Chapter 74: An Extra Bit of Shiny Steel

Slowly, dramatically, the old man mixed the rest of his ingredients all up and dumped it onto Spiky’s plate in one big pile. Spiky glared at him menacingly and chomped on each successive bite. His fork slowed and his arm trembled, but he kept on. Finally, he was left staring at the tiniest fragment of egg, a few calories left to consume for victory. He reached out a shaking hand, almost falling off his stool as he did. Finally, he scooped up the egg, dropped it into his mouth and swallowed.

They had done it. They had won. It hardly mattered that Spiky passed out a second after finishing his plate, collapsing unknowing to the dirt in a greasy victory. Arthur might have imagined it, but he could have sworn the librarian was frothing slightly at the mouth.

“We did it, you old man. You’ve been defeated by that boy,” Arthur said.

“Have I?” The old raccoon gestured at his cooking plate. Arthur looked in horror. They were all out of commission, yet a quarter-sized fragment of egg remained. They had lost. It was over.

“That’s an eggshell, you old fart. Stop cheating,” Talca said as he recovered enough to stand.

“Fine. You’ve done it. Hells.” The old man picked up his new pipe, packed it with some of his new supply of tobacco, and lit it with a match. “Might as well get started on breaking this in. It is a fine pipe, Talca. A fair trade for a breakfast, even if you did beat me.”

By the time Littal swaggered back into view and basking in his own version of personal triumph, the group was almost recovered. Spiky had regained consciousness, and Arthur could almost stand without hunching over. They’d be fine.

“Is it true, by the way?” the old cook asked. “What they say about the achievement. Some readin’ types used to say there’d probably be an achievement if anyone actually beat me. Something about me being a living master who set up a challenge.”

Arthur was so full it took him two tries to get his status screen open, but what he saw there was worth it.

I ate the works (Achievement)

You were part of a reasonably-sized team that ate Breakfast Master Yoon’s Works Breakfast. This achievement carries no benefits and grants no experience of any kind. It’s just for fun.

“It’s true. Gods help us, it’s true.” Talca stood up, groaning. “I should have lied about you being a living master. Your head is already swollen enough.”

Arthur suddenly realized he was staring at the answer to a question he had thought about a lot. He was already successful in most ways. He had enough money to do what he wanted. He could afford his own place, if he had wanted to move out of Ella’s and rent one. And he could buy all the things he needed. He wouldn’t have minded grinding the same things forever, especially given how nice everything was.

For a long time, that had bothered him. Not because it wasn’t great. It was. But because he had no idea where he’d eventually go from there, once everything started to feel normal to him.

What he now realized was that he had been shown the answer already. Eito was a master trainer, someone who could effortlessly see the right direction for someone else to grow. Karbo was a master fighter. Itela was a master cleric, capable of great magics that could shift a whole city’s fate. He only knew one mayor, but he suspected Pico was a good one, as such things went. And they all knew each other.

Arthur was already the best boba person on the planet, but eventually, he’d be a pretty high-level tea-maker. Although every master he knew was nice, he realized that when they weren’t helping other people, they tended to gravitate towards each other, appreciating each other’s mastery. And although he didn’t see it outright in all the relationships, it made sense that they’d compete in an informal way, driving each other to ever higher heights.

“Okay, that’s about enough of that. Can all of you walk? Because we need to get on the road.” Talca turned to the old man, bowing slightly. “You really are the best, you fart. I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure thing, kid. And thanks again for the stuff. Much appreciated.”

—

An hour or so later, they were in the forest. Arthur shook Spiky awake from a second post-feast nap to see it. Everyone was still lethargic from the meal. They sat in silence as the trees closed over them. The name of the forest wasn’t an exaggeration. Even here on the edge, the trees were massive and ancient, towering over them like green and brown skyscrapers, casting the forest floor below in a kind of dreamy shadow.

Littal had been more or less prancing down the road in celebration his romantic endeavors, but also proved vulnerable to the calm of the new environment, slowing his pace down somewhat and moving almost noiselessly over the peat on the road.

“How much longer from here, do you think?” Arthur asked.

“The cart’s holding up well, all things considered. We’ll camp tonight, and then have a long uninterrupted ride tomorrow. I’d say we get out of the forest probably some time the day after that,” Talca said.

The rest of the day was mostly trees and fording small creeks, punctuated by occasional weird animals off in the distance. There were some things Arthur found familiar about them, like the fact that most of them were quadrupedal. Some of them were clearly the kind of animals that would run from you, while others were the kind you would want to run from. But nothing was quite the same. His brain tried to make sense of the rest of the animals by finding near-matches from his Earth memories. Littal the Hing that looked a bit like a goat. This predatory, slinky thing was a lot like a bobcat, while that hulking horned thing was a bit like a bison. But they were all just far enough different that he didn’t really know what to expect from any of them.

