Hunt and Craft

Amistd the dark forest shrouded in fog, a large figure ran with rage and confusion etched onto its face. Its large front paws created dents on the ground with each stride, while its smaller and nimble hind legs allowed it to deftly navigate through the seemingly endless trees.

The forest was home to many creatures, but none were as fearsome as the wolf-like monster. Its dark blue fur allowed it to blend into the shadows of the night, but the bones protruding from its back like spines and its skull-like head made it stand out. Standing over four meters tall, it was one of the top predators in the forest. Despite its strength and size, the monster found itself in a difficult situation.

A loud noise, similar to that of a shattering glass, reached the ears of the beast as it was running. Looking back for a second, it saw a rift in the sky from which multiple cracks formed. A second later the rift opened suddenly, revealing a large eye that immediately fixated itself on the wolf. 

The beast knew what was happening, it was being hunted by something. Moments after the apparition of the eye four lights caught the monster's attention, it was fire and whatever was producing was quickly closing on it. 

As a predator, the wolf-like monster knew its strength, almost nothing in the forest could defy it except others of its kind, and yet it felt threatened. It wasn't just its instinctual fear of fire, but the fact that it knew that it was outnumbered. 

Even its kind could be taken down by an inferior opponent if it found itself outnumbered. The monster was wary of whatever was hunting it and tried to run away, but it couldn't lose them. 

As the monster was trying to get away, it noticed that one of the lights had disappeared, or at least it was no longer with the other three, this brought a momentary sense of relief, but unfortunately for the wolf, it didn't last. 

Suddenly something dashed out of nowhere, with a torch in her left hand and a crimson sword in the right. Nayuta slashed the monster's left front leg before sliding below it and cutting its abdomen. The unexpected pain sent the wolf rolling over the ground. 

The monster quickly recovered itself and roared at its attacker, who in response threw the torch in the monster's direction, falling a few meters away from the beast, before unsheathing a smaller and sturdier-looking sword from her hip. The sword sheaths, one on each side, looked crudely made, but they were functional. 

With a quick movement the wolf tried to launch itself against the girl, but the moment it did so a spear came flying from the trees and pierced its right eye, causing it to roar in pain. Before it could take any action a second object came flying, this time it was a small axe. 

The axe pierced one of the wolf's back legs, embedding itself in its flesh. Seconds later Sophia dashed from behind a tree towards the monster with a torch in her left hand. She quickly threw the torch behind the wolf and grabbed the hilt of the axe, twisting it before pulling it out, greatly damaging the leg. 

The wolf turned around and swung its leg, the sound of claws clashing against metal echoed through the forest as Haruto, with the oil lantern on his hip, pushed Sophia out of the way and took the hit with his shield. The shield, already full of dents and marks, broke upon contact with the monster's claws, but it served its function well. 

As the shield broke let go of it and swung his mace as a baseball bat against the monster's head. The impact cracked the skull and stunned the monster for a second which he used to swing his weapon again to the opposite side of the head, hitting the spear that was stuck in the eye, breaking the shaft in half, and drilling the spearhead further in and piercing the brain directly, causing the wolf to howl in pain and shake, but it didn't die. 

The next moment Nayuta slashed at the damaged back leg, severing it completely before unleashing an onslaught of stabs and slashes. Just as she did, Haruto and Sophia also started attacking relentlessly while the monster tried to defend itself however it could, but the brain damage was severe and it couldn't even move correctly. 

It tried to run away, but not only was it surrounded by three enemies, but the torches on the ground still shone brightly, and the wolf didn't dare get close to the fire. 

Not long after the monster fell dead on the ground, whether it was because of the bleeding or from the damage to its brain was unclear. 

"We did it!...wait my spear!" 

◇ ◇ ◇ 

Two hours after the death of the beast, Nayuta and Haruto were dismantling the fallen monster, or rather trying to. The beast was too large for them to skin it easily, and the skin itself was hard too. The skinning knife they had couldn't penetrate it, so they had to use swords which were more cumbersome and hard to use, hence they were struggling a lot. 

