“What. The. Flying. Fuck.”

Kaltyr’s jaw clenched hard as she watched the pile of dirt crumble, returning to the earth.

“Did that thing only appear to press my buttons?”

Such potent anger coursed through the girl that she wondered if she’d ever speak normally because she found herself growling through her teeth again, but not on purpose.

“If you knew there were more antlers, why’d you break that one?!”

Although Kaltyr wasn’t completely aware of why, she had grown slightly attached to the pseudo-sword she obtained from her first major battle. It must have held some kind of significance from either the way she acquired it or the fact that it was the first weapon she’d earned through her own strength. The pocketknife, as useful as it was for both combat and utility, was given to her in a kind of starter kit. Yes, it was precious, but it wasn’t hers. The pocketknife didn’t compared in sentimental value to the weapon she took off her enemy and stabbed to death with. Such brutal savagery was awesome.

Strange thoughts even spawned after Kaltyr procured the antler. “References”, she thought she remembered they were called. For whatever reason, during her walk back to the clearing after meeting the then-water entity, she’d humored the idea of carving a phrase along its handle. Something along the lines of, “You thought you’d be the one to kill me with it, but in the end, it was I who stabbed you to death with it!”. It was strange, and a mouthful, but the idea brought a smile to her face despite not having even the slightest of clues as to what it meant.

“After it all, Sir Quigg…” Kaltyr now found it difficult to use the name she’d given the strange entity, as she’d bestowed it on a whim with jests in mind. Yet, she no longer held any positive emotions toward it. Was the nickname too amiable a term to refer to the entity with?

“Tch. Whatever.” The lass clicked her tongue and shook her head, deciding not to allow the entity to worsen her mood any further. “Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth appeared promising answers and a friendly relationship, but left having only done me wrong. It destroyed my damn sword!”

She looked around the clearing, spotting the segments of antler lying around, forming a line from where Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth first began breaking the pseudo-sword all the way to where Kaltyr currently stood. She noticed that one of the pieces sat beside her foot and bent down to pick it up. She held it to her face and inspected it, wondering if the mysterious entity really only broke it. The girl hoped that it had secretly enhanced the antler pieces in some way while only pretending to make her situation worse, but…

“Nothing.”

Kaltyr found not a single change in the bone. No incomprehensible symbols like those on the stone disk, no magical essence or mana signature…the bone wasn’t even very sharp despite the jagged edges produced from snapping it.

“Tch.”

Again, she clicked her tongue. The impulse to throw the antler piece into the sky and out of sight arose, but she kept her cool. No need to waste any of her belongings.

“In fact, I could still sharpen this enough to make it a last-resort weapon. Guess I’ll be keeping the—”

Kaltyr froze mid-word, recalling something the dirt entity said.

“That…yeah…but…no…”

A fierce internal argument erupted as she rapidly debated with herself over the pros and cons of the idea she thought Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth purposefully implanted in her mind.

“Yeah, no. Not yet, at least.”

She put it off for later, determining that the idea didn’t need to be put to the test yet. Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth might have attempted to steer her in that direction, but there was no saying for sure whether it was the best route. Then, she turned her attention to the deer corpses, which returned a smidge of joy back to Kaltyr.

“Anyway, I didn’t expect to acquire a bunch of skinnable corpses so soon after needing them for experimentation.” A small smile played on the edge of Kaltyr’s lips as she approached the stack of slain foes and pressed her fingers atop the head of her most formidable enemy.

“Antler… No surprise, there.”

The lass sighed as she lifted her hand and wiped it off on her shirt.

“I figured as much. Can’t loot this thing because I already took from its body. That might explain the owl.”

Kaltyr enabled Body Mana Reinforcement and pulled the Life Level 2 buck’s corpse out of the pile of its fallen kin and placed it next to the campfire before amplifying her right arm and fist. With a single superpowered punch at the second antler’s base, her new pseudo-sword fell to the ground.

