He mumbled as a cold chill escaped his breathe. Because of his fall, the clothes became wet, now he was now freezing in the cold night.
It didn't take long for him to return into the ruins, shattering his teeth. He walked into a stone house that barely stood and rested his body on the hard ground.
He placed his stick by his side and closed his eyes for the later tomorrow. Some hours passed but it was still nighttime.
Owen would constantly wake up due the hard-rough ground and invariant cold breeze, coming from the open stone doorframe.
He would switch his sleeping position every time he woke up but due the unvarying force of the wind, he woke up half asleep. He rubbed his eyes with his slimly dirty hand and looked around the room.
After the hours he slept, the moonlight was now able to slip through the opened door. It was then something caught his sight at the corner of the room.
He blinked repeatedly at the unidentified object and stood carelessly. He walked in its direction and crouched downward.
The object was black in color and slender in form, swaying slightly at the cold breeze. The object was partially buried in the ground and when he looked further, Owen identified the object as some kind cloth.
He yawned and placed both of his hands, applying a strong grip. He then used all of strength to pulled it out. It showed some strong resistance at first but Owen kept pulling and started to come out slowly.
He then clasped his sore hands and pulled the cloth with all of his strength for the last time and just like that, it sprouted out of the hard soil.
"Hell yeah!"
Owen shouted victoriously when he looked at the cloth with his tired eyes. The cloth was a full-sized blanket, soft at the touch and clean at the surface.
Normally, Owen would have celebrated at his new source of warmth but slight confusion came into his eyes.
"How in the world did this blanket live longer than the stone structure….? Maybe someone did come before me once, not too long ago…."
He looked out of the stone door with a demure expression, however, his vision started to darken.
"Whatever, maybe I will investigate later…."
With exhaustion on his shoulder, he placed his new found blanket over the body and closed his eyes under the warm embrace of the soft cloth, shielding him against the cold. He smiled thinly and quickly went to sleep.
****
Hours passed and Owen was still under the blanket, sleeping soundly despite the hard ground. In his dream world, however, a nightmare was ongoing in his mind.
The memories of his death of his mother, puppy and him started to replay mercilessly. Suddenly, his body started to produce sweat despite the optimum temperature provided by the blanket and cold breeze.
The last thing he could hear was, "Owen!", and he sat upright, holding his sweaty face with one hand.
"Ah...I am awake."
He yawned and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Owen looked around the room and only saw faint darkness around him.
The moonlight was no longer shining through the doorframe. He opened eyes in bewilderment but it was replaced with horror.
"I-it's still night time…!"
He shuttered his words while looking at the stone doorframe. After a short while, he chucked with no humor sounding in his voice.
"Tsk! What nonsense…."
His eyes become cold under the faint cover of the darkness. He shook his head and looked down to find the blanket, however, it vanished.
"Huh, did I imagine that blanket?"
It was a bit difficult to see in the faint darkness but Owen still looked around with questioning eyes. The blanket was nowhere in the room and it seemed to vanished into thin air.
However, just as Owen was about to give up, he felt something soft warping around his neck. He paused for a second and didn't dare to look because of caution.
Owen raised his hand slowly and touched the unknown "soft thing". A rather delicate and moderately silky sensation surged through his hand. He raised an eyebrow and looked in surprise.
A somewhat tattered black scarf warped around his neck that almost reached his chin, appeared from thin air…
"What the...Was this here last night?"
He tried his absolute best to remember but nothing came into mind.
"I only remember finding the black blanket and nothing else…."
Owen looked the scarf with wariness, and looked at the ground for footprints but it was too dark for any type of investigation.
Perhaps someone took his blanket for some purpose and warped this scarf around his neck as a sign of good will?
"No, if that was the case, I would have woken up the moment they stepped in, I mean, it's not like I had the best dream…."
Owen could not think of any logical theory of this outcome, so, instead he made a nonsensical hypothesis like this world. Magic is element of this mystical heavenly body after all.
"So, this scarf is the blanket huh?"
