The Extra becomes the Villain's Bodyguard-Chapter 42: CRAFTING

"Day 19... no, 20?" Neville’s fingers traced the crude marks on his homes wall trunk. Same wall he had roughly sketched a map of the sorrounding.

His routine sill the same.

"Red eyes this time. Last one had yellow. Can’t eat the yellow-eyed ones...its meat gets bitter after it dies." The snare snapped. Dinner squirmed. He broke its neck with ease as it was almost second nature to him.

Gather

"Purple means poison. Blue means hallucinations. Black means..." He stared at the shriveled fruit in his palm.

"Numbness. Fine. Better than pain."

Push-ups in the mud. Knife drills against a phantom enemy. "Left guard is still sloppy. That’d get you killed back home."

"Back home... huh, where will I go from here even if I go back..."

He’d abandoned mapping by week three. The trees all looked identical. The hills kept rearranging themselves. Only the river stayed true.

"Rivers lead to towns," he reasoned. "Or they do back in earth... so same thing must apply." His fingers drummed a war rhythm on his thigh.

A branch snapped in the woods. His knife was out before the echo faded.

"Get a grip. You’re losing it out here." MAybe its because I havent seen any predators and I feel theyll come when I least expect..."

On the twentieth morning, he finally decided to move. Staying in one place won’t get him home.

"Worse case? You find nothing. Or die... Nothing too bad."

"But which way to go?"

"Upstream," he decided, saying the word aloud. The same direction from where he’d first fell into this hellscape.

He remembered the fall...and how he had healed was completely amazing. Considering he healed in the first night. To him the power he had had been a life saver.

But... Leaving camp wasn’t just dangerous... it was stupid.

He had shelter here. A fire pit. A decent stash of food. Walking away meant gambling his life on the hope that the stream led somewhere better.

"Or it leads to worse," he muttered, sharpening his knife on a flat stone.

The blade was his only weapon, chipped and dull from overuse. It wouldn’t be enough. Not out there.

His eyes scanned the undergrowth, searching for an advantage. Then he saw it—a cluster of tall, reed-like plants, their stalks bone-dry and brittle in the sun.

At first, he’d ignored them. Just another nameless weed in this godforsaken place.

But when the wind gusted, one of the stalks snapped clean off, revealing a pale, fibrous core beneath its cracked exterior.

"Wait."

Neville crouched, rolling the broken stalk between his fingers. The outer layer flaked away like old parchment, but the inner strands held firm.... fibrous, tough, flexible.

"Rope," he realized.

It took hours.

First, he harvested the stalks, snapping them at the base. Then came the tedious work of stripping, peeling back the brittle outer skin to expose the sinewy pith beneath. His hands grew raw from the effort, but he didn’t stop.

Next, the twisting.

He’d seen his father make rope once, long ago, on some forgotten camping trip. The memory was foggy, but the basics came back, fibers braided tight, each strand reinforcing the next. Trial and error taught him the rest. Too loose, and the rope frayed. Too tight, and it snapped.

By dusk, he had ten feet of rough cordage coiled at his feet. Not perfect, but strong enough to hold his weight. Strong enough to matter.

Neville uncoiled the rough cordage from his pack, running his fingers along its uneven surface. It wasn’t pretty, not even close as it had some strands leaking out. He had tried to burn the extra lose strands but it was a disaster as the whole rope caught fire. He recognized that he needed wax or a substitute for it to last longer but didn’t know where to find it. For now the rope remained, frayed in places, knotted where his technique had failed.... but it held firm when he tugged.

"Let’s see if you’re as strong as you feel," he muttered.

HE had decided to make a bow with the rope.

He needed the right branch.

His eyes scanned the nearby trees, dismissing the brittle deadwood and the knotted branches. Then he saw it—a young tree stem, straight as a spear, its green wood still supple.

"You’ll do."

He tested it first, bending the branch slowly, feeling for the telltale creak of impending failure.

"Flexible but won’t snap. Perfect."

