“Hahh… hahhh…” I let out a tired sigh as I was collapsed near the scattered pile of wolf bodies. The short sword I had previously used was now snapped in half, with its blade embedded in the underbelly of one of the beasts. There were long cuts along my arms, but a panicked looking Lilith was tending to that while sitting next to me.

“Maybe don’t try to show off so much next time?” She asked with a strained smile, looking at the hilt of the broken sword that I still clutched in my hand.

“Right… we’re going to need to get weapons at the next town…”

Her smile turned more wry as she heard my comment. “Well, we could always turn around and go back to that town again…”

“No…” I pleaded, weakly lifting an arm. “We already had to go there three times. If we keep turning around, we’ll never get anywhere!”

Lilith laughed lightly at that comment. “Alright, alright. Fair enough. Since you want me to stay in the back and be the party caster, you can use my daggers until we get to another city.”

“Yay.” I let out a weak voice, waiting for the warm energy flowing through my body to finish healing me. In the back of my mind, I considered whether my blood bonding with a weapon could allow me to cheat and repair it. I mean, it became a blood mist every time I stored it, and came from that same mist when I summoned it. Shouldn’t that mean the two mists can rejoin?

As I decided to test that, I stored my sword hilt back into my armory. However, the blade that had snapped off remained in the stomach of the wolf I had used it to kill. Fuck… there goes that cheat.

Though, this did bring to mind a distinct difference between the two types of storage I was capable of. When I stored something with blood, it took a small amount of health for the initial binding, but I could then call it and re-store it later for free. However, using my magic to store and retrieve items slowly drained my energies.

Also, I had to admit that it would look cool to summon dozens of weapons from a bloody mist. Nodding to myself, I made the determination to store my weapons like that in the future, with tools or other noncombat items being stored through my magic. I mean, I wouldn’t want to eat out of a plate that had been formed from a bloody mist.

Once I was able to stand, we resumed our trek towards Treevale, the uncreative name given to the town at the borders of the Infinite Woods. The sad thing was that it would take nearly a week of walking to get there, but there were still two towns on the way that we could stop at to rest and resupply. The first town was a little over a full day’s walk away, and was the one where I had determined to buy new weapons.

It wouldn’t take us long to get there, the only real problem was the journey itself. At night, we had to camp along the path where there were less monsters, taking turns on watch while the other rested. Even then, we were barely able to get any sleep. That night, we were attacked three times by wolves, each time having to kill them all or fight them back until they retreated.

By the time we began walking the next day, the both of us were nearly ready to collapse on our feet. If not for the fact that our destination was so close, we might have decided to just rest along the road again.

Thankfully, we were eventually able to make it to the town in one piece. More luckily, we were able to bring with us one of the larger corpses of the wolves that had attacked us in the night. This was a test to see if I could carry a corpse within my storage, as the explanation had been rather vague. At the very least, it didn’t seem to mind it after I picked the wolf’s body up, though it was too big for me to put it in with mana.

Once in the town, we made our way to the local leatherworker first. This town looked almost identical to the one we had been in before, except that it’s layout was slightly different. It did not take us long to find the right shop, entering it to find a toned woman with short black hair. From what I could tell, she appeared to be human, though that did not mean she wasn’t hiding a tail or something, knowing this place.

“What can I do for you?” She asked, placing her hands on her hips as she examined the two of us. Our clothes did not show any signs of battle, since I had repaired them after the fight, with Lilith taking care of the cleaning.

“I want to drop off a wolf body, and was hoping you’d help us turn it into armor.” I admitted. While I might be able to make the armor myself, and could likely do so better than most, I did not have the tools to properly tan the hide and prepare it. It’d be easier to just pay someone else to do this.

“One of the wolves, eh?” She nodded her head as if that wasn’t too uncommon. They were pretty much the most common monster on this floor, unless something wandered in from somewhere else. “Alright, come on back here, and you can take it out.” She motioned back towards a room behind the shop itself. “Guessing you have a storage spell or something, since you are obviously not carrying a giant wolf with you.”

I nodded my head at that, agreeing as I walked with her. She’s accepting that kind of spell pretty easily, considering how shocked Lilith was when she saw it. Or was that just because she knew the actual details of my storage? Either way, the area she led us to was wide enough that I was able to take out the wolf corpse from my storage.

She seemed a bit surprised when the bloody mist formed, solidifying itself as the wolf that we had slain. “Well… to each their own, I guess?” She mumbled, shaking her head. “Anyways, this thing is definitely big enough for a full set of armor. Though, if you don’t feel like waiting, you can just choose one of the armors I’ve already completed from these things, and we can call it an even trade.”

