Shadow Slave

Despite the fact that Rain's clash with the Stone Worm had only lasted a dozen seconds, she was tired. Not only because she had tracked the creature down for a long time first, spending hours to prepare the ambush, but also because those few seconds of absolute mental concentration and daunting physical exertion took a lot out of her.

That was how it went every time. If a mundane human wanted to face a Nightmare Creature, anything less than giving it your all, and then some, meant death. Not that there were a lot of mundanes going out of their way to fight abominations - not a lot of those who lived to tell the tale, at least.

In that sense, Rain was an anomaly.

Sadly, the harsh physical demands of the hunt were not over after her prey was dead.

Grimacing, Rain gripped her sharp hunting knife and went about dressing the Stone Worm.

Its flesh was wiry and tough. Its scales were even tougher. Even with her knife having been forged from mystical steel, it took all of Rain's strength to rend the dead abomination. Especially because she didn't want to become drenched in its blood - not only because that would have been icky, but also because the stench of blood could attract other Nightmare Creatures,

"Curse it.,, curse it all…”

She worked up a sweat, eventually taking off her Jacket and vest and rolling up the sleeves of her henley. The ash continued to rain from the sky, smearing her Ivory skin like black ink.

Her teacher, meanwhile, sat comfortably on a rock and observed her with a content expression, not even trying to help.

'Bastard..’

"Cursing again? Rain, a proper young lady should act with modesty, poise, and decorum. Ah, you were such a well-mannered girl when we met... where did you even pick up these bad habits? Who taught you such foul language? Tell me, and I'll beat the crap out of the damned bastard..."

She paused for a moment, glared at him, and then returned to her work without saying a word.

"Stop pouting."

'I'm not pouting!’

collected the abomination's sharp fangs - those could be used to fashion arrowheads - then moved to its limbs and separated the stonelike blades from the joints. The

lightweight and tough. The Awakened who had not earned a good armor-type Memory yet often used them to fashion scalemail those with plenty of coins could afford something better, of course, but there were many of

got in trouble, their armor needed to be mended with even more scales. Therefore, there was always demand for Stone Worm's hides. Rain herself had

selling this hide. It was just that harvesting it was a tough and dirty

into a hefty sack. Tying the sack with rope, she grimaced and

retrieved her two arrows. After studying them for a few moments, Rain sighed. One could be repaired, but the other was unsalvageable. Her arsenal of arrows was growing dangerously poor - there were plenty

intact arrow and

for the

gleaming crystals from the remains of the Stone Worm, Rain looked at her

"Shall I?”

raised his white hands

"Go ahead. Good kill."

and placed the crystals on a flat rock. She often saw Awakened crush soul shards in their fists, but her mundane hands bruised terribly if

an almost imperceptible amount of foreign essence trickle into her soul. It

seemed satisfied, and

think it will be before 1 can attempt

for a few moments, then

and control your essence, so

escaped from

that it is not soon enough. So, we'll need to hurry up. You have to hunt another Awakened abomination. A

Creature. That clash had almost cost her life. Had that th been strong, in her teacher's

gave him a long