After a few hours, Benedictus had taken out all of his current equipment and placed it all securely on the ground so he could look at all that he had available to him to work with. Once taking account of all of his food and equipment, he began to think about the fight several hours earlier. He had accidentally cast what he assumed was a Minor Pyro Manipulation. It happened in the heat of the moment, and he wasn't fully sure at the time how it was possible. But now he had a chance to think and test himself to see if he could recreate that.
He stood up and walked a little bit away from his stuff just so he didn't accidentally set any of his precious items on fire. As he had put what he thought was safe enough distance between his stuff and where he planned to test this power, he took a deep breath. He focused on remembering the sensation from when he had first cast that spell.
It was hard to focus at first, but as he remembered more about how it felt, it became easier to hone in on. Suddenly he could feel it. The magical energy flowing inside him and through him was hard to describe. It felt like it was physically a part of him, but it also went more beyond that.
The only way he could put it into words was that it felt like liquid fire flowing through him that gave off an electrical tingle that did not hurt. It felt warm, protective, safe even. He felt that this power he now had not only made him feel stronger but made him feel more at peace.
Now that he could feel the energy, he tried to see if he could cast that spell once more. Continuing to remember how it felt to cast the spell in the first place, his mind tried to recreate it. Suddenly he began to feel the flow of magical energy inside him being directed to his hand as he imagined shooting out a burst of fire. And then he saw it. A mighty geyser of flame that came blasting out from his palm. It reminded him of how flames look from a flamethrower but without the need for combustible fluids.
He was both shocked and elated to see that this had worked. As the flames began to die out, a smile was left on his face. He began to test and see if he could use the other spells that he knew he had. As he remembered how to let the mana flow through him, he thought about firing out a burst of lightning from his fingertips. Like a confirmation of what he had assumed when the magic had reached the tips of his fingers, it burst out from them in arcs of lightning like he had envisioned in his mind.
Remembering that he could manipulate the earth, he tried to see to what extent that he could do so. If it worked like how he thought, then his current idea would happen. He tried to channel the flow of magic down to the bottom of his feet with the hope that the ground beneath him that was covered in dirt would suddenly sprout grass in a small circle around him.
Seeing as blades of grass began to sprout and grow in a small area all around him, he was elated. He realized if he could envision it in his mind so long as it was within what the spells allowed for, he could pull it off. He then looked at the nearby trees and an idea had come to him yet again.
He walked up to one of the thicker, bigger trees, and he placed his hand on it. He tried using his earth magic to sense the tree and its structure. It responded by almost giving him a 3D map both inside and out of the tree in his mind. Helping him to understand that it was sturdy enough wood to try and build a makeshift cabin out of.
He used his earth magic and focused on the specific area of the tree where his hand was touching it to tilt the tree down slowly and naturally, causing it to grow taller as it started to now bend at an angle. Once it was essentially having the tip of the tree touching the ground, he used his earth magic to sever where the tree was bent at. It was cleanly cut, and it made a loud thud as it fully hit the ground. Successful in his attempt, he began moving forward with his preparations as he now had a decent material to work with, and knowledge of how to manipulate it to build a temporary structure that he could sleep in.
He began going along the tree using the maximum range of his earth magic to have the tree divide itself into perfectly cut sizable shapes of wooden planks and beams. As he began doing this, he also discovered that he could use his earth magic on the tree, even though it was cut, to cause it to continue to grow to produce an almost infinite source of wood so long as he had the mana to spend. This discovery made it so that he would most likely not need to use the same method on other trees in order to get the wood he needed.
Once he had a large enough stack of planks, he began testing whether he could move them with his earth magic. As the wooden planks began to levitate and float, he couldn't help thinking that with magic surviving here would be a lot easier. So he began to make the stacks of planks float over to where the rest of his stuff was.
Once the planks were in place, he started having them stack up to build the structure of a small wooden shack-like cabin. True enough, the planks were able to fit perfectly in place, but now came the issue of how he was going to get it all to not blow over in the wind since he didn't have any nails. Thinking about it, he realized that if he could manipulate plant life with his earth magic, he could potentially also manipulate other forces like stone, dirt, mud, crystal, and even metal, since they all technically were a part of the classification of types of earth material.
