With that, the party turned hard east instead of west, having meandered south of the longhouse so far, presumably to avoid the larger density of mantis straight west of the compound, but in retrospect, to better allow for this change of heading.

  They next encountered a few groups of tuskful boars, which they went around. However, as the midday heat gave way to early evening, six boars ambushed them, their elf scout barely giving them a few moments' notice before the creatures descended on them from a large thicket to the side.

  The orcs formed a tight perimeter near the ruins of a spiraling building as Brillhit jumped between translucent tree trunks, loosening arrows and avoiding projectile bone-tusks being thrown at him. Axl quickly threw two of his [Venombite Fang] at the nearest charging hogs, each filled with the decalcifying poison.

  One dagger hit its target right in the eye, eliciting a pained squeal as the creature buckled in pain. The second stabbed into one of the tusks covering its face, and Axl dove to the side as it charged at him. He unsheathed [Webcutter] and scored a glancing blow on the creature's hind leg, its cry evidence that the hit did real damage.

  Two more charged at him from the front, and Axl pushed his Agility to its limit, using every scrap of the Attribute to cleanly jump over one of the boars. Above the creature, he stabbed down with his sword, piercing through its body and out the other side as he also fully flexed his Strength Attribute. With his equivalently high and active Perception, he was able to cut right into the creature's heart, and he felt the influx of Karmic Energy before he even landed on the ground.

  Before him were the pair of boars that were pelting the elven archer, secure that their comrades would take care of the rest. Axl charged forward and stabbed one of the boars deeply on the side. This strike also neatly passed between the ribs and tore into the creature's heart, and with a low grunt, it buckled once and died.

  Axl threw another dagger at the remaining boar, hitting deep into its neck flesh, the fullness of the poison injected. Axl turned back, wanting to assist the Orcs, but he quickly realized he didn't need to. They had already killed one of the boars and had a second well engaged and injured. The one with the [Venombite Fang] in its eye was flailing, trying to get it out, and their charge was broken, the creatures now scattered as their attack lost all momentum.

  The wind elf's arrows added to the fight, expertly targeting limb joints and eyes, and in a panic, the remaining injured boars tried to escape. The spear-wielding orc managed to strike deeply into one, having it crash to the ground helpless, the others managing to run off.

  One still had one of Axl’s daggers in its eye, but the talisman wrapped on its hilt activated, pushing the blade out as the creature squealed in pain, but it kept running, the throwing knife now on the ground.

  This was an essential measure he'd come up with together with Moxlin, so that he wouldn't easily lose his [Venombite Fang]s. One measure was using Moxlin's silk, which would let Axl retract the daggers after throwing, but for other uses, Axl could use a dagger without the silk, since it could break as the target struggled. That's where that talisman came in, pushing out the blade from the wound a few seconds after landing, or if all the poison was delivered. This would exacerbate the injury and make it easier to collect the weapons after battle. Not an ideal solution, but he was happy with how it worked out in this fight.

  The quad of orcs cheered at their victory as Axl checked on Moxlin in the small, hard-shelled backpack they commissioned for him to carry her around.

  "You alright in there?"

  "Yeah, it was a bit bumpy for a while, but no problem." She left her enclosure for her usual spot on his shoulder. This was another practice they developed, for Moxlin to escape into the small armored compartment on his back if they were surprised by an attack. After all, it wouldn’t be feasible to always find a nearby place to hide, especially with the necessary time to prepare a hidden defensive perimeter with all her arrays and talismans.

  They proceeded to harvest what they could out of the boars, mostly their lungs and liver, which had uses for advanced woodworking when making arrows. Axl took the time to inspect the result of his poison on the creatures, and found that the one hit in the eye had tusks as brittle as chalk, but the one that was hit on one of the tusks simply had that specific tusk be less stable than the others.

  Using poison on these early F-Grade creatures was likely overkill, since he could easily just dance around them and kill them with a single blow of his sword. It felt beyond satisfying that he was now using his Attributes close to their true extent, and that this was the result. He still didn't quite manage to use all at their very peak at once, and even [Mana Shroud]'s empowerment failed to bridge that gap, but the training with the longhouse was really shining through.

  More importantly, he now knew what to do and how to train, even if bringing in Bilesong and Limerance to his normal attacks was still an unsolved issue. But now, every step forward was a chance to improve, as he kept [Mana Shroud] purely trying to mimic the ambient Mana and detect irregularities in the environment, his body and will straining to get the most out of his Attributes in concerted bursts of attention.

