213 Follow the fairy, please! part “I don’t know, I can’t tell how high my skills are and my soulbound card doesn’t exactly show me a level either.”

Ryu said as he poked at his soulbound card.

“Can I take a look?”

“Sure”

Ryu handed Mia his card with all the information available and she read it entirely with a serious expression. After being surprised so many times by Mia’s resourcefulness he decided to keep an open mind and just listen to what she had to say. After five minutes of nodding and sighing, Mia handed Ryu his soulbound card.

“Just as I thought, I don’t understand any of it.”

“Then why would you ask me to look at it?”

“I don’t know, I figured I could learn something, I don’t have a card of my own you know.”

just as Ryu took his own card back, he noticed something weird. Skills shifted position, some were positioned above others and it got him thinking that maybe there was a meaning to it. Trying to make sense of it, he carefully noted all the skills that were listed in the top positions and the ones that were on the bottom position and then it came to him. While skills didn’t have a level attached to them, the position they occupied in the skill list was related to their power level.

.....

The highest ranked active skill Ryu had right now was identify, followed closely by night vision. Among the passive ones calm mind was in the top position and among the weapon skills blunt weapons was, just as Ryu thought, in the pot position too.

“It seems I’m pretty good at blunt weapons”

“Could it be thanks to all the time you spent chopping down trees with sticks?”

“How do you even know about it?”

“Anne told me. She told me many things about the time you spent together before going to Ironwoods”

Mia chuckled.

“Whatever, let’s keep moving before it’s too late”

Ryu pulled on the frenzied amarok’s reins but just as before, he was unmoving. Not just that, he had already started to eat the second corpse.

“Mister Ryu, I don’t think Famine wants to keep walking, why don’t we take a rest in here? Maybe you can have something to eat... and me too”

Ryu pretended to ignore Mia’s comment and looked for a place to set up a camp. The place was nowhere safe, but just by raising a few spikes in the ground and making a couple pitfalls it felt like a fortress. He raised a small wooden roof hanging over on a tree so even if it rained, they would be safe.

Since Mia was completely useless in skinning a creature, Ryu had to do all the job by himself. It was like a race against the amarok, who kept eating the whole time.

“I wonder how can he fit all that food inside his little stomach”

Mia inquired while seated on a dried tree trunk. Famine wasn’t small by anyone’s standards, but what Mia pointed out got Ryu to realize that there was no way the amarok could have fit so much food into his belly. pondering about this matters, Ryu’s stomach grumbled.

He cut off a leg from one of the previously skinned boars using his obsidian dagger. It had always been sharp, but after its remodeling it was incredibly effective.

He tore apart a small slice of raw meat and handed it to the wurm hatchling entangled on Mia’s arm. After swallowing the piece of meat whole, the small creature slithered back onto Ryu’s sleeve and then wrapped itself on the staff.

Ryu, curious as always, used his identify skill on it.

>Staff (good)(recharging)

This new piece of information was enough to give hope to Ryu. It wasn’t just a piece of wood hard enough to withstand heavy strikes, but it also seemed to have some unknown properties. After this, Ryu took his time to retrieve all the small side branches that fell off after he peeled them and placed them on the amarok saddlebags.

Ryu took a short nap and Mia woke him up when Famine was almost done eating all the corpses.

“Master Ryu, we should get going”

Mia whispered under the cover of the night. Ryu then proceeded to grab the glass vial that held the fairy prisoner, only to realize it was broken.

“Uh oh”

Ryu said in a low voice, Mia’s eyes widened as she had never seen him make such a face.

“Is everything alright master?”

“I don’t think so, I think the fairy escaped”

“What!? how will we find Bardun!?”

“Calm down Mia!”

Ryu grabbed her by the arms and shook her until she became dizzy.

“I’m calm already, please let me go! I’ll throw up, for real!”

Although she said this, as a succubus she was physically incapable of throwing up.

Just when Ryu was about to give up on finding the fairy, he noticed a dim yellow light coming from behind a tree. There was the small creature, attempting to fly as hard as it could but it was impossible. She just didn’t have the strength to lift her own weight.

>Fairy (starving)

For a brief second, Ryu thought in attempting to tame it, but decided against it. He didn’t want to keep it separated from its partner any longer than necessary.

“Hang in there little one”

Ryu said as he took it on his hands and, by doing this, he couldn’t help but notice two soft bumps on the fairy’s chest that marked her as a female. The fairy struggled to be released, but to no avail. Ryu wasn’t trying to imprison her again, but to keep her from falling on the ground.

After cooking some meat Ryu offered it some, but the fairy refused to eat.

“Hey Mia, what do you think these things eat?”

“How am I supposed to know? do I look like a beast expert?”

“Are fairies really considered beasts? she kind of look like a human”

“No, they’re beasts. They’re incapable of speaking and some think they’re also incapable of thinking. Fairies are known to be stupid”

Just as Mia said so, the fairy calmed down for a second and then glared at Mia. The light that surrounded her made it impossible for Ryu to see her face, but somehow they knew she was angry.