He began testing this theory by looking at the ground and holding out his hand. He used his earth magic to try and call out a chunk of the ground to his hand. He watched as a size of dirt and rock equivalent in rough shape to that of a volleyball came up from the ground and into the palm of his hand. Realizing that he did not have many more uses for his earth magic today, he took the results and began formulating a plan on how to properly use the last of his uses of earth magic for today.
After about an hour of planning, his switchblade had been the subject of material creation, as he used the knowledge of how to create more of the same material using his earth magic to make large pieces of metal that he would then break off and shape into nails. He had also used some of the wooden beams made when he was creating the planks and locked them into place by essentially rooting them all into the ground. Using his earth magic, he didn't even have to hammer the nails into where they needed to go, as he just slid them in to exactly where they needed to be.
It took a bit of effort, but after almost an hour and a half of testing and creating, he now had a small one-room cabin to sleep in. He had also created a bed primarily by making a large slab of stone that he placed numerous leaves onto. Tossing the blanket he woke up on here over the leaves, he now had a bed to sleep on. Using the last casting of his Minor Geo Manipulation for the day, he created a door with hinges and even a door knob.
Now he all needs to worry about food and warmth. He didn't know how cold it could possibly get here, but it was definitely starting to get a little chilly now that the sun was setting over the horizon. Getting the necessary material to create a fire pit was no issue, and he even set up a space inside the cabin where it could go and where the smoke could be naturally vented out of.
Heading out of the cabin and back over to the trees, he collected any fallen branches he could find along with several stones and took them back inside. Placing them in the area where he had set up for the fire pit to be, he would then use his pyro manipulation to shoot a small bit of fire onto the wood and keep it there long enough to start the fire. Once the fire had started, it produced enough light that he felt comfortable with, and he saw that his plan of ventilating the smoke out was successful.
He seemed happy that he had watched all those bushcrafting videos online as it helped him find a way to build this kind of structure all on his own with magical assistance. He pushed against it with different degrees of force and was happy at just how sturdy it was. Now he sat all of his stuff inside the cabin on a little shelf that he had made earlier next to the bed out of stone. He took a bottle of juice that he had, and he began to drink it, and he grabbed a bag of chips and began to eat.
Almost all of his food was junk food, with the only non-junk food he had on him being a couple of fruits, some rice, and a few vegetables. He knew enough about farming that he could potentially create a small garden farm with the seeds from the fruits and vegetables, but he did not know what to do with the rice. He believed that it might have been processed in a way that he could not simply replant it.
It was a problem that he would have to solve eventually if he helped to survive. For now though, with enough food in his stomach and his thirst quenched, he let the fire crackle. He lay down on his new temporary bed preparing to fall asleep. He prayed to whatever God could hear him to spare him from the nightmare that he had relived when he had first arrived.
Falling asleep did not come quickly as he remained awake for at least a good 30 minutes just lying there before his body finally allowed him to doze off. As he dreamed, his prayers almost seemed to answer as his dreams were filled with just the sensation floating among the stars. It was a calm and peaceful dream that allowed him to get the rest he desperately needed.
When he woke up in the morning, he went ahead and took another small bag of chips and ate them for breakfast. Getting off of the bed and walking outside, he looked over his status screen to check and see if his uses of geo manipulation had replenished at the start of the day or if it would need to be a full day of time that would need to pass. To his surprise, it seemed like it relied on the start of a new day rather than waiting for a full day's time to reset.
With that useful information, he set up natural pitfalls around his cabin that he would obviously cover with flimsy vines that were bright enough for him to see and know what they were. His intent was to make it so that animals that wandered near his cabin while he was away or while he slept did not have such an easy time doing so. Once about seven of these traps were set up, he headed out.
