A few hours later, at my “little lab,” Hadra was wincing as she watched me burn… something.

  I tried to sew a little bit while Hadra took off the dress, but honestly, my heart wasn’t in it. Especially when Hadra could spend the same amount of time building a masterpiece.

  My heart had always been with my lab. I certainly wasn’t going to become a famous actor in this world, so I’d turned to the next best thing I could think of. Recreating the things from my life. I wanted this world to thrive, and I didn’t really see any better way to do that than to invent things.

  The system providing names for my successful inventions was definitely a plus, and the somewhat consistent points to my crafting skills were an indicator that I was moving in the right direction. As long as I had ideas from Earth, I had things to attempt.

  Plumbing was still witchcraft as best I could tell, but the concept of a water tower providing water pressure wasn’t too hard to wrap my head around. I would have a hot shower again someday. I swore it.

  “Your mother is going to kill you, you know,” Hadra said.

  “Ehhh she’ll forgive me after my story. I’ve got a great one for tonight. Been saving it for a rainy day.”

  “It’s sunny!”

  “It won’t feel that way if Mom’s mad,” I countered easily.

  Hadra took a moment to think about that and then nodded. Then she sighed and flopped down on the grass. She was now wearing regular clothes and was less concerned about getting them dirty than even I was. After all, she could just make a new one if she needed it.

  “Why can’t my mom be like yours?” she asked, suddenly.

  “How do you mean?” I asked, pulling away from my attempt at building

  “You know. Accepting? Proud? I got an elite talent! Would it kill her to show just a little bit of excitement about that? Instead she’s all doom and gloom about it. “Don’t let anyone take advantage of you Ilhadira!” “Some girls get all the luck. Make sure you don’t squander it, Haddy!” “Don’t…!” Ugh! She didn’t even compliment the dress! I don’t think she even liked it! Just got this stupid pig-snout look on her face like she was worried or confused!”

  “For every story of a peasant rising to noble status on the strength of their talent, there’s another one of a greedy king locking them away to use them. I think she’s just worried for you.” I said, not wanting to be the cause of more strife.

  If I’d been a normal seventeen-year-old girl born in Tacuria with no memories of another life, I might’ve said what I really thought. I’d suspected Uraleka was jealous of her daughter for a long time. The needle and thread, the loom, the spinning wheel? They all came so naturally to Hadra. Her mother felt upstaged.

  I wasn’t going to tell Hadra that though. It might lead her to do something stupid like stifle her own progress in order to appease her mother’s ego. Hadra was exactly the type of person to do that.

  Skills and attributes weren’t visible to other people by default. It was something usually done between husband and wife, but even then, not always. People always had reasons to hide exactly what they could do. I certainly wasn’t proud of the forty-seven points I had in bluffing, for example.

  When trying to get a job as an actor, I got pretty good at lying. At least, that was where I hoped the skill came from. It hadn’t even atrophied like most of the ones from Earth had. It was a part of storytelling as well, but I didn’t know how comfortable I’d be explaining that. I certainly didn’t feel like I bluffed on a regular basis, but the system didn’t lie.

  Sharing your status was a show of vulnerability and trust that should be sacred, at least according to my mom, which I was incredibly thankful for. She’d never even attempted to pressure me into sharing my own status. I had no idea how I would explain all of my skills to her. Worst case scenario, she might think I was a witch or something.

  Hadra, on the other hand, had shared her status with her mother a few years ago at the woman’s encouragement. That was fine while Hadra was young, and they were close. It seemed that seeing her daughter’s skill rise so rapidly to meet and even eclipse her own had brought out ugly parts of the woman. Hadra had shared with me in confidence that her own skill in almost all things weaving had surpassed her mother’s almost a full year ago. Her talent had only made things worse.

  Then again, it was possible I was misreading the situation entirely. Perhaps Hadra had just reached the age where the need for her own space was causing friction. Hell, I didn’t know. I’d always gotten along great with my Mom in both lives. It probably helped that I had my own room while Hadra and her mom still had to share like I used to.

  I turned my attention back to my current project while Hadra continued to rant. Everybody needed a good rant every now and then.

  I had already disobeyed by coming out to the lab in the first place, but I was decidedly not working on concrete. Instead, I was trying to make a glass jar. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I could not get a fire hot enough to melt sand.

  I held out my hand, and it glowed with a soft red light. My mana began to trickle downward. Slowly. Far too slowly.

  A clay pot, made into a vase held the sand, while hardpacked dirt would make the hollowed-out center.

