4.4

August left the unfinished bow beside the [A-Frame Hut] and instead moved to show Rittan how to use the [Basic Hand-Drill] to re-light the campfire—They’d already hunted one of the many [Mitikos], so they may as well attempt to cook it.

Rittan spun the rod against the friction plate, the motion looking unpracticed, but he seemed to be gifted with far more dexterity with his hands than someone that large should possess—and an absolute higher tier of stamina that August doubted he would be ever able to reach.

“It’s more difficult than I thought, having watched you last night,” Rittan admitted, “I would have never even considered starting a fire like this.”

It felt like a backhanded comment, but August was already beginning to realise that they simply came from different times—Rittan’s society was so far ahead of earth that things like this, the absolute base methods to create something, may well have been forgotten.

“Do you know of any easier methods?” August said, just in case.

“I don’t know any,” Rittan confessed, glancing up for a moment. “I am aware that kinetic force between certain materials can produce sparks, but I do not think it’s sufficient to start a fire—we could wait for a lightning strike?”

August stifled a laugh—okay, there definitely wasn’t any shade being thrown; he was practically exposed to the sun.

“That’s one of the methods—we actually have plenty of flint,” August said, palming a shard from his inventory. “The problem is we don’t have anything metal to strike it against.”

Rittan used his top right arm to gesture towards the third being present. August frowned at Ladybug for a moment, he knew what he was referring to, but he wasn’t sure it would work like that.

“There’s a film covering her chains, including the spike—that white stuff, almost like the top layer of porcelain,” August said, reaching out to pat the monster on the head. “It does feel like metal, though—we’d need to hunt and kill a second one and then try and shave the covering off.”

“I hadn’t thought about the film,” Rittan admitted, eyeing the monster with a hesitant eye. “I have some doubts about catching one of these monsters—Ladybug is far more agile than anything I’ve seen before.”

“Yeah,” August nodded, “The damage they do to their surrounding is also worrying, along with the fact they hunt for fun—I feel like I’d come out of a fight with one dead and filled with holes.”

“Indeed,” Rittan said quietly, “How is it you tamed Ladybug in the first place? Or are they naturally friendly?”

August wondered about that, were they naturally friendly? He only had one real interaction with the Efkini before it had been tamed, and one of them hadn’t even seen him. Ladybug had a weakness towards mana, or it was at least heavily attracted to it.

“I don’t know if it’s just Ladybug that’s friendly; it’s the only one I’ve interacted with.” August admitted, “She has a skill called [Absorb] that makes her attracted to sources of mana, and the skill I used works by placing my mana inside the target over a long period of time—so I was absurdly lucky that the process was something she actually liked.”

“I see,” Rittan said, humming. “You’re implying that if you attempt to tame another creature, it may act aggressively?”

“Not from the process itself,” August explained, “But if I’m running from a monster that’s trying to eat me, well, I don’t think stopping and giving it some of my mana will do anything except make the monster’s meal a bit more memorable.”

A curl of smoke twisted up from the friction plate, and Rittan looked surprised for a moment before starting to look panicked.

“Oh!” Rittan said quickly, “What do I do now, August?”

August talked him through it, placing the coal onto the kindling and then blowing on it to ensure it caught properly. Once he was done, and the kindling was actually burning, more of the wood was placed on top. August excused himself after that, leaving the unenviable task of cutting up the [Mitikos] into pieces to Rittan.

He sat down beside the unfinished bow and returned to merging more filaments into the slowly lengthening cord. It used less than he excepted to reach the length of the overly large bow, and he added another two feet, so he had room to tie it off properly.

It felt strong when he tested it in his hands, and the knowledge from the blueprints told him that it wouldn’t break—but he couldn’t help but worry; it was made of super-thin strands of bark. Was it one more tug away from breaking?

August swallowed his fears and pulled the bottom of the bow towards him; the two little notches he made in bow sides of the tip worked to keep the cord in place as he looped it over, and when spent a long moment trying to remember how to do a slipknot. Eventually, he stumbled on the correct method, or at least one that he thought was right, and then pulled it taut against the bow’s wood. August turned it around, placing the other end on his knee and then attempted to do the same thing. He managed to tie it off, but it was a loose mess.

Great Bow Blueprint Unlocked

The knowledge came with the actual method required to tie off the string. He sighed before untangling it once more. He pressed his foot into the middle of the bow and pushed it away from himself, bending the whole thing and wrapping it as tightly around the tip as he could manage. He dragged the last three inches through the notch right at the top and then knotted it up so it wouldn’t slip through again.

August sat back and looked at the finished product.

The grip was too thin, the string was too thick, the knot he’d used could barely be called such a thing—the blueprint also came with the knowledge that he’d never be able to fire it; he just didn’t have the required strength to draw it back. Even holding the damn thing up would become taxing after a minute or so—thankfully, he hadn’t made it for himself.