Owen lowed his eyelids at the revelation, not at the concept of it shapeshifting, no, the fact it took him so long to realize this fact. He shook his head and smiled thinly.
"This shapeshifting scarf is a magic item? Sweat."
In all honestly, Owen`s time on this world was at best, very miserable, so he was happy for once something possibly good came his way. He nodded his head in approval while flashing mischievous gaze in his eyes.
"If this magic item is here, I wonder what other items I will find…..."
Owen couldn't help but smile lightly at aspect of having multiple magic items, yet his expression quickly changed into a state of facial discombobulation.
"Wait, I thought checked this building for treasure when I first arrived but I found nothing...so how did this scarf appear out of nowhere?"
Owen commemorated carefully and was absolutely sure that the stone structure was completely empty when he first arrived.
"Whatever, all that matters that I have a magic item...so who cares? Besides, I am hungry…..."
A groan escaped his stomach and he rubbed it gently, a look of displeasure appeared in his eyes.
He slowly stood up from the hard ground and wiped the dirt off his clothes. Holding the stick in one hand, he carefully walked to the stone doorframe with new found energy.
****
"Woah…"
When Owen came out the stone structure, it wasn't as dark as he expected it to be, instead, the atmosphere was faintly illuminated by the everchanging sky of analogous blue.
He looked upward with curious eyes towards the sky and couldn't help but mumble at its majesty. The sky was just like a proficient brushwork of tinted abstemious blue at the horizon of the rising sun and dark blue at the opposite purview with a little violent blend.
In the view of the ascending sun, the sky was a merit of light blue with diminished stars, blending with dark blue from the dark horizon.
The moon was nowhere to be seen but many stars still glued across the sky in different concentrations.
"This world may be cruel and unforgiving from a foolish outsider but from an eye of a saint, this world is a marvel of its own..."
Owen said with approval and energic eyes.
"Well, no better time than the present."
Once said, he moved deeper into the undiscovered ruins in the forest. He looked around his surroundings and saw basically the same thing as before, the stone structures collapsed and scattered in all directions with a little bit of vegetation attaching to their surfaces.
Plus, he was hard to look inside the ones which surprising stood, due to lack of proper sunlight.
"Maybe I should come back later?"
Feeling a bit hopeless at the current matter, he was about to give up his exploration of the ruins, currently, but something caught his gaze.
Not to far of his position, in the camouflage of the forest, a large stone structure stood in the distance. Owen slowly opened his eyes in excitement.
The large stone structure was clearly different from the others, reasoning was its stones were all polished perfectly and expertly carved unique designs.
Smiling mischievously, he walked towards its direction, feeling the harsh gentle blow of the wind.
"Man, I am not complaining or anything but why in the world is this place so cold?!"
Owen shivered while rubbing his hands quickly. The humidity of the surrounding area was just too cold. In fact, when he breathed outward, a stream will form.
He was beginning to believe his current state would catch a cold or something even worse…...
"I wish, I had warm clothes…..."
He wished deeply in his heart and soul. He sighed helpless but suddenly, the tattered scarf formed a faint pure aura and shapeshifted into a black cloak that warped his most of his body.
He felt warmth assaulting his body from the sudden shapeshifted cloak and stumbled a few steps back in astonishment.
The black cloak was rather simple in design but it did have darker lines on its edges.
"So, this is the power of magic?"
Owen couldn't help but smile while holding the cloak and his eyes dimmed in approval. He looked around his body and nodded his head with satisfaction. He waved his stick a bit like a wizard casting a spell.
"With this, moving in the cold is no problem."
Nonetheless, he wondered how the cloak was able to provide such perfect body heat to warm his skin but just shrugged his shoulders. Its magic, what's so hard to not understand?
He walked forward with determination to the building heedlessly, taking very second of warmth from the magic scarf.
Soon he arrived the large stone structure and smiled at its construction. Two large pillars supported the entrance of the building with spiraling designs.
It was strangely intact in some aspects but still harbored some damage from the passage of time. There was also a metal door which slanted a bit but still unbroken.
"Alright, lets see what's inside…."