Chương 7: Chapter 6: A Practical Sort of Girl

When first light happened, when dawn finally bloomed over the horizon, pain flooded my body like the tide coming in, and when it subsided... I was surprised that my health hadn't actually gone down at all! It had hurt enough that it felt like it should have, but I was probably healing faster than I was hurting myself. That, or it didn't actually do health damage to me to change shape. Certainly sucked though, and it drained mana and stamina - about 50 of each.

I had no idea how long it took, but by the time I was staggering to my feet again in a post-change hangover that felt familiar, I felt exhausted.

"World... that was... horrific." Gelidia commented, and I grunted at her as I panted against a tree, waiting for the world to stop spinning around me. I had to agree wholeheartedly, tingles running through me from head to toe. Everything just... ached, like I'd had a bad dose of the flu.

"Is it like that every night?" she asked, and I only found I could respond after a couple moments gathering myself, swallowing to get spittle flowing in my dry mouth again. I could taste copper and my throat felt raw - I might have... screamed a little as I became a woman again. That transformation sucked, and I could only figure the next one would suck pretty bad too.

"Yeah..." I said "... I think so." my voice sounded as raw as it felt. God, I was thirsty! Movement helped. My body steamed and ached like a sore muscle, and getting the world moving under my feet made things a lot easier. The pain subsided, and the simple act of staggering back towards the town was enough to bring my perceptions back into alignment. And as I did, I reviewed my notifications. Dawn has broken, and the curse is lifted... for now.

The menu for that one depicted a foggy farm with a giant sleepy bat in the barn and it was CUTE! I smiled at that image, and looked at my next notification. The 24-hour Grace period is expended. Normal needs resumed. You must now eat, drink, and rest in order to survive. Well, that explained my pangs of hunger and the thirst that burdened my senses. The town wasn't far, nor its cool and pure fountain.

Again, the menu had a cute motif - a farmer girl holding a basket with a giant pumpkin as a field of wheat swayed in the background.

"Oh gosh... the skeletons aren't active during the day, right?" I asked, and Gelidia shook hher head.

"No. The undead cannot be in the sunlight." she said, walking alongside me in broad daylight, the sun shining in my eyes. Somehow, I could see her clearly, even as my eyes blearied nearly shut.

"So... how are you..." I began"Oh - I'm haunting you, remember? I'm a shade - I'm riding your life force as a curse. You don't... feel weak at all, do you?" she asked, apparently concerned. I shook my head. By now, as cobbles met my bare feet, I was starting to feel a lot better. Tired, but better.

"No... no I'm okay." She seemed relieved! I had no idea - I might have been feeling better, but between the hunger, thirst, and fatigue I felt, I didn't feel I was fit to be human. Making my way to the fountain seemed to take way, way too long and when I at last saw the bronze sheepies, I broke into a ragged jog and threw myself into the fountain. Only after doing it did I realize how crazy a decision that was!

This water was ICE COLD, and while it was refreshing, after the change my body was tense all over and sore! It was like jumping in a snow drift! If steam had rushed off of me like a quenched blade, I wouldn't have been surprised! If I was tired before, I certainly wasn't once the ice cold water closed over my head.

Bursting from the surface with a gasp, I pushed my mane of blonde hair out of my eyes and sputtered as I got out and sat on the edge of the fountain for a moment, catching my breath as dawnlight, warm and comforting, washed over my form. For the first time since arriving here, I looked myself over. My hands were... my hands. They were familiar at least, but they looked... harder, heavier than they'd been. I was healthier than I had been on earth, that was for certain, and I felt like it. My body was... well, tight.

It was the only word I could think of. I didn't have a six pack or anything, not that I could tell, but I could feel muscle underneath and there was very, very little excess on my frame. I felt like I'd gotten the best workout ever, and my body... well, it sort-of reflected that, I felt. I felt... tight. From my nose to my little pink toes, I felt... pretty good.

"Emily... put on some clothes." Gelidia said sternly.