His knife sawed through the base, the wood fibers parting with a wet crack. He stripped the smaller branches and leaves, leaving a clean, tapered stave. Kneeling, he braced one end against the ground and leaned his weight into the other, curving it into a shallow arc. The wood protested but held. This was where the rope proved its worth and its strength.

He lashed one end of the cord to the tip of the bent branch, tying it off with a knot he’d practiced a dozen times.

Then, pulling the rope, he moved it through the length of the bow, wrapping the cord in a spiral down the stave to maintain tension.

Neville exhaled slowly, adjusting his grip on the cord. The tension had to be just right—tight enough to generate power, but not so rigid that the wood lost its spring. He tested the draw, pulling gently at the cord. The bow flexed, humming with potential energy.

He secured the cord with a final knot, pulling it tight against the stave, then ran his fingers along the length, checking for weak spots. Satisfied, he stood, rolling his shoulders before lifting the bow to eye level.

"Now, let’s see what you can do."

His first test was something easy... just testing the string with a makeshift sharpened branch.

Finding a smooth, straight stick from the forest floor, he notched it against the cord. Drawing back, he felt the resistance in in the string.

A deep breath. A slow release.

The arrow, or what passed for one, whistled forward, wobbling slightly and landing a few feet away from him. Not perfect, but proof the bow worked.

Neville sighed in relief, rolling the cord between his fingers. "Not bad."

He then thought of something else to pass the time.

The sharp clack of stone striking stone echoed through the night as Neville worked. Sparks flickered in the dim light, brief and bright as fireflies. He held his breath, adjusting the angle of his strike... too shallow, and the flint would crumble; too hard, and it might shatter uselessly.

Then... there. A clean fracture split the rock, revealing a razor-edged flake.

"Got you," he muttered, turning the stone in his hands. It was bigger than he’d intended—meant for arrowheads, not this. But the shape was right. The edge was cruel.

"Spear," he decided.

Again he needed the perfect branch for this one.

The forest offered plenty of wood, but not all of it would serve. He needed something straight, sturdy, but light enough to wield.

His fingers brushed along saplings before settling on one.... young ashy branch but it was not brittle. A quick cut freed it from the undergrowth. He stripped the smaller branches with his knife, then dragged the edge along the shaft, smoothing rough patches until it felt balanced in his grip.

"Now for the hard part."

The flint’s base fit snugly against the spear’s split tip. He wound the rope tight around the join, each loop, though he wished he had some sticky adhesive for this process.. Too loose, and the head would fly free on the first throw. Too tight, and the wood might crack.

But when he hefted it, the weight felt right. The blade stayed firm.

Neville exhaled, rolling his shoulders.

"Now we test it."

After swinging it around he was pleased by it.

He also made a spear out of a sharpened branch just incase this one failed.

****************************

Currently he was testing his aim with the bow. Neville nocked an arrow and drew back the bowstring, muscles straining as he sighted down the shaft. For a moment, he felt confident—he’d fired rifles before, how different could this be?

The arrow flew wide, burying itself in a tree trunk with a dull thunk.

"Damn it," he muttered, lowering the bow. This was the tenth attempt. With a gun, the mechanics were simple: align the sights, steady your breath, squeeze. The bullet either hit or it didn’t...

But this...this was different. The bow demanded constant control, every tremor in his arms, every shift of his stance altered the shot. The string bit into his fingers, the arrow’s arc curved unpredictably, and without sights, he might as well be guessing.

He considered using his momentum ability... that brief surge of enhanced focus and precision. But it lasted mere seconds, and he hadn’t practiced enough to trust it. This wasn’t the time for experimentation, not when a missed shot could mean starvation or worse.

He set the bow down inside the shelter, propping it against the woven bark wall. The arrows followed, their sharpened tips glinting faintly in the dim light. A waste, maybe. But not as much of a waste as starving because he couldn’t land a clean shot.

Guns were straightforward. Point, pull, done. But a bow? A bow demanded patience. Control. Practice. And right now, he didn’t have the luxury of time to learn.

The spear was different. The spear didn’t ask for precision... just force and desperation. And right now, those were things he had in abundance.