Joy and relief flooded Kaltyr’s system, putting out some of her fiery wrath, because through the trees, roughly a hundred meters ahead at the bottom of the slope, ran a river. Its blue water sparkled under the sunlight as it gracefully meandered downstream, calling for Kaltyr to approach.
And she accepted the invitation, not wasting a second in hesitation. It was not long before Kaltyr was kneeling at the riverbank with both hands submerged in nature’s elixir, washing away the blood.
“Hopefully I don’t get an infection, because the survival gear I was gifted by ‘The System’ didn’t seem to include anything medical related.”
The girl continued washing her hands for a few minutes, doing her best to ignore the pain as she cleaned out as much of the wound as she could.
“Medical related…” She mumbled, a nagging feeling in the back of her head.
Then, the fourth facepalm.
“The disc and the bottle!”
Kaltyr hurriedly dried her good hand on her jacket before digging through her pockets in search of the mysterious bottle. She assumed the disc-shaped rock with magical carvings needed to be powered with mana and thus ignored it, placing her hopes on what she thought might be a healing potion.
“…Which I left lying on the grass in the clearing…”
The fifth facepalm.
“Whatever. I’ll take this as a sign to head b-“
Kaltyr’s head spun as fast as it could, turning to face a new stimulus. Something had splashed in the water beside her, activating her fight-or-flight response—she hadn’t forgotten about the possibility of dangerous beasts.
But rather than predators she needed to fear, the girl was delighted to see thin little flashes of light darting around beneath the river’s surface—likely attracted by her blood.
“Fish!” Kaltyr yelled in excitement. “And so many of them! And of so many sizes!”
The girl gulped at the sight of a river full of fish, which she had previously overlooked because she was so concentrated on washing her wounded hand. Actually doing so also scared away the fish, leaving too few of them to take notice of until they regrouped.
“They’re still innocent creatures, but…” Kaltyr began salivating. “They’re less like me than mammals, so I don’t have to feel as bad for what I’m about to do.”
The girl positioned herself above the water at an angle so that her shadow didn’t frighten the fish, held her pocketknife in her left hand’s fingers by the blade, and took aim at the biggest fish in her view.
“Thankfully, I’m ambidextrous.” She whispered before launching the blade into the water.
The part of the river she was nearest to was rather shallow at less than a meter deep, so she didn’t worry about finding the weapon again after throwing it. Kaltyr took off the wilderness jacket and removed her cargo pants, tremendously thankful to The System that she had shorts on underneath them.
The lass was hopeful of her odds as she waded through the shallow part of the river because a red cloud could be seen around where the knife landed. A moment later and she was at the location of the blade…disappointed. When she retrieved it, the pocketknife had a bit of flesh attached to the blade end, meaning she’d hit a fish, but not run it completely through.
“Oh well, I didn’t really expect to get one on the first try.”
It was then when Kaltyr noticed a familiar flashing light planted in the corner of her vision, bringing a wild smile to her face as she hurried to open it.
|
You have obtained the skill: Small Projectile Throwing Arts |
Kaltyr’s celebratory exclamation shook the nearby water.
Elated and full of enthusiasm from gaining what she interpreted as a tool for survival, Kaltyr figuratively rolled up her sleeves.
“T-throwing arts! I can now qualitatively measure how effective my skills and training are!” The girl happily squealed to herself for a bit. “And if I practice on these fish, I might even get a meal out of it…”
Kaltyr wasted no time, waded back to dry land, found another shallow area where fish congregated, chose a target, and threw her blade. A splash later and she retrieved the knife to try again.
“This…will be too tiresome if I have to retrieve the pocketknife every time. Will it work if I just throw rocks?” She asked aloud, reaching for a random stone on the ground.
Another splash later and another facepalm.
“It doesn’t seem like The System tells me how much experience I get from each attempt or how much I need for the next level.” She sighed and made a face at the river. “I guess I’ll throw rocks for the rest of today and if my skill level doesn’t increase I’ll put up with reusing the pocketknife for it.”
Kaltyr bent down to collect a handful of rocks when she remembered something very important.
“Oh, yeah! The water bag!”
The girl had forgotten about the flask she was given for the purpose of storing water and quickly dug through her cargo pants pockets in search of it, also recovering the baggie of powder. Twisting off the stopper of the water bag, Kaltyr kneeled at the riverbank and submerged it in such a way so that the current would inflate the bag without her assistance. When it appeared full, she carefully lifted the bag by its metal mouth with her left hand.
“Now comes the tricky part.”
Since her right hand was wounded—and still bleeding, in fact—the lass would have trouble taking out the thirty grains of sterilizing agent from its container. She considered putting her odds in the hands of Lady Luck and not sterilizing the water, however…
“The water may be crystal clear and look super-duper clean, but considering how many fish are in this river, there’s probably a lot of…yeah. I’m not taking my chances.”
Still holding the flask with care so that the water didn’t spill, Kaltyr reached for the baggie of white powder with her injured hand, when…
“I’d facepalm myself again but my hand has a hole in it.”
She remembered that she could just close the water bag and use both hands to prepare the thirty grains of sterilizing agent. So, she did.
“Stupid brain fart almost caused me a lot of unnecessary pain.” She facepalmed when her good hand was free again. “Anyway, now that I have a bag full of clean water, I can get to throwing those rocks!”
