Chapter 2 #4
The face looking back at him was mostly his. The same general features, but with different details. His hair was black, longer than he’d ever worn it, and he had a somewhat arranged, short beard. He had felt something unfamiliar on his face, so it wasn’t just being new to the body.
He had a great build, though. Muscular, fit, more like that of an athlete.
Well, if they walked everywhere, that was to be expected.
Still, he looked quite a bit better than at home.
With a pleased smile, he observed the details of his face.
He was right to never go to the gym. A single spell got him a perfectly trained body.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” the noise generator exclaimed next to him. “Why do I have this mug, again?”
He glanced at her. “Again?”
“Yes! My face looks like my own. That’s terrible! I was so looking forward to having a new, pretty girl face.”
“Your face is pretty.” It was also uninteresting to him, completely, but that didn’t matter for the objective reality. She had soft features, symmetrical lips on a broad mouth, large, clear eyes, a subtle nose, flawless skin, nothing that would make her unpretty.
She glared at him, lips pressed into a thin line. “That’s what all the boys say. But you know what they don’t say? Hey, Luna, want to come over to my tent for some wine? They tell that to the actually pretty girls.”
He sighed. “Really, you look just fine.”
“Then why haven’t you tried hitting on me yet? Hmm? If you thought I was actually pretty, you would have been flustered around me, or uncomfortable, or made a cringy joke or gesture from time to time. But you don’t. So, don’t sweat it. And don’t worry, I’m used to it.”
“That’s not how I meant it. For all you know, the woman you took over might have been really ugly.”
She ran her hand through her hair, showing crystals braided into strings woven into her hair. She also wore intricate, silver earrings. “See all the jewelry? That’s what pretty girls wear. And she traveled alone with three guys. She was pretty. Way prettier than me.”
He sighed. “Look, I’ve been reborn into a new world today, and I’ve walked for—”
“You don’t have to make excuses,” she interrupted him.
“I’ve heard all of them. You know, in the army, when we marched the whole day, all the boys were like we’re so tired, we’ve walked the whole day, we’re just going to sleep.
But then a unit of elven archers camped nearby, and suddenly everyone got reinvigorated, found the wine they’d been hiding, and went to see if the elven girls had comfortable tents. ”
He chuckled at the image. “I got the point.”
“It’s fine though.” She rearranged her hair. “I’ve only had my face for my entire life.”
He rose from the pond and headed to the trees by the side. “I’ll go make the campfire.”
“I’ll fetch food,” she said, slipping among the trees a few seconds later.
He exhaled. That whole conversation felt like walking through a minefield. He survived, so that went well.
Alsen gathered dry leaves and twigs, arranged them in a pile, and found two sticks that looked appropriate. He had seen this trick in multiple videos, so he was going to have the fire in no time.
He rubbed the sticks together.
After what felt like half an hour, achieving zero results, the feeling of the videos being edited grew inside him. No sign of Luna, but if she came back with a hunted animal while he knelt above a pile of not-burning wood, he’d look like an idiot.
Plus, his hands were getting sore, and his usual source of fire, a gas stove, wasn’t available.
He vaguely remembered other methods from a survival documentary. One involved a shoelace and a curved piece of wood. But he didn’t even have shoelaces; his boots were heavy, made of leather, and of the pull-on type.
He heard a rustle in the forest.
Damn it.
He pulled on the powers surrounding him and waved his hand in another direction, creating an explosion of pure force. Hardly a spell, but it tore the base of a massive oak apart. The tree fell with a thunderous boom, a flock of birds flying from the treetop, angrily cawing.
With a focused thought, he produced a burst of flame. It pierced the fallen tree, setting it ablaze.
There.
Campfire achieved.
He sat by the fire, enjoying its heat as if this had been his plan all along.
Luna appeared within a moment, giving him the strong impression that she had been watching him for a while. She dragged a dead doe by its hind legs. “That’s a nice fire.”
It burned pretty well. Yet, he wasn’t sure if that was a mocking remark or not. It sounded genuine, but still… damn it, he couldn’t read her at all. “The doe looks great. Truth be told, I’ve got no idea what to do with it.”
