The thirst was way more of a bitch than the pain in his ribs.
Kanos leaned against the giant tree trunk, panting heavily. He'd been walking aimlessly in this purple forest for about two hours. His shoes were soaked with mud and God knows what else. Every time he took a deep breath, his right chest felt like it was being stabbed with a nail.
He needed water. Now.
His eyes caught something hanging on a low branch, about five meters from where he stood. It looked like a melon, but pale gray with a surface as rough as asphalt.
Kanos stepped closer. The moment he focused on the weird fruit, his vision suddenly flickered.
Thin blue lines of light suddenly appeared, forming a grid pattern hovering right over the fruit's surface. Kanos rubbed his eyes, but the blue lines didn't disappear. They actually got clearer. The small boxes in the grid showed which parts were solid and which were hollow. The center of the fruit was deep red, while the outer layer was a clear, shifting blue.
"Structural Analysis," Kanos muttered, remembering the name of the passive skill from the blue box earlier. "So my brain can just peel objects open from the outside now? Cool. The center is solid and dangerous, the outside is water."
He needed that liquid. But the fruit's outer skin looked incredibly thick. Scratching it with his nails definitely wouldn't work.
Kanos pulled out the flat river stone and the chunk of charcoal from his cargo pocket. His right hand twirled the charcoal, looking for the sharpest angle.
"Let's test out these new drawing tools."
He placed the flat stone on his knee, took a short breath, and started scratching. The sound of rough charcoal grinding against stone echoed loudly in the silent forest. Kanos's brain immediately pictured the real thing. He drew a thick folding knife. A knife with a really sharp point, a hollowed-out handle to make it light, and the perfect curve to pierce hard objects easily.
Charcoal was way better to use than rotten wood. The black lines were bold and didn't break. Done in four seconds.
The moment he closed the final line, a wave of nausea slammed into his stomach. His head throbbed violently, exactly like the migraines he got when he didn't sleep for three days. Along with the pain, the black lines on the stone glowed bright blue.
Blue dust gathered from the air, filling the outline he made, and pop.
A real knife dropped onto the stone. It was pitch black, its surface rough like a river rock. Kanos picked it up. The weight was just right. The frame was solid. Way stronger than the clay dagger he made earlier.
"Making more complicated stuff drains the brain way worse," Kanos hissed, massaging his temples. His body felt even weaker. "My energy gets sucked out to form its physical shape."
He didn't waste time. Kanos slashed the stone fruit. The black blade pierced the rough skin easily. Clear liquid immediately squirted from the edges. Kanos caught the water with both hands and drank greedily.
It tasted like absolute garbage. Like spoiled coconut water mixed with iron rust. But his throat stopped burning, and that was more than enough.
Shatter. Kanos looked down. The black knife in his hand cracked, then crumbled into a pile of charcoal dust.
"The durability follows the ink material," Kanos noted in his head. "Clay only survives one hit. Charcoal lasts a bit longer, but it's still brittle if forced through hard stuff."
The sky above him suddenly changed drastically. The reddish-orange that had been hanging between the giant leaves faded, replaced by a deep purple that quickly bled into pitch black. Day turning to night in this crazy world didn't take hours. Just minutes.
The sounds of the forest, previously filled with the buzzing of weird insects, suddenly went dead silent.
Kanos shivered. This wasn't silence because all the animals were sleeping. It was silence because the monsters looking for dinner were starting to come out. Sleeping on the ground was basically offering himself up as a free breakfast.
He looked up at the tree trunk nearby. His Structural Analysis flared up again. The blue lines showed a giant mushroom the size of a dining table stuck firmly to the trunk, about five meters off the ground. The inside was solid, strong enough to hold his weight. He had to get up there.
The problem was, the giant tree's bark was slick and hard. No footholds at all.
Kanos pulled out his flat stone again. The charcoal was getting a bit blunt, but still usable. He held his breath, fought down the nausea in his stomach, and drew three thick climbing pitons with holes at the ends for rope grips.
Cold sweat dripped from his chin. His vision started to sway. Making three real objects at once was apparently pushing his body to its absolute limit.
The blue light flickered, and three black charcoal pitons dropped to the dirt. Kanos immediately scooped them up before the forest got pitch black.
Guided by the blue grid showing the micro-cracks in the tree bark, Kanos hammered the first piton in using the stone. It stuck. He pulled his body up. His arm muscles screamed in protest. He hammered the second piton, climbed again. His feet slipped twice, causing his ribs to slam hard against the trunk.
By the time he managed to roll his body onto the surface of the giant mushroom, his breathing sounded like a broken whistle. His lungs burned.