When night started to fall in the forest, dark came quickly. They set up camp, and then Arthur and Talca got to cooking while Milo and Spiky finally started their shock absorber project. Arthur let them be as they did. After giving them the idea, he didn’t have the slightest bit of relevant expertise to contribute to the task. After everyone took a break to eat a light dinner, the two went back to it, eventually returning with some items that looked more or less like the shock absorbers Arthur knew from earth.

“So you want to bolt these onto my wagon?” Talca asked.

“That’s the idea. We’d basically nail them into the bed and where the springs are mounted to the axle. It should either work or not, but if it doesn’t work, it won’t bother anything when we take it out. You might end up with a couple nail-holes where otherwise you wouldn’t have had any,” Spiky explained.

“And if it does work?”

“It will smooth out the ride and stabilize the wagon. If it works well enough, Littal should even be able to pull it faster. Stability works like that.” Milo glanced around. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Eating. He needs to pull in a lot of energy after a day like that.” There was a crash in the bushes behind him. “There he is, though. Good hunting today, Littal?”

As the bushes parted to reveal what was traversing them, the group realized they weren’t dealing with the friendly Hing they had hoped for. Three of the bison-like animals from earlier came forward, sniffing after the food and pawing at the ground aggressively.

“You boys armed?” Talca asked, keeping very still as he did. They were. Spiky had one of Milo’s daggers, while Arthur had opted for a kind of light rounded hammer that Milo swore was easier for unskilled warriors to use.

“Well, good. Don’t grab at your weapons yet. Just back away very, very slowly. If that goes well, we should be just fine.”

“If it doesn’t go well?”

“Best case, they rip up the camp. Worst case, you get up a tree or you get trampled. These guys are pretty aggressive when they want to be.”

Another crash in the bushes sounded out as Littal bounded from the darkness to land by Talca.

“Oh, there you are. You feel like taking care of this?”

Littal snorted aggressively.

“Okay, you do you. Boys, never mind. You can just go back to dinner now, or whatever.”

Littal didn’t wait to charge. The bison were much bigger than he was while he had the advantage in sheer muscle. At first, it looked like it would be a wash as one of the bisons raced to meet Littal’s charge. Then, with uncanny agility, Littal changed his trajectory two times, making successive forty-five-degree angle changes that ended with him bashing into the side of one of the bison instead of taking its weight head-on. Arthur heard ribs splinter as the buffalo-thing completely gave up on the fight, tumbled over the ground a few times, then ran away.

The other two bison eyed him more warily now, which Littal didn’t seem to notice or care about. He charged again, ramming into the next bison head-on, breaking one of its horns and sending it braying into the wilderness. The next bison didn’t even attempt to keep its dignity, following its friends back into the dark at a full gallop.

“Good job, Littal. And thanks. We have leftovers from dinner in the pot, if you want them.”

LIttal huffed and headed that direction, cleaning out all the rest of the food before laying down near the fire. Off his feet, he didn’t look nearly so big or strong. Arthur couldn’t figure out how he had dominated the enemies so thoroughly.

“He’s pretty strong normally.” Talca saw Arthur’s confusion and cleared it up without any prompting. “But he’s much stronger close to me. It’s supposed to be for hauling the wagon, but it counts for most things. He’s pulled my feet out of the fire more times than I can count.”

“A good friend,” Arthur said.

“Yes. He also just likes fighting, so it’s a mixed bag. Either way, I’m thankful.”

Over at the wagon, Milo and Spiky got to work mounting the shock absorbers, fastening them with large nails to the suspended bed of the wagon before pounding the nails sideways on the output side to keep them from moving much. Once they were attached, they jumped on the bed of the wagon, rocking it back and forth to check for changes.

“It doesn’t sway as much now, that’s for sure. Why is that?” Talca said as he watched them.

“These things eat up energy,” Milo explained. “It takes work to compress them and to decompress them, so they dampen things in a way that the springs don’t.”

“Well, fine. I can’t see how that’s going to help much, but we can give it a try. Worst-case scenario, they’re some new accessories to confuse my competitors with.”

“That’s the spirit,” Milo said. “An extra bit of shiny steel never hurt anyone.”

“Either way, I’m heading to bed. We can put them through their paces tomorrow.” Littal stood up and walked a few paces to his tent. “Get some rest if you can. It’s a full day’s travel tomorrow if we want to make it out the next day. This is a big forest. Anything can happen here, and Littal won’t always be able to help with that.”

The rest of the crew didn’t last much longer. Milo and Spiky went to bed first, exhausted from the twin adrenaline rushes of almost being stampeded away from camp and finishing a project. Arthur stayed up just a bit longer, adding more wood to the fire and enjoying the dark quiet of the forest. Eventually, the cold drove him to his bedroll, where he curled up and slept, dreaming of bison-free travels.