My muse hits like a shovel to the face~

So here, an update on an off day~


"Just hold on thirty seconds more,"

"Make it ten or I am going to die when this falls on me,"

"Don't worry I am here to catch it if you buckle,"

Martina's neck was split in a hundred fluttering little muscles as her veins and nerves surfaced from the strain placed on her, it was like looking at a cloth stretched thin on a bundle of tense wires. She had managed to hold completely still for a full four minutes and half with the trunk of a tree weighing her shoulders down, just by using Tekkai. It was a good start and Nicolas was proud of her, if a little chagrined by her nonstop cussing. Smart and knowledgeable as she was there was not a stain of manners in his sister.

"Just ten more seconds,"

"I will break in five. Fuck's sake,"

"There,"

Lifting the wood of her shoulders she remained in a horse stand for a second before her legs folded under her and left her seating the Japanese way.

"I will take tomorrow as my rest day,"

"There are no rest days for us, we are leaving in a month. Remember?"

"At least we aren't going on a diet,"

"Even if I told you there was one you wouldn't care,"

"Its good you understand. Saves me the time of telling you to fuck off,"

He sighed and scratched his shaved-stubble hair, it was getting to that point where he would need to find a razor to get it back to just skin. He hated his hair, hated it to the root, hated how thick it was and how it always stood on end, how it always made him look like he was wearing a bright, yellow helmet when he let it grow.

Had tried to let it get long, like his sister's that ended up looking like the mane of a lion, but never had had the patience to wait for it. And he wondered where he would be able to buy one, and if he would be able to get one with a grip of ivory or some other expensive nothing.

"Sleeping beauty, what you thinking about?"

"Just that I forgot to buy some things and that we don't have enough for what I want,"

"What would you want? A bigger fridge?"

There was no reason to answer that, he was too spent to keep reacting to her fat jokes. How would she know if he was fat when she was half his size, his crumbs were bigger than her lunch. It was all a matter of perspective.

"Do you think you are ready for some hunting?"

"What?"

He asked, taken by surprise by the sudden question.

"Hunting. Think you can handle another trek to the mountain after today?"

"Why would we go there when it's almost night? Do you want a tiger to get you this time?"

"Well, we need the money. And we aren't going to level just by training,"

"You don't know that. We know nothing about the system, we can't even call our character sheets or anything. And we can hunt in the morning, when we can see,"

"We can see right now, and I was looking for animals ever since you started making me dodge and hold my position. If I didn't know you better I would even say you enjoyed trying to slap me,"

"Focus on what's important, how far is it? I am not going to camp in the wild if I can help it,"

"I don't want to sleep on animal shit either, it's over there,"

She got up and pointed at pointed somewhere behind them, and he didn't know if she was pointing at the file of trees some steps away or at the middle of that bastard of a mountain that almost tickled the clouds with its peak. One he wasn't going to climb, not for all the ivory razors in the world.

When he let his paranoia be known, she snorted, ugly and crass as only she could make a sound and told him that it was a way past the trees and that she had no chance of reaching even the foot of the mountain with her level in Observation. Last thing he needed to know to make a choice was what would she have them chase, because if there was a chance that they would meet a pack of somethings they weren't going.

"Don't know. But its small and shouldn't be much a problem, and we aren't going to kill it so you don't complain,"

"Then why are we going?"

"An experiment and a surprise, so you in?"

He nodded, unwillingly, he just couldn't let the idiot go alone. Simply couldn't because he knew that he would dig a pit in his stomach worrying and thinking of what could be, better to be there and be of help than to eat with guilt sitting in his gut. It would also do to get something to hold over her head later on. To keep her in line, just in case she got cocky.

It was hot. Hot and humid and full of bugs in the bushes where Martina, him, and the stupid cat were squatting behind. All three of them were silent as graves, even the animal had somehow felt that it was not the time to try to bite him and kept still, his fingers tight on the branch he had picked up and felt as the uneven bark dug into his palm. But he also felt the life in the forest, the twittering birds sweeping down from time to time, the bugs biting them and then everything else near them, and the boar was sniffing a tree and digging up its roots. That was their prey, that was what he had to capture, not kill but capture. A task worth a hero that was, to put down that hunched lump of muscles with tusks that punched their way through its snout and branched out like a deer's antlers. He had half a mind to pick both his companions and use them as bait in case it saw them, but the other half kept itself cold and told him the monster was the weaker one here.

