Chapter 83: I Made This!

He pulled another claw, handled it carefully this time, respecting how easily it could betray him, and slid it along the contours of his own tracksuit after spreading it as much as possible to get the most accurate size.

The claw dug with relative and frightening ease through the leather.

It wasn’t like cutting cloth. There was a slight resistance at first, the leather pushing back, then the tip biting in and following through. The sound was quiet but ugly, like tearing thick paper, but wetter. Kael kept his hand steady, jaw clenched, moving slowly along the neck, then the shoulders from both sides.

He had to cut a bit more on the side of the ribs, adjusting where the tracksuit hugged his torso too tightly. He imagined wearing the jacket and moving, raising his arms, twisting in combat. If it was tight at the ribs, it would bind and slow him at the worst possible time.

For now, he had a piece that was perfectly aligned with the back of his tracksuit.

He lifted it carefully and laid it aside, then grabbed the second leather piece, placed it below the first, and cut along the differences. He made sure the edges matched, his eyes flicking back and forth between the pieces like he was afraid the leather would move while he wasn’t watching.

With that, he had two matching pieces: one for the front and one for the back.

For the front, he cut it right through the middle, making a clean separation. Then he folded the neckline and created a V-shaped opening, practical enough that he could slip it on without fighting the material every time.

With the remaining pieces he had from making the cuts, he shaped the sides of the jacket, leaving one large hole on each side where his arms would go through. He did the same for the other side, fitting them like crude panels.

Like a puzzle, he had several pieces that would all make a jacket, minus the arms part.

He arranged them on the table, shifting them until the shape finally looked right: back piece, front halves, side panels. The crude outline of a garment, something halfway between clothing and armor.

Then he began the next part.

“Now I need to attach them together…” he muttered, and the problem returned like a shadow.

And it was here that the “line” and needle would come through.

One of the fangs of the basilisk was relatively pointy and thin. Not thin enough to act like a tailor’s needle, but sharp enough to puncture. He thought of using the hammer to try and slim it some more, but remembering how the claw broke, he shook the idea away.

All he needed was to create a hole, he didn’t need the whole fang passing through each time. If he forced something that thick through repeatedly, he’d shred the leather, turning a jacket into a torn, weakening mess.

So he worked patiently.

He pressed the fang into the shoulder edge and twisted until it pierced. The leather resisted, then gave. The motion made his wrist ache. When the hole finally formed, he fed the elastic tendon through it, the tendon slick and tough like raw cord. Then he made another hole, passed it through again, and continued in a zigzag manner.

The process was mind-numbing in its repetition. Hole. Pull. Tighten. Hole. Pull. Tighten.

But each time the tendon cinched, the leather drew closer, becoming one piece instead of separate scraps.

He attached both shoulder seams first, then began attaching the sides afterward. He pulled the tendon tight enough that the edges kissed, but not so tight it would tear. The room’s hum blended into his breathing until the whole world became leather, tendon, and stubborn persistence.

Once he was done, he looked at the product.

It was crude.

But functional.

The last piece of leather he had, he simply cut in half, folded it around his own arm, got the size he needed, and matched it to the two holes under the shoulders. He sewed the seams shut, working faster now that the method was familiar, and finally slid the sleeves into place.

A finished jacket.

He held it up, letting it hang from his hands. It looked heavy. It looked like something you’d wear into a fight and not feel naked. But it didn’t look like much after he was done. There was still mess here and there: a tendon protruding at one seam, too many visible puncture holes, and one place where he actually cut too deep and the leather tore into a thin split.

Kael stared at the tear, then at the pile of leftover tendon, and felt a tired annoyance pulse in his chest.

’All that can be fixed,’ he muttered, and pulled Brokk’s hammer.

Just as he tapped on the tendon’s area to try and smooth out the ridges from the flexible tendon, something surprising happened.

The hammer struck, and the tendons not only relaxed, they morphed.

The area where he hammered tightened and refined itself, the ugly bulge of tendon sinking into the leather like it had always belonged there. The crude zigzag stitching began to look… deliberate. As if an unseen hand had replaced a fang and tendon with proper tools. The seam drew in, the holes shrank, and the edges locked together like the material was knitting itself.

Kael froze for a second, almost afraid to breathe in case he broke whatever was happening.

Then he hammered again.

And again.

Each strike made the jacket change in real time, becoming less rigid, more structured, more… item than crude patchwork. The torn spot sealed. The uneven edges were smoothed. The seams stopped looking like desperation and started looking like design.

It was as if he were possessed, and the hammer obeyed that possession and changed it to reality. The once crude work that one would look at and think it was nothing more than garbage was now looking like designer clothes with how perfect it came out to be.

Once he was done with the hammering, a notification popped up in front of him.

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