Chapter 10 - The Forest

Walking into the forest, I make sure to walk in a straight line from my house. I mean, I don't really know how far I'm going to have to walk to follow Ego's advice.

Continuing forward, the forest gets progressively denser and denser, filled with strange plants and flowers I've never seen in my last life.

I was kind of expecting that since this is a different world, but I was at least expecting to see your standard ferns or moss.

Well, there is moss, but it's blue and glows so I don't consider that normal.

Either way, the deeper and deeper I head into the forest and richer and denser it becomes.

Suddenly, I look back and I can no longer see my house in the distance. Most likely since the forest at this point is becoming less of an overgrown forest and increasingly like a flourishing jungle.

Do we own property in a tropical environment?

No, there was snow on the ground during winter, and the trees surrounding my house lost their leaves. Strange.

It's not as if I've veered too far off the straight path I planned to set, but this shouldn't be possible. It shouldn't be possible to have such deep and rich vegetation in the same forest that I was walking through before.

Did I get transported? Is this the effect of some kind of magic?

I didn't feel any magic triggering, it didn't feel like I cast anything or anything was cast on me, and all I've felt for the past about hour of walking was the pressure of the ground on my feet.

Also, I'm pretty sure the cycling of healing mana throughout my body is preventing pain to some degree, as I should have hurting feet by now.

Is this a trap? A trick? Was I kidnapped or taken somewhere? Or is this vegetation the result of magic?

Like, the more magic in an area, the richer the vegetation will grow?

No. At this point, I've gone down a rabbit hole that I have no way to verify.

What I need to do is have some trust for once. I trust Ego, I doubt Ego would take the time and effort to reincarnate me and help me just to kill me after three years.

Ego said to walk into the woods directly into the back of my house, and I did. All there is to do now is believe in him.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen? I die, and I can consider this a vivid pre-suicide dream so I experience some happiness before death.

What's the best outcome? This makes me a God and all of my wishes are granted from finding a mystical magic temple or super-powerful magical wizard tower artifact, or I stumble across a cute girl and we fall in love and I have a happy fulfilling life.

Or maybe, I stumble across a book and by pure luck and zero skill come to find out I'm the secret heir to a powerful tribe of super vampires who live on another planet.

Too on the nose? Maybe.

What's the most likely thing to happen? I get some sort of benefit out of this, that's why Ego said to come here, then I go home and get to go back to my normal life until I'm older than a child.

Wow, that actually worked. I read online that was a good way to cure anxiety, I didn't think it was real.

Getting myself back in the swing of things, I continue venturing deeper and deeper into the forest, and in the next moment, it all comes together.

The rich vegetation seems to come into a small clearing, a ring of cleared-out forest with a diameter of about forty feet.

At the center of the clearing, there's a sight that makes me almost immediately puke out all of the food I've eaten for the past month.

There are people, not just humans, four people of all different races and one human fighting together. A party of five.

Reduced now, to three. As the thing that they're fighting cleaves its hand in a wide arc and takes off the arm of a hairy, pig-faced warrior who was previously dual-wielding two silver swords.

The monster they're facing.

It looks like if a venus flytrap and a deer that eats nothing but protein had a kid.

Long black claws replaced its front hooves, as it stands hunched over like a gorilla.

Its mouth is hanging open, bleeding from the cuts that removed its jaw from the rest of its face, showing the world its horrendous three rows of teeth.

"Hazzet! No!" The halfling wearing chain yells as the man-bear-pig yells in pain and charges the monster, only to have his head removed like it was a cheap children's promotional toy.

In one swift movement, this seemingly tight band of adventurers have had their numbers cut in half, well technically in pieces but who's counting huh?

"I call upon those who control the winds, flurry and collect your power into my palms, bestow upon me-" Even after jumping backward and chanting at a speed I could barely keep up with, the older human also falls to the deer monstrosity.

Just like that, the only two remaining people are the halfling in chainmail who is currently desperately trying to swing at the monster and a blue-skinned race I don't recognize doing the same.

I need to help.

This is probably what Ego sent me here to do.

I don't know why the mage from before didn't do silent magic to get distance or slow the monster down whilst he chanted the powerful spell, but I can't ponder the deaths of an idiot right now.

If I don't intervene, then those two are going to die.

Then that thing is going to sniff me out, kill me, and then probably massacre my family. I don't know how strong Damien is, but that thing just took out a party of adventurers.

Placing my palm forward, I NEED this to work.

I need to kill it in one shot. I can't use fire, as we're in a forest. I can't use earth as I have the least practice with it and I don't know if I can do this with earth.

I can't use wind, even though it's my best element, I don't know how to even imagine a wind blade.

What I can make, however, is ice.

Pouring more and more water mana into my palm, I keep it from taking shape until I've dumped nearly four times the amount of mana Blowback took.

The shape and firing idea is simple. I want an icicle about two feet long, made extremely dense and the sharpest possible point at the tip of it.

When I fire it, I want it to spin in the air like a bullet to reduce drag and hopefully drill into this thing's skull.

It's taken me about five seconds to fully craft this spell, and in that time unfortunately the monster has demoted the living halfling to dead. What, I use humor as a coping mechanism okay?

The final adventurer has collapsed to their knees at the monster, as it slowly shuffles towards them.

Thankfully, it's stopped its fast movements and is moving in a line.

Standing up, I place my palm toward the skull of the creature and let my newest and first-ever custom spell fly. Eisdämon.

The mana leaves my hand and launches with the high speed 'whir' of a drill.

It flies almost faster than my eyes can follow, and embeds itself squarely into his right ribs.

Okay, maybe I ought to work on my aim when firing magic.

Either way, the monster turns to look at me, a look of fury within its eyes soon replaced by nothingness, as its corpse falls flat.

The monster, the Carnivoro I'll call it, is finally dead.

Just as relief washes over me, I see the blue-skinned woman faint whilst looking in my direction.

That's not a good sign.