The morning dew slowly began to disappear as the sun rose, it was time for the two of them to wake up and to get back into training. However, when Shami arose from her sleep, she went on to tell Tanatswa about her change of plans. For the past few days since they had been cohabiting together, the meat they ate only came from Shami and it was now time for Tanatswa to earn his keep. She had remembered that he had not hunted before and wanted to put him in situations in which she could derive humour from his incompetence. A man playing with a girl’s heart was unforgivable, but she meant purely no foul play in her intentions.

Shami at first showed him how to craft hand held spears and then wooden made snares. The process was quite meticulous and relied on the use of some strong twine made from the vines. After making the contraptions, they would have to dig up holes and fill them up to the brim with leaves or grass. Shami mostly placed these holes near where she would likely see animals passing and began to mark the trees with weird gibberish that Tanatswa was supposed to remember.

In the event of him dicking around and then suddenly falling into a pit, he would likely get caught in one of their traps so it was essential for him know where all the booby traps were placed. After the traps were placed, Shami dragged and stretched out the twine and made it act as a warning signal that would vibrate to show signs that something had been caught in the trap. Tanatswa looked the more impressed at Shami’s wealth of knowledge and simply obliged to her commands. After all the setting up was done, Shami had Tanatswa knock down a tree and they began to make pikes and stakes and nailed these logs together with sharpened thin rocks that resembled poorly made nails. After that was done, they carried the contraption all the way to the forest close to the Ethereal Woods.

Tanatswa was concerned about them encountering the wolves or worse, the dark figure, but Shami assured him that it would be a quick job. When they got there, Shami hinted on areas they should start digging and like the last time, they dag and then placed the trap of death inside and began to quickly fill up the hole with only leaves. It was as if the ground was firm and no impression of it being hollow could be detected. Tanatswa even joked, “It’s like we are setting up land mines.” Shami however didn’t indulge him and this made Tanatswa feel like he was talking to himself. Shami then told him about the other stop they were going to have to make. They traversed the plains until they reached a herd of unicorns and other herbivorous creatures, Shami then told him, “Tonight’s meal is on you buddy, so get to work.” Tanatswa was handed the flint stone spear and Shami sat on a rock and urged him to kill at least one of the moving targets. Tanatswa asked her for at least a demonstration of how it’s done, but she scoffed at him and said, “Are you a man who needs a girl to show you how to do things or are you a pussy who needs my help?” she said, coldly as if to instigate him. Tanatswa didn’t understand her reasoning, but she surely struck him at his pride, which he wished to keep. So Tanatswa began to crouch and move into the 2 feet tall grass which he tried to leverage to conceal his presence. Most of the herbivorous animals were level 1 with some exceptions being level 2 and 3.

The young were mostly concentrated into a circle that was feasting on grass and the sounds of them chewing were loud and at times abrasive to the ear.He slowly closed in and held his spear ready to thrust. Killing chickens was something he eventually got used to in his past life and now it was time for him to strike an animal twice his size. Shami could see his hesitation and would shout out ‘pussy’, loud enough for him to hear but not enough for the sound to scare away the animals. Tanatswa got annoyed by her taunting and then proceeded to finally strike one of the animals. He threw his spear like a bullet being deployed from a rifle and struck the gazelle like animal which had tiger stripes, on the chest. The difference between his throw and any normal person’s hit was that upon impact,the spear literally knocked the animal away several feet away from where it was feeding.

The animals dispersed and made their iconic retreat like what he always witnessed on National Geographic. Some of the animals even began to flee in his direction. Shami began to call out, “Hey what the fuck are you doing sitting in there, get out before they trample you!” Tanatswa listened to her warning and he ran away until he could reach her. The two of them waited for the commotion to die down before retrieving their kill.

As the commotion died down, the two of them began to trot their way towards the carcass and though Shami had initially intended on seeing him fail on his first try, he managed to pull it off, primarily because there was no way he wouldn’t be able to land a killing hit due to his brute strength. Shami even went on to say, “So you nailed it on your first try, fuck, you’re amazing.”

“I honestly jinxed it, but, wow, I guess it’s not as hard as I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting?” she asked.

“Well for me, I was expecting to miss the mark at first and then have to chase it down to pin it to the ground.” he said, looking at her to see her reaction. Shami broke into laughter and told him, “Dude, those things run way too fucken fast, there is no way you’d be able to catch one in a contest of speed. I guess if this hadn’t worked out, I was probably going to see you make an ass out of yourself.” she said with a snarky tone.

