Normally, one wouldn’t burrow during the day and walk out at night in the Barrens. But this is the situation I’m in right now.
I don’t think that I can stay awake for longer. I’m having a hard ti right now trying not to fall asleep. I definitely need to burrow.
Why do I say burrow? Because that’s literally what it’s about.
There is a small animal that lives in this land and builds burrows for itself and its family. It’s a rodent called koa’ty. They are a little bigger than a cat, and their burrows are the perfect size for soone like .
Their burrows are always on the slopes of small hills, facing south, so the wind that brings moisture has an easier way in.
They are very easily scared and often leave their burrows behind if they sense danger. So all I have to do is find one and take it.
Which is easier said than done.
I an, if they are inhabited by the builders, it would be the best scenario. Just so nacing sounds and the illusion of a monster, and the burrow is mine.
But if it’s one that they have already abandoned, then it might have already been claid by another living being.
Like sand scorpions, which are the size of a kitten and venomous.
Yeah, I don’t want to fight that right now.
My mana reserves have recovered a bit, but I don’t want to tap into them right now, as I don’t want to be manaless if sothing happens to find inside the burrow later.
Because, of course, Mimby isn’t the only living being that knows about the koa’ty. And their at is considered an easy dinner for a lot of beings, humanlike and not humanlike, in this wasteland.
In any case, they are my best shot right now, so as the corolla of the sun starts rising up on the horizon, I put myself to look at all south-facing slopes in search of holes.
:::
It doesn’t take long to find so.
The first one exhales a nauseating stench. It looks like sothing is already dead in there, and it’s a matter of ti until the carrion eaters co, so I walk away really fast.
That’s when I see a group of small animals that look like hyenas. They are all looking at and at the burrow I ca from.
I freeze.
They seem to be hesitating, then I rember so videos about hyenas themselves. They prefer easy food to nacing food, so I use a small illusion to refract my image in the air to look like I’m getting bigger.
They quickly scatter and then run towards the burrow. It seems that, monsters or animals, so facts of biology remain the sa.
:::
The second burrow, one kiloter away, seems better.
There aren’t any strange slls; it looks abandoned.
Before poking in, I use the lightning bolt aria, tweaking it and making an effort to release just a little bit of mana, and cast it into the burrow.
There’s no reaction. No movent on the ground, no sound, nothing. Then I cast a spell to emanate a bit of light and look inside, holding my sword in my hands, pointing forward.
Nothing.
It’s empty.
I crawl into it. Like Mimby told , the interior is just the right size for to fit comfortably with so room to move.
I crawl back out and look around. Soon, I find what I was looking for, a bush large enough to cover the entrance of the burrow. I cut it from its root using the knife I found in the backpack and take it with .
I enter the burrow again, place the bush on the entrance, blocking it, and check that it won’t be just blown away by any wind. I leave the sword unsheathed, pointing to the entrance, as a safety asure, and finally allow myself to sleep.
:::
When I wake up, I take so ti to understand what’s happening.
I don’t see anything, and I’m in a weird position. I breathe dust in front of . Where is my bed?
Oh.
The mories of last night co rushing.
Okay, it seems that I survived my first sleep. I carefully push the bush forward and crawl to the world outside.
The sun is still up; it seems to be a bit past noon, and there is not a single cloud in sight. The wild expanse around seems peaceful, but the sun’s assault hurts.
It’s my first ti feeling the sunrays on my skin in this body, after all. I’m just not used to it, so I force myself to endure it.
I open the backpack and take the bread and fruits that were there. My first lunch as a free person.
:::
After I eat, I take my ti to stretch and survey the area around .
Then, I rember the pendant Mimby made for and check that it is still there and whole. It is.
I take a deep sigh.
The next goal is to find her tribe.
Directly north of the city, there is an oasis called Yrasema. Mimby told that the tribe would be camping there for so ti, but that if I take too long, they won’t be there anymore when I arrive.
I use the cloth that was protecting the food and rip it into strips. Then I tie them together to make a sort of belt, to which I hang the short sword.
So there’s no ti to waste. Using the sun as my guide, I proceed northward.
:::
As I walk, I mull over everything that has happened since I arrived in this world.
My heart aches for leaving my mother behind, but no matter how much I think about it, I can’t find any way I could have been able to get her with .
If only I weren’t so weak.
I chuckle at the irony of the situation. In my old life, I was raised by my father alone. In this, by my mother alone.
So, in two lives, I have one father and one mother. I just wish they were both here with right now.
Tears co falling uncontrollably, and I have to stop for a mont to control myself.
Damn, this body sure can’t deal with strong emotions yet.
I take so deep breaths until I steady myself again.
I don’t even want to think about how puberty will be. If there even was a spell to soothe emotions...
My mind gears start working again, and I replay all the spell words I know and the syntax of the incantations and how they interact with the elents.
Because that’s what all known incantations in this world are: just wrestling the elents under the mage’s command.
Concepts like spatial magic, ti magic, and similar ones are completely alien to this world. Never mind sothing like gravitational magic when they don’t even know that gravitational pull exists or how it works.
I’ve been testing using so Earth words here and there in my incantations, but the effects until now were unreliable at best. And the fact that I could only do it on harmless, subtle magic limited my experintations a lot.
Now I can push forward and do more than wet my toes in the beautiful ocean of magic.
I an, I will be able to do it as soon as I can settle sowhere for a longer ti.
I was able to understand the base structure of the incantations and of the language of this world, and I’ve already noticed that both have different syntaxes from the languages I was familiar with back on Earth.
So it will take several rounds of testing and failing until I reach any desired result. And right now, I can’t leisurely spend my mana.
After all, magic is my only effective weapon right now. And I’ll have to...
A low growl snaps out of my ntal spacing and back into reality.
"Fuck."
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