Auntie Mara

Since it would not be until around noon before we went to Lana's aunt's to complete my mission, I made Duck perch on the headboard of my empty bed to sleep while I sat the so far wide awake Cweeper down in the middle of the floor. Sitting a short distance away from her, I reach into my pocket and take out a warrior imp's eight-inch claw and place it between us.

She seemed to understand what this meant immediately as she looked down at her own five-inch claws that grew properly straight instead of curved like talons. Trembling ever so slightly, Cweeper extends one three-fingered hand forward. Instead of directly plucking on of her claws, though, I placed my own thumb nail at her fingertips.

My nails were not even remotely considered long but she had no problem pinching my thumbnail when she finally realized what I intended. Then, with what looked like a simple but abrupt tug, there was an audible sound that made me thinking of wet paper stretching before it tore and a brief spurt of red splattered on Cweeper's face. She merely licked her lips as I rocked up on my knees and clenched my body tight to fight back an ungodly, and very unmanly, scream that became a high pitched groaning noise.

That lasted for almost a minute before I ran out of breath.

[Willpower raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

[Cweeper Affinity: +2%]

After receiving these notifications I was actually surprised enough to clear my mind for a moment, only then remembering that I had First-Aid. After healing myself for the fifteen damage I had taken, gently reach out and take her hand in mine before gripping her own thumbnail. There must have been some part of the process I was missing because I had to pull really hard but the damage was relatively the same.

Unlike me who almost screamed like a little girl the imp merely grunted once when the nail finally tore free. Black blood splashed across my face and felt searing hot to my skin, draining one HP per second until I reflexively licked my lips to cool them. Sadly, it still counted as hurting the poor thing even though I recast First-Aid as soon as the nail came free.

[Cweeper Affinity: -1%]

Instead of losing two percent I probably made one back by healing the injury, so in this way I still gained one percent of affinity for every nail she got to rip out of my hand. However, after I had healed her she started using Soothing Touch on me and forty points were restored even though I had taken less than half of that in damage.

On top of gaining twelve affinity from ten nails compared to her eight claws I also gained a new point in Willpower and Endurance from every wound before healing. It started taking a few seconds longer for the stat points to come in each time but I still got them. By the tenth set of points I was almost willing to have my nails ripped out again.

If my goal had not been to simply obtain some crafting materials and develop my relationship with the familiar I might just have tried to abuse the system. As it was, I simply opened my player inventory to give her some meat to recover mentally from the ordeal with while scrolling through my sapling trees.

Finding a very small stack of D rank hickory trees called Hardened Hickory, I halve the stack for the sake of my familiar before taking out a suit of goblin armor for her to replace her ragged and bald hides with. When I remembered the game would probably not censor the creature after exposing her swollen and pregnant belly, I quickly looked away as the imp manually put on the armor.

Once they were suited up and their PDEF had gone down by half and then up by forty-two to an even fifty with resistances, I set to work whittling down then special hickory. Like with the blood from our bonding ritual, I did not worry about the mess I was leaving in the room. However, working the wood required sharpening my dagger with my slate stone.

A few times.

[Successfully Crafted: Hardened Bokuto]

[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Hardened Bokuto]

[+30XP]

[+30 Primitive Crafting XP]

When I finally had a two-foot shortsword made of Hardened Hickory I ended up with a Hardened Bokuto that struck for twelve damage with a special knockback affect called Rebound that forced back an opponent one centimeter per Strength. For Cweeper, this was only a little more than a foot, but staggering an opponent was perfect for a mage forced into melee. Once she popped out her babies, though, things would get much easier for me.

After the basic Bokuto was done, I put the second stage of my first crafting title to work by editing the weapon. Instead of placing her claws along the wooden edge of the sword I lightly hammered her claws down along the spine to make a second edge entirely. Then I carved thin notches along the wooden edge before boring holes in the nails to run tendons through.

[Successfully Crafted: Hardened Dusk Savagery]

[Saved Quick Crafting Recipe: Hardened Dusk Savagery]

[+50XP]

[+50 Primitive Crafting XP]

[Primitive Crafting Leveled]

[+12XP]

Before I even sharpened the claw side of the now double-edged weapon the damage had gone up to eighteen and after sharpening with the slate stone it rose to twenty. The same as the Elder Bokuto that Ferithar had made. It took me almost two hours and him two minutes.

