Ch: 112.3 (Patreon)

Is this good enough? If I put this there. “And that there,” I mumble to myself. Circling the pile of branches in front of me me, I can’t seem to make up my mind if I did a good enough job hiding my feathers or not.

“Are you done yet; we’re losing daylight?” Tabitha asks, standing slightly behind me with her hands on her hips, judging me with her eyes and radiating impatience.

“What do you think?” I turn away from my work and ask the frowning woman for her honest opinion, wishing she'll put my worries to rest.

“It looks like a pile of sticks,” Tabitha dryly remarks.

I don’t know why I expected anything different. "I know that," I roll my eyes. "I mean, can you see the feathers at all? I want them to be out of sight in case another beast moves in after we leave.”

To her credit, despite her apparent reluctance and wanting to leave, Tabitha moves next to me and looks at my handiwork. It was hard to do, but I think I’ve successfully hidden my red and black beauties out of sight and away from any would-be curious animals.

I used the various sticks and stones that were already a part of the bird’s nest to build my own little hidden cache. Weaving the branches was tricky, but something possible. I could even lean my total weight against the cache without it moving, so I was 90% sure it wouldn’t cave in under normal circumstances. But then again, that wasn’t what I was fussing over.

I was worried about how well I blended my cache in with the rest of the nest. I think I did a good enough job, but….

The more I questioned myself, the more I doubted my handiwork. I wanted to ensure everything ran smoothly after the bird yesterday and Tabitha a few minutes ago.

If I just piled a bunch of crap in a corner, that would be suspicious. I knew little to nothing about magic beasts in general, and though most weren’t known for their intelligence, that didn’t mean I was going to underestimate them a second time.

The bird whose nest we commandeered showed a frightening level of intelligence during our fight, even managing to catch me off guard during our scuffle, a fact I was still kicking myself over. If I treated magic beasts like any old animal, it would bite me in the ass later.

“I don’t see anything,” Tabitha hums in thought. “But it does look a little too unnatural,” she tells me after a brief pause.

"Unnatural, how?" I ask, scanning my work for the hundredth time.

“It looks too perfect,” Tabitha points out to me. “It doesn’t look like the rest of the nest. See what I mean?”

I didn't, and I could only shake my head disappointingly. To me, it looked like any other pile of sticks. Was Tabitha just messing with me, or could she really see a difference?

“It should be more like this.” To my horror, Tabitha kicks the stack of twigs concealing my feathers. She doesn't hold back either, and I scream internally as my well-constructed pile collapses in on itself. “There, like that,” she smiles at the mess she caused.

“You ruined it,” I complain, as now you can see a few feathers sticking out of the side.

“No, I improved it,” Tabitha confidently states with her hands on her hips, sporting her sadistic smile.

“And how is that?” I roll my eyes, more than a bit angry that I would need to fix it again.

Tabitha gestures around us, “Where are we?”

“Up in a tree?” I flatly reply to her, not in the mood to play twenty questions.

“We’re in a bird’s nest,” Tabitha corrects me, waging her finger like she was disciplining a stubborn child while taking no responsibility for messing up my hard work. “And what do you find in bird’s nests?” She looks past me at the feather sticking out of the pile.

“Feathers?” I dryly reply, falling into her rhythm despite my reluctance too. But, unfortunately, Tabitha has a frightening way of sucking others into her rhythm, a fact I should be more aware of after our hours of sparring together and generally hanging out with one another.

“Exactly!" Tabitha's smile shifts from one of boasting to the one she gives when I answer a question correctly, unperturbed by my sour expression. From an outside perspective, her new smile would still look like she was gloating over me, but I’ve since quid into the subtle shifts in her demeanor. I could tell she was about to give me a lesson, whether I was ready for it or not. “If it’s one thing I know about bird-type magic beasts, they love to use their feathers as building materials. How many feathers do you see mixed in with everything?”

Now that she mentioned it, I glance around the nest, comparing my cache to its surroundings.

She was correct; there were feathers crammed all over the place. Old and newer-looking ones were visible everywhere you looked. Having a few feathers showing wouldn’t look out of place in the slightest. I loathe to admit it, but the pile looks a tad more natural now—only a tad, though.

I'm still trying to figure out if kicking it was the most helpful response, but it wouldn’t be the first time Tabitha’s proven me wrong with brute force. She may be unorthodox sometimes, but I'm not vain enough to pretend she hasn’t been insightful on multiple occasions.

Letting out a sigh, I decide just to count this as a learning experience and move on, not wanting to dwell on the subject any longer. Of course, I could spend the better part of the day stressing out whether my feathers were hidden well enough, but in the end, they were just that, feathers.

Sure, I wanted the feathers to be here when we came back, but they weren’t the reason we came to the forest in the first place. And if they were still here by the time we made it back this way, all the better. But now that I was thinking about it, I shouldn’t waste my time overly stressing about them. I had many more important things to stress about. Like making sure I didn’t screw up during my next fight. And there would be many more fights shortly; that was almost guaranteed.

“Ready to go now?” Tabitha asks me as I reach down and grab my bag with an exaggerated huff.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I respond with only a fraction of my usual energy. I still hadn't had enough time to recharge my mana pool fully, and my health was recovering even slower, but both were slowly getting there.

