The Ursaring's carcass was a resource, but in the heat of the plains, it was a resource with a terrifyingly short expiration date. Seiko's first priority wasn't celebration; it was preservation.
'The Roman Empire was built on grain and salted meat,' Seiko thought, wiping the blood from his iron spear. 'I can't make salt, not yet. But I can make smoke.'
The work was brutal.
Skinning the beast was a lesson in anatomy and reverse engineering. Acies, with his precision claws, was invaluable. The Pawniard cut the membranes and tendons Seiko indicated, separating nearly two inches (five centimeters) of thick hide from muscle and fat. Seiko worked with his knife, his hands covered in blood and grease up to his elbows. The smell was overwhelming.
He rolled the hide into a massive bundle; this was Project Two. Project One was the meat.
He had hundreds of kilograms (hundreds of pounds).
"We need a smokehouse," Seiko told Acies, who was nibbling on a piece of raw tendon. "A building. Fast."
They spent the rest of the day in a construction frenzy. Seiko, armed with his new iron axe, was a multiplying force. He could fell young trees growing near the creek at a rate ten times faster than the deadwood he had been gathering.
He designed a simple structure: a shed one and a half meters (around 5 feet) wide, two meters (about 6.5 feet) high, built from green wood so it wouldn't burn. He sealed it with his clay-and-adobe mixture, leaving smart ventilation at the roof and a base opening for a separate fire pit, connected by a short trench.
'Direct fire cooks the meat,' he explained to himself as he worked, his hands shifting from being covered in blood to being coated in mud. 'Cold smoke cures it. I need a horizontal chimney.'
Acies cut the Ursaring meat into long, uniform strips, a task Seiko had demonstrated just once. The Pokémon's precision was astonishing; each strip was the same thickness, ensuring even smoking.
By the next evening, a thick, aromatic column of smoke rose from Seiko's smokehouse. He had chosen hardwoods from the ruins, avoiding resinous ones, to create a penetrating smoke. The smell of smoking meat mixed with the metallic scent of the forge.
It was the smell of progress.
While the meat cured, Seiko moved on to Project Two: the hide.
It was disgusting.
He spread the hide on the rocky ground near the creek. He and Acies spent an entire day scraping it. Seiko used a bone tool he had made from one of the Ursaring's femurs. Acies used his claws. They had to remove every piece of meat, fat, and membrane. The sun beat down on them, and the smell of decay was nauseating.
'Tradition versus science,' Seiko thought, sweating and swearing. 'Native American tribes would have had a ritual for this. I have a mental chemistry manual.'
The next step was tanning. He needed a tanning agent.
"The brain," he murmured, looking at the Ursaring's severed head.
His historical knowledge told him that almost all mammals have enough lecithin in their brains to tan their own hides. A perfect circle of resource utilization. It was also the most repulsive task he had ever done.
He had to use his axe.
He set aside decency and focused on the result. He crushed the brain with hot stones from the creek, creating a warm grayish paste that he rubbed across the fleshy side of the hide. The process was primitive and visceral.
'This is the part history books omit,' he thought, gagging. 'The real cost of civilization. It's not just shiny iron and great ideas. It's blood and guts.'
He soaked the hide, washed it, and then began the real work: softening it. He had to stretch, twist, and pound it against the rocks for hours, breaking the fibers so the brain oil would penetrate.
Acies, unable to help at this stage, simply watched, a small steel gargoyle on a rock, ensuring his companion was not interrupted.
Seiko worked until his hands were raw and his shoulders burned.
Finally, after two days of drying and stretching, he had the result. It wasn't fine leather. It was thick, rawhide—rigid but incredibly strong, smelling of smoke and earth. It was large enough to make a cloak, new boots, and extra straps.
He sat in front of his cave, exhausted but triumphant.
It had been nearly a month since his father had exiled him.
He looked over his domain. He had a fortified cave. He had an iron spear and axe. He had a smokehouse full of cured meat that would last for months. He had a giant Ursaring hide. His forge was ready to melt more ore.
Where Aethelgard had seen a wild, deadly land, Seiko had built an industrial outpost.
'I have taken the land, the fire, and Arceus' iron,' he thought, feeling a deep, calm satisfaction. 'And I have created safety. I have created… home. This is true faith.'