Why did I still suddenly feel as if I had been royally ripped the fuck off?

I simply shrugged these feelings aside before I ended up writing an angry letter and set to work making a second sword with the three claws from her other hand. This time I used Quick Crafting to get the entire job done in less than an hour even without stopping to sharpen my dagger. With her weapons done, I also Quick Crafted a simple armored belt from goblin skin that came out to eight defense for me and a pair of goblin scabbards for her weapons.

She could not quite wear the belt with her bulging belly right now, but then again she could not exactly train with weapons either.

Since it was getting pretty close to noon I decided to wake Lana, gently shaking her shoulder and calling her name. Her response was to roll over and sleep-flail in my direction. I simply let her arm fall on my head and then shoulder before lightly picking up her head and then simply dropping it back on the pillow.

The sensation of falling shocked her awake in an instant, leading the poor girl to sit completely upright while staring straight ahead with a gasp. Sadly, straight ahead of her was a dusk imp priestess in a full suit of goblin armor. The next thing after that gasp to come out of Lana's mouth was an incredibly shrill and loud shriek that could have busted glass as easily as my eardrums.

I ACTUALLY LOST ONE HP!

After stepping into view from the side, I hurriedly shushed and soothed the poor girl and even ended up hugging her shoulders and softly rubbing her head like a disturbed animal. Somehow, though, it actually helped to calm her down and she kind of just sat there lying on me for a little while. As the position we were in dawned on me, I quickly asked, "Do you feel better, now?"

"A lot, actually," she replies a little awkwardly, slowly sitting upright as she got the hint. "When did you get a dusk imp? Which kind if it?"

"SHE is a dusk imp priestess, with darkness, life, and void affinities that let her do a lot of cool things like healing and curses," I reply happily. "My friends and I joined another group to raid a dusk imp nest last night, the other group wants me to make magic resistant armor from imp and goblin skins. Oh, I'm also the first classless to learn Beast Mastery so I can have more than a pair of pets. There's a nightwing on my bed, by the way," I point out, pointing off toward the headboard of my bed.

When Lana looked over at my bed she immediately stiffened at the sight of the nightwing that was currently sleeping on the bed. Then she just slowly lay back with her head on my shoulder and asks, "What time is it?"

"About noon," I reply with a few light head pats.

"Can we go?" She asks quickly.

"Yes, we can," I reply happily, sitting her up before getting up myself.

Because the owl seemed content to spend its time asleep for now I left it behind but had decided ti bring the imp along because the dog automatically followed. I still left a small pile of cooked meat on the bed for Duck to eat when she wakes up and then left the building following Lana. I had no idea where to go so I could only hope that she did.

Lana led the way through Sierra at something of a quick pace, cutting through the commercial districts where we were to get to the upper end residential area. The buildings here were an assortment of small and large properties with various kinds of homes sitting on them with either gardens or wood and stone and metal art displays and even side buildings for servants and guests. I for the first time wondered who her aunt even was.

After over an hour of walking through different city streets, though, we finally found ourselves standing in front of a large old property surrounded by a tall metal fence. The on the property was a small Victorian manor that, like everything else, looked like it had not been touched in a while. The house was covered in several layers of old and new vines with and without flowers, the yard was tall with both grasses and weeds where they still grew while sixty-percent of the place had become patchy and barren ground.

There was an area in the front with a broken granite fountain and a small garden area surrounding but the area's bushes and tresses were overgrown with every other plant but the ones meant to be growing. Every shutter on every window in view was closed and the front gates were locked. I could not imagine that anyone still lived in this place.

Frowning a little, Lana says, "She still had a butler and maid the last time I was here. She probably finally forced them out or beat them with her money until they left. She was like that for a while, just kept pushing everyone away and telling us kids she'd be gone soon so we needed to behave and love our parents or we wouldn't get anything."

"I can't argue with the message but bribing kids with inheritance probably isn't the best way to go about it," I mumble while testing the gate's lock. I had barely even touched it when the large padlock's bar just popped out of place and fell to the ground. "Oh, come on, it can't have been that long."

"She probably won't be able to hear me, but here goes," Lana mumbles while pushing the gate open passed me to walk into the property. "Auntie Mara!" She calls out suddenly with the same volume that had deafened the inn earlier. "Auntie Mara, are you home!"