“Well, it served as a learning experience and I can eat venison, so this is a net positive. That, on the other hand…”

The girl scanned the clearing before locking her eyes on the bloody corpse of the single beast in her clearing that she didn’t kill. The owl, which the red-streaked squirrel from the day before downed surprisingly easily for its meal, was a mess of defiled flesh and gory feathers. Soon after killing the squirrel in a surprise attack Kaltyr attempted to loot the owl for its beautiful feathers, but failed. No word she spoke brought about any change in the owl’s state, and it remained a brutally savaged carcass. Now, by attempting to loot the remaining antler from the Life Level 2 deer’s corpse, Kaltyr figured out why.

“In all likelihood, I can’t loot a corpse after it was already dismembered and butchered…and/or I can’t loot stuff I didn’t kill.”

Then, she considered the matter deeper, wondering why she was able to loot the other corpses she'd damaged pretty badly, and decided that it was a matter of intent. Obviously, one would need to damage an opponent's body in order to kill them, but so long as they didn't harvest anything from the body—like an antler for use as a weapon—then it could be looted.

“That would make the most sense…”

Kaltyr trotted toward the owl corpse before gingerly lifting it with two fingers and grimacing.

“Honestly, the sight of this disgusts me, and since I can't loot it because the squirrel ate its guts, it's better off as bait to attract other beasts.” A smile invaded her face. “Now that I think about it, I should be leaving fish around here to attract more prey!”

She cocked her arm back in preparation to throw the owl corpse, when suddenly, her Magic Sense picked up the movement of magical essence within the clearing, just a few meters behind her.

The second fish Kaltyr had ever cooked—which she left to rot on the ground within the clearing to test whether bugs would gather…which they didn’t, strangely—trembled without any sign of an outside force messing with it, all the while magical essence slowly churned in the air around it. In response, the lass dropped the owl corpse and picked up the antler sword, reinforcing her body and infusing the weapon with mana.

“Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth, are you doing this?” She called out with a tinge of frustration, hoping to see another humanoid figure form from the ground. “I thought you said you wouldn’t be back for a while! Was it a change of heart? Will ya answer my questions?!”

But no amount of shouting into the wind brought about any sign of the mysterious entity’s presence.

“Is it…refining mana?”

Kaltyr’s jaw fell open in shock as she double and triple checked that she was awake, because around the charred fish appeared a miniature whirlpool of magical essence. It moved much slower than the one she formed every time she refined mana, but it was a whirlpool, nonetheless. The magical essence even slowly entered the dead fish, puzzling Kaltyr beyond belief.

Just as the girl raised her antler in preparation of smiting the fish abomination out of existence out of fear of what was to come…the whirlpool fell apart, vanishing in mere seconds.

After a minute of frightened confusion, Kaltyr finally blinked, then checked for the fourth time that she was awake by pinching her cheek.

“What… What in the hell just happened?”

The girl found herself massaging her forehead as her mind raced, overclocking its computations in an attempt at figuring out what she just witnessed.

“I mean, this world is strange… But what happened to that fish?! That can’t be normal!”

Her heart still raced from imagining the implications of the event.

“Are there zombies in this world?! Was that cooked fish about to become a zombie?! If so, WHY?! I cooked it!”

Kaltyr lightly slapped herself.

“Nevermind that. I have a lot to do today, and I frankly don’t care about undead right now. If any appear, I’ll just send ‘em back to Hell…wherever that is?”

The girl approached the fish she’d almost had as a meal two days ago and stared at it for a little while longer before giving it a good kick, sending it outside of her safe zone to splatter against a tree. Then, she turned to look at all the corpses she kept lying around.

“Well, if corpses can become zombies, does that mean that I can kill and farm beasts for XP twice?”

……

The amateur survivalist noted that the sky was a majestic yellow, wondering why she was so tired despite being only halfway through the day.

“That will do…I hope.”

