Chapter 69: Making Quill Pens and the Yellow Branch
Watching the feathers lined up in the hot sand, Ren smiled, thinking how surprisingly beautiful they looked.
“Next time, I want to catch a bird-type Monster with rainbow-colored feathers.”
The translucent blue feathers of the Swiftwind bird were beautiful, but he hadn’t even encountered a rainbow-feathered one, which disappointed him. Hoping for better luck next time, he sat down on the cloth and began cutting the tips of the hardened three-eyed eagle feathers.
As he took out the penknife he had brought from the hunting hut, a sense of excitement welled up.
“Cut the tip of the shaft at an angle, then split the center… right?”
He gently placed the blade against the feather shaft.
Slice.
“Oh…”
Without applying any force, the shaft was cleanly cut at an angle. Ren let out a small breath.
“The sharpness really is amazing! It cuts so smoothly…”
After practicing a few times on charred, discolored feathers, he moved on to the yellowish, semi-transparent ones. Carefully adding a slit down the center, the three-eyed eagle feather began to resemble a proper quill pen.
He held it up to the sunlight to examine the cut, then immediately took out an ink bottle and a board to test how it wrote.
The feathers he usually used had been cut down repeatedly and were quite short, so the new quill felt larger and slightly heavier. Still, it had a solid, stable feel in his hand. When he dipped it in ink and touched it to the board, it produced a smooth, flowing line.
A smile spread across his face.
“This might be really good!”
Nodding in satisfaction, he continued processing the rest. By the time he finished the three-eyed eagle quills, the Swiftwind and Ashveil feathers had also hardened. He completed them one after another like an assembly line.
After laying the finished quills out on the cloth and admiring them, he selected one each from the three types to carry with him, wrapping them in cloth. The rest he bundled by type and stored in a “small box.”
“I wonder if the char cloth turned out properly this time…”
He carefully opened the lid of the jar from his second attempt. It looked pitch-black inside, but he stayed cautious. Turning the jar upside down over the board he had used for testing the quill—
Rustle.
A small bundle of black cloth fell out. Using the tip of a stick, he spread it open. This time, even the inner layers were completely black.
“Alright, this time it’s perfect! …Huh?”
His eyes caught on the yellow section of the branch he was holding.
It was the same branch he had used earlier to move the jar away from the fire. Originally bluish-green, its center had turned yellow and glossy. He had noticed the discoloration when it was near the flames, but since it hadn’t burned, he hadn’t thought much of it. Now, however, the changed section looked hardened—almost like the shafts of the feathers he had treated in hot sand.
“Does this harden too? Hmm…”
He gripped both ends of the branch and tried to snap it in half. It bent with resistance, and when he let go, it sprang back with a vigorous wobble.
“…Was this branch always this hard to break?”
These branches grew nearby in early spring, known for their straight sections and hollow interiors. They were lightweight, and as a child, Ren had used them as practice swords. He had picked this one near the river thinking it would be useful, and he was sure it had snapped easily when he collected it.
Holding the unaltered bluish-green part, he bent it sharply.
Crack.
It snapped easily. But when he tried to break the yellowed section, it resisted again, bending without breaking.
“This is kind of interesting!”
He ran to where the branches grew and cut several good-looking ones. Thinking the hardness might have been a coincidence, he tested them repeatedly, then held them over the fire. The parts closest to the flames gradually turned yellow.
When he bent those sections, they flexed smoothly and returned to their original shape when released.
“Just like I thought—it’s hardened. If that’s the case, could I make quills from this too? Well, not feathers… but at this length… maybe arrows?”
Swinging one lightly, Ren suddenly realized it might be just the right size for an arrow shaft.
The arrows he currently used were either old training arrows from his family’s storehouse or cheap, worn ones from the Adventurers’ Guild.
“…I think there was something in that book about making arrows.”
Muttering to himself, Ren lined up one of his arrows next to the branch, comparing their lengths.