  I had no idea how glass was made other than to heat sand. It was probably melted and then poured into a molding of some sort, but getting temperatures hot enough even to melt sand was the real difficulty, at least with the tools I had available. Even magic, simple as it was, didn’t seem to be capable of it. Probably because I only had access to “Household Magic.” The bigger stuff was taught in schools to the rich, but everyone had access to at least a little bit of undirected mana for creating heat, starting fires, or cleaning things.

  Hadra could use hers to work multiple needles at once. I dreaded even attempting that. Her skill in weaving was over 100 though, and sometimes it was hard to tell where the Household Magic skill ended and the high stats in the actual skill you were using began.

  My glassmaking skill was currently non-existent. The clay vase was sitting atop a grate with a fire burning beneath it. I was hoping that the fire combined with my household magic ability to light a flame, might just be able to get it hot enough to melt the sand inside.

  Glass jars would be the talk of the town if we could start making them here. They were common enough in the cities, but they were made with a higher grade of magic than any peasant could perform.

  “You’re gonna smell like smoke.”

  “We’re going to the bar. Everyone smells like pig dung and sweat and hops. The smoke will be a breath of fresh air!”

  She sighed and shook her head.

  “That story better be really good.”

  I beamed. “It is!”

  “I’m looking forward to it. What are you even trying to make, anyway? You’ve been at this for weeks, with the clay pots and the sand and the dirt. What do you expect to happen?”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “I told you, I’m trying to make glass.”

  “Oh. Right. I forgot. You’re insane. Everyone knows that only wizards and pyromancers can make that! And what makes you so sure that sand of all things, is involved in it?”

  “That’s what they want you to think,” I insisted. “I propose that I can do it if I can just get a hot enough flame.”

  “Which you can’t do without a pyromancer,” she insisted.

  “It can be done. Maybe if I do the whole experiment in a furnace? With a bellows? Can I make bellows that heats up the inside of a furnace? Hrrm…” I said, puzzled.

  “Your little experiments get weirder every year.”

  I grinned at her. “Oh? Well then I’ll have my foot pedal for your spinning wheel back then, shall I?”

  “No!” The girl shouted in horror. “I–I mean… by all means continue experimenting, oh creepy hedge witch!”

  “Mom’s been rubbing off on you,” I said.

  “Good! She’s a saint, your mom. I don’t know how I’d have made it through these last few years without her. I just wish I had somewhere else to go. You’re lucky you know. You’ve already got a path lined up, what with Reid and all.”

  I scowled. “Well, your prospects will be opening up very quickly I imagine, after the city sees what you can make.”

  She grinned and elbowed me. “Yours will too after tomorrow. I’m sure if it. If I was able to get an Elite, you’ll be Masterful at bare minimum. You know I’d never have been nearly so good without you and your stories. The hat was from–!”

  “Maid Marian?” I interrupted.

  “Yes! You knew?”

  I nodded. “It did look pretty darn close to the veil she wears.”

  She sighed. “You and that imagination of yours. I’ll never understand how you see all these characters in your mind like this.”

  I grinned. If only she knew that I was thinking of a fox girl from a cartoon. I sighed, wondering if I’d even be able to explain a cartoon. Hmm. Maybe. If I only had paper, I could make one of those flip cartoons where each picture was slightly different until I created a whole scene?

  I sighed again. The idea of making paper thin enough to produce something like that felt a million miles away. Just like everything I wanted to make. I’d been a girl living in America. I didn’t have a clue how paper was made other than that it came from trees. If you wanted paper… you went to Walmart or an office supply store and you bought it.

  Fucking worthless education.

  Yet again, the nobility had paper, if in smaller amounts than I’d been used to in my previous life. Yet again, if I wanted to achieve my dreams, I had to get out of here. Had to become noble myself, perhaps.

  I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high, but I was running into more and more walls with my experiments because I just couldn’t get the resources to make the things I remembered.

  Using a pair of metal tongs, I pulled the vase off the flame and dunked it in a trough of water. Steam billowed out of the sides. For a moment, I felt like a real blacksmith, and I suspected events like this were how I got my sixteen points in that skill in the first place. Another dunk in a second trough cooled the vase enough to touch it with my bare hands.

  Excitedly, I turned it over on a small bench and wriggled it until the contents fell out… and spilled all over, leaving the clumped dirt surrounded by sand, looking hardly any different from when it went under the flame.

  How fucking hot did sand have to get to become glass anyway? Good god I missed google.

  “I wish I could show you,” I said finally, after I managed to get over the dissappointment. “The things I see. They’re pretty amazing, Hadra.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to be content with your stories until the–!”

  A sudden growl pierced the air. Low and menacing. Both of us froze, eyes immediately turning to the woods.

