"Inventory."
So the collar couldn't be changed while it wasn't in his inventory.
Johnny had exhausted nearly every possible idea he could think of for releasing the tiger from the collar's petrifying effect, except for taking it off entirely. He wasn't too keen on letting it loose from the collar, only to let it kill him after all the trouble he went through to help it. He had eliminated that idea.
The tiger's eyes followed him as he circled it over and over again, scratching his head. He didn't have a clue what to do.
Admittedly, it was his fault that it was in its current predicament, but in his opinion, it was for the sake of his safety. He had to change the settings to movement restriction, or it would've cost him his life at some point, as it nearly did this time. It was bad enough that the goddess heaped a mountain of problematic tasks on his head, not to mention a near-death incident on his very first day in the world. He didn't need a bad-tempered anthropomorphic tiger hunting him down to add to his miseries.
The empty pit that was his stomach beckoned, and Johnny heard its call. He would deal with the tiger another time.
The fire had gone out from last night, leaving glowing embers underneath white ashes. Just about right, he thought.
He had seen a video once about how some cooking method used the embers of a fire, rather than a fire's direct heat, so the fact that it went out wasn't a problem. Now, all he needed was the food... and that was the problem. Johnny's eyes darted to the tiger statue in front of him. His mouth watered. Tiger wouldn't be that bad, would it?
No no no no no, it walks on two legs, for christ's sake!
But still...
"Aghh, how the hell am I supposed to get anything to eat around here!"
The sound of his gurgling stomach and his dismayed shout mingled in a chorus of wretched poverty. It echoed through the shadowy forest.
He threw on the semi-dry clothing he had hung to dry on his sword. Complaining about it wasn't going to help any. He's in a forest, so there has to be something around, animal or plant-wise, that was edible.
Johnny paused.
"Wait a minute..."
He turned to look at the paralyzed tiger. It didn't seem like it had missed very many meals, despite living in this forest. It was tall, and muscular, with not a single spot on its body that was thin or emaciated. That must mean it survived well enough in this forest. And if it was prudent, it would certainly have stored anything it could eat somewhere safe... perhaps in the cave!
"Things are finally going Johnny's way!"
He exclaimed, impressed by his own ingenuity. Surely the tiger wouldn't mind sharing some of its stores, since it was paralyzed and all. Johnny's face twisted into an evil grin.
"Don't mind if I do..."
-
The majority of the torches had burned out by the time Johnny re-entered the cave, but it didn't deter him. He had foreseen that possibility already and had stored an extra torch in his inventory, courtesy of the cave walls in which they were thrust. Interestingly enough, the torch's flame still burned just as brightly now as it had before placing it in his inventory. The inventory could preserve the condition of an item, which gave him an idea for how he should store food from now on.
He returned once more to the large rotunda of the cave. It looked far gloomier now all the torches were burnt out. The eerieness of the darkened cave raised goosebumps on Johnny's skin. It was a lot colder in here too, now that the torches were out.
There were only two choices left from the four passages since he had already been to two: the first was the one he awakened in, and the other he had just entered from. If that tiger was going to store food anywhere, it had to be down one of those remaining two passageways.
The two remaining options stood side by side. The one on the right steadily dropped downwards, while the other appeared relatively level, at least for as far as the torchlight could reach.
"If I were that tiger.. I'd put my food in the easiest spot to reach..."
He was just that lazy, after all. Surely it thought the same.
Therefore, the only logical choice was the passage on the left.
-
The tunnel narrowed the further Johnny progressed. Maybe he had made a mistake, there was no way that tiger could fit through here. His mind was almost made up to return to the rotunda when a fluorescent-green glow further along the passage caught his attention.
Curious, he continued onward through the ever-narrowing path. His chest could barely fit in the passageway as he turned himself sideways since his body was so wonderfully built in this world. While he liked how chiseled he was, it wasn't convenient for him now.
At last, he arrived at the source of the light.
It was a massive gemstone embedded into the cave wall. In the depths of its transparent, crystalline structure, whirling tints of green and yellow merged and split into a kaleidoscope of color.
Johnny placed his hand on the gem. A green message box appeared in his vision. How odd, it wasn't like the blue ones he had seen before when he touched items.
"You have discovered a 'Green Manastone'. Would you like to
A: use it
B: add to inventory?"
Mana? Like the stat he was lacking, as well as everything else? Would it boost the stat if he used it?
"Add to inventory."
"Green Manastone added to inventory."
As the icon appeared in his inventory, he hovered his eyes over it to see the tooltip. It was vague, to say the least.
