of scales as well as a singular horn. The thing was vicious.

Johan and Anne were currently tasked with killing the creature for some meat as well as for the magic core it had in its body somewhere. Taeo had made both him and Anne some weapons out of the steel that the old car had in it. Luckily it was a strange model of vehicle and even had a catalytic converter so Johan managed to get a sharp platinum edge on his spear as well.

Johan had wanted to give the small amount of the, much rarer, metal, to his sister but unfortunately there wasn't enough there for her short sword. Anne had decided to use a sword and a shield, while Johan had gone all in with the spear. He also liked that it somewhat felt like a staff, which he had some ideas about one after a lesson last week from Nath about staffs.

It had been around 3 months since the duo had entered town originally now, and Johan and Anne were starting to get quite used to life. Johan had at this point learned to strengthen his bones and was now working on strengthening his blood over time, according to Nath this was very important for him to get his blood strong enough that he would feel like his heart was about to give out with every beat.

The reason for this was because when his blood reached a high enough mana saturation, he would be able to perform a spell to create a mana heart. This would basically be a reinforcement of his heart with mana, and would be incredibly mana intensive using all the mana in his blood, leaving him extremely weak. but in exchange he would be able to pump higher saturated blood and it would purify the mana making it more pure with every beat of his heart. This would greatly increase his efficiency. Currently he was in discomfort from his blood being a bit sluggish, but he was still able to move well enough.

Johan landed a hit to the creatures side with his spear and as it turned it neck to face him, Anne quickly severed its head, and the beast collapsed.

"Alright. Let's get this haul back to town, we'll be good on dinner tonight." Johan grabbed the torso, leaving the head for his sister. The duo were not too terribly careful as they were close enough to Ambevelance that thugs and bandits stayed well enough away, at least the two of them hadn't ever encountered any.

It turned out to be that Ambevelance had terrifyingly strong soldiers, not to mention the Magistrate and the Madam. Those two factions were supposedly enough to take all that remained of the wasteland that is Menstra, but they hadn't. Not out of passiveness, but because they didn't wish to face Karshlan, nor risk having to fight Gent, either of them were a bad choice for Ambevelance to fight.

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Not to mention that Ambevelance also used the general area as a weapons testing facility, though not for a while now, leaving at least the parts that the siblings knew, as a wastelands. According to Nath he would be able to protect the town well enough with his saved up mana *if* they ever did test more weapons. Nath seemed to doubt that they would, but wouldn't elaborate on that fact.

As the duo was walking Anne tripped over something, barely catching herself. Then she shouted something, seemingly surprised.

"Johan! Look. It looks like metal." She said. She had gotten relatively back to normal, but was still a bit reserved, so her reaction surprised Johan a bit as he approached.

He looked at it, it seemed to be part of a slightly larger contraption, which was odd given where they were. Johan was suspicious for a moment, thinking that, perhaps this was a weapon left behind by Ambevelance? No, they wouldn't just leave behind weapons that could create wastelands where a potential enemy could get ahold of them. He hated the higher ups, but those people weren't stupid, even Johan had to admit that much.

Then what was it? Looking up at the sky, it looked to be around noon, with the duos current rate it's be only around two hours back to town, and it shouldn't take too long to pull this relatively small object from the earth.

"Well... We *do* have some excess time..." Johan pulled out the broad knife he had in his pocket. It was designed with multiple uses intended. It was able to cut, dig, attack, and even had some flint built into the handle to start small fires if needed, all around it was an excellent survival knife, and both of the siblings had received one from Finch as a gift for their first hunt around a half a month back.

Johan dug around for a bit and made short work of unburying the object. It seemed like some sort of machine, so Pat might be interested in it. Perhaps he'd get something like a watch out of her, he hated not knowing what exact time it was, it was something so simple back in Ambevelance, just look at your phone and boom. right there. Almost every person had a watch of some sort. But out here, you might be lucky enough for someone getting bored enough to build a sundial. Nath, thank lord, did have a clock. Another reason why Johan was a fan of the older man. Then again it was also important apparently, for mages to know the time and day for certain more ritualistic type spells.

"Well, seems like we found some sort of device. Maybe we can get something from Pat for it?" Johan suggested.

"If it doesn't work, sure. I know you really want a watch."

"That easy to read, eh?" Johan laughed a bit and fitted the smallish device into his bag.

It was about 1 foot long and wide, but only about 2 inches thick, almost like an odd laptop. It wasn't a pure slab, that would be amazing for Taeo if it were though, it had a screen of some such on part of it, and it also wasn't entirely smooth. it had a couple spots where it might have had hinges or something, but they had fallen away from age.

After securing the device, Johan and Anne continued on home.