Kaltyr exhaled through her nose in exasperation as she sat down beside her latest project, staring at the flimsy shelter and crossing her fingers in the hope that it wouldn’t collapse. In front of her was a “lean-to”: a simple construction in the shape of a triangular prism where the ceiling was also the only wall, sitting at an acute angle of around forty degrees. While the wall-ceiling’s bottom side was dug into the earth for support, the top side was suspended by lying on a horizontal stick that was, in turn, propped up by two vertical sticks at both ends which were planted nearly a meter into the ground. The wall-ceiling was also just a collection of sticks lined up, with dirt and leaves thrown on top to plug the remaining space between the sticks.

Now, while Kaltyr thought of her building materials as “sticks”, most of them were, in fact, thin branches she cut off of various trees. She’d first attempted to build a lean-to out of actual sticks that she’d picked up off the ground, but that structure had quickly fallen apart. Though, its demise was as much a result due to her not planting the supporting sticks deep enough into the ground. For the second try, she fixed just that: the depth at which the sticks were planted. However, because the sticks were too short and scrawny, they didn’t live up to her expectations, finally resulting in her going around with the pocketknife to dismember a bunch of trees. She’d expected the process to be exceedingly difficult, but with the help of Body Mana Reinforcement and Item Mana Infusion, the job was a piece of cake.

“Whatever that means…”

After collecting thick-enough branches it was only a matter of time until Kaltyr’s lean-to stood and was capable of offering some semblance of protection against the elements.

The girl looked up at the yellow sky, observing how the clouds appeared a good bit thicker than they had in the days prior. If all went poorly, then the heavens would cry, and rain would be upon her.

“Now,” Kaltyr grumbled, “time to build a lean-to for me.”

Although the structure she’d build was suitable enough to protect her against light rains—at least, she hoped—it wasn’t for her, but instead to protect all of her belongings.

She looked at the tall pile of dead deer, then at the scattered corpses of other beasts she’d killed.

“Though it won’t be able to hide all of those beneath its roof…I don’t need the entire corpses.”

Kaltyr smiled brightly as she approached the beast bodies and laid a hand on one of them.

“Pelt.”

……

The sky shifted another color, becoming as green as any plant, while Kaltyr looked on at the fruits of her labor. She stood at one of her clearing, hands on her hips, smiling. On either side of the clearing’s center where she’d dug the firepit stood two lean-tos, one sheltering her “valuables” and the other for herself. Beneath the lean-to she’d designating as her new home sat a few pristine deerskins that would serve as her bedding.

Kaltyr smiled smugly.

The results of her experimentation were almost exactly as she’d predicted. Though she didn’t test the word “fur” for fear of getting only that—as occurred with the cat—“hide”, “fleece”, and “coat” were ineffective. It was the word “skin” that resulted in her acquiring what she wanted from the deer—the entire skins of the beasts in perfect condition that seemingly went through a little bit of tanning treatment, because they were ready for use without any blood or gore attached. Like the scales she’d acquired from the fish. “Pelt” also functioned for the fox, resulting in the birth of what she would use as her pillow.

“But possibly more important than that…”

Kaltyr pridefully patted the unwieldy deerskin bag that hung from her belt.

“And the deerskins were a lot bigger than I expected, so I only had to use one!”

The girl had imagined making purses and backpacks to aid in her adventures, but soon came to the regretful realization that she had no knowledge of how such complicated things functioned. At least, not how she imagined them. Strange memories of shopping in large…”malls” for snakeskin purses clashed with her amnesia, giving her a headache from trying to remember something she apparently wasn’t supposed to know. All that Kaltyr could manage to craft was a simple string bag by folding the outside edges of the deerskin inwards and sewing them together to form the mouth of the bag. She’d also sewn shoulder “straps” into the bag so that it wouldn’t always end up bouncing against her leg and ruining her running stride. When she’d completed the process, a light had suddenly shown from the bag—similarly to how looted corpses did—before the light disappeared to reveal a more refined product. Manic, it seemed, made crafting easier.

And, of course, the material Kaltyr used in her sewing was the metal wire she’d been given an entire spool of in the starter kit.

“I expected it to be difficult to cut, but…”

The metal wire must have been altered by some kind of magic, because as soon as Kaltyr applied the pocketknife’s edge to it where she intended to cut, the metal wire separated without issue. From there it was only a matter of cutting little holes into the deerskin for the wire to pass through.