He began to make his way back into the woods in order to do two things. He needed to level up, and he needed to scout the area some more. He needed a better understanding of the way out of the forest in order to properly navigate it. As he made his way through it he would carve a number into every 20th tree he would pass. He kept track of how many he had passed so he did not mess up his count. He also took chunks of bark from the tree he had turned into a cabin the previous day and scattered them along his path in order to make sure he could find his way back if he could not see the numbers on the trees.
A few hours went by, a relatively peaceful scouting with no interruption. By the time he carved the number 30 into a tree, he decided to stop there for the day and head back. That's when his ears heard it. The frightened bleating of a baby sheep. He became cautious as he knew that the creatures in this world may have resemblances to creatures from his world, but they were different.
Following the sound, it did not take him long to see that, with its legs stuck in the root of a particularly large tree, a small creature was stuck. Its body had the same shape as that of a baby sheep, but it did not have any wool. Instead, its body was covered in red serpent scales and the only fur on its body was the blue lion-like mane that it had around its head. It had the same sheep-like eyes that he knew the sheep back on Earth had, but its eyes were a bright blue color. It did not have hooves and instead had paws similar in shape to those of a toad.
Looking at the creature, it seemed like it could not get its leg out, and it was crying for help, most likely from others of its kind. Given its size, he assumed it was probably calling for a parent if this creature was a baby. Looking around, he wondered why no such creature had arrived yet to aid it. Checking above him in the trees, he saw nothing. Looking further, he also did not see much until he heard a sound in some nearby bushes. That's when he saw the familiar green chitin just barely peeking out from behind the bush.
Moving closer, he grabbed his pistol. The creatures seemed to be hearing the young babe crying for its parents, but they did not come to kill it. Getting at an angle where he could see behind the bushes, he discovered that they were too busy and gorging on the corpses of the newborn creature's much larger parents.
Part of him felt that he should leave the creature to its fate, but as he heard it crying more he decided that this was the kind of thing he was looking for. He needed to level up, and these creatures would kill the youngling once they were done with the parents' bodies if he did not intervene. So the Infuse Flame spell on his pistol. As he thought about what the spell says it can do and tried to envision it in his mind, the mana began to flow, and fiery symbols appeared around his pistol. A magic circle made a flames formed in front of the barrel of his gun and shrunk down so that it could precisely coat the bullets in a magical blaze.
The casting was successful, and he lined up the first shot and fired twice into the largest of the three insectoid wolf creatures he still did not have a name for, who were huddled behind the bush. The magical flame almost seemed to make the bullet function like both an incendiary round and an explosive round in one. Creating a minor yet powerful explosion that broke through the chitin exoskeleton and burned everything on the way through the body and out the other side.
It seemed to destroy and cauterize most of the creature's internal organs as it fell over bleeding out. The other two creatures then looked in his direction getting ready to strike, but he was quick as he shot a bolt of lightning from the tips of his fingers at one of them using Minor Electro Manipulation. He maintained the lightning for just long enough that he thought it would be mostly internally fried by the electricity or significantly paralyzed so that he could handle the final one.
As the final one began to try and charge at him, he simply shot it in the head. The impact on the skull of the final creature with his enhanced bullets essentially made its skull explode like a gory firework. He then approached and fired a shot at the skull of the one he had electrocuted just to make sure it was dead.
Looking at the one he had fired two bullets into to start, it was still barely clinging to life as it was bleeding out heavily. He went ahead and finished it by making the ground beneath it shoot out a single spike of stone that pierced through its head. With that, they were all dead, and he received a notification saying that he had earned 30 XP. He was now 10 XP away from his next level up.
Realizing that the young creature nearby could probably produce enough XP for him to reach level 3, he looked over to it. He pointed his pistol at it, and he thought about putting it out of its misery since its parent was dead. But as it cried, a part of him felt bad for it.
Sure, he had hunted animals in the past, and he was no stranger to putting down some animals that had been trained by enemy soldiers during his time in the army, but part of him felt off about this. As he looked at it starting to cry actual tears, it reminded him of some of his pets from his childhood. They were the only things about his childhood that were actually good memories. His pets had helped him get through the hard times of his terrible parents and his equally awful siblings.