Luna sat down next to the fire, pulled out the dagger from her boot, arranged the doe on her lap, and started skinning it. Every move was fast and precise, as she had clearly done it plenty of times before. There was almost no blood, the heart having pumped for a long time.
“Not your first time, I see,” Alsen said.
“I used to hunt a lot. It was cheaper than buying food. Then, I skinned quite a few of the beasts I hunted because, well, I could, and it made it easier to trade their parts. But skinning is the last step I do. After that, I always hand it over to someone who can cook.”
He watched the flames dance on the destroyed tree. “Did you serve in the army?”
“I did. In the navy, mostly.” She eyed him with a glint in her eye, still skinning the doe.
Yes, he was trying to pry information about her class, specialization, or general expertise. She clearly picked up on that.
He wasn’t getting any honest answers then, so he stopped asking.
Luna skinned most of the doe. She broke a few thinner branches, stabbed pieces of the doe onto them, and they both held the makeshift construction by the fire to roast the meat.
The result impressed him. They managed to burn the meat, and still have it raw on the inside. Even the decently cooked parts tasted mediocre, at best, given they had no spices. Also, having bread would have been nice.
Luna didn’t seem to have any problems, gobbling down the food as if it were good.
He didn’t complain. No right to complain when he had no alternative. Could the food summoning spell be used to create spice?
He wasn’t sure. The spell, by default, created magical fruit that made the eater feel full after being devoured. But maybe, if he tweaked the spell a little, he could create just spice. Even the basics, garlic, pepper, and salt, would greatly improve the meat.
That would require some experimentation, which he didn’t have the time for. They ate mostly in silence.
When the meal was finished, Luna stood and walked to the opposite side of the burning tree.
“I’ll sleep here,” she said. “You stay on that side.”
Alsen raised an eyebrow. “Sure… but why?”
“That doesn’t matter.” She settled against a fallen log, completely vanishing from his sight, her voice barely audible over the burning flame. “Sorry. I’ll explain eventually.”
Fair enough. It made sense. Before going to sleep, he sat in a cross-legged position and started working through the breathing exercises.
Magic always came to the body externally, be it from the soul or from the surroundings. In either case, the magic moved through the body’s spiritual circulation system, which worked a lot like the blood circulation system.
An efficient way to train one’s mana capacity was through breathing exercises designed for that purpose. Those were the basics for any mage, often combined with meditation.
His new body lacked the ability to handle large amounts of mana, especially repeatedly, so he needed to train it. Funny how he spent his entire life on Earth doing breathing exercises, only to move on to another world, and continue with the same exercises, restarting from zero.
There wasn’t much to them. Concentrate, breathe in magic from the air, feel it fill the lungs, hold it to let it spill into the blood, exhale, repeat. Different timings and different depths of breath allowed for configurations that led to slightly different exercises and spillover effects.
Soon, his tiredness interfered with the exercises. His mind slipped towards sleep. He finished that exercise, lay back against the grass, staring up through the canopy at the sky beyond.
Stars filled the sky, more than he’d ever seen, thousands of stars, scattered across the darkness like spilled diamonds. No light pollution here. No haze of smog obscuring the view.
What a view. He stared at the stars.
Soft sobbing interrupted him. It came from the other side of the log.
Was Luna all right?
Very carefully, he crawled over the log by the side, glancing at her.
Luna curled up by the log, close to the fire. She sobbed, each sob so strong her entire body shook.
With a blush, Alsen returned to his spot. That did not look like something he had any right to interrupt. He moved to a spot where he couldn’t hear it, only the crackling of the fire filling his ears.
His mind took a while to relax enough to sleep. His body ached with exhaustion, every muscle tired from the descent and the stress of the day. But his mind had too much to think about.
The System. The skill trees. The archmage class that he had, and Luna didn’t. Dreamwalker, whoever or whatever that was. The mana saturation of this world, so thick that it made his old home feel like a desert.
And Luna, his newfound companion, whom he actually knew nothing about.
None of it made sense yet. But it would. He’d figure it out, piece by piece, the same way he’d figured out the transference spell. Given enough research with enough information, every mystery could be solved.
He still had no idea what he was going to tell her tomorrow.