Chương 72: 70 - A Rat

Jonny and Emily followed after Chuck, who flew ahead of them in leaps. He would wait until they caught up, then take a few steps and fly fifty feet away or so and wait again. They stayed within the property, heading generally south, and the further they went, the more curious Jonny got. Chuck used to do this a lot when he was younger. Whenever he spotted something he wanted to eat, but wasn't strong enough to kill on his own, he would drag Jonny or Igrette over to get it for them.

From what Jonny had gathered, though, there shouldn't have been anything like that here, though. A few of the cows—notably Stella, who he still had yet to see—made it to third layer, but that was only because they had complete, uncontested access to mana wells. The mana wells weren't strong enough to foster such magic beasts in the wild, and there were none in the vicinity stronger. On top of that, there shouldn't have been anything that strong so close to the farm.

There were wards, and Alden regularly checked them to make sure they were functioning. He would at least know if one of them went out. He asked Emily as they walked, but she had no idea either. And unfortunately, she wasn't too interested in thinking about it either.

"He looks funny when he walks," she pointed out with a giggle. Jonny waited until they caught up again and Chuck took a few steps before flying to reply. He did look funny when he walked. His legs were much longer than they looked when he was roosting somewhere, and he fully extended them with each step, looking like he was on his tiptoes walking through a minefield.

"Yeah, he does," he agreed as Emily giggled at the hawk. At least she's feeling better now. Chuck led them within the Smith's property for a little while, but they soon arrived at the wooden fence surrounding it, and he beckoned them on. Jonny hesitated here. They weren't forbidden from going beyond the fence, and there wasn't supposed to be anything dangerous, but Haley had asked them to stay on the property, and they had already been gone for a little while.

Igrette would be getting back soon, and he didn't want to worry them. Emily had no such qualms, and slipped between two of the wooden beams without waiting. Jonny cursed under his breath, then went to follow her. He doubted Chuck would be showing them anything too far out or too dangerous. It would be fine. And it was… but it he still sort of regretted coming out. The thing that Chuck wanted to show them wasn't far beyond the fence. Just a hundred feet away or so, inside a small copse of trees.

On the ground, nestled between the roots of one of the trees, was a dead rat. That was it. That was the whole thing.

"Seriously?" Jonny asked as the hawk peered down at the small corpse. Jonny stepped forward to get a closer look with Emily half-hiding behind them. He scanned the rat for any sign of anything unusual, but he saw nothing. It was just a rat. Chuck let out a small peep and nudged it with his beak. The line of ants that had formed beside it spiraled into chaos, but otherwise, nothing happened. The hawk let out a small screech, and looked up at Jonny expectantly.

"Whaddya want me to do with this?" Jonny asked. Chuck just stared at him. Jonny sighed and took one final look at the dead rat, this time trying to figure out how it died. Strangely enough, there didn't seem to be any injuries anywhere. Even when he bit the bullet and flipped it over with a stick, it looked unharmed. It looked very thin, though. Maybe it starved to death? A little weird, but nothing worthy of dragging him all the way out here to look at.

"It's just a dead rat, Chuck." Chuck screeched in indignation, but Jonny just waved him off and turned back to Emily.

"C'mon, let's head back before Iggy gets worried."

"Okay…" When they returned to the mana well, Igrette was still gone, but she returned shortly afterward. Jonny and Emily were playing cow tag, which was basically just tag, but if you managed to touch a cow before getting caught, you were immune and got a ten second headstart before the other person could chase you again. It got a little dull after a while with only two people, but Jonny liked to use it as a training exercise to practice more precise internal mana techniques in his legs.

When Igrette returned, they resumed normal activity, and Emily seemed to have forgotten all about what happened earlier. That night at dinner, she was back to her usual cheerful self, though there was some awkward tension in the room. Olivia clearly felt at least a little bad, but she never said anything, and the twins were sulking after apparently failing to secure any dates.

Jonny had been a little angry at her before dinner for what happened earlier, and he was still annoyed at her, but after dinner, she apologized to Emily, and he decided to just forget about it. That Elise chick was a bitch, but he wasn't gonna get involved with family drama because of it. That night, Jonny told Igrette about his little adventure with Emily and Chuck.

"Starved to death?" she asked.

"I dunno. That's what it looked like." Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Interesting."

"I don't get why Chuck wanted to show it to me, though."

"Animals can be very sensitive sometimes. He probably noticed something you did. A rat starving is very unusual, given how abundant food is in this area. It might have been diseased. That would be bad if so. I'll let Alden know so he can look into it."

"Okay."

"How's your steel shift coming?"

"I don't know. I think I'm starting to feel something, but…" They talked for another half hour about technique, then switched topics to Oliver, which carried them until they were both yawning. Neither of them had seen much of the researcher since their first meeting. The old man was staying up as long as humanly possible, then sleeping for a huge amount of time and waking up at the oddest hours to continue.