"The fact that dismantling it is taking us longer than killing it bothers me" 

Even the normally patient Haruto was starting to get angry at the absurdity of the situation. Meanwhile, Nayuta was quietly working on skinning the monster while cutting small pieces of meat once in a while to eat. She didn't mind the taste of blood. 

While those two were working hard, Touji, who didn't participate in the fight, was standing about twenty steps away with his eyes closed. About ten meters above him, a giant eye could be seen peeking through a rift in the air. He was watching the surrounding area with his newfound power, making sure that no predators tried approaching, not like many predators would willingly get close to the eye in the first place. 

Alongside Touji was Sophia, kneeling with a pouting expression on her face while holding her broken spear even though she was supposed to be protecting Touji if anything unexpected happened. 

"Why did you have to break my spear, I was finally getting used to it!?" 

A vein popped up in her forehead as the broken shaft made creaking noises under the pressure of her hands. She was glaring daggers at Haruto who started sweating under her gaze. 

"I already said I'm sorry..." 

Although she was acting angry, the small grin on her face as she saw Haruto's reaction said otherwise. Nayuta, who noticed that could only smile at the scene. 

"Anyway, why did we hunt this wolf? We still have deer meat" 

As Haruto asked a question, Nayuta looked at him, took off her leather vest, and grabbed her buttoned shirt, with a small movement the already tattered clothing broke even more, revealing more of her body to everyone's surprise and embarrassment, including Touji who immediately averted the giant eye gaze towards the opposite direction. 

"Clothes, ours are useless now and since we succeeded in making leather I think we can do this too" 

She pointed at her scabbards, made of deer leather as she talked. They looked badly made but they were functional, although that was only because of the abnormal properties of the skin as it didn't seem to rot. They were able to do it by following the instructions in the scroll Nayura found, which ended up being a recipe for leather and leather equipment. 

Nayuta wasn't the only one with scabbards, both Touji and Sophia had them too for their respective weapons. As for Haruto, there was no way to make something like that for his mace. 

After a while, they finished skinning it and while Haruto started cutting the meat, Nayuta got to work on the clothes. The process described in the scroll was different from the very little knowledge she had about leather making, probably because of the abnormal properties of the animals in the tower. 

To make leather one just needs to remove the skin from an animal, scrap the remaining flesh attached to it, and clean it with water. After letting it dry just make a fire and cock the skin for a little while before submerging it into water and letting it dry again. The result would be crudely made leather, of course, this normally wouldn't work, but it did. 

After cutting half the skin, with fut still attached to it into four parts, she took it towards the nearest source of water, a small puddle that they had passed when chasing the wolf. Following the instructions wasn't hard since she had already done the same with the mutant deer, but she had to be careful not to burn the fur when it was time to cock the skin. 

The result was something that looked like a fur carpet. When she made the scabbards she used some string she had in her backpack and a sharpened piece of the deer horn as a substitute for a needle, but the horn couldn't pierce the wolf skin, so she used one of the wolf fangs instead. 

After cutting some of them to make them shorter and sewing the shoulders, the result was four dark blue fur mixes of a coat and cape that were harder and more durable than the leather vest she had. She sewed some small fangs to the end of the coats to make them look cool at the suggestion of Sophia. There weren't any sleeves so she had to attach some string to the neck for it to be tied so it would fall, this also made it so the arms were completely hidden by the fur coat once tied. 

As for the remaining skin, she got rid of the fur to make some leather armor using her leather vest as a base. She ended up making three black leather vests that were sturdier than the one Sophia gave her on the second floor but looked way worse. 

"I wanted to make shirts, but there is no way I can do that with leather. This should be more than enough to cover ourselves though so it's okay" 

Before heading back she took off her shirt, leaving herself exposed except for the sports bra underneath. Her body was full of dirt and blood, but it didn't look so bad. She tore the lower half of her shirt and split it into two pieces, soaking one of them with water from the puddle and using it to clean her body. 

