A New Life (2)
The crossbow and proper bow they had acquired just as winter set in had barely seen any hunting use since then—the season simply hadn't allowed it.
But once winter passed and the island's weather softened, they began hunting in earnest with the crossbow and real bow, and the results showed immediately.
Game that had once been out of range could now be hit. Hides that arrows had once failed to pierce now yielded. Even the speed and force of the shafts were different.
The bow Monia had made and used before had sent arrows flying reasonably fast, but arrows from a proper bow were so swift they nearly vanished from sight.
To put it concretely: Chester could catch an arrow from the old bow. He could not catch these. Of course, for safety's sake, they would never actually shoot at him.
Making arrows had been added to Chester and Monia's list of tasks as well. For now they retrieved spent shafts and reused them, and when one broke they salvaged only the tip, keeping losses as low as possible.
Even so, losses were never zero. Sometimes a broken tip flew off somewhere and could not be found. Sometimes they struck stone by accident and crushed a tip beyond use.
In the end, arrows were consumables. To use them steadily, they needed the skill to remake what they spent.
The same held for crossbow bolts. Meanwhile Chester carefully examined the crossbow itself, recording its shape, parts, and movement, studying how best to maintain it so it would last.
Everything—objects, even people—needed proper care. With the right care, even a consumable could last astonishingly long.
"That's enough hunting for today."
"Mm. This is plenty."
Faster hunting did not mean they could take more game. They simply did not need that much.
It meant the hunt finished sooner, and with the hunt finished, Chester and Monia gained time.
They spent that time on other work. They repaired the house and rebuilt the storehouse. They finished the seaside villa. They shaped mud into bricks, fired them, and tested their strength.
They melted metal and experimented with arrowheads. They rebuilt bodies weakened by the long winter. Chester taught Monia the many skills he possessed.
"Yes—just like that."
How long had they spent that way? Before either of them quite noticed, Monia could leap nimbly from tree to tree.
She still could not use the spring of the branches the way Chester did to run even faster; that was an advanced technique you had to learn by feel while racing through the canopy. Everyone sensed it differently, so it depended entirely on one's own instincts, experience, and knack.
She's working hard at it. She'll get it soon enough.
That was what Chester thought—until he watched Monia, flushed with excitement, slip and nearly fall. He revised the thought.
Maybe not so soon…
Chester himself had mastered branch-running in a single session; after only a couple of days he had the feel and the knack and was already using the spring of the limbs.
She's gotten decent with the bow, but she still misses now and then. Monia's a bit clumsy with physical work.
Then an image rose unbidden: Monia naked under moonlight, gleaming.
…Maybe not that clumsy after all…
He cleared his throat, banished the thought, and looked up again at Monia racing through the branches.
While he watched her, a stone from his slingshot flew, then suddenly veered sideways.
"Hm? …Ah. The stone caught on something and picked up spin."
He checked the pouch where the stone sat; a bit of the cord had frayed. He watched the stone curve and drop.
So a slingshot can put spin on a stone and bend its path?
Just as he had, during winter snowball fights, put spin on snowballs so they curved left, right, or down and tormented Monia.
"Oh-ho."
With a crossbow and a proper bow in hand he had thought the slingshot would be little more than a spare. This changed things.
"I'll need more practice."
It had been pure chance, but chance that could be repeated could, with enough mastery, become technique. Chester decided to pour his free time for a while into training and the slingshot alone.
The flying stone curved sideways and struck the rabbit that had been fleeing around a tree. One slender leg snapped. Ant, who had been chasing it, seized the rabbit in its jaws and brought it to Chester.
"Good boy."
He praised Ant, lifted the rabbit, examined it, then held it out for Monia. The rabbit, gripped by the ears, thrashed hard but could not escape Chester's hand.
"Well?"
"Amazing! How did you do that?!"
"Same trick I used throwing snowballs at you—just with the slingshot."
Monia took the rabbit, eyes shining with wonder, then tightened her grip and broke its neck.
"I want to try!"
