5 Shelter

The taste of the juicy meat was still on my tongue as I rubbed my bulging stomach.

I may have eaten too much.

Who cares, this body, my body, needs to put some weight on. This unhealthy level of skinniness is going to take a while to work past. Especially given the fact that it'll be so hard to acquire any food.

"Kid, it's time to start smoking the meat. We need to make sure it doesn't spoil."

"Sure thing, old man."

He had me watch as he cut the meat into strips, hung it above the fire where the smoke could easily hit it and said "Kid, have you ever wondered how to preserve meat"

"Nope"

"Well, I'll explain regardless. The goal is to stop the meat from rotting and the method by which we achieve this goal varies depending on the materials you have and what you wish to preserve. If you wish to preserve a juice, you can allow it to rot in a very specific manner and it turns into wine, an alcoholic beverage. With meat there are two main options, option one is to put salt all over the meat and allow the meat to absorb it."

He pulled out a small pouch of salt, and said "This is salt, we're both poor as fuck so we can't use it"

"The second method is to smoke the meat by putting it over the fire and letting it absorb smoke. For some reason, the meat doesn't rot easily after it gets filled with smoke. The smoke also adds a nice flavor to the meat which is an added bonus."

He flashed me a double thumbs up, but only one hand had a thumb, leaving an interesting impression. I wish I could simply stay like this but I know I can't, I cannot allow myself to become too reliant on this man. I have a small amount of trust built in him after all of our interaction, but I can't let myself forget.

This was the man who ran away with no hesitation and left me to die.

With that in mind, I sighed and said "I need to take my leave." I stood up with my new machete still brandished and took a step away from my position before I heard Andreas say "Wait a moment kid, you aren't gonna survive if you keep living the way you are."

"The hell do you mean? I thought you said I needed to tough it out earlier?"

"Toughing it out was necessary back then but not always, you need a shelter or the next time we get rain you'll be a goner. Sickness will get you before a new mana beasts can, heh, maybe even no rain would kill you. You don't even have a shirt to your name and your pants are barely held together. Are you trying to show off your scars?"

"The mage burnt my shirt and parts of my pants are what are keeping my wound from bleeding." He glanced down at my arm and asked "Where the hell did you learn how to do something like that!"

"I figured it out, it's pretty simple really. I knew the blood slowed when I put pressure on the wound with my hand so I just used my pants to create pressure."

"You're a smart kid, it's a shame you can't go to school. If you awaken your mana core, I'm sure you'll do great at an academy!"

"Tsk, how many more years will that take? Actually who cares, I know I'll awaken, and when I do, I'll show you how to beat up some adventurers."

He smiled at me and said "I'd love that Juno, make sure to show me that. Shall we make it a promise?"

I smiled back at him and said "That's a promise Andreas!"

"Alright then, since you promise I'll give you a small gift." He walked towards his shelter, which appeared to be a lean-to, and grabbed a few rags and some cloth. "Use this cloth for your shelter and the rags for some clothes. The money from that beast may be enough to get me some material to spruce up my shelter a lot, so don't worry about this. It's useless to me now, might as well pass it on to those in need."

"Thank you, and goodbye Andreas."

"Goodbye, Juno. Come back tomorrow to grab the smoked meat."

I turned my back to Andreas and walked away without looking back. I needed to build a shelter before nightfall, so I needed to move quickly. I didn't need the shelter to be perfect, but I simply wanted a framework to build on in the future. To build a shelter, I would need to revisit the place where I had almost lost my life yesterday, the forest.

I wouldn't need to enter today, simply needing to grab some wood and leaves from the outskirts with my machete, but the thought of returning left me breaking out into a cold sweat. I continued to hobble my way to the forest despite the fear, still heavily relying on my cane to help me carry the burden of my weak body.

It took me a dozen minutes before I found myself at the exit from the city, I still saw my dried blood in the soil below me. With a deep breath, I continued walking towards the forest.

I chopped off a few small fresh branches, and grabbed a slightly larger dead log that seemed mostly intact. I used some of the cloth to temporarily tie the branches to the larger log, grabbed one end of the log, picked it up and started dragging the log.

I walked until I found where I had set up camp the previous night, it was an alley. There was a dirt floor and a wall at the far end, leaving only one entrance and exit. I was planning on trying to blend in with the back wall in order to never get found here, it'll hopefully work like a hideout.

Before I could daydream about a hideout, I would need to actually start building. I dragged everything down the alleyway and propped all of the branches up against the back wall. The log would be used as a base in which all branches are attached to make sure that none of them would fall over. I finally tossed a cloth over it all and called it a day, it would block the light in the morning and hopefully keep me slightly shielded from the elements. There were still many improvements to be made but the sun had already set and my body was on the brink of collapse yet again.

So, I wrapped myself in the rags as blankets and fell into for my first dreamless sleep in this new world.