Fighting with himself mentally on whether to take the shot, he ultimately decided against it. Cursing aloud, he berated himself, "Damn it Ben. Why the hell do I have to be so damn soft? Sentimentality is going to be the death of me."
He put his pistol back in its holster, seeing that the magic also faded from it while he was deciding on what to do. He walked back over to the young creature, and he started trying to calm it down. Using his almost two decades of experience dealing with animals, he tried to use common tactics to get it to stop crying.
Surprisingly, this somehow worked as the creatures stopped gradually crying and allowed him to get close. It even let him pet it to try and reassure it that it was safe. As he petted the creature, he used his geo manipulation to alter the size and shape of the root, so its foot could come unstuck. It didn't even notice that it was free as it had started to become more comfortable being petted by him.
He even started talking to it like it was a puppy, "That's right. It's okay now. Those mean creatures won't hurt you. I'm here now. You're going to be safe."
Even though he knew it did not understand him, it snuggled into his embrace more, allowing him to carry it. As he held it in his arms, he continued to pet it as he slowly got up and started walking back to his cabin with the new creature. Following the trail of bark chunks and numbered trees that he had set up for himself, he was able to return to the cabin where he took the creature inside and began to let it walk around the inside of his cabin.
He left the door open for now, since the area around the cabin was all safe. The creature seemed to adjust itself in this new space and started becoming more comfortable. At the same time, he started grabbing some of his food and drinks from his makeshift shelf. He drank another bottle of juice and some saltine crackers and a can of chili that he heated up over the fire from his fire pit.
He tried to see if the creature wanted any of the food he was eating, but it sniffed the chili and did not like it. It then walked out of the cabin and went close to the river. He watched it carefully to see and make sure that nothing bad happened to it. He would hate for all that effort he put in earlier to go to waste if it got carried off by the current of the river.
To his surprise, it handled itself just fine along the river and even showed that it could easily swim in the water against the current just fine as it started looking for food. After about 15 minutes, it came out of the river with about three fish in its teeth. That's when he finally got a good look at its teeth and saw that its mouth was very similar to that of a canine but with a couple more flat teeth. It brought some of its catches over to him almost as if offering some of those odd-looking fish to him.
It seemed very proud of itself as it waited for him to take some of the fish. The fish that it brought looked like some of the fish he remembered on Earth, but with a couple of extra eyes and a little bit bigger with some more fins. He wasn't going to try any fish yet, so he decided instead to take one of the fishes and cook it over the fire for the little creature while it ate the other two raw.
When the fish he had cooked for it was ready, he offered it out and the creature seemed intrigued by the smell of cooked fish, but gladly ate it. He and the creature started to snuggle up by the fire after they ate, and for the first time in a while he felt a little happy having another little critter around. It was a sweet moment as the little creature began to slowly fall asleep, resting its head against his thigh.
He had even gotten very comfortable petting it, when suddenly he heard screaming. It snapped the little creature awake and scared it to the point where it ran to hide by his bed. Listening to the sound of the screaming, he thought a monster was coming at first, until he heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs for help.
Realizing she was speaking English, he immediately grabbed his gun and his knife and exited the cabin. He saw as the sun was setting, and through the tree line a woman was running towards the clearing that his cabin was in while being chased by a pack of those insectoid wolf creatures. She seemed to be holding something that was also screaming.
As she came out of the tree line, he saw that she was holding a little creature that looked like that original monster he had killed. He saw the four-eyed rabbit creature with horns in her hands, but it was a much smaller one, most likely a baby. She was being chased by a dozen of those bug wolf creatures.
As she saw him she immediately called out in fear for her life, "Please! Help me! Sir, please help!"
Realizing that things had taken a more drastic turn than he thought they would, he looked on the brighter side as he cast Infuse Flame on both his pistol and his pocket knife. He did hope to level up today, and he only needed 10 XP to do that. He knew that killing one of those bug wolf creatures gave 10 XP each and now 12 of them were coming his way. For some reason, he began to smile at that idea as he started rushing towards the danger.
He shouted in excitement, "Let's fucking do this!"