“It was just a thought, I wasn’t actually going to go through with it.” he said, peeved by her response.

“Anyways, you better drag this back to base.”

Tanatswa picked up the carcass and carried it by his shoulder. It didn’t feel at all heavy and the weight was akin to having a dead bleeding pillow on your back. As they progressed towards leaving the territory, they began to hear violent thuds, and soon enough they saw one of those wolves. Tanatswa’s eyes met with the carnivore and he began to bolt, out pacing Shami who was left behind trying to keep up. Shami then screamed out, “What they hell are you doing? What happened to running together?”

“You’re too slow, um, I have an idea, give me your hand.” he said, pausing briefly and stretching out his hand. Shami had no idea what he had instore for her but she still gave him her hand. Tanatswa yanked her, raised her up, crouched slightly and placed her by his left shoulder. At first in the attempt of positioning her, he grabbed her ass and then quickly slid down to the thigh area to avoid feeling weird.

He then immediately sprinted and Shami felt rather uncomfortable being carried like that. The wolf was playing catch up but this time, Tanatswa had the speed to keep up the distance. Shami was screaming out of discomfort and also due to having a collision course with all the dust he would leave and flying debris from each stride, she began to vent. She then nudged him hard and told him, “just stop, fucken stop.” Tanatswa paused and asked, “Why now?”

“Because you carrying me like this is, it fucken hurts stupid, geez. Um, I will run on my own, don’t offer to carry me,” she said, panting and thinking of ideas, “let’s run close to the woods, I have a plan.”

“What, what if there are more of them?”

“Don’t worry, from what I have noticed, the wolves don’t like to share so I don’t expect to see any of his buddies there so let’s run there.”

The two of them dashed off to the Ethereal Woods and Tanatswa had to hold Shami’s hand to make her slightly keep up with his pace. Shami was blown away by the difference in athleticism between the two of them and realised that all that training had been paying off for Tanatswa, but his grip on her hand was that of wedging you hand in between to crushing anvils. He still lacked the tact to handle her but at least they were getting to the Ethereal Woods sooner than expected. Upon arrival, Shami told him to use the game meat similar to a red cloth to attract a raging bull. She reminded him of where they had placed their trap and began to wait as the wolf made its way to them.

Tanatswa waited in position as the creature’s heavy thuds drew closer and more powerful. He was still a bit scared considering his traumatic experience with one of them and held out slightly, just so that it could get close and then jumped towards a vine that Shami was dangling on, on top of a branch she was standing on. The beast missed him and landed right into the trap. Upon collision, the pikes pierced through its flesh and the ravenous growls turned into wailing until the dog was dead. As soon as the level 3 wolf was dead, they both went to the ground to examine the dead beast. Shami without hesitation moved in and jumped into the hole where the beast was and began to unmount its flesh from the pikes and stakes.

Tanatswa just looked at her with astonishment until she then called out to him, “Dude, help me! Very soon the rest of the pack might be coming here!” Tanatswa put down the game meat and jumped into hole. They dismantled the wood from its flesh and carried it out. The weight of the dead wolf was that of a heavy sandbag and due their difference in physique, Tanatswa decided to carry the the wolf’s carcass and Shami ended up mounting the game meat on her shoulders. They dashed off towards their base and Tanatswa still out paced her despite carrying a heavy load on his back. They managed to return early and resumed their agreed regimen.

Tanatswa had come to accept that Shami was very resourceful and was a more than welcome ally in their pursuit of leveling up and making their home in Goshem. The dead wolves were skinned and sometimes their meat would be made tonight’s dinner, but for some reason Tanatswa would pass on them and Shami would thus gladly fill her stomach to the point of constipation. On the crafting side of things, they had learned how to make cooking utensils, stored animal fat and vegetable fat as their cooking oil, made ceramics and even did some carpentry.

The leather from the animals was utilised to make clothing, carpets and writing material since they didn’t have paper. Shami even tried to use the leather and other waterproof substances for damp proofing for the bricks and walls. Everything was on the clock and due to Tanatswa being a mute for most of the time they did work, the work flow was efficient and never interrupted by idle discussion.

Their nights were spent mostly recapping the events of the day and even joking about their slip ups and close encounters with death whenever they hunted. Tanatswa began to smile more and even opened up slightly without adding a ting of melancholy in his remarks. Shami stalled her desires for the meantime as they focused on getting things done and modernizing their rather primitive environment. At the end of it all, they finally managed to make everything pay off by reaching level 2.