The skull had a series of grooves running across its surface, each of them starting near the middle and ending where the bone curved away at the side of its head. It looked like something had hit it and deflected off to the sides. August followed one of the lines of damage down to the creature’s massive spine and found what had killed it—the spine was severed just below its neck, not nearly as durable as the skull.

“It is a lot larger than I expected,” Rittan said quietly.

“You think this is big,” August murmured. “You should see the massive one that was grazing near the edge of the bamboo.”

August scanned the surrounding trees—and found a bunch of them with holes in the trunk, practically a mirror for the ones he’d seen everywhere else in the forest. The angle of the holes pointed towards down the Otrogon’s corpse, if a great deal higher than where it currently rested.

“It’s been here long enough to completely decompose,” Kalter said, kneeling down beside it. “The question is, why did it come down to the forest at all?”

“Perhaps it was attempting to flee,” Haiko said, voice tight. “Coming down here might have been a way to avoid something like the creature we witnessed this morning.”

“Running from one predator only to stumble into another,” August said, “It was an Efkini—look at the tree there.”

The three of them followed his gaze to the tree.

“The spikes must have deflected off the skull—too durable for it to do more than scratch the surface,” Kalter frowned, inspecting the damage. “It eventually hit the spine—probably paralysed it.”

August searched the dead leaves, wondering if he would find something like the [Efkini Core], but there was nothing to be found. Either it didn’t have one, or it was removed at some point after the monster’s death.

“The teeth seem unusually gaian,” Rittan said, leaning down near its mouth.

“It’s disturbing seeing them on a monster,” Haiko agreed quietly. “It—doesn’t have eye sockets.”

August had wondered if the creature’s eyes had been covered by fur back when he’d first seen one, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Efkini are the same,” August frowned, “I’m not sure how either of them navigates.”

As grotesque as the half-buried bones were, there was probably some use to them—he’d seen them tear the whole bamboo out of the ground, crush it into fibres without a hint of struggle. The teeth must have been pretty durable to survive that kind of routine wear and tear. He might be able to make better tools or weapons out of them.

“We shouldn’t remain here for much longer,” Kalter said, standing back up.

If they could find a way to file down the teeth a bit, they could make an axe head that would stand up to a lot more damage than the pieces of flint they were currently using—if that didn’t work out, a bone hammer seemed like an easy thing to manage. The skull was probably the most important part—having something that could stand up to a chain-spike could be the difference between surviving or becoming a pile of bones on the forest floor.

“I’m going to collect the bones first,” August said, leaning forward. “I’ll be quick.”

August reached out and began stashing each of the bones, the monster vanishing piecemeal as he touched them. He touched the skull last, and it vanished, leaving each of the teeth to fall to the ground beneath it with a series of dull thuds. He collected all of them before picking up the final tooth. It was far heavier than something that should have been made of bone—he vanished it like the others.

“Ready to go?” Rittan asked, holding out a hand.

“Ready,” August agreed.

August took the offer, and the Voithos pulled him to his feet. He followed behind the three of them, with Kalter once more leading the way back to camp. They were close enough that a pane of blue was visible through the trees, the sun sparkling across its surface. August stepped out of the treeline with a quiet breath of relief—the Lakeside Hovel came into view, a hundred meters left of their position, their return angle being off enough to cause some issue.

“A successful expedition,” Rittan said as they reached the camp. “I’m glad nothing too exciting happened.”

“The bones of a giant creature grinning at us through the trees is excitement enough for me,” Haiko admitted. “I think I could do without that in the future.”

“Yes, well,” Rittan said, scratching his cheek. “It wasn’t entirely uneventful, I suppose.”

“We got what we went for,” Kalter said, folding her arms in front of her. “Can’t ask for much more than that.”

“Thanks for coming with me—and for doing most of the work,” August said, stopping beside the [A-Frame Hut]. “I’ll start unloading everything.”

“It was a team effort,” Rittan spoke, ducking his head slightly. “August, I realise that we are currently working—but I find myself curious about the summoning timer.”

Kalter clicked her tongue and looked away from the group—drawing a glance from the two other Voithos. August wasn’t sure what that meant, so he kept his gaze on his hands as he continued to unload what they’d collected into a relatively neat pile.

“There is a timer involved in this process?” Haiko spoke when Kalter did not elaborate on her reaction.

August had been waiting for one of them to bring it up. The sun was high in the sky, and it was definitely past midday by now.

“Yes,” Rittan nodded, “There is a twenty-four-hour period of time before it can be used once more—it is roughly the same time now as it was when we summoned you yesterday.”

“Returning to life is already a difficult thing to come to terms with,” Haiko said, tapping a finger to her chin. “To learn that it’s something that can be repeated daily—it almost colours it mundane.”

Maybe it did, but looking at it from a numbers perspective revealed something else; once every twenty-four hours was a hard limit. When you considered how many Voithos there supposedly were, it would take several lifetimes to manage it at the current rate. Then again, maybe there was a mechanism for improving the skill somewhere—like all of the other skills, it did have a proficiency bar attached to it, and he’d yet to figure out what that did.