Part of me felt like we were getting ripped off, but another part of me wanted to test something out. So, I ended up nodding my head. “Alright. Mind showing us which ones are available?” I asked, before I felt something within my head seeming to snap.

Item Dire Wolf Corpse has been traded away. Blood binding automatically revoked.

Okay, good to know. I had been tempted to see if I’d be able to make the trade, and then recall the wolf through the blood pact. It doesn’t seem like that is an option now, however.

The leatherworker nodded, leading us back to the front of the store, before motioning towards the left wall, which had an assortment of leather armors. One thing of note was that almost all of the helmets resembled a wolf’s head. “Anything from that wall is made from these wolves. Take your pick. You can choose a chest armor, leggings, boots, bracers, and a helmet. Oh, and don’t bother trying to run off with them before I get back, I had someone put a tracking spell on all my goods, and it won’t come off unless I personally do it.” She said with a smirk, before heading back to the wolf, likely to inspect it.

I wasn’t worried about the quality of the corpse being an issue. We had chosen to bring it in the first place because it was the cleanest kill we had, a single knife through the eye killing it. Looking at the armors, I began appraising each one. If she was going to try to get the best of us in this deal, well I’d make sure that I got the best that I could get too.

With a small grin, I picked up the only +3 piece of armor in the selection. It was a chest piece with the special option of slight damage reduction, but it was still the best there was. As for the other pieces, I managed to grab a +2 of everything.

When the shopkeeper came back, she didn’t seem surprised by my choice, as much as she was when she looked at the displays and saw that the pieces were all taken from different sets. “Gotta make things difficult, huh?” She asked with a sigh, shaking her head. “Alright, bring them over.”

I brought the armor pieces that I had chosen to her, and set them on the counter. After she placed her hands on them, she cleared her throat. In a loud and clear voice, she spoke. “Thank you for your business.”

When her voice faded, there was a faint light that flashed from the armor, likely a sign that the magic was removed. “Alright, you can take them.” She said with a shrug, as if the armor no longer mattered to her. No doubt, she could make far more than whatever this would have cost by selling the extra materials from the wolf.

Nodding my head, Lilith and I left the store, looking around for the blacksmith next. This time, we had a clear objective… which was to buy a LOT of weapons. As many as we reasonably could. Which, as it turned out, was not that many.

When we left the second store, I had two giant axes strapped to my back, a greatsword, a longsword, a rapier, and a bow with twenty arrows. I needed backups, okay? Besides, some enemies require a special type of weapon to deal with them.

Anyways, we decided on staying in an inn for the night, so that I’d be able to store all of those weapons with a blood pact. I didn’t want to try to do it all out in front of everyone, and there was no way in hell that we wanted me to be weary from blood loss outside of town. That would just be offering up a free meal to the wolves…

Lilith seemed concerned when she saw me bind each arrow separately, rather than all at once. “Doesn’t that just make it harder on you..?” She asked, concern in her tone.

I briefly nodded my head, agreeing with her. I had saved the arrows for last, and was already starting to feel a bit woozy. “It does… But I need to do it like this, since I have the chance.”

“...Uhm… Why?”

I sighed slightly at the question, pausing to explain. “Bow and arrow… two objects. I can only control two at a time with my power. I’d rather just control the arrow itself if that was the case, or hold the bow and fire arrows while using swords to attack from a distance. If I bind them all at once… they’ll come out all at once. And if I bind them with blood… it won’t cost me any mana to summon them in a fight.”

“Ah… I think I get it.” She nodded her head slightly, seeming to understand. “Can you even use your power to make an arrow fly fast enough without a bow?”

“I… was going to test that tomorrow?” I said, looking away slightly. Honestly, I didn’t know the answer to that myself, and had been planning to test it as soon as I could. More importantly, I wanted to test if I’d be able to recover the arrows.

I heard a small laugh from Lilith as I said that, before she looked around the room with a smile. “Well, at least we can properly sleep this time…” She said as she made her way over to the bed, the exhaustion from the trip seeming to catch up with her when she fell on it, letting out a happy groan.

Right… one bed. “I’ll… uhm… sleep on the floor.” I chuckled dryly, still remembering my first ‘interaction’ with Lilith when we were still in the prison. Part of me still felt it was worth it, though.

Likely recalling the same thing, I saw her cheeks darken for a moment before she buried her head in the pillow, her horns just barely sticking out. Shaking my head, I went back to finishing up the last of the arrows.

When I was done, I found one of the blankets had been taken off the bed, as well as one of the pillows, laid out next to it. Lilith was already asleep, her tail coiled around her thigh as she faced away from me, only a thin blanket covering her. I couldn’t help but smile slightly as I saw that.