"One thing at a time. One thing at a time. First, learn to run fast."
"Okay! If I can run fast, we can widen our scouting range."
"Exactly. And master the bow properly first. You still miss sometimes."
"Hitting every single shot is something only the legendary archers in stories can do!"
"I'm not asking you to hit every living thing dead-center. I can't do that either. But a stationary target—let's make those perfect."
"Ugh… Fine."
As she spoke, Monia looked at the slingshot in Chester's hand. Long practice had worn the skin from his fingers; raw places and small wounds marked them. The Grace of the Summit had already healed the injuries, but the slingshot itself, stained red with his blood, still told how hard he had worked.
Sensing her gaze, Chester glanced at the slingshot—then flung it away. Monia, who had been watching that quiet evidence of his effort with a soft look, started.
"Huh?! Why throw it away!"
"Why? Because filthy things nearby breed sickness. You throw them out."
"Ugh. That's true."
"I was so focused on practice I never noticed how dirty it got. I'll make a new one."
With that he turned, rabbit in hand, ready to head home. Monia cast one last faintly regretful look at the discarded slingshot, then followed.
Grass sprang up almost at once and swallowed the abandoned slingshot. Animals raced past, churning and overturning the soil until the slingshot was completely buried.
Roots took hold in the earth that covered it and grew. Quietly, over a long stretch of time, it would rot and become part of the ground.
Leaving that future behind, Chester returned home and at once made a new slingshot. Twist the cord and it was done in moments; nothing difficult about it.
While he shot stones and broke the new slingshot in, Monia was cooking with the rabbit she had butchered at the river.
Meat pie. Rabbit meat, grain flour kneaded with water into a crust. It was not wheat flour, only some unknown grain, and water alone for the dough, so there were limits—but it was still a proper feast.
I want to trap the juices inside the pie. The dough is stiff enough that replacing some of it with juices would make it even better.
While Chester poured effort into technical work, Monia threw herself into raising the quality of everyday life beyond mere necessity.
Tastier food. More beautiful songs. Prettier pictures. Things they did not strictly need, yet things that were clearly better to have.
That blend of art and inquiry suited Monia's tastes surprisingly well; before long she had taken over all the cooking. In truth, whenever Chester cooked he turned everything into a catch-all stew, so Monia had simply forbidden him the kitchen.
It was not that Chester's cooking was bad. Strictly speaking it was, but after living on the Floating Island and tasting every sort of unpleasant thing, Monia found the stew acceptable.
Still, when better food was possible, she did not want to eat that. And watching Chester cheerfully eat the strange, soft lumps that rose when blood left undrained in the meat boiled out into the water—that had been the final push for her to take over the cooking herself.
While Chester and Monia each spent their time, a young warrior who had appeared unnoticed and been watching them lifted Ant as the beast approached, stroked it gently, then made a sound toward Chester.
- Grrrng.
"Hm? Finally speaking up."
He had known the Summit person was there by sound, but had left them alone, figuring they had their reasons. Now he walked over to the young warrior who had called out.
Perhaps shy by nature, the young warrior set Ant down when Chester drew near, edged back a little, and only then spoke from a safer distance.
By the time Monia finished cooking and leaned out to call them to eat, the conversation was over and the young warrior gone. Chester came inside and told her what they had discussed.
"Black Wind's baby is about to be born."
"Wow! Finally!"
"Mm. So tomorrow they'll take us along. They say we absolutely have to be there to see it."
"Huh? I'd love to see it if we can, but… absolutely?"
"Yeah. I don't know why, but I agreed to go with them tomorrow. Just so you know."
"All right. Still, it would have been nice if they'd eaten with us."
"I invited them. They said roasted food isn't to their taste."
"Ah—tastes differ. That happens."
Whether the refusal came from shyness or a genuine dislike of fire-cooked food, Chester left that part unsaid and bit into the meat pie Monia had made.
"A baby Wind… it'll be so cute, won't it? I've never seen a baby being born before!"
Monia chattered on about Black Wind's child, already excited for tomorrow's journey.