They only ever saw him at mealtimes, and he would either spend the entire time in silent contemplation, or, if prompted, regaling the entire group with stories from the books he was reading that were mildly interesting, but also entirely useless for their goals. The man clearly knew a great deal, but Jonny was beginning to grow a little impatient. He missed the internet. Something like this would have taken a few seconds to find back on Earth, but here, it was taking days on end.

He mentioned as much to Igrette, which prompted her to start talking about times when such a thing would have been useful. They had had similar conversations many times over the past few years, but this time the stories were all about Oliver. Back when Igrette first met him, he was more or less the same as he was now, but somehow more energetic. He was in charge of a research project during the war looking into ways to turn people with Null Syndrome into super soldiers.

The project was a failure, partially because Oliver was being asked to do the impossible, and partially because he was not the right person to head any projects. What he was doing now, he had done many times during that project, leaving the other researchers and instructors and assistants without guidance, which drastically slowed down any progress they might have made. If they had the internet back then, they might have actually been able to make progress. The next day, Jonny finally figured out the steel shift.

Like with gravity, the understanding was like a switch flipping. As soon as he got it the first time, it suddenly made so much sense, and he realized what he had been doing wrong before, and was able to replicate it. Unfortunately, it was not the miracle superpower he was hoping it was. Igrette had warned him multiple times not to get his hopes up too high, but the idea of being bulletproof was just too tempting.

Jonny had been daydreaming about being able to shrug off arrows and swords ever since he first learned this was possible, and how it actually worked was a massive downgrade from his imagination. When he shifted his mana to steel-aspected, it made everything completely rigid. No movement at all. If he did it to his forearm, he couldn't bend his fingers. If he did it to his shoulder, he couldn't move his arm. Even if he just did it to his skin, it severely limited his movement.

The skin around the part where he hardened could stretch as he moved… to a point. But he could tell that he would literally tear himself apart if he wasn't careful about what he hardened and when. Still, it was really cool to be able to stab himself with a fork and watch the fork bend instead of his arm, even if he did have to do some chores to pay off the ruined fork afterward. The next day, the twins finally finished their pit, for the most part.

They still had ideas to refine it, like digging a channel from the stream so they could fill it with water if they wanted, and lining the edge with rocks for stability and aesthetic reasons. It was functional, though, and now while Jonny and Emily trained, they occasionally heard small explosions in the distance, and frequently had the twins coming back to the mana well to recharge. Later in the afternoon, they invited some friends over, and the explosions multiplied.

Jonny and Emily snuck over to watch for a bit, just out of curiosity, and got to see the twins incinerating a poor makeshift straw dummy. That night, at dinner, the twins were in a very good mood, despite getting scolded for tracking soot into the house. Jonny found himself feeling a little wistful that he couldn't participate. Fireballs were cool as shit, and he wanted to be able to make them.

"Grandma, if I punch fast enough will the air catch on fire?" he asked. He had seen a video about it online once, and he figured it was a pretty childlike question to ask.

"Yes," she replied simply"Wait, really?"

"Well, maybe not the air, but powerful melee warriors move so quickly that their strikes leave burns and set flammable things on fire. A powerful enough swordsman will cauterize wounds as he makes them, at least on weaker opponents." She glanced around, noticing the curious looks she was getting from the Smiths.

"I was in a unit with a 6th layer swordsman, and got to witness it firsthand."

"Did you ever meet the Hero?" asked Jacob suddenly.

"Once," she said.

"What was he like?" asked Joshua.

"I didn't get to talk to him, sadly, but he seemed nice." The twins looked at Igrette with newfound interest, and started peppering her with more questions about the war. They only stopped when Haley got involved and told her to stop bothering Igrette, but Igrette actually didn't seem to mind much. Jonny knew that parts of the war were a sensitive subject for her, but the twins were mostly focused on the "cool" things like the powerful mages and warriors, and she was happy to oblige.

"By the way, do you two have any important plans tomorrow?" asked Haley once the twins were silent.

"Not particularly," replied Igrette.

"Why?"

"Tomorrow is the weekly market day, and we were going to take a trip down to run some errands and sell some dairy products. I think it would be a good opportunity for you to meet some of the more important people around town. You haven't needed much so far, but it's still good to know where to look if you do, y'know?"

"Yes, that's a good idea," said Igrette.

"Jonny?"

"Sure," he said with a shrug.

"Sounds fun."

"We'll be taking the wagon after breakfast tomorrow morning, then. You don't need to dress nice, but you'll be making first impressions, so it's probably best not to be too sloppy."

"We don't have much in the way of nice, but we can do clean," offered Igrette.

"That should be plenty. Sounds like a plan, then! And make sure you rest well, because tomorrow might be a long day! There have been a lot of people asking about you too. There have been some rumors going around…" She shot a glare at the twins, then went back to smiling.

"But it's nothing bad. Don't worry. It'll be fun!"

"The newcomers might be an issue."

"H– how so?"

"That pet of theirs. We may have to do something about it."

"Ah. I– I see. Should I–?"

"No. Don't do anything. Proceed as usual for now. But be ready."

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"And you're doing a wonderful job."

"Ah. Haha. Thank you."