Tabitha pauses, hearing my lackluster response, and scans me with a critical eye leaving me feeling exposed under her gaze, almost as if she could see my status page even though I knew she couldn’t. She was probably making sure I was ok to set out, though I don’t know why I wouldn’t be, I may have gotten knocked around and had my ass handed to me yesterday, but I wasn’t that injured after all.

To show I was ok and ready to continue our journey, I puff out my chest and square my shoulders, trying to convey confidence even though it was something I was sorely lacking at the moment. I can tell Tabitha is evaluating my physical condition, and I let out a sigh of relief when she gives me a simple nod before motioning for me to follow her. Tabitha only spares me a slight glance over her shoulder before leaping out of the tree hollow.

I take one last moment to ensure all my gear is appropriately secured, and then I jump out right behind her.

The wind rushes past my face as I enter a freefall, but I only bask in the feeling for less than half a second before I reach out with my hands to grab the nearby tree trunk. The bark feels more like stone than wood against my gloved fingers and is as strong as iron. Against the rough surface, my fingers easily find purchase almost immediately. My arm muscles tense, and suddenly I’m no longer falling.

It would be faster to let myself drop and use Air Walk when I get closer to the forest floor; however, I was still in mana-saving mode, so I follow Tabitha’s example and take the long way down for a change.

Like a couple of spiders, the two of us scurry down the massive tree in no time at all. Of course, Tabitha was more graceful than I was, but by mimicking her movements, I was only ever a few steps behind her.

Tabitha reaches the bottom first, and surprisingly, she pauses and turns to watch me take my last few steps before I land behind her. She always kept to her own pace yesterday, so seeing her stop and wait for me seemed odd and out of character.

“Is there something wrong?” I ask, scanning our surroundings with Sense Mana. I still couldn’t sense anything other than some larger-than-normal insects nearby. They were big, but nothing close to the size of the ones we saw devouring the bird, and I didn't see anything while we were descending the tree, so I wasn’t exactly sure why we hadn't immediately set out.

“Are you ready?” For a second time, Tabitha asks if I'm good to go in as many minutes, and now I'm starting to worry that I missed something crucial.

Did I walk into some trap? Would Tabitha knowingly lead me into something dangerous to make a point? Who am I kidding; of course, she would.

We weren’t surrounded, not unless the enemies were really far away. Am I caught in some illusion, a genjutsu perhaps? A quick scan of my soul shows nothing amiss, and I'm not picking up anything magical…. at least not more than anything we’ve already seen in the magic-dense region. Well, except for one thing.

That could be what Tabitha wanted me to notice. “Yeah,” I hesitantly respond to Tabitha. “Just give me a second to grab it." Maybe she knew I forgot about them last night?

Tabitha raises an eyebrow which might mean I made the wrong assumption, but now that I noticed them, I wasn't going to leave them behind. She doesn’t say anything as I walk over to the pile of bones that once made up the magic bird.

The bones themselves had a decent amount of mana contained in them, but sadly they were hollow like a typical bird’s. I wouldn’t want to use them in my weapons or armor, and I couldn't think of anything else off the top of my head that would justify my taking the time to hide them for later.

However, while the bones didn’t interest me, that didn't mean there weren't a few gems hidden amongst the rubbish—four gems, to be precise.

Close to what used to be one of the bird’s legs were four claws that shined like obsidian under the newly risen forest light. Each claw contained a degree more mana than the bones they once connected to, which was what drew my attention to them. While the difference in mana was slim, which was probably why I missed them last night, there was a huge difference in durability. Every single bone in sight, from the largest wing bone to the smallest vertebra, had bite marks or cracks from where flesh was ripped from the bone. Everywhere except the claws, that is.

Each claw was the size of my hand, and examining the tips revealed that they were quite sharp despite no longer having a source of magic to pull from. I knew from dealing with the chameleon spiders that magic beast materials always lost some potency after their host died, yet the claws looked the same as when they were coming at me during our fight.

Scanning our surroundings, I try to find the other four claws from the bird’s other leg, but Sense Mana turns up nothing. It would be pointless to search for them, considering they could’ve been dragged away hours ago, and I knew Tabitha was more than ready to go by now.

Speaking of Tabitha, looking up from stashing the bird claws in my bag, I see she's watching my every move like a hawk. Her watching me wasn't anything new, but her expression was. Tabitha looked at me like she was unsure of something, and it was making me nervous. I wanted to show her how much I’ve grown thanks to her training, but so far, I've been coming up short.

Tabitha only shares this new look for a few seconds before her face shifts to one of stony resolve. “The same as yesterday.” Tabitha waves her hand, reminding me I'm supposed to lead us deeper into the forest.

I thought she was going to tell me something, but it looks like I was wrong again. Silently, with the weight of what is to come resting on my shoulders, I take my position and start following the denser mana streams in the air. Finally, we were leaving our first camp in the Endless Forest behind.

**********

2,200 words.

This is the chapter I'm supposed to release on Friday, and I'm working on the one I plan to release Monday. I'll post that chapter as soon as I have it finished.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and as always, stay safe.