It smelled musty up here, but it was fairly soft. Kanos lay flat on his back. The forest was now completely pitch black. He couldn't even see his own fingers if he held them in front of his face.
Kanos closed his eyes. His body was wrecked, his brain was on fire, his stomach cramped. He just wanted to pass out for a bit. Just an hour.
THUD!
The tree he was sleeping on shook violently. Kanos jolted awake in shock, his hands reflexively grabbing the edge of the mushroom.
Down below, about twenty meters from his tree, there was a flash of blue light. Not from his system. It was sparks from metal clashing hard against something solid.
Kanos peeked over the edge. He narrowed his eyes through the darkness. Under the shadow of the trees, there was a completely one-sided fight.
A guy built like a giant—he had to be nearly two meters tall—was surrounded by three shelled wolves. The exact same creatures that almost killed Kanos earlier.
Kanos watched the guy. He didn't have a sword. He didn't have a spear. The giant man was parrying the wolves' jaws with his bare hands. His forearms were wrapped in dull steel gauntlets that were heavily dented all over.
The man's movements were stiff, but precise. He didn't just swing wildly. When one wolf lunged, he twisted his hips, letting the monster pass, then slammed his elbow into the back of the wolf's head. There was a loud crack of bone, and the monster faceplanted into the dirt.
"Come at me, you bastards!" the man's voice boomed. Heavy, raspy, and full of suppressed rage.
But the guy was exhausted. Kanos could see it from the blue grid flickering in his vision. The man's defense was starting to falter.
One wolf lunged from a blind spot on his left. The man was too slow to turn. The monster's long claws successfully ripped into his left shoulder. Blood spurted. The giant man staggered back, his back slamming hard against a tree.
The third wolf got into position to tear out his throat.
Kanos held his breath on top of the mushroom. His common sense was screaming at him: Stay here. Don't get involved. You only have twelve health points. You go down there, you die this very second.
If the guy down there died, it wasn't his problem.
But Kanos's survival logic went a different route. If the giant man died, those three bloodthirsty monsters would definitely tear his corpse apart, smell Kanos hiding in the tree, and wait for him at the bottom. Or worse, they might climb.
Kanos needed that guy alive. He needed a meat shield who could fight, because Kanos clearly couldn't punch a damn thing.
"Dammit," Kanos cursed softly, his voice barely audible. "A new client walking in during my break."
He quickly felt around his cargo pockets. Looking for the flat stone and the leftover charcoal. His hands were shaking violently. His head throbbed like it was going to split open the moment he forced his brain to focus again.
I need a heavy weapon. Something that crushes when it drops.
Kanos didn't draw a knife. On top of his flat stone, in the pitch-black darkness, his hand moved purely on muscle memory. He drew a throwing axe. The axe head was thick, wide, and front-heavy. The handle was short. Perfect for smashing a hard shell from above.
Scratch. Scratch.
The black lines glowed bright blue. Nausea hit Kanos's stomach so hard he almost actually threw up. Fresh blood dripped from his nose. Making a heavy weapon when his energy was at zero was the stupidest idea he'd ever had.
But the pitch-black axe successfully materialized, dropping heavily onto the stone.
Down below, the third wolf leaped, its jaws wide open aiming straight for the giant man's face. The man raised his steel-clad arm, ready to take the fatal bite.
Kanos hoisted the heavy axe, peeked over the edge of the mushroom, and gauged the monster's drop point using his illustrator instincts.
"Hey, ugly mutt!" Kanos yelled as loud as he could from up in the tree.
The wolf, currently suspended in mid-air, reflexively looked up, startled for a split second.
Kanos let go of the axe, letting gravity add to the weapon's destructive force. The black carbon iron plummeted straight down, slicing through the air, and slammed right into the dead center of the wolf's forehead. The cracking sound was sickening.
The monster instantly dropped to the ground like a leaky sack of rice. Dead on the spot before its teeth even touched the giant man's arm.
Silence fell over the forest once again. The two remaining wolves suddenly backed away slowly, terrified seeing their packmate die with its head split open by something from the sky. They turned around and sprinted off into the dark forest.
The giant man down below stood rigid. His breathing was heavy. Blood flowed from his shoulder, dripping into the mud. He kicked the dead wolf in front of him, then slowly looked up into the tree, his eyes searching for the source of the voice.
"Who's up there?" he called out. His voice was raspy and suspicious. "Come down! Or I'll chop this tree down myself."
Kanos leaned back against the tree trunk on top of his mushroom. He wiped the blood coming out of his nose with the back of his hand. His head was spinning like crazy, but the corner of his mouth twitched into a very faint, cynical smile.
"I just saved your life, big guy," Kanos muttered to himself. "And this is how you say thank you?"