  They continued into the dense forest of half-visible trees, the canopy glimmering above them, lending a mysterious, multicolored air as the sun started to fall behind the mountains in the distance. Often, the ubiquitous little birds would dance in tight formations far above, or sweep across the treeline, or even zip among the trunks. Once, one effortlessly flew between every member of the party, its speed unmatched, even with Axl trying to max out his Agility and Perception to its limit.

  They were about to start searching for a convenient ruin to camp in for the night when Axl felt the pull of a natural treasure against his [Mana Shroud]. He examined it for a moment, at first hesitating, but soon was sure. He stopped the party and went to the side, where a stone with a worn-out elf's face carved onto it had mostly turned into a root.

  He lifted the heavy tree root slightly and pulled out an acorn almost as large as his fist. Its nature-affinity glow was almost burning against [Mana Shroud], now that it was out of the earth. It was dense and heavy, invoking the feeling of knotted roots tightly packed against each other.

  "What a find!" The orc leader exclaimed. "Barely a day from camp and you find a new spawn in this picked-over area?"

  The orc brothers gazed at the natural treasure in awed wonder, Alifren staring at Axl himself with beaming eyes. Even the stoic elf scout broke his usual detachment and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "I scanned that area and found nothing," Brillhit said. "Impressive."

  "See that, prodigal scion," Moxlin snickered at his ear. "All can't help but marvel at the depths of your cheating!"

  Axl shrugged and kept looking around the area for more of the acorns as the rest of the party formed a perimeter around him, and he eventually uncovered a total of twelve before he lost the Mana trail.

  In a gesture of goodwill, he handed them over to the orc leader to carry, sure that he wouldn't pick this set as his first choice for the mission. Nalpol nodded approvingly as he took the treasures and placed them carefully in a box that disappeared into his storage ring. He was strangely quiet throughout the whole interaction, his previous boisterous loudness missing as they continued.

  Nightfall had fully descended as Axl finished his acorn collection, and they soon settled against a half-collapsed wall forming a lean-to against a massive boulder. It was clearly used by other orc parties before, the roots growing from the side of the boulder neatly trimmed and parts of the wall reinforced to form a triangular area that was almost cozy.

  "You rest this night in full," Nalpol said to Axl as they set out their sleeping gear. "You fought with the ability of three seasoned warriors and found those miracle treasures, so we divide up the watch between us."

  Axl looked at the orc's serious face, surprised by the change in the party leader. Where before his Charisma detected a nervously forced friendliness tinged with fear, he now saw respect. Not knowing what to say, Axl mumbled his thanks and left for the back of the cave.

  Moxlin set up a defense and illusion perimeter for the whole cave mouth, and even if it was only G-Grade, it was still a decent defense. At the very least, it was a reassurance of not sleeping fully exposed to the creatures lurking in the lightly shimmering night.

  Alifren set her sleeping roll next to his, much to Axl's chagrin, but he had no easy way to move away, and there wasn't so much space in the shallow cave anyhow. He lay down, back to her, hoping to just get some sleep, the strain of the last two days without sleeping somewhat getting to him, even with his Attributes.

  "I'm always surprised by how generous you are," she said, her voice low.

  Axl was tempted to ignore her, but was curious what she meant. "I promised only to take one of the sets of natural treasures we find, not sure what the big deal is handing it over to Nalpol."

  "Not that," She chuckled. "You gave Gumul a healing potion after our last battle, free of charge. He wasn't even that injured, and likely would've mostly recovered tonight."

  Axl had, in fact, forgotten about doing that. "It would be unwise to have the party move around injured without need. The next ambush could have been even worse. Also, it's not like he charged me for every shield block in the fight."

  "Brillhit charges us that way. This is an… Unsanctioned quest, after all."

  Axl grunted, somewhat annoyed at the elf's petty greed. He was likely approaching the middle of the F-Grade, and seemed to be doing alright for himself, judging from his gear. Did he really need to be so cheap with a struggling party? But then again, Axl found himself with more orcish Burrils than he knew what to do with, thanks to his potion-making, so maybe without such a crafting side-hustle, it was much harder to eke out a profit in the longhouse economy.

  "I make enough," he responded, not wanting to get into the details. "Anyhow, after the spectacle I left behind at the longhouse, I'm not even sure I should go back, so I don't think I'll have a use for your people's blue coins."

  "Oh?" Axl heard her raise her head. "Are you thinking of… Coming with us?"