  It didn’t sound like a bear or a wolf. Honestly, it didn’t sound like any creature I’d ever heard before. The woods weren’t exactly close. Lumberjacks in the town had been steadily deforesting the area since before I’d been born, but this was a medieval world. The woods were vast and untamed. As kids we’d been warned against going in, and that warning still held true now. Wolves and bears were what we’d been taught to fear but, this was neither of those.

  A huge lumbering shape was walking out of the shaded woods. Terror gripped me as I saw the thing. We’d never seen one but we’d all heard the stories of the monsters on the front lines. We’d all had family members who’d chosen to join the war effort, killing monsters in the far south to protect the whole country. Hell, I had an uncle who left when I was around five. We still got letters from him every now and then.

  This had to be one of those monsters.

  I observed it, focusing on the skill harder than I ever had in my entire life.

  War Troll

  Level 43

  Effects: Hungry. Thirsty. Tired.

  A war troll. How in the fuck had a war troll gotten here!?

  Before I had any more time to think, the troll began to charge.

  Hadra screamed, and I did, too, as we both turned to run. Unwilling to be completely defenseless if the thing should catch up to us, I grabbed an iron poker that I usually used to stoke the fires for my experiments and then dashed to catch up.

  “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!?” Hadra chanted as she ran through the well-trodden path back towards the village.

  I chanced a glance back and found, to my horror, that the hulking beast was closing the gap. Pale skin with a hint of green to it, framed a huge mouth with teeth that would’ve looked more at home on a shark. It was covered in dirt and mud and wore some sort of furry jerkin that barely covered is muscled chest. It would be on us in seconds! We wouldn’t be able to get away! Or… at least one of us wouldn’t.

  I pulled to a stop and brandished the iron poker.

  Hadra, noticing, also stalled. “What are you doing, Mera!?”

  “Get to town! Get help!” I shouted but didn’t have time to ask for anything else as the Troll was suddenly right there in front of me. Its huge legs should’ve made it slow, but instead, it moved like lightning as it grasped for me.

  I should be thankful that it was hungry and tired, but the way it tried to grab me, mouth wide, made me sure of what its goal was. It wanted to fucking eat me!

  I dodged its first attempt, and it barrelled on passed me, tumbling onto the ground with a small explosion of twigs and leaves. I took the chance to slam the poker into its head but screamed as vibrations traveled up my arm.

  The troll didn’t even seem dazed as it worked to get back to its feet. I couldn’t hurt this thing. I’d hit it as hard as I could with an iron pole, but it hadn’t even felt it! But… maybe…!?

  Taking the chance, I dashed back towards my lab. A while ago, I’d been working on something… something…

  The troll got back to its feet woozily, lumbering after me like a drunken cat, if a cat were the size of a hippo. It really was tired, but that certainly wouldn’t help a twig like me kill it.

  “It was here! No!? Fuck where was it!” I screamed in frustration as I searched through discarded experiments, swearing that I would develop a better organizational system if I survived this.

  Luckily, the dumb troll tripped on a fucking tree stump and fell again, giving me the few seconds I needed to find what I was looking for.

  Pepper spray. Or at least as close to it as I could get. Pepper paste was a better name for it, and there were certainly no aerosol cans for me to use to apply the stuff. But it might just work to distract the troll long enough for me to get away.

  I’d left it in a clay pot, intending to discard it sometime soon, but I’d never quite gotten around to it. Now, I was thankful I hadn’t.

  Reaching into the pot, I grabbed out a scoop of the gunk, my eyes burning from even being near the disgusting concoction. Better a little smelly than dead though.

  Turning, I found the troll already back on its feet, lunging towards me. I let it grab me. Its fingers were as big as my arms and wrapped around my waist entirely. The grip was tighter than a vice and crushed the air right out of my lungs.

  It opened its mouth to reveal sharp teeth that could probably tear off a limb. Horrified, I made my move, liberally slathering the disgusting concoction all over the troll’s eyes and nose.

  It bellowed, growling with inhuman rage as it flung me away. My shoulder slammed into another tree stump, sending some of my experiments tumbling everywhere. I choked, the breath knocked out of me twice in as many moments. It was so fucking strong!

  Still, adrenaline kept me going, even as I gasped for breath. My shoulder hurt but it was okay. My ribs felt cracked but probably weren’t broken. I made my way back to my feet as quickly as I could.

  Snorting and gasping, the troll was rolling around on the ground, coughing and wheezing like it was about to die.

  For all its whining, I was pretty sure I got the worst of it. I tried to run, but only managed a short jog, following after Hadra.

  Thankfully, the Troll didn’t follow as it bellowed, and in moments I spotted Fedenat, Korlotom, and Reid, running toward me like their lives depended on it.