"You are naked as the day you were born and you're just... staring at yourself." Gelidia said, and I sighed. After drinking my fill, it was the work of moments to go back to the inn where I'd dropped my satchel. The clothes I'd worn yesterday were in shreds of course, but I saved the scraps of cloth. They'd be useful for... something, anyhow. Bindings for more tools maybe? Bandages? Did I need bandages?

I didn't think so, but I stuffed them into the satchel after retrieving a second set of the giant clothing I'd found in that bedroom, again needing to tie them up a bit to hem them in enough to be usable.

"So I found these clothes" I said, as I tied the skirt up so it wouldn't trail around behind me and trip me up.

"They're huge!" I said, and Gelidia seemed to sense the question in the comment.

"Giantkin. I think the owner of those was a giantkin." she explained.

"They're very tall - and get taller the older they get. The oldest one I ever saw was over twenty feet tall, and he was ancient, he could barely walk. They seem to get stonier as they get older too, until they eventually freeze up entirely. Keep growing, too, for a little while after that." she went on. I blinked at that, and nodded. This person had to be like, over eight feet tall.

"She was probably pretty old." I observed. So why the hell had her clothes torn up when I changed? Because of my knots? I remembered how much those knots had hurt after changing shape - they'd dug into my body. Tonight, I was stripping down before transforming! Just then, a thought occurred to me! I hadn't gotten a notification about my Lycanthropic Transformation skill! This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

[MONSTER] Lycanthropic Transformation Rank F: 50% I'd made progress at least - pretty serious progress, too! I figured each time I leveled that skill it'd get easier to change. God... I hoped so. If every night was like that, I'd definitely want that to get easier on me. Jeepers creepers. Pangs of hunger dragged me back into focus again, and I was still thirsty. First things first then.

I scooped up my knife and spear and fashioned a kind of holder for them out of some of the scraps cloth I'd gotten from my first transformation, and made my way back to the deer I'd killed last night. During what had qualified as the apocalypse, I'd had to do what I could to survive. Some of that came back to be now in this new world - when you had what you had, you had to use it. I was hungry and here was a lot of meat, and fat, and hide, and here was me with a sharp knife!

I was just about to start cutting when Gelidia got between me and the carcass of the deer, right in my face.

"Hold on, that knife is made of poisonstone." she said, holding up her hands.

"You're carving the deer for meat, right?" she asked. I blinked at her dumbly, and nodded.

"Uhhh..." I looked at the knife, then at the deer, then at her. What was she getting at?

"... Yeah?" I asked.

"Poisonstone is poisonous." she said. When this didn't seem to sink in and I just stared at her, she SIGHED.

"As in it'll taint the meat!" Oh. Ohhhhh. I looked at my knapped poisonstone knife, and sighed in a bit of disappointment. Aw dangit.

"... didn't even think about that." I admitted, and put the knife away again into its holster. What else could I use? A thought occurred to me. I had... a skill, didn't I? Primal Savagery or something? It'd been a while since I had looked at my character sheet. High time.

Name: Emily Smith Race: Human, Lycanthrope Class: Peasant [LIFE, MONSTER] Status: Healthy, Hungry Skill Slots: 1/0 Skills: [LIFE] Peasant level 0 Peasant skill points: 0 Skills: [LIFE] Insight: Rank E 12% [CRAFTING, PRIMITIVE] Knapping: Rank E 0% -- [MONSTER] Lycanthrope level 2 Lycanthrope skill points: 1 Skills: [MONSTER, SYNERGY] Bestial Vigor: Rank C 0% [MONSTER] Lycanthropic Transformation: Rank F 50% [MONSTER, COMBAT, SYNERGY] Bestial Might: Rank E 20% Okay.

