Chapter 211: Taking Stock

Chapter 211: Taking Stock

“Hunger is the best sauce in the world,”

Don Quixote, Miguel De Cervantes

Namir’s POV

I awoke to the smell of roasting rabbit, or rather, I was awoken by the squirming of Nyx attempting to escape my clothing and attack the roasting rabbit. Rather than risk myself or, more importantly, in this weather and our current climate, my clothes being torn up in the process, I hurriedly released her.

She shot forward with a jump and short flight to settle on Kai’s shoulder. He stood over a small fire pit where a rather large rabbit was roasting. Eagerly urging him onward to give her a piece, which he happily did. The smell of the roasting rabbit seemed to have distracted her from the offal pile in the room's corner.

Kai placed her down in front of it, and despite her preference for the roasted meat, the starving dragonling quickly attacked the remains. She had been growing increasingly lethargic without a proper supply of protein, and with our shipwreck, we had lost all our supplies.

“Morning,” I muttered, pleased to have seen he had solved another one of our problems. A decent mage made every hunt easier; if they could keep up, that was. I preferred to hunt alone with proper supplies, as they rarely could. Still, it was difficult to argue against the comfort they could bring. Kai had only been awake for a day, but in that time, he had solved the issues of shelter, food and water. It even looked like he was in the process of solving the problem of our current clothing.This chapter was first shared on the Ñøv€lß1n platform.

The child was impressive, no matter how you looked at it. I knew no child of his age no matter their race, who could have coped as well with what we had just gone through and still be functioning so well. Even a beastkin would have struggled to return with so many catches from a single hunt so soon and with so few supplies to actually hunt with.

Four enormous rabbits hung stripped of their skin from the ceiling, but that wasn’t all that they were missing. Looking closer, he could see that each tendon from all the rabbits had been removed. It was not difficult to guess what they would be spending today doing. Beastkin cubs would often be given the task of making the most from every meal, but it had been years since he had bothered to do so.

“Morning, Namir,” Kai said as he carried a rabbit leg forward. “Thanks for saving my life.”

“Only doing my duty,” I answered. As a retainer of House Silversea, that was the appropriate answer, but I would have done the same with or without that obligation. The child was special.

“Pass me the tendons,” I said as soon as I had broken my fast. He had clearly dried them with mana, but some jobs were easier with claws, not to mention my stats. Running my claws down the tendons I was soon stripping them into fibres we would be able to turn into strings we could use to bind the furs to ourselves.

“What are we making first with the rabbits?” I asked.

“Hats. Your stats might keep you warm enough, but without my mana to warm me up, I’m going to freeze quickly enough and who knows what else I might need to use it for.” He continued to cook the remaining meat, sharing it out between Nyx, me and himself.

“Hats?” They were not what I thought we would be aiming for, “Not a cloak?”

“No hats, mittens and boots first. Covering the extremities first, they are the most likely to freeze first. Our clothes are not exactly warm enough, but at least the rest of our bodies are covered. Oh, and they are called Arctic Hares, at least according to inspect.” He explained.

“Hmph.” I had never made it this far north and never needed much clothing working predominantly across the southern kingdoms.

“Besides, if you are up for a hunt, there are some wolves to our west. They would be large enough to make trousers, tunic and coat.” He added.

This was a large step up from the Hares. The den only had a single exit, so I did not need to block anything else off. Also, I doubted a sound alone would be enough to deal with any of them. I ran through the same steps as I had with the Hares, checking things over. Then I continued to layer up my defence for when they inevitably would come screaming at me. As effective as throwing fire might be at killing them, that would also ruin the pelts we hoped to gain from this.

Finally ready,” I signalled Namir. “You might want to cover your ears for the first salvo,” I suggested.

“Bala Skouzou” was the first spell that I sent down into their den, but it was quickly followed by “Bala fos”

It would hopefully be as effective as a flash bang on the poor wolves. Woken by the shriek, they would hopefully be blinded by the light. They stumbled out of their den, highly disorientated even if my first two spells did not kill them.

The next spells hopefully would. With the weather and environmental mana supporting their formation, my ice spear spell formed beautifully and without hesitation. Launching themselves at the stunned family.

“Pago dori!”

“Pago dori!”

“Pago dori!”

“Pago dori!”

The first two fell to my ice spears, still stumbling as they were from the disorientation of ruptured ear drums. The other two were rapidly recovering and threw themselves toward me across the open snow, regardless of the spear they were impaled with.

But I had not left myself defenceless. Their bodies broke through the thin layer of ice I had surrounded myself with to cover up the trench I had magically excavated and impaled themselves on the ice spears I had buried beneath it.

“A few more holes than last time,” Namir commented on my success.

“But good enough. How are you going to get them back?”

“On this.” I started working on building a simple sledge out of ice. We had no rope, so we would have to push it, and it would hardly last for very long if we picked up any speed, but for the short journey back, it would work effectively enough.

Our day’s hunt over; we loaded up the four wolves and set out for home.

It was time to return before dark fell.

. . .

Safe and secure in our little shelter, we took stock of our improved circumstances.

"So what next?"