Calm Before the Storm + Preparation
A few peaceful days passed on the perilous frontier.
During the daytime, Asher explored the forest, searching for any flora or fauna with special effects on his body.
Most of the interesting ones were plants, though some of them were other fungi, too.
Surprisingly, he found no animals with inherent supernatural abilities.
Even the wolves' and bear's gigantification was due to their enhanced diets; the fawn the wolves killed was fairly average in size.
When night came, Asher returned to the cabin, giving Little Red some of his finds, while keeping a few of the more interesting specimens for himself.
Little Red exclusively used his harvest for consumption, completely uninterested in their effects. With so much Fortitude and Insight, she had deemed the effects completely useless.
Asher, on the other hand, tried to 'grow' them, despite the time constraint.
The herbs he collected could be planted directly into the ground, but some of the mushrooms needed corpses to attach onto.
So on the second day, he killed a pair of wildcats.
The look on Little Red's face as Asher trudged out of the forest, with two giant lynxes slung over each of his shoulders, was of both hope and admiration.
Her hope wasn't directed toward the physical feat itself, but the boy's relative strength. She was sure the two lynxes each were more powerful than Asher was in terms of raw strength, yet he was the predator, and they were the prey.
It seemed that the boy had reached a skill level that mere beasts, containing neither reason nor strategy, could all be defeated by him.
Though, it wasn't as if the Wolf was a mere beast.
Not a single trace of its presence could be felt in the entire forest during this time of calm.
The birds, likewise, have not appeared once since that nightmarish night.
Next came the third day.
Having collected everything that interested him, Asher took the third day to rest in the cabin.
He tended to his garden, layering new soil onto the plants. Tentatively, he asked Little Red to kill a few animals for his fungi farm.
Of course, the woman denied his request. However, when she came back from her noon hunt, she dragged behind her a huge brown bear, even bigger than the one Asher killed on the first day.
Its chest had a clean hole ripped straight through it, allowing Asher to notice its absent heart.
That corpse alone was enough to allow his mushrooms to balloon in both size and quality, tripling in all aspects. A taste test confirmed that their effects had also tripled. He ripped out the mature Congealed Corpses once they grew too big, yet their offspring gave thirty Insight and Temperance instead of ten.
Aside from that, Asher also practiced sparring with Little Red with his [Puppet Movements].
He quickly acclimated to its strange movements, becoming even more skilled with it than he was at it before.
Soon, he could sneak his own attacks during their intense spars. Even when Little Red ramped up her strength, using nearly twenty times as much Fortitude than Asher had, the boy could still dodge most of her attacks.
With this, Little Red's hope grew even further. Perhaps when [No. 6], the System's skill that gave two hundred Fortitude and Insight, was activated, Asher could become a real asset for her.
A sense of pride bloomed through Asher's body every time she complimented him, no matter how small the praise was for.
Perhaps the sense of pride he felt came from how powerful Little Red was. Her compliments meant that he was useful, even to someone as strong as her.
And when the sun set over the horizon, the third day concluded.
…
The light of dawn broke through the cabin windows.
Usually Asher would have been woken by the songs of birds chirping outside by now.
Today, he was woken by silence.
Dead silence.
His eyes snapped open.
The quiet stillness tore through him, filling Asher with a sense of ominous dread.
Today was the day; the day of the Wolf.
*Knock Knock*
Little Red rapped on his door with her knuckles, breaking the crushing silence. The abrupt noise allowed Asher to breathe once again.
The woman hadn't knocked on his door in nearly three days.
"Get up. Today's the day." Her voice was harsh, trembling with clearly restrained mania.
Asher didn't feel any residual sleepiness as he flung his covers off. His breath shivered as each exhale billowed white mist into the air.
Today was the day; the day of the Wolf.
He unhooked his cloak, donning it in the mirror's view.
Even his face, usually filled with levity and innocence, was unnaturally cold and lifeless.
The air was filled with a tense, unknown emotion, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Asher opened the door, raising his hand in a greeting-
He took a step back.
Little Red's gun and blade were already out. The woman's cloak wormed and shifted on the wooden floorboards, filled with madness and rage.
The violent glint in her eyes was barely held back by her last vestiges of rationality.
"Don't talk. I won't be able to hold back. Breakfast-" she broke into a snarling growl, her entire body shivering with restraint, "on the table."
With that, she disappeared. Still, the residue of the malicious aura that exuded from her rooted Asher to the spot for nearly a dozen minutes.
He panted in place, catching his breath before making his next move.
As he finally took a step forward, he glanced beside the mirror. Attached to the wall was a stuffed bear's head, from the bear he killed when he first arrived. Its eyes smoldered with golden light as his match flame still held its effect, burning yet preserving the head.
Little Red had given that to him on the second day, a trophy for his troubles.
