Seriously Frustrated Snow - Chapter 26 (Patreon)

Crane and I stood on the balcony just outside of Jixie’s workshop. The scholar was just about to finish whatever he was working on, so we were waiting for that. Night had fully set at some point, and the Ophidian below were out in full force. We were safe enough up here in the aura of the spirit flame, though.

I stared at Crane for a moment, and then looked in the other direction with a harsh breath of air. “Hmph!”

“Are you still mad at me?” Crane eyed me like he didn’t quite know what to do. The solution was easy though—he owed me jerky. My sweet, delicious treasure that I’d been hunting for all this time was in reach, but the stingy human absolutely refused to pass it over. I have every right to be mad!

”Why would I be mad?” I rolled my eyes at the dimwitted humans. My tail flicked around behind me in irritation like it wanted to pummel him.

”Ugh, and I thought human women were hard to understand…” Crane muttered under his breath. I have freaking fox ears, bastard! I can hear every word!

“Use that dog-loving brain of yours to carefully think this through.” I drew out every word to get my aggravation across. “Why would the ever glorious and noble Snow be mad at you?”

Crane dropped his hand onto the pommel of his sword and tapped it idly. “Your fur got dirty?”

”It did?!” I glanced back at myself, and sure enough, there were a few splotches of mud scattered across my pure white fluff. My ears flattened to the side of my head, and I rubbed up against the balcony railing to get it off.

”Damn it…” The skyman groaned, and then paused for a moment. “Is it… the jerky?”

”You blind dog! Of course it's the jerky!” I jumped up onto the balcony railing so he couldn’t turn away from my righteous fury. Lightning struck above like even Heaven was with me on this one. “Either the jerky, or your heart!”

”Woah… calm down, little guy.” Crane slung his bag off his shoulder and plopped it down onto the balcony railing. “I just forgot, okay?”

How can you just forget jerky! That’s like forgetting Heaven’s favor?! A snarl built up in my chest, though eased once he pulled out the jar of salted meat. “Good boy.”

“Really, Snow?” His expression pulled weirdly. The honor of being called a good boy by me must’ve been just a little too crushing for the human. He bashfully tossed the jar to me. “Here. Knock yourself out.”

I lunged forward to catch the jar, but it was about as big as my head and I didn’t have hands. It bonked me over the head, and then sailed over the edge of the railing. I could only watch in absolute horror as it slammed into the tiled eave just below the balcony, and disappeared down onto the dark streets below.

Crane froze, and his voice bled with guilt. “Oh…”

Crack! 

My sensitive ears acutely picked up the exact moment my precious, dear treasure shattered on the muddy road far below. My heart shattered alongside the jar, and my mind instantly dipped into retrieval mode. Can I even get down there to get it back? The street’s swarming with Ophidian, and it’ll all be scattered and muddy. I-is it really hopeless?

With the realization that my precious jerky was forever lost to me, my head snapped toward the traitorous human. “You—you—you—“

Crane rubbed at the back of his neck and looked away from my trembling eyes. “I’ll get you another.”

“You filthy dog-lover!” I released one Furious Paw after another against the human’s side, and chomped down onto his sleeve to rip and tear at it. “Even your ancestors would disown a dishonorable runt like you!”

“That’s kinda harsh.” Crane pulled his sleeve away, pulling me off the balcony rail along with it. I hung from it with my teeth for a moment and shot a dozen more Furious Paws at his stomach. “I’ll buy you three jars.”

I let go of his sleeve and dropped onto the wooden ground of the balcony. My outraged glare didn’t lift for a moment, though. “Really?”

”Yes, yes, I’ll get you three.” He checked his sleeve, and light leaked through a bunch of small holes. “I have to go back to Steadfast to sell Graft’s pills anyway.”

“It better be the premium cut.” I huffed heavily, and looked away from the rage-inducing human. My righteous, Heavenly approved fury boiled to a low simmer in the back of my mind. 

“It will be. I’ll get the most expensive kind I can find.” He sighed, and flicked his sleeve. Qi washed over him, and my spit that clung to it flew out. The Qi flowed in a surprisingly intricate pattern compared to some of the other things I’d seen with Eye of the Recorder.

[Collecting Record… 7%…]

[Partial Record: Purity Art]

Is that how he keeps his robe from getting filthy? Part of my rage dissipated under the discovery of something new. I’d noticed on the way here, naturally, that his robe never got soaked by the heavy rain like my fur did. If I learn the Purity Art, can I keep my fur dry? More importantly, can I keep it clean?!

On the muddy southside of Dragon Vein Village, keeping my pure white coat pure white was starting to become increasingly difficult. If I had that… hmm…

”Visitors! I’m ready for you!” Jixie called out to us. 

“I’ll go to Steadfast after we finish here.” Crane promised, and headed into the building. 

I watched him go for a moment before following the skyman into the building. Ponpon instantly shot me a depressed look. The little mouse curled up into a small ball in the corner of his cage with his back turned to us like he couldn’t be bothered.

