<~> Chapter 25We met with Mirianna briefly te our party in the guild records and headed out of town.

  “The forest close to the town tends to be safer than further out but you should still be on yuard. Occasionally people get x when they’re just gatherihe town and end up getting killed after an ued attack,” Man told me as we were heading out of the town gate.

  “We should probably stick to the formatioalked about earlier then, even if we’re in a low danger area it would still be good practice,” I said to the group. After a few nods we arranged ourselves. Siorien was leading us to the herbs we walked side by side and Man watched the rear.

  We were walking in the icy forest for about thirty minutes when Torien poio few pnts growihe base of some trees. “Those are Sorphom flowers, the apothecary told me they were used to ease fevers and helps whehing bees difficult.”

  “Iing, how are you supposed to harvest it?”

  “This pnt is easy, you’re supposed to cut the stem about this far from the base. You’re not supposed to cut too far or else it will have trouble growing back apparently.”

  “, do you guys mind if I take some time to draw it and take notes in my journal?”

  I got some fused looks and ultimately some shrugging before I took that as assent. I pulled the leatherbound journal I bought yesterday and ope to a bnk page he beginning. I’m not really sure where the impulse to draw the flower came from but this felt right to me, like I had dohis before. I pulled out a dip quill and some ink and began to draw the flower into my book, the feeling came naturally, the instincts felt more real to me than the sword instincts I stole from Bitch. This felt natural to me, this felt real to me, drawing made sense.

  I only spent around ten minutes before I was satisfied with the image of the Sorphom flower I had drawn. I had a surprisingly accurate and lifelike image of the flower in the book and I was happy with how it came out. I made a mistake here and there but I worked it into the drawing, at no point did I hesitate to build the picture up despite the expensive paper or the perma ink. It came naturally to me.

  [Drawing Lv. 1 unlocked - Created a representation of an object through observation.]

  [Drawing - Unon Skill]The Drawing skill governs the ability to accurately reprodud create images. Higher ranks improves the ease of these tasks and improves instincts reted to this skill.

  . I’m pretty sure I was some kind of artist in my past life. This es naturally to me in a way that nothing else has so far. I feel the differeween the ‘instinbsp;I get from the swordsmanship skill and the ‘muscle memory’ I have with this. And the system clearly wasn’t helpi, this was all me. I suppose this means that even having a skill isn’t quite the same as being experienced in an area even if there’s obvious overp. Those with a high skill are likely to have a simir amount of experieo go with it otherwise they wouldn't have a high level in the first pce. I'm probably the anomaly here, being someone who has practiced some skills outside of the system's influence.

  When I moved on from drawing to writing notes about the flower’s properties and uses Torien came to look over my shoulder. “Oh wow, that’s amazing. I’m surprised your drawing skill is so high, that’s not something I would expect a swordswoman to dabble in… And you read and write too? That’s amazing.”

  “Yeah… I suppose.”

  “Guys there’s a monster ing!” Bel yelled out.

  I set the book down and drew my sword in one fluid motion as I stood up. In an instant all of us were in formation fag the dire Bel had poihe monster looked a little bit like a mangy dog with long bony protrusion stig out through its fur. Its eyes glowed red as it walked around roup and tried to circle us.

  Now that I was looking at the moalking up to us, everything suddenly felt real in a way it hadn’t up until then. When I came across the wolves in the woods that felt more like me hiding from a giant animal, this was different. I had my sword drawn and I was going to face off with a creature that had a level of malice that I had never felt before. This creature’s existence felt wrong, like it didn’t fit in the world, shouldn’t be here.

  But this is the first time I ever held a sword with a real desire to use it. The first time I held a on with the io kill something. I don’t think I had ever been hunting in my past life. I likely got in a fight or two but I was not a soldier, a warrior. I robably an artist of some kind and now I was standing here holding a swainst something that could only be described as a monster.

  If I was alone I might have ran, might have tried to escape from it, but noith a team. A group that was relying oo stand in front and protect them. I took a breath and gripped my sword. The weight felt familiar in my hand, after having drawn aing a feel for an actual trained skill, I could tell this felt different. But I also khat I could trust these instincts and I would grow into them until they felt natural to me.

  The creature tio circle us, looking for an opening. This time I circled it back, tried to fnk it and put it in a vulnerable position. At first I thought it was too focused oo notice it slowly being surrounded but I miscalcuted. As soon as it was near my other teammates it started to turn, its glowing eyes looked away from me as it reparing up t at Bel.

  It all happened in a split sed. The moment the creature’s eyes flicked away from me onto Bel, my instincts guided me to attack. I sshed in a sweep in tandem with my step forward and my bde cut through the creature’s tendon just as it was releasing the built up energy into it’s leap. However, with it’s new hamstruhe leap didn’t go as pnned and it crashed headfirst into the dirt on its side.