The water and the scrapping slowly cleanse her toned body of all the dirt and blood, revealing the true color of her skin. It wasn't the color of a healthy person, on the contrary, it was pale, almost like a corpse or a vampire, yet her figure dismissed the idea of her having bad health or condition. She had the right amount of muscle needed, her long legs were strong and full, and her belly was toned with all the right lines and curves, an obvious sign of constant exercise. 

Once she finished cleaning herself she took the impromptu needle and started using the other half of the teared shirt to mend her clothes. When she finished her button shirt, which used to be her school uniform, ended up turning into a crop top and exposing her stomach. 

"I would have used some of the pieces of cloth I have, but those are flammable so is best to save those for torches" 

After finishing everything she returned to where her friends were. Haruto was still struggling with the monster's corpse, but he had already butchered most of it, as bad as he was at cooking he wasn't half bad at dismantling prey. 

The moment she returned Touji opened his eyes and at the same time the giant eye closed itself. There was something noticeably different in Touji's eyes, bright white symbols that surrounded his pupils in a shape reminiscent of a star.

Sophia eyes were sparkling at the sight of the coats and vests in her friend's hands. Although she was usually more inclined to girlish and cute clothes, even she couldn't escape the yearning for cool clothes. Even though she was focused on the clothes, her eyes eventually drifted to the now-exposed skin of her friend. 

"Sorry for the wait, I was cleaning myself" 

A blush appeared on the face of her three friends as they looked at her still wet and shiny skin before everyone but Sophia averted their eyes. She noticed her gaze on her exposed stomach but only smiled at her, causing her to avert her eyes with an even deeper blush. 

Nayuta put the coats on the ground before throwing the vests at Touji and Sophia, she didn't make one for Haruto since he had a metal chest plate already. Both of them looked at their vest with amazement in their eyes, even though they were crude looking, they still looked good. 

She made the vests according to their body measurements so they would fit nicely, though none of them noticed the fact that she knew those even though they never told her such a thing. As a result, Sophia's vest ended up being the biggest despite her being slightly smaller than Touji and Nayuta since it had to accommodate her bust, while Nayuta's vest was the smallest because of her thin waist. 

"This feels good, but it feels slightly small on my chest" 

"Same here, the shoulders are a little tight, but I guess we just have to wear them for them to lose a little" 

Nayuta too wore her vest, humming happily at the feeling of having new armor instead of the old and beaten leather vest. In her case, she didn't feel any discomfort but is not like many things could cause her discomfort to begin with. 

Next, she was the first one to put on the fur coat. It was warm and comfy even though the inside was hardened leather. The coat reached right above her knees, slightly lower than her skirt. Under the moon, the fur coat absorbed most of the light, hiding her wearer in the darkness of the forest.

The rest were quick to put on the coats as well. Harutos coat was bigger since he was taller, but otherwise, they were all the same. Sophia was the happiest with her coat, running around and spinning with it to see it flutter around, eventually causing her to get tangled with a bush and making her fall on her back.

"Ouch..."

She said more out of reflex than of pain before quickly getting up and pulling the coat, ripping the bush out of the ground in the process, and getting leaves and roots all over her clothes.

"You are an idiot"

Touji made fun of Sophia as he put on the fur coat. The color of the fur matched his hair almost perfectly, making the illusion that his hair extended to his lower back. Even though he looked calm and comfortable with the new clothing, his right hand, which was holding the closed Grimoire of eyes, was trembling slightly, his gaze never leaving the spot where the giant eye used to be just moments ago.

"Shut up four-eyes!"

She stuck out her tongue while making fun of Touji, who showed her his middle finger in response. Nayuta and Haruto looked at their interaction with a smile on their faces.

"We'll leave once we're done with this body, the plan is to get to the cave in the northwest by tomorrow morning so you two rest for now."