I could only follow along behind the dog who followed Lana into the yard and up to the house where she began loudly banging on the door. Then she checked the door to find that it opened with no problem before yelling, "Auntie Mara! We're coming in! Auntie Mara!"

The finally came reply a few moments later in the form of a long and high pitched whine-like noise like a slowly creaking door before an aged and whispery voice that carried easily through the still house asks, "Lana Delai, is that you? Is your mother here, sweetie? I have been meaning to write to see her soon but I have not been able to do much these days."

"Auntie Mara..." Lana starts off hesitantly with a voice that cracks on the last syllable, making her stop talking and just focus on breathing for a moment before starting into the house. "Auntie Mara, where are you? There's something we need to talk about so I'm coming up! I have a friend with me, he's very trustworthy. He's the person who saved my life!"

From somewhere across the foyer and up the stairs in the right side or wing of the manor was where the voice was coming from, this Auntie Mara says, "I'm In Janar's room in the north wing, sweetie. Saved your life? Whatever happened?"

Lana suddenly picked up the pace as tears pricked at her eyes, hurrying to the stairs across the foyer with the dog hot on her heels. All I could do was follow along with Cweeper close behind me running awkwardly in here boot-like moccasins. After making our way down two turning hallways and up a second set of stairs, Lana soon stopped at a large open wooden door where a very small and very old lady was sitting in a wooden wheelchair.

Dropping into a kneel in front of this really old lady, Lana throws her arms around her and starts crying. She did not openly bawl the way she had with me but she did not bother trying to hide her emotions in front of this lady. For her part, Auntie Mara simply sat there and rubbed her head and back with her tiny, wrinkly hands while giving me an appraising look.

Since it did not seem like Lana would be able to talk soon, I merely bowed my head low and leaned a little at the waist before saying, "I'm sorry for taking so long to introduce myself, My name is Life Hack but my people call me Hack so feel free to call me Hack. I… well, I met your niece a few days ago on the road outside of Olton… she was trapped under a flipped wagon by the roadside, the horses to the wagon were dead when I came up and already rotting and there was a small group of goblins camping by the wagon. There were no wagon drivers in sight."

Auntie Mara seemed to know what I was slowly getting at as Lana tried to muffle herself with a mouthful of her dress, content to let me tell the story while she tried to handle her distress. Finally I said, "After dealing with the goblins and their hobgoblin leader, I heard noises under the wagon and when I lifted it my dog pulled your niece out. Her parents… there were no signs left, they were eaten before they ever started on the horses. From the looks of the accident and area itself, though, I am led to believe it all happened in only a couple of minutes."

Nodding her head slowly, Auntie Mara says, "I see… as I am the closest next of kin, you brought her here for your reward. I'm sorry, young man, but it will take me a few minutes to get enough money to repay you for this."

"Money?" I ask in confusion, looking toward Lana who was finally starting to settle after everything had been said and she had confronted herself with it. Somewhat. "If you wish to reward me then just take good care of Lana, she's a very sweet, smart, and pretty girl who needs people she knows around her right now. If there's anything you need, I will still be in the city for a while so do not hesitate to ask."

"No reward?" Auntie Mara asks skeptically, narrowing her gaze at me. I did not like the looks of this. "Young man, as the only person suitable to be her guardian at this time I could easily betroth her to you and you could share in her inheritance. Everybody wants something, I did not get to live in a house this big without knowing that, so what do you want."

Frowning at the old lady, I open my player inventory and let the Elder Warrior Club fall onto the floor. The club was about four feet long with a grip area about two inches in diameter and a head at least twelve inches in diameter. "Ma'am," I say calmly while continuing to drop all of my elder root items.

"This is B grade wood material from the root of the Elder Oak less than ten miles away from Sierra," I explain with the same calmness. "I go there once every twelve hours and kill lots of goblins and hobgoblins and even a hobgoblin warrior that drops this club. Every twelve hours. One of these little clubs is three hundred gold, this big club is at least a thousand, and I just have so many."

Continuing quickly to my point, I pick everything back up and say, "With as much respect as I can put in these words, your coin and her inheritance mean nothing to me. She is the first person besides myself that I have taken responsibility for, ensuring her safety and care is the very least that I could do. Now, is there anything else you need from me? I have to go back to the Elder Oak for my next survival challenge."

*