“Worried about them? Well, the odds of them facing each other are pretty small. Still, I can imagine what you are feeling. By the way, Nimira wasn’t surprised when she realized that you thought that she was a guy. Her reaction was quite funny.”
I let out a sigh, still grappling with the fact that Nimir was actually a girl. It wasn’t just the surprise of her identity. Even now, I couldn’t help but be surprised at how seamlessly she had taken command of her circumstances. Despite my initial misunderstanding, it only deepened my respect for her. The world she moved in wasn’t forgiving, and yet she had carved out a place for herself with sheer determination.
What truly struck me, though, was her choice to stand by those who had supported her over the years, even if it meant stepping onto a battlefield. That kind of loyalty was rare, and while it was admirable, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. War wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Still, I understood why she made that choice. Repaying the kindness of others in her own way was part of who she was, and perhaps, in her mind, there was no other way to honor those who had believed in her.
‘Well, it is her life, so it is also her choice.’
“I need to get moving. Are you going to stay here for a while? I am not sure how long this job will take. From what I had heard, the current leaders of the orcs, goblins and ogres aren’t exactly easy to handle.”
“I can’t say for sure. I will do what is best in a given moment.”
“All right, finding me shouldn’t be hard while I remain on this land. So, I hope that we can work together soon.”
After saying that, Roswald left the tent and then began to run down the mountain toward the south. I didn’t know if he was being watched or followed, so perhaps I should have lent him a camouflage amulet to make sure that no one would find traces of this place.
Avoiding fights is impossible and other problems as well, but I want some time to prepare for all sorts of possibilities. Considering the progress that I made recently thanks to my parameters, it would be better to keep increasing my Dexterity as much as possible in order to achieve my goals.
I realized there was something I hadn’t dealt with yet, something I should’ve. I hadn’t taken the time to truly understand the differences my increased Dexterity brought to my combat abilities. The real extent of those changes would remain a mystery until I faced a serious threat. Without the pressure of a true fight, I wouldn’t know how much faster, sharper, or more precise I had become.
In hindsight, I could have asked Roswald for a sparring match before he left. Someone with his experience and strength, especially in melee combat, would’ve been the perfect benchmark to test me against. He was undoubtedly stronger than me in close quarters, but that was precisely why it would’ve been valuable. He could’ve pushed me to my limits, perhaps even beyond them, in ways I couldn’t replicate on my own.
“Well, perhaps I shouldn’t focus too much on that, given that I have to keep Alissandra close to me. More than ever, I need to make sure that the enemies wouldn’t be able to attack or get too close.”
I decided to do some tests when it came to that kind of fighting style. Firing fast and powerful arrows to annihilate the enemies was relatively easy, and I didn’t hurt myself when I only used Berserker. Still, when I added Adrenaline Surge, I could already feel my body suffering damage. It was still just to the point that my health regeneration cancelled the damage, so perhaps increasing my endurance a bit more would grant me the power to use other physical buffs.
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The idea of increasing my defense in order to be able to attack heavier was quite interesting, even more so when I was an archer. Leveling up those skills would be necessary, but I could only do that for as long as my body resisted. I was young, so I could take the toll, but I was already punishing myself plenty with my rule to not drink blood under any circumstances.
‘Gyuuuuuuunnnnnn…’
“It looks like you are very hungry, Aliss. Try to grow up not to become an unruly child, all right?”
‘Gyuuuuuuunnnnnn…’
Alissandra kept staring at me with a blank expression that made me feel bad. I shouldn’t have said that when I was the one who was that hungry… I had started to feel a lot hungry recently, alongside my thirst for blood. I just hoped that this would make me look less scrawny. A bit more of a robust body would make me endure that fighting style a bit better.
While I was preparing the food, I heard Glacien approaching. It was time to process the bodies that she brought… even though I handed her one at the adept level, it was filled to its fullest. I checked the bodies of the ants… they didn’t look tasty, but I had to at least check if they were edible for someone like me. If that wasn’t the case, I would have to start hunting down the mountain. Or ask Glacien to do that for me.
“I have some in stock, but I guess I should head for those towns to buy milk eventually… Aliss will be able to eat other things soon, but I am not a chef. I can eat whatever is available and takes the least amount of time to prepare.”
High dexterity made the job of preparing decent food a lot easier, but it was only at the level of decent without skills or classes that helped with it. In any case, I have too many things to do now that I wasn’t by myself anymore… that was good and a problem as well. It made me realize that I needed some help.
I was an engineer before all of this, and that part of me hadn’t vanished. I understood how to streamline complex processes, how to take a daunting task and break it into manageable parts, and how to design tools to automate repetitive work. In theory, I could create systems that would save me time and energy, letting me focus on the bigger picture. But in practice, starting everything from scratch in this world was a massive pain in the ass.
I didn’t have ready-made blueprints for the tools I needed, no detailed designs for automation systems suited to this environment. If I wanted to make progress, I’d have to create those blueprints myself, piece by piece, through trial and error. It wasn’t just a matter of effort; it was about knowledge, materials, and time. Still, I couldn’t afford to let the challenge deter me. If I could build even a few simple tools, they’d pay off in the long run, giving me a solid foundation to streamline everything else.
‘I thought that I would be able to have some free time after making the tools to mass produce the amulets, but that clearly is far from the truth…’
If I wanted to really do this, then I really needed a flying fortress. The laboratory and the forge on the wagon were already too small. Adding that what I needed to do to process monster parts fast and also do all sorts of other things, I basically needed a large house or even a warehouse to do everything myself.
Achieving everything that I needed would most likely take years… but it was also something that I needed to start sooner than later. The final goal was quite exciting, so I could tell that my interest wouldn’t drop along the journey.
“All right, let’s do this!”
For starters, I decided to deal with the immediate task: processing the monsters Glacien had brought. The goal was simple: extract the claws and mana cores. Once that was done, I turned my attention to the ants. Cooking them seemed like a logical next step to determine their edibility.
The result? It didn’t taste great, earthy and bitter, with a texture that wasn’t exactly appetizing, but it wasn’t terrible either. Most importantly, it didn’t give me a stomachache, which was the baseline for success. At least I knew the ants could serve as a last-resort food source if things got tight.
With that experiment out of the way, I shifted my focus to something more ambitious. Using the claws of the ants, I began reforging them into something universally useful: cogs. Cogs were the backbone of countless machines and devices, from simple tools to complex systems. They were the first step in laying the groundwork for the kind of automation and efficiency I wanted to achieve. It wasn’t an easy task. The material was tough, and shaping it precisely took a steady hand and patience, but it was worth the effort. If I could create a small supply of durable, functional cogs, they’d serve as building blocks for whatever I decided to construct next.
