Unfortunately, the old man’s sword, inherited by Simon, broke apart. He had no proper weapon now, so he stopped his travel for a while. He found a cave made out of the roots of the trees and dragged the corpse of the Giant Mantis there.

  After settling down in the cave, he began to process the corpse to try its meat. But the first bite of the Mantis’s meat made Simon curse the world, ‘Yuck!’ and he had tasted worse before; it was just that bad.

  In a hurry to remove the taste from his pate, he used the dried bird meat from his backpack. After eating his meal, he proceeded to carve off the Giant Mantis’ arms.

  ‘This would be a good sword!’ he smiled as he already had a pn for the bde. He began his work using rocks to shave the bde in a form that he intended to, then pnned to sharpen it using the whetstone that was in his bag.

  As the darkness consumed the forest, Simon offered his fire and continued working in the dark. ‘This is looking good!’ he continued and would continue until satisfied.

  At the sunrise of the next day, after a bit of struggle, he fashioned two bdes out of the Giant Mantis’ Scythes. The shorter one was the prototype, and the longer one was the main product.

  But it still couldn’t be called a sword since the hilt was unfinished. Using the bone as the handle of the bde, he covered it with extra leather that was supposed to be an emergency patch for his bag and clothes.

  Seeing the morning sunrise over the trees, Simon carried his new creations, the Mantis Bdes, outside the cave. He held it up to the light, marveling at its serrated edge. ‘Let me try this out!’ I swung the bdes, testing their weight. Heavy—but just how I like it. Unlike the old man’s sword, these serrated edges weren’t for hacking. No, these two would tear through anything with a brutal ssh.

  The shorter bde had snapped during my attempt to curve it, which was why it ended up smaller. While I left the longer bde as it was, so the curve was in the bde, but in that way, I preserved the bde’s natural edge. I didn’t need to sharpen that much since both were already sharp enough.

  But I need to test the handles first. I started with the shorter bde. Unexpectedly, it had a good enough bance, and no adjustments were required. The next one was the longer bde.

  ‘Oof!’

  This one needs a more stable handle. I pierced it into the ground to look for a good wood or a stick. I scoured around the area and found broken branches.

  ‘This would do!’

  I grabbed the wood I needed, took the sword, and returned to the cave. Taking out my carving knife, I began to work.

  After a while, I finished the hilt of the longer Mantis Bde and took it out to test it again.

  Forming a high-point stance, I swung the sword, and this time, it was easier to handle with the extended hilt.

  The bance was way off because of the shape, but I could adjust to that. ‘Like how the Giant Mantis attacked,’ I replicated the scythes' movement in a diagonal pattern, thrust and pull. ‘Perfect.’

  Simon smiled; he knew that he had done a great job. Then he turned his head to the corpse of the Giant Mantis, which was starting to smell.

  Simon still needed to finish the carving of the Giant Mantis, so he resumed work again. He would sometimes leave the carcass if he knew that monsters would consume it. But since he had already started carving it up, he opted to explore its carcass.

  All in all, it took him 2 days to properly bury the monster. In that time, the boy managed to upgrade his backpack and collect lots of thread from the Giant Mantis’ wings.

  A few days ter.

  Soon, Simon understood that the giant mantises were a natural part of the ecosystem of the Umbra Forest; many of them were scattered across the forest, and they were especially active during dusk and sunrise. They were carnivores that hunted animals in the day and scavengers in the night.

  Simon already knew their schedule, so he avoided them. What he was truly wary of were the eagles hunting the monkey monsters.

  He saw one once; the eagle would hunt down the monster monkeys using some sort of wind magic, and the damned monkey was helpless against it.

  Magic was a natural ability for animals and monsters. He was told again and again because he didn’t learn any kind of magic, ‘Be aware of those who use it. Especially monsters!’ Monsters used magic effortlessly as if they were born with it.

  The lesson from the old man lingered, but Simon’s thoughts returned to his present predicament. He still had one pouch of water left, but the second one was already empty. Clean water was essential—he could never forget the days when he and the old man ran out. Those times had been pure hell.

  Luckily, as the day ended, he smelled a basin of fresh water. He followed it and found a spring. It was rge, but the trees of the Umbra Forest hid it. An eerie atmosphere surrounded the spring, and there were no animals around, not even monsters.

  But it didn’t matter; the old man said that if he boiled the spring water, it would be safe to drink.

  The boy slowly approached the water. There was no strange smell, no signs that it was acidic. He took a sip. It was really spring water. ‘But why was it so big? And why were there no animals around?’ Simon thought.

  With his pot, he drew some water and started a fire to boil it. Then, he began going through his inventory again. Now that his bag was bigger and had more partitions, he wanted to organize it, or rather, he was disciplined to organize his things.

  The meat went to the expandable pouch that was at the bottom of the bag. His two swords would hang just by a

  except for the meat: his two swords, a small carving knife, a pot, two pouches for water, a whetstone, a fire starter, along with jars of salt and spices, two sets of clothes, and a spare cloak that doubled as a bnket when he slept.

  That’s everything he had when he left. He divided them since the new bag was rger and had better partitions.

  After he finished fixing his inventory, the boy stared at the dancing fme under the pot. When the pot began popping sounds, he immediately pced some of the herbs he had in his condiment jar. It would take a while for it to be properly cooked, so he approached the spring water.

  It was so still he could see his own reflection. He began practicing faces—sour, awkward expressions the old man had taught him, supposedly useful for making friends and attracting girls.

  ‘What’s the difference between friends and girls?’

  Simon was too innocent to understand any of it. By now, his face remembered four distinct expressions, ingrained as muscle memory. He tried them one by one.

  ‘I used number three on the girls in the forest… but I just scared them.’

  He stared at his reflection for a moment.

  ‘Nah. I’ll just go for a swim.’

  He stripped off his clothes and jumped in, bringing his self-made sword with him just in case there were any fish in the water.