Bestial Might didn't exactly give me anything that might help here, unless I counted the physical strength needed to hew hide from meat, so that was a no-go. I'd... just have to knap a better weapon, that's all. The creature was dead, and it was getting corpsier by the minute, I knew. The longer I took, the more tainted the meat would get and the less usable. I had to be pretty quick about this. But wait - the roofs of the buildings in town had ceramic roof tiles! That could totally hold an edge!

It was the work of minutes to find one that was suitable - it was weighty, and felt good in my fingers.

"What... are you doing?" Gelidia asked, confused, as I hunkered down with some fabric draped over my thigh and a human thighbone in my hand. The ceramic tile made a bonk noise as I struck it just so.

"Making a knife." I said, and the ghost, brow furrowed, squatted down beside me to just watch me do it. With quiet purpose, I worked the tile carefully, bit by bit chipping away flakes and brushing them aside until I had an edge. With a bit of the bone I'd carved for the purpose earlier yesterday, I gave the edge a serration, and a tang so I could fashion a handle to it. A bit of stick was easy enough to find, and some fabric wrapped around it made the whole thing a cohesive tool.

I held the object up for inspection, and grinned. A poor ceramic knife, sharp, made by Emily Smith It'd do fine. And it wouldn't poison my meat. I almost started working on the creature... then looked myself over. Get my new clothes, the only backup set I had, filthy with blood and gore? Like hell! I stripped again, to Gelidia's confusion, and set to work on the deer carcass at last. The task wasn't... clean, but I was methodical about dressing it.

I put the deer on a bit of slope, head uphill, bracing it with sticks. Then... I got to work. The guts had to go first, from windpipe to bum, and the task was... shockingly easy. Way, way easier than it had been when I'd been human. Connective tissue and flesh stood no chance against my hand and knife! I tossed the things I pulled from the creature that I wasn't going to use into the woods, and got back to my task. I checked my Bestial Might skill. [MONSTER, COMBAT] Bestial Might: Rank E 40% So it had helped!

There was a lot of meat, a lot of hide, and some fat too. There was a good deal of bone, and sinew - lots and lots of good, usable stuff. Gelidia had stopped watching me after I'd started though, her spectral face was scrunched up in disgust, and I was soaked in blood. The smell was bad, but it was... well, an honest smell. I brought the meat and hide I'd carved into the inn, and into the stone kitchen that was more or less intact... with its stove and the cookware! The pots and pans were a little rusty, but...

well, they'd do! I took a big iron skillet from the rack on the wall, and wandered out of town.

"You are naked again, and... and covered in gore! What are you going to do with that pot? Where are you going?" Gelidia asked, thoroughly exasperated at this point.

"I'm covered in blood, I'm going to the river to clean up, and I'm gonna cook the meat!" I explained cheerfully as the road moved under me. I'd seen the river first from the great-tree outside town. I'd never been there before, but I figured I could find it. If I got lost, I'd just climb the tree again. No problem!

"I'm not getting my only clothing bloody and stinky and dirty." I explained.

"You are entirely too comfortable with... with indecency!" the ghost snapped. I widened my eyes at her and spread my arms.

"Who's here to see but you? I don't have anything you've never seen before! Besides, I'm naked as a werewolf anyhow." and set off, the skillet resting on my shoulder. Gelidia UGH'd and rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up in the air.

"That's-! You're-! I-! UGH! You are a savage brute, Emily Smith!" Gelidia cried in pure frustration! I giggled at that, and shook my head, disagreeing, but not sure how to express it. I wasn't a savage... I was a practical sort of girl. On the other hand, Ewwww, the blood was even in my hair! Oh yeah, definitely bath time. I felt sticky all over, and the scent was downright disgusting as it caked me head to toe. Other things caked me too, as I walked, sticking to the blood on my hands, my chest, my legs.

I must have looked a sight - a naked woman covered in drying, sticky blood, carrying a frying pan! I was a practical sort of person though, after the war started. Survival was the main thing - living to see tomorrow. Compared to the wasteland, this was heaven so far! At least when I found the river, it didn't have... things floating in it. Just a man who looked up at my approach from across the bank.