By the time the sun began to fall, the valley smelled of smoke and iron.
The air shimmered from the heat still rising out of the monster's corpse, turning every shadow orange. Hunnt stood knee-deep in the wreckage, knife in hand, his arms streaked with black soot and dull crimson. Each breath came out as a small cloud of steam.
The work was nearly done.
All day he had carved and separated, sorting flesh from bone, scale from sinew. What had once been a beast that could burn the sky was now a line of neatly stacked pieces laid upon wooden planks. The villagers no longer watched in fear—they watched in awe. None of them had ever seen a hunter treat a monster's corpse with such patience, as if every fragment mattered.
When he sliced through the final layer of hide, the knife struck stone, sparks dancing against the edge.
Hunnt wiped the blade clean and stepped back. The remains glowed faintly in the fading light, like embers refusing to die.
Behind him, footsteps approached—the acting chief again. His hands were still raw from digging graves.
"Hunter," he said quietly. "You've been at this since morning."
Hunnt nodded. "Had to finish before it cooled. Some of the parts lose strength once the heat's gone."
The chief looked past him at the harvested remains. "And you'll use all that?"
"Not all," Hunnt said, glancing over the piles. "The meat goes to your people. I'll take the rest."
The man's eyes softened. "We cooked what you gave us. It's the first real meal we've had in days."
Hunnt gave a faint nod. "Good. Make jerky from the rest—it'll last through travel."
The chief hesitated. "You speak like someone who's rebuilt a village before."
Hunnt wiped his hands on a rag, his voice low. "I've seen enough burn to know what comes next."
---
When the chief left, Hunnt began organizing the materials. He laid each one carefully on a canvas sheet, labeling them by texture and purpose the way a craftsman would mark tools.
Materials Recovered
Ignis Veil Membrane – Flame-resistant silk that still radiated warmth.
Thin and flexible, perfect for armor lining that could breathe inside fire itself.
Smolderfang – Hardened fangs saturated with explosive resin.
He could feel the pulse of energy locked inside them; one wrong hammer strike and it would burst.
Ashwing Plumes – Burnt feathers from the creature's wing-edges, black at the root and gold at the tips.
Light, elastic, capable of dispersing heat when layered between metal plates.
Heart of the Veil – The crystalized core. It pulsed faintly through the cloth like a heartbeat trapped in glass.
Too powerful to use lightly—he would save it for a weapon worthy of the man who'd stood beside him.
He exhaled slowly. "Enough for two lives' worth of gear."
---
As twilight deepened, the forge became his horizon. He hauled what he could carry inside, stacking it by the wall. The interior smelled of soot and age. A single swing of the bellows sent a spark swirling up the chimney, scattering tiny flecks of orange into the night air.
Hunnt knelt beside the anvil, running his hand over its cracked surface. "Still solid," he murmured. "You'll do."
He began cleaning—sweeping away the ash, wiping dust from the tongs and chisels, checking the hammer heads for cracks. Every motion was methodical, almost ritualistic. The rhythm of rebuilding steadied his breathing in a way that battle never could.
Outside, the last light bled from the sky. The villagers moved quietly among the ruins, their voices low. Someone hummed a lullaby for the children. Someone else hammered together a simple cross of wood. The world was raw but alive again.
Hunnt lit a small lantern, its flame flickering against the wall. He sat beside it, counting what he had left—three healing draughts, a coil of wire, a pouch of sharpening dust, and the two broken gauntlets that had saved his life. The metal was fractured, but the memory of the fight still clung to it. He could almost feel the monster's heat in the cracks.
"You'll rise again," he whispered to them.
---
Hours passed. The moon rose pale through the smoke. Hunnt worked in silence, trimming membranes into sheets, hammering bones into rods. Each strike echoed through the ruined streets, a slow heartbeat in the dark.
A young villager poked his head through the doorway. "Hunter, are you… still at it?"
Hunnt didn't look up. "If I stop now, I'll have to start over."
The boy hesitated, then set a wooden bowl near the door. "Soup. From the meat you gave us."
Hunnt paused. "Thank you."
The boy lingered a moment longer. "Is it true you're making new weapons? Even after all this?"
Hunnt set down his hammer. "A hunter without his weapon is just prey waiting for the next roar."
The boy nodded, not entirely understanding but sensing the truth in his tone. "Good night, sir."
"Good night," Hunnt replied, and the boy disappeared into the darkness.
---
When the last of the villagers' voices faded, Hunnt allowed himself a break. He stepped outside, the night wind brushing cool against his sweat-damp skin. From this angle, the forge looked like a small ember glowing in the black valley. Around it lay silhouettes of broken houses, the faint shimmer of candlelight from a few surviving homes.
He turned his gaze toward the horizon. The sky was clear now, scattered with stars. In the distance, he could see the faint shape of the mountains, dark against the starlight. Somewhere beyond them lay the next city, the next fight, the next village waiting to burn.
He clenched his fist. "Not if I can help it."
The wind carried faint laughter from the villagers behind him—fragile, exhausted, but real. It was the sound of people remembering how to be alive.
Hunnt returned to the forge and sat beside the neatly arranged piles. His eyes lingered on the crystal heart, its faint glow casting ripples of light across the table. He thought of Alder—the man lying half-dead but still smiling, the one who had stood without pay, without order. The kind of hunter the world had almost forgotten.
He smiled faintly. "You'll get your sword."
---
Before resting, Hunnt wrote notes in his small, soot-stained journal. His handwriting was tight, efficient, the same way he fought.
—Material yield sufficient for weapon pair and dual armor reinforcement.
—Flame tissue stable for heat integration.
—Heart core volatile; handle with mirrored alloy only.
—Forge temperature must exceed 1 800 for resonance fusion.
He closed the book, tucked it under the bench, and leaned back against the wall. The lantern flame danced beside him, casting shadows that looked like wings stretching across the forge.
He whispered to the empty room, "Tomorrow, I build."
His eyelids grew heavy. The rhythm of the day caught up with him, the fatigue finally seeping into his bones. Outside, the villagers' small fires flickered like constellations scattered across the ground.
Hunnt let the sound of wind and embers lull him toward sleep. For once, there was no roar, no scream, no call to arms—just the quiet hum of work waiting for dawn.