”Behold!” Jixie lifted a device off his worktable and proudly held it out to us. It looked like a ring large, with an intricate mesh of runic script similar to the arrays I’d seen. There was a central brazier in the middle of the ring that stuck up with the ring hooked up to it by copper tubing. ”The Portable Defense Flame! Our woes of only going out in the morning are no more!”

”What’s it do?” Crane inspected the device. As expected, his dog-loving brain couldn’t figure it out. It was obviously some kind of portable spirit flame based on the scent and look of the thing. I’d spent enough time around the spirit flame braziers recently to put two and two together for five.

Jixie twisted a dial on the base of the device, and ran a flow of Qi into it. Almost immediately, the device started to suck in ambient Qi from the surrounding area. A blue flame lit up on top of the brazier, and cast a soft glow out like a lantern. “It’s taken me weeks of effort, but it’s finally done.”

Crane’s interest immediately spiked. “Is this what we’re testing out? Can you make a holdable version like a lantern?”

“One thing at a time.” Jixie waved a hand and turned off the device. “First I need to iron out a few kinks… which is where you, my dear visitors, come in.”

”Yip?” I let out a warning bark to Crane, and slowly backed away. I had a bad feeling about whatever the scholar was about to say.

Jixie passed the device to Crane. ”I need you to go out during the night and test it. In theory, it should keep most blighted away as long as it's active. I’m a bit worried it won’t be enough for Ophidian Hunters, though.”

Can I use that to retrieve the jerky down below, then? I tossed the idea around for a bit before deciding against it. It’d been long enough that the meat was definitely contaminated by the mud and rain. I would say that didn’t matter when it came to eating meat, but the blight gave me second thoughts about hygiene.

“Why can’t you?” I groaned sadly. So much for getting more jerky in a timely manner. Are there even vendors in Steadfast active at this hour? It won’t matter if we go now, will it?

He pulled up his robe to expose his leg, revealing an array of overgrown scales and a couple of hacked off spines. They fully encased his left knee. Without the robe covering him, his movements looked a whole lot more wooden. “I’d do it myself, but I’m not as good at running away as I used to be.”

”Oh… sorry.” I winced slightly. The serpent-scent wafted off of him alongside the bitter tang of medicine. From the looks of things, though, the medicine wasn’t holding back the blight very well.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He sighed, and for once the man’s cheer started to fall. He dropped his pant leg and whipped a fan up to cover the lower half of his face. “I invited calamity a couple months back. It was only a matter of time, really…”

Yip… it really was only a matter of time. My ears pulled flat to my skull. I’d eventually end up in a similar state. Heaven’s favor only lasted so long. I might already be blighted after my last encounter with misfortune, and the scales were just taking a long time to start growing.

“And you’ll head back to Steadfast once we’re done?” Crane asked. “Quartermaster Zhang really was worried.”

”Naturally.” Jixie looked past us and out of the open balcony. “Actually, I’ll head back once the sun’s out again.”

”Right.” Crane grabbed the Portable Defense Flame and stashed it in his bag. It wasn’t super big, but it was a bit unwieldy. Definitely something to pull out and set up rather than carry around with it lit. “C’mon, Snow.”

I grumbled softly, and followed the man back out onto the balcony. “Why do you even need me?”

”As a lookout in case things go wrong?” He nodded down to the empty streets. “We’ll test it in an alley first, and then move out to the middle of the street if it works.”

Idiot. What the heck could I do if things actually went wrong? I had, like, no fighting capabilities outside of lightly scratching at an Ophidian… Maybe if I ran Qi down through my claws like Heizen did with his wings, I could do a bit more? It wouldn’t be much, though.

Right, the first thing I needed after getting my jerky was scrounge around the village for more books to record. Once I leveled up the Record enough, hopefully I could finally use the Spirit Body Art? Then I’d be big like the wolf and capable of causing some havoc against the Ophidian.

… what about the Purity Art, though? Ugh, having a limited number of slots was so annoying. Although… The Record copied a fairly high percentage. Did that mean it was easy to learn? Maybe I could just learn that one myself instead of having the Record imprint it onto me? 

So much to try, so little time! I shook my head and jumped off the balcony, landing beside Crane on the eaves of the roof. Crane paused just before slipping down into the alley next to Jixie’s building. “Let’s head out further”

The wind howled overhead as if in warning, and rain pelted my fluffy fur. In no time, I’d likely wind up soaked again. I glanced down toward the streets, counting fifty, thirty, sixty—um, a lot of Ophidian. ”Maybe not? If that thing doesn’t work, it’ll be further to get to the safety of the spirit flame.”

“A few buildings down, then.” Crane likewise eyed the congested streets. Rain smoothly dripped off his jaw, and slid down his scaled chestplate. If he wasn’t so plain looking, it might’ve been scenic. 

”Yip.” Whatever, I was just the lookout. If danger actually came, I wouldn’t feel any regrets ditching Crane behind. Not after he so brutally broke my heart. Although, if I let him die, I’d be missing out on three more jars of jerky.

”Stay close, Snow.” Crane slid over the edge of the tiled eaves, and dropped down to the roof of the second story. After hesitating for a moment, I phased through the roof and followed after him.