Chapter 75: Testing the Simple Arrows
A chilly wind slid through the tall grass of the grasslands. Ren was crouched down in the middle of it, gripping a single arrow. He checked it over once more—whether the fletching was properly attached, whether the arrowhead was loose.
“…I hope this works.”
During the night he had finished off several arrows in his room. He had a few different kinds of feather put by, but he had used a single kind on each arrow and made one of each.
Actually making them, they had come out looking like the real thing. …At least in appearance.
“All right…”
Ren stood up, nocked an arrow to his bow, and looked ahead. What had shown itself for a moment beyond the grass was a horn rabbit. It was a magical beast he had hunted many times over, but this was the first time he would be hunting one with an arrow he had made himself. His heart began to pound hard.
“…Hit it.”
He murmured it under his breath and pulled the string back. What he held was an arrow made with three-eyed eagle fletching. Perhaps because it was the first one he had made, the glue had gone on unevenly. Hoping that wouldn’t affect the way it flew, he took aim at the horn rabbit.
A light snap of sound.
The arrow was loosed.
The next moment—
“Huh?”
Its path was nothing like the one he had expected. Instead of travelling straight, the arrow wobbled along, snaking through the air, and slipped past the side of the horn rabbit.
“Whaaat?!”
Perhaps reacting to Ren’s voice, the horn rabbit pricked its ears up. In the next instant its red eyes flashed and fixed on him.
And then it came charging at Ren.
“Wah!”
Ren backed away in spite of himself and hurriedly nocked another arrow. The arrow with the blue fletching from an Azure Wind Swift also strayed a little off course and flew past the horn rabbit’s flank.
“…Small Box!”
He put out a small box as a shield right in front of the horn rabbit as it closed on him in a straight line.
Bang!
“Kyii!”
The charging horn rabbit hit the small box shield, was thrown back, and bounced on the ground. It rolled onto the grass with a rustle.
Once he had put the horn rabbit into the small box, Ren let out a long breath.
He went to pick up his arrows and stared hard at the one lying on the ground.
“What went wrong…”
At the edge of his vision he saw another horn rabbit. He put the arrow in his hand away and took out one of the arrows he normally used.
Snap.
“Gik.”
He loosed the arrow, it struck the horn rabbit, and the horn rabbit gave a short cry. Ren tilted his head.
“What’s different about it from my usual arrows…”
He went over meaning to put it in the small box, but then something occurred to him and he took out his knife. He looked around, but there were no three-eyed eagles in sight for the moment.
(Will they come… I’d like to get more fletching feathers…)
Keeping an eye on his surroundings, he slid the knife into the horn rabbit’s throat.
A wet thud.
Blood welled up from the wound at the horn rabbit’s neck.
A rustle.
He thought he felt the trees of the forest sway.
(Have they come?)
He nocked an arrow. One of the ones he normally used.
Whoosh.
He loosed the arrow at one of the three-eyed eagles that had come flying in at the horn rabbit. Then he put the horn rabbit away in the small box.
Bang!
He turned an arrow on the three-eyed eagle that had slammed into the wall of the small box.
Once he had secured a good number of extra feathers for fletching, Ren came down near the river. The riverbed was a place where magical beasts rarely came at you, so he thought it was a good spot both for making arrows and for testing the ones he had made.
“Maybe it’s how I’m attaching the fletching.”
When he laid the finished arrows out side by side, the fletching did seem to be sitting a little crookedly. He checked the notes on attaching fletching that he had written on his board once more, and studied the arrows he had made.
“I’ll try lining them up more neatly. And the twist, maybe…”
When he had trimmed the feathers to size last time he had cut them with an ordinary knife, but this time he tried the penknife. It cut the shafts delicately, and the edge really was better.
“I should have used the penknife from the start…”
He carefully picked out three-eyed eagle feathers of the same size and cut them with the penknife so that they would lie along the shaft. He held them lightly with thread, then fixed them with glue. After making several, while he waited for them to set properly, he practised launching water masses out over the river.
Plop.
Splash, splash!
When the water mass dropped into the river, the magic fish gathered as they always did. He threw a water mass at them.
Splash, splash!
