“YELP! WHINE!”
“CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!!!!”
“YELP~!”
Yeehawwwwwwwww!
A wild dog was fleeing between the snow-white trees, yelping as it ran.
And chasing after it with a tremendous racket was a battered skeleton, an arrow nocked to his bow.
The wild dog was smaller and more agile than a human, weaving between the trees and gradually pulling ahead. But with my lightweight body made entirely of bone, it couldn't put more than a certain distance between us.
After about two minutes of pursuit, the wild dog seemed to tire a little and slowed down. I immediately drew my bow and fired.
PING~!
“YELP!”
Unfortunately, the arrow embedded itself in a tree to the dog's left.
Startled by the sound, the wild dog took off again and soon disappeared from sight.
Even after it vanished, I remained calm.
We'd already been at this chase for quite some time, so it was bound to be exhausted.
Monster or not, it couldn't get very far in that state.
And so, as I walked along, counting how many uses of [Bone Manipulation] I had left, I spotted a clump of brown fur through the snow-white leaves.
The clump's chest kept rising and falling, so I was certain it was the wild dog I'd been chasing.
“CLACK, CLACK!”
(Hey~ boy! Want to play the fire truck game with me?!)
“W-WOOF?!”
(H-How did you get here?!)
The moment I was sure, I charged at the wild dog again, making as much noise as I could.
It fled once more, and I gave chase.
PING~!
“WHINE!”
Whenever the wild dog showed signs of tiring, I fired another arrow, and it started running again.
“CLICK, CLICK! CLACK!”
(The rules are simple! From now on, I'll keep chasing you, and whenever you feel you're in danger, just shout, ‘Red light!’)
“YELP!”
“CLICK! CLICK!”
(Heh heh. I have absolutely no idea what you're saying.)
“REEEED LIIIGHT, AROOO!”
“CLACK, CLACK!”
(Fire trucks don't stop at red lights, boy~!)
“WHIIIIINE!!”
And so it went. Every time I found the fleeing wild dog, I chased it, and every time, it panicked and ran away again.
After this repeated pursuit, the wild dog was utterly exhausted, having been forced to keep running without a proper chance to rest.
Previously, it would flee at the slightest glimpse of my bones. Now, whether I approached it or not, it merely lay sprawled on the ground, panting heavily.
This is the difference between the living and the undead.
Living creatures are bound to tire, but as an undead, I don't get tired.
Even if I'd fought that wild dog head-on, there was no way I would have lost or suffered any serious injuries.
Yet there was one reason I'd gone to all this trouble to capture it.
Bones that broke or were even damaged during a fierce fight couldn't be used with the [Bone Replacement] skill.
In fact, when I'd fought the White Forest Bear, the strongest monster I'd encountered in this forest so far, so many of its bones had been broken or damaged in the battle that I'd managed to obtain only two usable bones.
Considering that the White Forest Bear's bones offered vastly greater stat increases than those of other monsters, it had been a loss that hurt right down to the bone.
“CLACK.”
Anyway, it was time to do what needed to be done.
As I approached the wild dog, I created an arrow using [Bone Manipulation] and....
SQUELCH!
“Whine....”
Drove it straight into the dog's neck.
[You have defeated a White Forest Wild Dog.]
A System message confirmed the kill for me, even though I hardly needed to check.
“CLICK.”
After reading the message, I sat down and used the arrow embedded in the dog's neck to skin it and separate its bones from its flesh.
“CLACK~ CLICK!”
A few hours later, I'd finished the dissection perfectly, with the bones and hide completely separated and even a glowing Mana Stone lying off to one side.
When I'd first started dismantling monsters, I sometimes damaged their bones or Mana Stones.
But after countless sacrifices, I'd become skilled enough to call my work perfect.
[White Forest Wild Dog Skull]
-A bone from a wild dog that inhabits the White Forest.
-[Bone Replacement] Stat Changes
Agility +1, Strength -4
Unfortunately, the wild dog's bone was a dud.
It only raised Agility by 1 while reducing Strength, the stat I needed most right now, by a whopping 4. What a useless bone.
To make matters worse, all the bones from its other body parts were much the same.
But this was the most important thing.
[C-Grade Mana Stone]
-A byproduct containing a monster's Mana. It glows beautifully.
A Mana Stone obtained from a monster.
These little stones had enabled humanity to rise again from the chaos caused by the Gates.
The power contained within them was that immense, and they were extremely expensive.
And the Mana Stone I'd obtained this time was a C-Grade one, the highest Grade of any Mana Stone I'd collected from the monsters I'd killed so far.
It was common knowledge that stronger monsters yielded higher-Grade Mana Stones, so perhaps that wild dog had been quite formidable in its prime.
Its bones were pretty much trash, though.
I would've liked to give it a kiss, but since both of us were nothing but bones now, I gave up on the idea.
“CLICK!”
Well then, time to sort things out.
I opened the subspace granted to Awakened, conveniently known as an inventory, put the Mana Stone inside, and poured out a huge number of bones.
“CLACK, CLACK.”
A pile of bones rose before me like a small hill.
They were the precious, beloved bones I'd gathered by hunting every monster I could find.
Unfortunately, however, most of these bones were just as useless as the wild dog's.
As the name suggested, [Bone Replacement] was a skill for swapping one bone for another. I couldn't combine bones or add extra ones, so inferior bones like those of the wild dog would simply be thrown away.
That was something I'd learned from using [Bone Replacement] now and then.
What mattered, then, were the few bones I'd carefully set aside in one corner of my inventory.
Of all the bones I'd collected while hunting, I'd sorted out and saved the best-performing one for each body part.
The left hand bones and pelvis of a White Forest Bear, and one leg bone from a White Forest Deer.