When that cold piece of him told him that it was close enough, he sprung forward, a Soru brought him right in front of it before it could raise its head and without even getting to look at him he brought his club down on its thick head. The now black branch split the skin of its forehead and almost sunk its skull before he pulled back, already lifting his weapon and readying for another swing in case the first one hadn't been enough. The hog stirred and tried to use one of its legs to haul itself up but a blow to the side of the head had it frothing at the mouth and squealing bloody murder, and he was almost sure that had taken the life from it if it weren't for the slow rise and fall of its chest.

He reckoned there was something there, about the capture, there was an art in clubbing someone just this way from oblivion. Letting them comfortably fall into coma.

Martina came out from the shrub quickly and with knife in hand while her little minion followed closely while licking its jowls.

"Come on, let's be quick. Grab its legs in case it wakes up,"

"Why in hell would I do that?"

"I have a theory, can you grab it while I explain?"

Bunching up its legs he held on to them tight, like it was the rope his life hung by as she started putting a cut in its hind leg that went from its rump to the first joint. He could see its chest fall and rise with more haste and strange sounds started to escape, as if it was having a nightmare and he juggled with the idea of giving it another whack for good measure.

"Well. I was thinking about how easily you got your [Chef] class. You did nothing fancy like cook for a connoisseur, so I got the idea that if I heal someone I just might get the [Doctor] class that is due to me,"

"And why do you have to hurt it before healing it? Why didn't you try someone from Usato?"

"Who in their right mind would trust me to heal their loved ones? And who has the time to wait for someone to get injured, better to cut and sew and get the class and work from there,"

"Why couldn't you go for patching my bruises or something else,"

"Because I might end up with the [Nurse] class, and I will pierce my nipples before getting labelled as a fucking [Nurse] after all I studied,"

He looked at her slightly taken aback by the sheer need of being recognized by this system, that ambition that drove her to this, there were many ways he could think of to get the class. To take her time and build up from there instead of charging forward like mad, and he shook his head as he thought of the more likely result of all this.

"You are going to get either [Veterinarian] or [Sadist] for this. I am sure of it,"

"If I get [Veterinarian] it will be easier to diagnose a cow like you and Puma,"

"Puma? You named the damn thing already,"

"Its staying with us, and his name is Puma Loco. Just so you know,"

"Why didn't you call him White Pantera for that,"

"Cause he ain't white. You colour blind fool,"

She marked the end of her sentence with a strong pull of the metal wire that turned the boar's hide into an ugly wrinkle the size of his arm, she had gone overboard with that cut, but she only gave it a satisfied nod and slapped the wound like a job well done before getting up. And the hog chose that precise moment to stir awake, it eye fluttering open in a moment that made him freeze in fright. Without thinking and before it started to fight him he stood up, legs still twined between his fingers, and lifted the beast off the ground before lobbing it away from them. It squealed madly and flailed in the air before locking eyes with him, as if saying, what hath I done to thee, before disappearing between the hazy shapes of the trees and sounding further and further away.

"Think there was a crevice there,"

The screams were cut off by the sick sound of stone meeting flesh.

"You think?"

"Almost certain. Why don't you jump just to be sure,"

He gave her a hollow laugh and stalked off into the gloom, he had worked hard to keep it alive and then he had gone and thrown it over a crag. This would need a hefty meal to forget, tiger cooked in beer with mushrooms was the only way to get him to smile again. Why, he could already feel the sides of his mouth lifting at the thought, in the end good food was his only remedy.

Later, fed like kings and rested, they sat outside the house. Him rolling the butt of his cigarette between his fingers and her nursing a bottle and the cat, a Caracal she called it, in her breast. There was a nice breeze that gifted them a nice cold, it came from their right and it crept a hundred knolls to reach them from the sea where it was born. Where they would go in but a month, and that idea filled him with worry, the sea was something foreign. A great big nothing, that unlike the desert, had even more nothing below where something could come up, it was terrifying and still it filled his chest with excitement. He could not wait for the day to come but still feared with all his being, first they didn't know where to get a ship and he reasoned they would start by stealing one, which didn't sit well by him, then they would need to learn to sail it before finally setting a course.

His eyelids started to grow heavy as his full stomach and tired muscles drove his head to a halt, there wasn't even enough time to worry so why bother wasting the night like that, best to sleep and rest and let everything be as it should.

Congratulations [Warrior] Class levelled up.

[Warrior] level 2.

No new Skills it would seem, but that was fine too he wasn't going to worry now.


Script: JUST CAN'T HANDLE THIS VANILLA (Me)

Edit: LET ME MIX THAT CREAM (Me)

Proofread: I WILL CHURN YOUR BUTTER (Still Me)