Quest for iron

-Day 7 on the mystery island-

Aoi started to prepare. She would make a lot of progress today.

She had decided to make an iron sword next. Her problem was that she didn't find any iron in the shipwrecks she had salvaged.

So she thought of the other ways to get iron. It took her a bit to go through them, but she decided which would work best for her.

Aoi really didn't want to dig a mine. Luckily there were other places where she would be able to find iron.

She just had to search until she found one.

Aoi took the equipment she had built and started going into a direction she hadn't explored before.

Unlike last time, Aoi was a lot more cautious and aware of her surroundings. She could still vividly remember when the tiger had attacked her.

She didn't want to get surprised again.

Aoi slowly continued walking through the forest. She was also being mindful of her steps, trying to not make any noise. Rather than only getting better at detecting enemies, she also wanted to make it harder for them to detect her.

As Aoi was sneaking behind a particularly large tree, she got a feeling again.

There was something inside of the tree. Aoi wasted no time in investigating. It only took her a few minutes to find a hole in the trees bark a few meters over her.

Climbing through the entrance Aoi began to observe her new surroundings.

From her high vantage point Aoi could see everything. The inside of the tree didn't look too weird. Except with how big it was it looked more like a cave.

There were only two things out of place.

A big pile of black sand was in a corner of the tree.

There also was a tiger in the middle. It was the same one that attacked her before. Aoi could tell, even if it looked like any other tiger.

It was this tiger that Aoi had felt from outside.

At least it didn't notice her yet.

That meant Aoi could do a surprise attack. While she didn't want to just go around killing things, the tiger had already attacked her before.

She also wanted the black sand.

With her intention clear, Aoi took out her weapon. She took a few seconds to prepare herself and then jumped down onto the tiger.

It looked like she would hit it, but a second before Aoi arrived, the tiger suddenly jumped to the side causing her attack to hit the ground and break her weapon.

Not a moment later, the tiger prepared to attack her. Now that her weapon broke, she wouldn't be able to defend herself.

But Aoi was prepared.

She had already anticipated the tiger dodging. That was why she initially attacked it with her copper knife.

She still had her sword.

Aoi quickly switched from her crouch to a proper stance.

In her last life she had spent a lot of time training with her sword. Even if her body was ten years old again, she still remembered the techniques she learned.

Aoi took a deep breath and tensed her muscles.

Kamachi-ittōryu iai: setsudan!

(Kamachi-one-sword-style: severance)

She drew her sword with unbelievable speed. The tiger couldn't even react.

Its head was cleanly cut off.

Aoi stood still for a moment with her arm extended, before she let the sword fall down and clutched her arm.

In the last year of her old life she was able to use this technique without any backlash after a lot of training, but her current body just wasn't able to handle the strain it put put on her arm.

After a few minutes, the pain in her arm lessened to manageable level.

Aoi slowly picked up her sword and turned to the dead tiger.

It had attacked and tried to kill her. Even so, she put her hands together and prayed that the tigers soul didn't end up where she had been.

Aoi then turned around and looked to the pile of black sand. While it looked like normal sand, she knew its true nature.

It was iron sand. The one the Japanese use to make tamahagane, a type of steel used to make traditional katanas.

She wondered how it ended up in the tree, but she didn't think too much about it, since it helped her out.

Now she only had to bring everything back to her cave. Aoi could already tell how much work it would.

At least she had the cups she made out of copper. She couldn't imagine how hard it would be to transport the sand without them.

Even then it wouldn't be easy for her. Aoi let out a resigned sigh.

-Day 8 on the mystery island-

It took Aoi the rest of the day. After she was finished, she immediately went to sleep.

At least she felt a lot better after sleeping. If only she didn't suffer from intense muscle pains in her right arm. She really overdid it.

Aoi wouldn't be able to rest yet though. She still had a bit of preparation to do before she could make her sand into ingots.

She got out of her cave and started building a tatara out of clay.

A tatara is a kind of furnace with a tubelike form. It was used by the Japanese to make tamahagane out of iron sand.

While Aoi had initially planned to make an iron sword next, she decided to just make tamahagane steel since she already had most of the things needed to make it.

After finishing her tatara Aoi took the rest of the day to relax a bit. Her arm still hurt from the technique she used while fighting the tiger.

The sword style Aoi herself developed in her last life put a lot of focus into speed. It made sense because Aoi didn't need to actually hurt someone to win a competition. Just a fast hit was enough.

That also meant that her attacks would lack power.

But after using the technique with a sword, Aoi noticed that the strength of her attack was dependent on the sharpness of her weapon.

It was perfect for Aoi who had plans to make the best sword in the world.

But first, she would make her steel.

Author's note:

Thank you for reading.

I'm sorry it took me this long to write a chapter again. It's a bit hard for me to think up what happens in the chapters. Makes me wonder how people are able to write so much in a day.

I decided to up the time for me to write a chapter to four days.

If you find anything wrong please tell me as always.

Until next time.