He was cutting a strip of smoked meat (tasting of smoke and power) when Acies made a sound Seiko had never heard before.
It wasn't a click, a hiss, or a battle cry.
It was a metallic CHING, like two swords clashing. The sound of his own body vibrating.
Seiko sprang to his feet instantly, grabbing his spear. "What? What is it?"
Acies was motionless at the cave entrance but wasn't looking at the plains. He was staring east, toward the rocky hills from which Seiko had been extracting his ore.
Seiko strained to hear. Nothing. Only the wind.
"I don't see an-"
'SKREEE-thump.'
Something shot out of the ground thirty meters (about 100 feet) away, right next to his ore pile.
The earth exploded upward, and a Pokémon emerged in a whirlwind of steel claws. It was an Excadrill, sleek and deadly, its claws gleaming in the sun. It landed in a crouched stance, hissing at Acies.
But Seiko wasn't looking at the Excadrill.
He was looking at the person standing beside it.
It was a woman.
Tall and lean, with sun-bronzed skin and thick black hair braided with feathers and bone beads. She wore clothing made from Pokémon hides Seiko didn't recognize, sewn with skill that eclipsed his own. On her back, a bow and a quiver of obsidian-tipped arrows.
She didn't look surprised. She looked furious.
The Excadrill and Acies were assessing each other, two Steel-type predators in a tense standoff.
The woman stepped forward. Her dark eyes scanned Seiko, his soot-stained clothes, and then the things he had built.
She saw the smokehouse and its column of smoke. She saw the Alpha Ursaring hide spread out. She saw the barricade.
And then she saw the forge.
Her face, already severe, hardened into a mask of anger.
She pointed at the pit furnace, where Seiko's last crucible was cooling.
"What have you done?" she said.
Seiko flinched. She didn't speak his language, not the common tongue of Aethelgard. It was an older, guttural dialect, but he recognized the roots. He could understand her.
"To survive," Seiko replied, his voice rough. He gripped his spear tighter, placing it between him and the woman.
The woman shook her head. She stepped closer, ignoring Seiko's iron spear. Her eyes fixed on the pile of hematite, the red iron ore Seiko had extracted.
"You have hurt the land," she said, her voice vibrating with anger. "You have taken the blood of the mountain and burned it. You have filled the air with the ghost of the alpha beast."
Seiko tensed. 'Blood of the mountain. Ghost. She's an animist. Shit.'
"It was ore," Seiko said defensively. "It was dead rock. I gave it purpose. I shaped it."
"It was sleeping rock!" she snapped, stomping the ground. "And you awakened the fire! And you killed the Guardian!"
She pointed at the Ursaring hide.
'Guardian,' Seiko thought. 'They don't see it as a plague. They see it as part of the balance. A spirit of the place.'
"That beast tried to kill me," Seiko said.
"And you got it," the woman hissed. "With your… dead metal." She looked at his spear with disdain.
The Excadrill shifted, its claws spinning, reflecting its trainer's agitation. Acies braced, lowering his center of gravity.
They were at a stalemate.
"Go," the woman said. "You and your… metal thing…" She looked at Acies with a mix of confusion and disgust. "You don't belong here. This is not your place. You have broken the balance. The air is wrong."
Seiko looked at his furnace. He looked at his axe. He looked at the smoked meat that promised life.
"This is my home," Seiko said, his voice low and firm. "I built it."
The woman looked at him, and for the first time, Seiko saw something besides anger. She was assessing. She looked at his tools, the furnace, the barricade, and then at him.
"You… built it?" she repeated, her anger giving way to baffled disbelief. "You alone?"
Seiko nodded, not lowering his spear.
She looked at Acies, then at the Excadrill. She said something in a language Seiko did not understand, and her Pokémon, with one last snort, sank back into the earth and disappeared.
The woman was alone. She also relaxed her posture, but not her gaze.
"My name is Iris," she said, though the name meant nothing to Seiko. "I belong to the People of the Land. And you, metal boy… owe us an explanation. And atonement."
Seiko tightened his grip on the spear. He had conquered hunger. He had conquered nature.
Now, he had just met politics.