Asher calmed down as he stared at his gift. It really was well made, cleaned up immaculately such that he didn't feel uncomfortable with it in his room at all.
Little Red made that for him. She wasn't usually so tense.
Asher had an inkling to why she was so different today.
Today was the day; the day of the Wolf.
It was a day, when combined with Asher's presence, held her very freedom and ideas of vengeance on the line.
She must have high expectations of him.
With that thought, breakfast was a tasteless, mindless affair. Despite the copious amounts of spices on his venison, the stifling air of silence removed any joy he had in eating them.
He twirled the mushroom on his fork absentmindedly, a nameless food fungus without any special effects.
"Um… Red?" He hesitantly called out for Little Red, but no response came. She wasn't in the cabin.
Shrugging, he opened the door to the back garden. A myriad of herbs and mushrooms filled his vision, as well as a shriveled corpse of a bear, its fur covered with mushrooms.
Asher made a mental note of a few plants that would help him today, in the ultimate test. Hopefully his efforts in cultivating these drugs did not go to waste.
Against a stat monster with over a thousand Fortitude, which one of his plants would help him?
By his feet was a patch of spiky grass that he had named 'Warmweed'. As the name suggested, they proliferated quickly, like weeds. The effect of consuming this one was the dulling of the sense of pain, while at the same time increasing the sensation of touch to the extreme.
Under the effects of this, he wouldn't feel a single bit of pain if a knife were stabbed into him, despite being able to feel each molecule of its blade tearing past his flesh.
With nearly no side effects, this one was sure to be useful when [Frenzy] was activated.
"How about this one?" He grinned, his gaze landing on a vine snaking around a wooden post in the soil.
Deep purple berries studded the vines with pinpoints of color.
These berries he named 'Last Chance'.
Eating one had no effect.
Eating two filled the body with convulsing, agonizing pain.
But eating three in a row?
That's when the effects truly started. Perception of time slowed to a crawl. Insight doubled, with seemingly no limit. Dodging death was possible with this drug.
However, the aftereffects were even more terrifying. Instant blindness, heightened sense of pain, and that tormenting agony from eating two berries at once, magnified ten-fold. That was two hours of his second day that Asher did not want to experience again.
But this time, he shivered with excitement. With Warmweed, an adolescent Congealed Corpse, and these berries, the 'Last Chance', he could see his complete plan.
The Congealed Corpse would increase Insight by thirty or so. Then he could activate [No. 6], increasing Fortitude and Insight by 200. Popping three berries would double his insight. Followed by [Frenzy], adding all of his stats to Fortitude...
Perhaps he could even reach the eight hundred mark.
Even the painful aftereffects of his various chemical enhancements could be warded off by Warmweed.
Interesting. Especially those berries, the drugs he obtained the last few days were fairly useful.
"Hm?" Asher broke out of his thoughts, his gaze turning to the sky. It was unknown when, but the sky had turned crimson red, just like that first day.
The first day he saw the Wolf.
"Red? Are you there?"
A malicious rage made the sky pulse with emotion.
The noise of a blade against grindstone sparked the air with tension. The sound came from the front porch.
Asher circled around the cabin, his gaze falling on Little Red as he rounded the corner.
The woman ran her blade across the whetstone, showering the floorboards with fizzling sparks.
She paid him no attention, as if he didn't exist.
Asher's head snapped to the left as a wolf's howl pierced the air. Miles away, a flock of crows burst into the sky. A blue glow clashed with Little Red's crimson anger.
As the echoing howl reached their ears, Little Red's hate grew exponentially. Her chest heaved as her breath quickened, as she ground her blade against the whetstone again.
At each howl, Little Red responded with another grind of her blade, honing it to a level of pure insanity.
Her emotions whipped up into a frenzy. Even Asher was caught in the crossfire, his own eyes filling with unnatural mania.
Asher stared at the sight before him, rooted on the spot with twisted emotion.
Many hours passed before Little Red finally snapped. She raised her head to the air, letting out a harsh scream.
The wordless howl of rage matched the volume of the Wolf's.
She turned to him, her eye sparking with violence.
"It's time. Get ready."
Her voice was hoarse, containing an air of finality.
"G-Give me a minute." Asher dashed to the back garden.
'Berries… mushroom, this…' His mind flashed as he tore out the things he needed. He brought the Congealed Corpse to his lips right away, scarfing it down. The others he stashed into his cloak.
Was this even going to work?
Asher pushed the thought to the back of his mind, scampering back to where Little Red stood, in silence.
She glanced at him, noticing the stain of yellow oil on his lips.
"Get on." Little Red gestured to her back. Asher would have laughed if the situation was not so serious. He climbed onto her back, his chest sinking into the fabric of her crimson cloak.
Little Red's legs tensed as she lowered into an animalistic stance, her chest only a few feet from the ground.
The air cracked as she shot forward, into the darkness of the forest.