Fang woke up to a second stiff back and an aching head. The pig's body lay unmoved, its empty eyes staring at nothing. Fang grimaced at the sight.
'I need to be a death mage, this should be second nature to me at some point.'
"Alright, time to make this place more livable," he muttered. He stretched his sore muscles, pushing away the last remnants of exhaustion, and set his mind to work.
The first thing he did was check the cave's entrance. The rain from the night before had pooled at the entrance, making the ground slick. He needed some kind of barrier to keep the water out. Fang gathered thick branches, and using tendrils to bend them into a crude, slanted barrier just inside the entrance to catch and redirect any runoff.
He redirected it into a small hole in the cave, and hoped it will at least limit the flooding from the rain next time.
Once the barrier was done, he gathered stones to make a proper fire pit in the chamber. He arranged the rocks in a circle and filled the gaps with smaller stones to keep the structure solid. When he was satisfied, he reignited the fire using his tendrils to rub some sticks,making sure the flames wouldn't wander around the cave.
Fang stared at the carcass, his mind spinning. The pig was a lot bigger than the rabbit, and the thought of cutting it open made his stomach churn. He wiped sweat from his brow and took a deep breath.
He hadn't butchered anything larger than a rabbit before, and even that had been a clumsy, bloody mess. Now he faced an entire pig, and he couldn't afford to waste any part of it.
"Alright... one step at a time," he muttered.
Fang stood back from the pig's body, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. His stomach twisted with disgust at the rotting corpse, but he steadied himself.
"Alright, you've got this. A sharp stone. Focus," he muttered to himself.
His tendrils recoiled from the pig, and he scanned the cave for something, anything, that could be used to skin the bastard.
He finally found what he was looking for: a jagged stone, half-buried under the remnants of bones.
It wasn't much, but it had a sharp edge. He could work with that.
Carefully, he used his tendrils to lift the stone, wrapping them around it, finding its balance. The jagged edges were ominous, so he had to be careful not to drop it on himself at some point.
He had to keep going.
With the stone in his death tendrils grasp, he positioned it against the pig's hide. The first slice was rough, the stone slipping across the tough skin. Fang sweaty brow was a sign of his frustration and his concentration. It wasn't perfect, but the stone cut through after a few tries, aided by his tendrils.
He began to slice in a slow, precise motion.
The stone scraping against the hide, cutting through layers of hard fat and fur. It was messy work, each stroke drew more mana from him, but the stone worked.
Fang's tendrils cut it with precision, pulling the skin away from the flesh, using the sharp edges of the stone to separate the two. The pig's skin peeled off in chunks, exposing more of the raw, bloody muscle beneath.
As the skin came off, Fang's thoughts turned to how he could use it. He needed something to carry water, he couldn't rely on getting safely to the stream every time, it's just too stupid.
He looked at the large piece of skin he had freed. calculating how he could repurpose it into something useful, he figured it must be useful for something.
"Can't just let this go to waste. A bag, a pouch, something I can carry... water..." He trailed off, his mind working.
He rolled the skin up and held it up to examine it. It was sturdy enough to hold liquids, and the thick layer of fat might help seal it. His tendrils wrapped around the skin and started shaping it, turning it into a rough cone shape.
Using a smaller piece of bone he found near the cave's entrance, he began punching holes in the skin, one by one.
"Now, how to tie it?"
He went outside looking for small spaling or vines, something he can tie a knot with into the holes.
'I can sew it properly once I have the right materials.'
As he went back into the cave, he stopped and saw the vines of the moss that was growing above the cave's entrance.
He fetched the jagged stone with his tendrils, and cut of some of it.
"Asu said elves have an inmate connection to nature, this should be that connection working on it's own.
Ah, the privilege of being an elf".
Fang smiled like he won the lottery, but in truth he just got a material to make water containers.
His tendrils carefully threaded together the skin with thin vines, stitching it together into a crude, watertight pouch. It wasn't perfect, but it would hold.
He stopped to admire his handiwork. The canteen wasn't beautiful. In fact, it looked like something that could fall apart with the slightest mistake. But it was gonna do it's job. It was the first real thing Fang had made with his own hands, and he felt a sense of pride looking at that simple crude water container he made.
"The joy of craftsmanship, ah. Well, time for a test!"
Once the canteen was ready, he rushed to the stream to test it. It didn't leak. Not much, at least.
With a relieved sigh, he filled it with water, carefully sipping from it as the rain continued to pour down. The water tasted better than anything he had in days. It wasn't just the physical satisfaction of drinking—it was the taste of survival.
As he returned to the cave, the fire flickered dimly, the smell of cooked mushrooms still lingering in the air.
He set down the canteen beside the fire, looking at the pig's remains. His stomach growled, but he was more focused on the fact that he had managed to create something from nothing.
A cave, a fire, food, water—he'd come a long way.
Simple life indeed.
That night, as the rain tapped the earth above, Fang rested against the cave wall, his exhaustion collapsing his body.
He had made it. Just another day.
But this wasn't just about surviving anymore. It was about something else:
"I'm not just getting by anymore," he whispered into the darkness, the faint glow of the fire burning in his eyes.
"I'm learning how to live here."
Fang closed his eyes, the sounds of the forest outside mixed with the sound of his own steady breathing. He wasn't just another victim of the gods' whims. He was beginning to carve his own path. And that... that was something.
Little did he know that he was being watched.