Then there were a White Forest Wolf's skull, one foreleg bone, and two foot bones, obtained in a fight against a pack of wild dogs.
Finally, I had a White Forest Fox's foreleg bone, leg bone, and right hand bones.
The essence of all the animals I'd slaughtered until now lay gathered before my eyes.
The sun had set and risen seven times since I'd entered this forest. An entire week had already passed.
Since I'd obtained a C-Grade Mana Stone and had also used [Bone Manipulation] quite a lot today, I decided to finish hunting and use [Bone Replacement] as my final task.
“CLACK! CLICK, CLICK! CLACK....”
Was it because this was my first time?
My bones were trembling so much that I could barely contain myself.
Unable to hold back that feeling any longer, I immediately activated [Bone Replacement].
A slight sensation of floating washed over me as my bones were pulled out, and new ones began filling the empty spaces.
CLICK! CLACK! CLICK!
For several dozen seconds, one bone was removed and another fitted into place.
Finally, with every bone fitted and [Bone Replacement] complete, I started to stand up....
CLATTER! THUD!
Only to fall over without even getting to my feet.
For the simple reason that the White Forest Fox's leg bone and the deer's leg bone were different lengths, throwing off my left-right balance.
It was a problem I could've anticipated if I'd thought for even a moment before moving. How could I have gotten so excited that I'd overlooked something so simple?
I was beginning to suspect that even my intelligence had become as hollow as my skull.
“CLACK....”
In the end, I replaced the fox's leg bone with another deer's leg bone, and only then did both legs become roughly the same length.
Now, to stand up again and take my first step as the new me....
“CLICK?!”
THUD!
I couldn't even take that step before falling over again.
This time, the reason was the unfamiliar sensation of walking.
How should I describe it...? It felt as though I were walking with my heels raised, balancing only on my toes.
I picked myself up, settled into a sitting position, and considered what was wrong.
Then I noticed my feet.
Now that I looked closely, the foot bones were far too small compared to human foot bones.
No, more precisely, the foot bones were elongated, bent once in the middle, and supported my body on smaller bones.
My feet had taken on what people commonly called the backward-jointed shape of animal legs.
Come to think of it, hadn't I heard that animals essentially walk on what would be their toes if they were human?
I figured that must be the reason.
In the end, I spent quite some time sitting there, experimenting with different combinations of bones while considering both their performance and the practical problems they presented, searching for the optimal arrangement.
After several hours of repeatedly inserting and removing bones, the optimal combination I finally settled on was as follows.
My right hand and both feet used my original human bones.
My left hand and pelvis used bear bones.
Both arms and both legs used deer leg bones.
And finally, my skull was a wolf's.
My left hand wasn't much of a problem, since I could simply grow the bow attached to my bones without actually having to grip it. But if I used an animal's hand bones for my right hand, the underdeveloped thumb would prevent me from holding objects or gripping arrows, so I kept my original bones there.
As for both arms, I'd originally intended to use the better-performing wolf bones, but shorter arms meant I couldn't draw the bowstring far enough. Forget power—the arrows lost their momentum and fell to the ground right in front of me.
So I used deer bones, which were similar in length to my original ones, and with that, my new body was complete.
“CLACK.”
[Name]: None
[Class]: Skeleton Archer
-Stamina: 20
-Agility: 26
-Mana: 8
-Strength: 21
-Faith: 1
[Skills]
[Archery]-Lv.4
[Bone Manipulation]-Lv.3
[Bone Replacement]-Lv.2
The Status Window I opened with a trembling heart was truly incredible.
Every stat except Mana and Faith had more than doubled, all of them breaking past the threshold of 20.
I'd merely swapped out some bones, but I could safely say I'd become more than twice as strong as before.
On top of that, my skill levels had risen by several stages.
[Bone Replacement] had gained one level during my earlier experimentation, bringing it to Level 2.
When I'd last checked the other two skills while training with my senior, they'd each gained one level and reached Level 2.
Yet in just this one week of hunting monsters, [Archery] had gained two levels, while [Bone Manipulation] had gained one.
So hunting really is the key to Growth....
In a mere week, I'd surpassed three months of training.
Of course, part of that was thanks to the solid fundamentals I'd built through training with my senior.
...No, even considering that, something felt a little strange.
For an ordinary Awakened, increasing a skill's level was an extremely arduous and difficult task.
There was even a joke that you had to swing a wooden sword nonstop for a month just to raise [Swordsmanship] by one level.
In that case, only one explanation remained.
Was it because the Damn Goddess's Blessing made my skill levels increase 1.5 times faster?
I could feel it in my bones: this really was an extraordinary benefit, worthy of being called a goddess's Blessing.
But at the same time, unease crept over me.
Even if the benefits they'd received were smaller than mine, not one of the others who had received the same Blessing had escaped ruin.
Then just how painful and difficult would the fate awaiting me be?
Would I really be able to recover the Sacred Relic and regain my memories?
No, perhaps those memories contain nothing but suffering and hardship. Maybe I'd be happier never recovering them....
“CLICK!”
Haah. Right. It doesn't matter.
The ship has already sailed, and the only place I can disembark is the sea.
Even if I regret recovering my memories, without them I won't even be able to regret anything. I'll simply live in pain.
It wasn't as though thinking about it now would help me avoid my fate anyway, so I decided to just enjoy myself.
“CLACK~ CLACK!”
This incredible power flowing between my bones.
With strength like this, couldn't I land a solid blow not only on that damned robot, but even on my senior?
Heh heh heh... Excellent.
First, I'll beat the hell out of the monsters around here until I get used to this body. Then I'll defeat my senior and make him cry his eyes out, snot and all.
“CLACK! CLACK!”
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ gives an awkward laugh.]