  The moment it touched the ground spikes of wood rained down from the trees impaling it from above. I quickly started to take a few steps around it to get ier position for a finishing blow when an arrow pluhrough its forehead.

  “Another from the east!” Bel yelled.

  I turned, and with the finesse of a practiced swhter pivoted my staowards the dire in one fluid motion. Unfortuhe sed dog creature was already in a full bore sprint and ing up fast. It sprung up and jumped, aimed right at my face. Following my instincts I lowered my stand swept diagonally across its body.

  This time the bde didn’t smoothly slice through and instead caught one of the bone protrusions. My instincts told me to follow through on the swipe and use the leverage to push the body out of my path but I just didn’t have the raw strength to divert its path. Ihe creature nded on me and my bde slid back the way it came. As it leaned in to take a bite of my face I blocked its mouth with my left arm. It didn’t mao disarm me on the way down but I didn’t have a good ao attack it from this position. Luckily for me I was able to hold it still for long enough that Man was able to finish it off with a rge wooden spike shot from a nearby tree.

  Its blood poured down from the new hole through its chest right onto my new shirt. O lost enough blood the teeth jammed into my forearm lost pressure and I was able to pry them off my arm. I heard a subtle ding in the bay head but I ig for now. I pushed its heavy body off of me and took a moment to just breathe before I sat up. That was a rush. I had never felt like I was in so much danger before but I also have never felt so calm. Irospect I was scared, terrified of the horrible mohat was cirg us. But somehow, in the moment, I felt serene. Fully focused on the fight. I’m not sure if it’s because of my swordsmanship skill or something else but I felt in trol of the situatioe how outside of my fort zohe situation was.

  I looked at my arm, it was covered in a very obvious bite mark and bck gunk from the monster’s gross mouth was in the wound.

  “There’s no way this is sanitary. Bel, you heal this? Wait we should probably it first I don’t want to get an iion from that gross thing.”

  “Hold it out for me.” She gently took my hand and ied the wounds. “This shouldn’t be a problem.” She swept her nature scepter and a trail of green light followed the now glowing greehe light then flowed from the scepter bato my arm and ed around it. The wound sizzled without pain, the bck goo looked like it was boiling away and I watched the blood clot before my eyes. It was like watg a video at 100x speed as the wound scabbed over then fell off leaving an obvious scar on the skin before my short fur grew ba.

  “That was trippy,” I said staring at my arm.

  Torien dropped out of a tree that she had been shooting from and ran up to me. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah, it bit my arm but Bel was able to heal me up. I’m gd I bought this new shirt, I couldn’t imagirying to get this much blood out of my nie.”

  I looked down at the creatures on the grouo me. “What the hell are these things?”

  “Bone dogs,” Torien expined. “They are shadow type mohat have formed into the shape of hounds. They’re unon at best but their core should be worth something. The same ’t be said for the rest of their body, now that it’s dead it’ll start to disappear, shadow monsters don’t decay the same way most monsters do.”

  “Core? What’s that?” Torien looked at me with a fused look on her face.

  “Oh that’s right you said you’re o adventuring. Still, I don’t know how you got your swordsmanship skill to that level without also hunting a monster or two.”

  Torien pulled out a knife and began to carve open its chest cavity. She didn’t even flinch as she began to pull the ans out of her way as she cut into the carcass. Man turned away in silent disgust and I thought I was going to be sick looking at Torien work. And the smell, god damn was it disgusting. I looked over at Bel who seemed to be paying close attention, somehow not at all grossed out by what was happening. Life on the farm robably pretty dirty work in a world like this.

  After a few more minutes of cutting Torien finally pulled something out, she held a sphere the size of a rge egg that seemed to pulse with bergy.

  “Are either of you enters?” Torien asked. We both shook our heads and she tinued, “Well how about we sell these and split it four ways like we were pnning with the quest reward?”

  “Sounds fio me.” I looked to Bel and she nodded in agreement.

  “Good, who wants to pull out the other oorien asked while looking at the other corpse.

  I hesitated and thankfully for me Bel quickly volunteered. Man and I were shocked at the enthusiasm that Bel showed for the task. Once she pulled out her knife and begun to dissect the moorien looked over to me and I just shrugged. I have no idea what that was about either.

  Torie up and started pointing out pces to cut while Man and I stepped away to keep watch for other monsters. I picked up my journal and looked over to the mage demi-beast girl o me. “It’s not just me right? That was super grht?” I asked her somewhat jokingly.

  Man nodded. “I’m really thankful I viorien to do most of that stuff. It’s a little silly sidering I don’t even flinch at killing them, but a little bit of blood and guts and I want to vomit.”

  “We all have our strengths.” We shared a ugh at that.

  Saine