It took me three trips to haul everything back from the battlefield.
Three trips through bloodstained grass and torn bodies. Three trips past crows fat with human flesh as they plucked the eyeballs out of the mangled skulls. The scent clung to my skin, to my hair, like the rot had become my own personal brand of perfume. I didn't flinch. I didn't gag. I didn't let myself stop to think about what any of the dead had looked like when they were alive; it would have been nothing more than a waste of energy.
The fact of the matter was that these 249 men weren't alive anymore, and that made them infinitely more useful to me.
Shadow trailed behind me each time, never straying too far away. He didn't like the battlefield. His hackles stayed raised, his ears twitching every time a breeze stirred the corpses. But still, he never left me.
Papa always said the first rule of surviving a war wasn't to fight harder, it was to scavenge better. The living bleed while the smart ones build upon what was left.
Papa had a lot of words of wisdom.
By the end of the third trip, I had everything I needed. I stripped the armor of all insignias, not like I knew what any of them meant. The arrows I could repurpose after breaking off the point from the shaft. The clothes I could wash and tailor to suit my needs, but the boots in every size… well, I'm sure that I can find a purpose for those, too.
And metal.
So much glorious metal.
I dragged the cart to the stream by my chosen clearing and parked it under the trees. The clearing was mine now. And tomorrow, it would become something else entirely.
Tonight, I would build a temporary shelter in the trees.
Calling on the metal, I created a platform big enough for me to sit on. I didn't need much more, but since I wasn't willing to go back to the cave, I would need to be off the ground in case a predator came sniffing around.
Going down to the stream, I washed off all the blood that I could from the scraps of cloth and clothes. I hung them over a small fire I had created, trying to dry them even quicker. Normally, there was no way I would sleep on a metal platform. It would be too cold in cold weather, and too hot in hot weather.
But this wasn't ordinary times, and sacrifices needed to be made.
When the crude sleeping platform was made, completely with a metal band that would keep me tied to the tree, I looked around the clearing for my next task. Right. I needed an axe to level the ground, and a hoe to work the soil into something usable. A knife would be wonderful, something to replace the one that I had left back in the Devil's Playground.
It wouldn't have the memories, but I could always make new ones.
Walking over to the mixture of metals, I bent down and re-examined all of them. Bronze, iron, primitive weapons, and armor that weren't able to withstand the test of time.
But that was before. Now that I was here, I would create it into something beautiful.
Closing my eyes, I called on my metal power and let it wash over the pile of scraps. I told it what I needed, the strength, the weight, the precision, and sharpness that would allow me to do what I needed to do.
And the moment I opened my eyes, all the metal had been transformed into something new… something that was distinctly mine.
Farming tools, saws, axes, swords, you name it, if it was made of metal, it was in a pile in front of me. And floating on top of all that was a single knife.
It was a work of art. Forged from the melted remains of enemy swords, shaped not for beauty, but survival, the knife sang to me.
The blade itself was the length of my forearm, just long enough to slice through ribs, but still short enough to hide in a sheath on my forearm.
Its edge was honed to a mirror finish, not to catch the light, but to catch the breath of those foolish enough to come close. The metal wasn't polished or etched. Instead, it wore the scars of war proudly. Darkened copper, steel, and a hint of something else melted together with a single, deliberate groove running the length of it.
The groove wasn't decorative so much as it was functional. A blood channel to make the withdrawal cleaner.
The handle was blackened wood, wrapped tightly in worn leather, each loop pressed flat with my grip. There were no jewels, no sigils, nothing that made it too flashy… only a single, thumb-sized button near the guard.
Curious, because I had never seen something like it before, I pressed the button. A second blade, smaller, razor-thin, sprang from the base of the hilt. Backward-facing, I couldn't help but grin at just how perfect this weapon was.
It was like it looked deep into my soul when I created it and mirrored everything that I was into this single blade.
This was better than any crown, any throne, anywhere.
Humming happily, I ignored the sound of my stomach growling.
I hadn't eaten, hadn't even bothered to sit down since the morning. But I didn't feel it, my body was too wired, too ready for whatever was going to come next.
"You and me, we're gonna build an empire," I whispered, looking over at the treeline where Shadow lay. "Brick by brick. Blade by blade. And it is going to be only for the two of us."
If he agreed with me, he didn't say.
By the end of day five, my hands were blistered. My arms were streaked with dried blood, wood sap, and black soot. The dress that the body had been wearing when she died had more holes than fabric, but I didn't care.
The exterior of the house was already set up. I used the bamboo growing all around me to create it, saving some of the thicker trees for the front and rear of the cabin. It was a bitch to flatten the bottom, but I eventually got it done. Then I cut notches on the ends of each of the bamboo, piling them up until I had a one and a half story wall created.
Then it was just a matter of doing it over and over again on each side.
Shadow looked at me like I was crazy, but the sense of accomplishment that I got at the end was more than worth the blood and sweat I put into it. There was nothing inside yet, only a single room without even a kitchen… but I was happy.
It was nothing like the buildings I'd known before. There were no bricks, no screws, no synthetic glass. Just me, my instincts, and whatever the forest didn't need that I could steal.
Every wall was set with traps. Sharp stakes hidden in the dirt. Tripwires. Poisoned thorns that I'd soaked overnight in a solution of moss and boiled mushrooms. My house didn't need to be pretty—it needed to be untouchable.
By the end of the week, I had a roof.
By the second week, I had a door.
By the third, I had shelves, a raised bed made of thick branches, and a stone-lined hearth that was my kitchen.
By the fourth week, I had a home.
I sat on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of me, with Shadow curled at the foot of the bed. The fire crackled. Rain tapped gently on the roof. And for the first time since waking up in this world, I exhaled.
It wasn't peace. Not yet.
But it was close.
It took thirty-four days in total. Thirty-four days of pain, blood, fire, and bone.
I used every lesson Papa ever gave me. Every sarcastic warning Hattie ever threw at me between explosions and near-death experiences.
"If it breaks, fix it. If it bites, kill it. If it shines—steal it."
I did all three.
The house was done, the traps were set. The garden was cleared and ready to be planted. I'd need seeds. Maybe I could trade with the village eventually. Maybe not. But I knew that the forest could also provide those things for me.
And since I wasn't worried about shelter, I finally had time to go out and explore.
I sat by the fire that night, chewing dried rabbit jerky, scratching behind Shadow's ear while he pretended not to like it.
"I miss them," I said aloud. "My family. My home. I miss them more than I thought I would when I made my sacrifice."
Shadow didn't look at me. But I knew he heard.
"I should've thanked Papa," I muttered. "For every horrible training exercise. Every lecture. Every trap I had to reset. I hated him sometimes, but… he made me a survivor."
I looked down at the calluses on my palm, the dirt under my nails.
"He made me this."
The fire crackled louder. Outside, the wind picked up. The mountains whispered.
And somewhere far away, on the other side of those trees… men were coming.
Uninvited.
Unaware.
And soon to be unalived.