"Green Manastone, a high-grade variant of the Blue Manastone, is a highly sought-after mineral for its many useful properties, especially in the field of Magecraft."
That didn't tell Johnny anything. While the message box hinted that he could use it, there was nothing about it in the tooltip. Supposedly, it was valuable, so it was probably best to sacrifice some weight to keep it around if it wound up being useful later. After all, it wasn't as if he was carrying an entire inventory of grass. He could spare the room.
The glow faded as the stone vanished in a cloud of smoke.
-
"YESSSSS!"
Johnny was ecstatic. After the long, arduous squeeze back through the Manastone tunnel, he took the last remaining path in his search for the tiger's food stores. He finally found the storeroom.
Meat hung from the ceiling of the passage from an ingeniously made mechanism of twined plant fibers and short planks of wood. However, the genius of the contraption was lost on Johnny, as he tore into the hanging shanks of meat with his hands, ripping chunks from the bone as he began his voracious feast. There wasn't any time for him to sit around and wait for it to cook after the long way to the exit. His stomach couldn't wait any longer.
The meat wasn't completely raw, as it was sun-dried. Most of the moisture had evaporated from the flesh during the process, which resulted in a type of soft jerky. It was gamy and reeked of dried blood, but it didn't matter, it was food, and the intense flavor lent by Johnny's insatiable hunger electrified his senses with ecstasy. It was delicious!
"Hmoffph, ahhh, glmpf... Haha..."
Tears of joy poured from Johnny's eyes. Finally, things were going his way. His past worries and frustrations with the goddess melted away as he filled himself to the brim with the meat.
-
"Inventory."
"Yes."
The repeated words ricocheted about in the confines of the tunnel. Now that he had satisfied his hunger, he went about storing as much of the meat as he could. Since his inventory could preserve things, it was probably wise to put anything perishable in there.
A large pile of grass grew in the tunnel as he replaced his inventory slots with the meat. His experiments shortly after his arrival in the world had led him to acquire... a lot of grass, to test the limits of his inventory's weight capacity. Since the field grass in the plains was relatively light, the combined weight of each stack paled in comparison to the inventory's overall weight limit. Thus, the pile gradually grew towards the ceiling of the cave. It filled Johnny's entire field of view, and before long, he was completely buried in a growing mountain of the stuff.
"Ahh...ahhh.. ACHOOO!"
He sneezed. The hay fever from his previous life seemed to have followed him here. How lovely, another problem, he sighed.
-
The light of a nearly obscured sun filtered through the thick canopy of the forest. It was the very brightest it could be here, and it was still a strain to make out shapes in the shifting shadows.
Johnny emerged from the cave, completely satisfied with his venture inside. He put away the nearly spent torch inside his inventory. Now, about that tiger...
"Ohhhh... that's.... not good."
It was gone. Earlier, it had stood over him as he laid close to the fire, and now, it was nowhere to be seen anywhere. Johnny reached for the sword he had left driven into the ground near the cave entrance, but it too had vanished.
He had a bad feeling about this.
-
Igrud watched the human from the branches of a nearby tree. She fumed in anger, over the embarrassing situation she had to endure. Nine hours. Nine! She stared at a naked human for nine hours! She couldn't sleep, not as she stood frozen in such an uncomfortable position. Her legs ached, and her entire body was in excruciating pain from the many cramps that had built up over the night.
She had stolen upon the sleeping human last night and was planning to gut him while he laid at his most vulnerable. Right as she was about to drive the blade into him, her entire body froze! Her limbs wouldn't respond as she attempted to free herself from her invisible chains, but it was in vain. She was hopelessly locked into position. But how?
After he left, she was freed from her bonds, as the master of the collar was beyond its effective range. For a few moments, she lay collapsed on the ground, gasping for air. She was exhausted, and could barely think straight for lack of sleep.
Igrud could stand this human no longer. She was going to end this monstrosity, as quickly as possible. She had to, for the sake of her sanity. To that end, she came up with a plan. She would ambush him from above. There were numerous trees in the area to choose from. She climbed the one closest to the cave's opening and waited for the moment the human emerged to pounce.
He passed underneath the branch that overhung the cave entrance. From her vantage point, it was almost certain she could land on top of him. Then, there would be no mistakes. He would die.
She calculated her jump carefully. With a deep breath, Igrud leaped from the branch, yelling at the top of her lungs.
"Die, Human!!!"
-
Johnny started from the sudden roar above him. He turned his gaze upward, to see the tiger free-falling from the branch of a tree, its sword aimed downward in a deadly thrust.