“I suppose this is one of the reasons The System gifted me a spool of wire…”

Kaltyr noticed the new flashing light among her notifications, causing her smile to widen.

“I was gonna to check them all at the end of the day, but if this one is related to crafting, then it’s a bit too important to put off.”

The girl preferred reading all of her notifications and status changes at once at the end of the day because it forced her to recall the events that would have produced the notifications, acting as a sort of mental exercise. However, some changes were more valuable than others. For example, if the new notification was regarding a crafting skill, then that might change her plans for the day.

You have obtained the skill: Improvisation

Kaltyr blinked.

“So, is it…?”

She gave her territory a once-over, then looked back down at the bag dangling from her waist.

“OOOOOOOH! It IS a crafting skill!”

Kaltyr wasted no time in dancing a jig. As it turned out, her plans for the day had been changed. She was originally going to spend some time washing herself off in the river and clean the stab wounds in her back, but now, that could wait. Twas but a flesh wound, after all. Additionally, having threads of mana flow through the wounds turned out to dampen her pain, making them easier to forget the presence of.

“Since crafting skills are a thing, that’s what I should focus on. I think that’s what Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth was talking about when it referred to bone as a decent base material for tools. Though, I didn’t care earlier when I thought of it because I didn’t think I’d be able to make anything good, but seeing as Manic has some kind of effect that makes crafting easier…” She made her way to the storage lean-to, where she retrieved the antler pieces. “If I can sharpen these…find some kind of…and make a…”

Kaltyr gulped, resurfacing the idea she’d put away not too long ago.

“I’ll be unstoppable!”

She laughed into the sky for second before she choked on her saliva.

“Ugghem… Anyway, time to get to work.”

For the first step in her plan, Kaltyr needed to sharpen a few bones—a much more demanding task than she’d thought possible…at least, without mana. Utilizing only the strength she could gather from her normal human form, sharpening the pieces of antler would have taken forever. No matter how many times she tried, as soon she touched the edge of her pocketknife to the bone at an angle, the blade skidded, either leaving rows of horizontal lines or missing altogether and almost taking her finger. Every time, either she wasn’t properly positioning the knife, her grip on the bone was loose, or the amount of pressure she supplied was too much or too little. It was a very frustrating task.

However, even with mana not all problems went away. Yes, she could cut the bone as though it were just tough clay, but doing so brought its own risks. On one attempt to shave a little too much of the bone at once, the blade almost passed through the entire thing to reach Kaltyr’s hand below it. At that point, the girl’s body nearly froze solid from how cold her nerves became, having nearly taken off half her hand.

Though, after nearly an hour of continuously whittling away at the bones, she got the hang of it.

You have obtained the skill: Whittling

Even acquiring a skill out of it.

Kaltyr was working on the last of the eight antler pieces, carefully adding the finishing touches to its edge, when she was startled by something familiar.

“No… It can’t be!”

A part of the girl had been joking earlier when she spoke of zombies, assuming that Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth was playing a prank to get back at her for being disrespectful. Yet, when she stood up and turned to find that a second fish corpse—this one not cooked—was seemingly undergoing the same magical process the last fish had begun, that smidge of assumptions vanished, replaced by fear and befuddlement.

As Kaltyr watched the whirlpool of magical essence flow around and enter the fish, she did nothing to stop it, too consumed by curiosity and too lustful for XP to move. If the fish really became something akin to a zombie…what kind of loot would it give her? Something magical in nature? Zombies were undead creatures, and the undead were magical, after all… Right? Magical loot was too tempting an offer to pass up!

And like that, the girl merely watched as one of the several fish beneath her storage lean-to absorbed magical essence until it was apparently filled to the brim, unable to intake any more. Burning with questions and keen on getting herself something magical, Kaltyr slowly approached the lean-to until she was within a few meters of it. Of course, she was reinforced with mana, not taking the chance that she’d be surprise attacked.

Then, a spell shot at her from inside the lean-to and exploded upon contact with her chest.