The Roaming Mage (2/4)

After a few minutes spent thinking about it, Haalfrin hops off her roof and goes into the forest. 'What kind of tree should I cut down?' he wonders. 'I have to pick one that's big enough to make several boards out of.'

In his mind, Haalfrin imagines something he once saw a long time ago. He remembers seeing a saw mill cutting tree trunks straight down the middle. 'That's right. I'll need to find a straight tree. Then, I'll cut the thing down and slice off all the branches.'

Haalfrin walks through the forest some more until he finds a tree that's both tall and straight – something surprisingly hard to do.

Of course, Haalfrin isn't a professional craftsman, so he's not even aware that some trees are better than others for cutting logs. All he knows is that he can imagine this thing being sliced up into many boards.

The next part for Haalfrin to figure out is how he's going to cut the tree down without obliterating it.

"Hey Haalfrin… Do you need help?" comes Dakka's voice again.

"I see you finally decided to check on me," Haalfrin calmly says. "I thought you were saying that I was supposed to be the master in this relationship, since I'm the one who beat you?"

If Dakka had eyes, he'd be rolling them sarcastically right now. "Ha!" the dragon laughs derisively, "You humans, as well as the Rehkin tribes in my homeworld… you all have these strange ideas of how masters and servants are supposed to behave. Why do I have to stop being myself just because I'm weaker than you? I like to explore and see things for myself."

"Well, sure." Haalfrin isn't curious enough about a dragon's version of a master/servant relationship to ask. "Anyway, sure. Come down here and let me swing you a couple times."

Dakka's ax suddenly plummets from the sky faster than the speed of sound. From all perspectives, he looks like a meteor falling from the heavens.

Before Dakka can crash into the forest, the dragon is considerate enough to slow himself down, as to not blow away the trees around him.

Once Haalfrin catches the ax, he swings it once… and the tree is blown to smithereens, and the splintered chunks fly everywhere.

"…" ~ Haalfrin

"…" ~ Dakka

"What was that?" Haalfrin demands with a tone in between frustration and amusement.

"I'm sorry… I hit it too hard. I'll be softer on the next one.

"No need. I figured something else out," Haalfrin waves him away.

Haalfrin spends the next few minutes searching for another suitable tree. Once he finds one, he uses his powerful magic to pull the tree right out of the ground. Most of its roots snap in the process, though the taproot remains intact. Even Haalfrin is surprised at how stubbornly that thing is clinging to the earth.

Once the tree is out of the ground, he pulls out the saw he borrowed from Tanya, and he uses his magic to strengthen the blade. With great strength, he grips the tree with one hand and swipes with the other. He swipes so hard with the saw that it crushes right through the first branch - marring the trunk in the process.

Learning his lesson, Haalfrin is sure to make more swiping motions with the saw instead of trying to push the blade through the tree, like one would do with a sword.

After about an hour, the tree is finally bare of branches, and he feels that it's ready to be cut up into boards.

To save on time, Haalfrin decides to bring the log back to Tanya's house and cut it up there. A single log is much easier to carry than a stack of boards.

Using his Dra Name to strengthen his body again, he lifts the rest of the tree up and slings it over his shoulder. He walks back to Tanya's house like this.

Once there, Tanya gasps at the sight of this man carrying a tree on his back, but Haalfrin ignores her. Instead of worrying about how he looks, he's a lot more concerned about how he's going to do this next bit.

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Tanya is sitting on her porch with her 3-year-old son on her lap, and she's looking at this stranger, who'd come up to her house from the woods with a log on his back.

'I didn't know mages are this strong. No wonder dad always told me to never make one angry,' she thinks. 'Still, is it really all right for a high-class mage to do menial tasks like this? He's probably used to serving nobles.'

In her mind, it really is obvious that this man has lived a life of privilege. His skin is pasty from not seeing the sun. (In reality, this is a byproduct of him being underground in prison for so long.) Plus, the man is staring at the log with a look that says he doesn't know what he's doing.

"Sir…? Do you need help with anything?"

"Hmm… I'm not sure yet. I'll tell you if I do." After saying this, the weird mage hops up onto her roof and calls down. "What do you people use to measure things nowadays? Do you guys still use yardsticks?"

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Even after getting all the measurements done on the house and meticulously using the handheld saw to chop the log up, there's still the issue of how to nail the logs onto their respective place.

In the end, Haalfrin realizes that since the tree hasn't been dead for very long, he can just use some advanced healing magic he'd learned from his master on the boards. He can then have the boards slightly grow into the structure of the house.

The next problem Haalfrin has to contend with is the fact that he chose a really heavy type of wood. The problem with that is that the roof wasn't designed for something so heavy. As soon as he hoists those boards up there, he realizes that the rafters are shaking uncomfortably, and they're threatening to break.

'I can't just have the roof collapse on them. Tanya and her son could get killed if I leave it like this. Well, I came this far. I'd mind as well see it through. I'm going to have to strengthen the rafters and walls too.'

In Haalfrin's mind, this much isn't a big deal. At most, he can just demand a few more meals out of the mother and son as repayment for all the extra favors.

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As soon as Tanya hears from Haalfrin that she'd have to replace the walls and rafters, she rolls her eyes and smiles. "I'd mind as well get a new house. That whole thing is falling apart. It's fine, sir. You've done enough. You should really rest."

"…Sure," he says as he sits down. 'I needed to think anyway.'

"Sir… Why are you here? Eh- If you don't mind me asking," Tanya asks. "I mean, don't you have somewhere to be?"

Haalfrin shrugs. "No. I got nowhere to be. Anyway, I don't like to break promises, so I'll leave after I'm done with my job."

The woman nods her head, then immediately stands up when she hears her child coughing violently. "Sorry. I got to go."

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In the end, Haalfrin ends up seeing how meager this lady's food supplies are when he pokes around her shed for some more useful tools. Suddenly feeling a little bad for expecting to be fed, Haalfrin works on the house a little more, then resolves to catch something to eat when it starts to get darker.

Catching food is probably the easiest thing in the world for him. All he has to do is use his Spirit magic to detect the life around him. Then, he can reach for the spirit threads of whatever he wants dead, then he can snake his Death Aura along the golden thread lines and kill his prey.

It only takes him a minute or two to find something suitable to eat this way.

The next thing Tanya knows, the weird mage is dropping a dead deer on her doorstep. "If you cook that and save a portion for me, you can have the rest of the deer."

"But… I can't eat any of this!?" Tanya protests. "You're doing way too much!"

Haalfrin says calmly, "What? Cooking takes a lot of time and skill. I don't have time to cook it properly. It only took me a minute or two to catch this thing, so it's not worth very much to me. Plus, giving you the meat is paying you for your service of cooking it."

Now that he rephrased this as a simple transaction, Tanya nods. "Fine. I'll call you when it's ready."

With that out of the way, Haalfrin goes back to working on the roof. Fixing that thing is a much more delicate process than he was anticipating…