When he concentrated, he felt the force went up a little, but the magic fish didn’t look as though they were taking any damage.
Splash, splash, splash, splash.
“Ugh. Now they’ve all gathered round…”
After firing water masses into the river one after another for a while, an enormous number of magic fish had come together. Since he had them, he caught them with the small box.
But as the water masses flew with more and more force, he somehow began to feel that this wasn’t it. He started to wonder whether Yona would actually be pleased at the sight of magic fish being brought down by a water mass.
“I wanted to tell her water magic isn’t only about making water come out… but I don’t know whether Yona would enjoy doing this…”
She might understand that he had wanted to pass on some ideas for using water magic. But Yona hadn’t looked as though she wanted to fish for magic fish. Ren had wanted to cheer her up—but could he actually cheer her up by launching water masses in front of her? He was beginning to doubt it.
Splash!
After firing a water mass into the river a little harder than before, he crouched down.
He noticed then that a blue-purple flower was blooming near his feet. It was a small flower shaped like an upturned bell, in a vivid blue-purple.
(…A pretty flower might make her happy…)
Ren reached a hand out gently toward the blue-purple flower.
After cutting several off at the base with his knife and gathering them up, Ren caught himself.
He remembered that the Adventurers’ Guild reference materials had contained the line “beware of poisonous plants.” On grasslands and the like, they said, poisonous plants grew alongside the medicinal herbs, closely resembling them. Ren stared hard at the flowers in his hand.
“…If they were poisonous plants… i-it should be all right as long as I don’t eat them, shouldn’t it… But if I touched my face with the hand I picked them with…”
Suddenly anxious, he took out the board he had made notes on in the Adventurers’ Guild reference room and read back over his notes about medicinal herbs and poisonous plants, looking for anything relevant. But he could find nothing about a blue-purple flower that grew by the river.
“…I wonder if they’d tell me if I took them to the guild… If I took them to the buying counter…”
It might be a medicinal herb that wasn’t in the reference materials, and if he took it in anyway they might at least tell him whether it was a medicinal herb or a poisonous one.
He decided to pick some extra to put in to the Adventurers’ Guild for purchase as well.
Splash!
A magic fish jumped in the river. Perhaps because he had fired so many water masses in, the magic fish looked to be gathering.
“…Maybe I’ll fish a few more magic fish while I’m here…”
He had been making simple arrows, so he had barely hunted at all since morning. He had only hunted a few horn rabbits to test the finished arrows. If he had little to put in for purchase, the sum paid to him would be small as well. In that case, he thought, he would fish up plenty of magic fish.
He put the flowers he had picked away in the small box for the moment, produced a long small box, and thrust the end of it into the river.
Splash, splash!
The magic fish swarmed toward the small box. When a decent number had gathered inside it, he pulled the small box back out of the river. Inside, it was packed with magic fish and river water.
Deliberately, he let only the river water out of the small box. The water went out with a rush. Inside the small box, the magic fish were thrashing about.
“Ah.”
Something occurred to him, and he took out the small box with the blue-purple flowers in it.
“Er… poison, out…”
Silence. Nothing happened at all. Ren tilted his head.
He couldn’t really tell whether nothing had happened because they genuinely weren’t poisonous plants, or whether nothing had happened because taking out only the poison was something that couldn’t be done.
“Then… everything but the poison, out.”
Fwump.
The blue-purple flowers fell onto the ground.
“Aah…”
Hurriedly picking them back up, he looked around at the plants growing nearby.
“…Let’s try it with other plants too.”
He gathered the plants that caught his eye and put them into the small box.
“Poisonous plants, out.”
“Medicinal herbs, out.”
When he tried it with the Mana Berry he had gathered on the grasslands, it was properly recognised as a “medicinal herb.” There was one plant, and only one, that was judged a “poisonous plant.” If he took it to the Adventurers’ Guild counter he ought to be able to confirm whether the small box’s check had come out right.
“Ah—if I’m going to have the guild look at it either way, maybe I didn’t need to test it with the ‘Small Box’? …Well, never mind…”
He had got carried away enjoying himself and spent a lot of time on it, but he thought that if the small box’s poisonous-plant check really did give the right answer, it might come in useful from now on.