  "No, I'll keep looking for better treasures for myself and Moxlin."

  "Oh. Of course. You know, when I was younger, barely in the early levels of the G-Grade, I witnessed a lightning storm myself."

  Axl turned around, wanting to listen to this, and was surprised by how close the archer's face was to him. She smiled and looked aside, as if shy.

  "The rolling fields were rarely cloudy, but that night they were, and the storm was clearly unnatural, perhaps from one of the clan scions challenging the heavens in their progress. While the entire township huddled in fear in their basements, I went to the hilltop, to the highest tree, and watched as the white and yellow bolts tore into the earth. They looked like arrows to me, digging deep into the ground, nothing in the depths or sky safe from its power."

  She chuckled. "How foolish, right? To seek the highest place when a bolting storm is about. I wonder if a part of me wanted to be hit, see if I could survive a tribulation myself. A few weeks later, I formed my Intent, and I'm fairly sure that witnessing that storm helped, somehow. But watching your storm, I… Missed my simpler life before I joined this expedition, my family."

  Axl didn't know what to say, looking at the grey eyes now locked onto his, the single fang poking out of her upper lip. "I don't have anything like that to go back to. I can only go forward."

  Alifren nodded. "I'm sorry, I've heard about Piril. I can't even imagine what that must be like."

  He turned, not wanting to lie to the girl next to him, and just waited as she fell asleep, her breath even and smooth, each exhale a gentle caress against his back. Only then was he able to bring himself to sleep, forcing his body to get some rest.

  -x-

  The drill hit the lunar fulger and bounced off, the tool spinning wildly in his hand. Axl tried stabilizing the machine, but the sparks coming off the ore kept messing with his gear, even his rig in what should be an appropriate distance, getting scorch marks on its chassis. But this was too rich a find, a full solid growth actually sticking out of the ground like a tuft of shrubbery, enough to pay the rent for a solid year.

  "You're very focused on this ore," the annoying voice came from the side.

  "What else would I be doing out here?" he grumbled.

  An elven girl stepped forward, ambling to the far side of the branching patterns of the fulger, her pale skin stark against the black of the lunar sky, her purple hair and eyes eerily bright. "What's so special about this?"

  Axl rolled his eyes. "Step back, you might get hurt."

  Her deep, purple eyes bore into him, wide in surprise. "You're actually worried about me?"

  He grunted and lifted his drill, pushing the tip into the base of the ore, where its skyward branches connect to the foundational earth. The tungsten slid off, then shattered, and he dropped the tool, looking at his ruined hand, torn apart past the inscribed plate. "Slitting goddamned pit."

  The elven girl gasped, and Axl woke up, eyes wide at the inside of the cave. He sat up, still feeling the pain in his hand, even if it was intact. Looking around, he saw the elven archer at the entrance standing guard, the rest sleeping in their respective parts of the cave. Even Moxlin was fast asleep in her backpack against the wall.

  Sitting cross-legged, Axl examined the mental defenses around his soul, and found they were intact. The finding was far from a relief. This meant that whatever caused that unusually vivid dream was subtle enough to bypass his mental defenses altogether. He had no delusions about that being a normal dream, it felt far too concrete and real, even if at first glance it had the usual trappings of a dream. Even now, he felt the details of it slip away, as his mind was being slowly convinced to forget it.

  He roused his Limerence, pushed his mind to remember what the elven girl said, what she looked like. Those purple eyes and slip of a white dress ambling around on the moon’s surface. Gripping the [Filial Deathshroud] tied to his left arm, Axl used it to probe for possible threats nearby, but could only sense his party members.

  Brillhit turned from the cave entrance to stare at him, eyes narrow. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

  Axl released the preamble to a soul attack, alarmed that the elf scout noticed. "Nothing, I thought I sensed a threat nearby, but with a closer look, I don't."

  The elf turned back without another word. Axl saw he gripped his bow more tightly than before.

  Axl lay back on his bedroll and dissolved his 8-sided mental defense, then started to construct a 12-sided fortification with [Mind-Soul Bulwark]. The 8-sided one could be modified with an elongated spike on either end to be used for attack as well as defense, so he had originally planned on using that more, while the 12-sided construct was far more defensive, in addition to being much harder to create.

  Still, feeling a looming threat that could get to him when he slept gave him the impulse to change his plans. He would spend the next day focusing almost entirely on his Limerence, largely through [Filial Deathshroud] and [Mind-Soul Bulwark]. The next time Axl slept, he would be better prepared.