Chapter 15 - Lone Man In The Tundra

My eyes opened. It was warm in my bed. After getting myself to my feet, my finger pushed aside the curtain to feel a sudden blast of cold and quickly closed it.

Wow, these curtains are quite effective.

The sun was rising, so it meant that a day had passed.

I was scared to go outside of the palace, even Ela said that I should just stay here.

But what was I going to accomplish idling away? I have already done that enough.

There was a coat in the room, my guess was it had been a new addition. Taking the coat, my legs took me down to the palace entrance. Despite the howling winds and snow, it didn't feel cold. There was not any scene of carnage that my imagination told me there would be. It seemed someone had taken care of the eagles... and the bodies.

My foot took a step outside... then back inside.

It was very cold, how does this even work? After bracing myself, my feet charged outside.

The winds were strong like they were telling me I could be picked up and sent into a wasteland.

There were snowflakes pelting my face, making me shiver.

This coat wasn't meant for travelling out here as the bitter cold seeped past it easily.

My mind cast the fire spell and held a sizable ball of fire in front of me. The warmth was not enough to block out the cold but made it much more tolerable. Nobody was in the village

One of the buildings had collapsed entirely. The sight reminded me of what I was dealing with. There were countless eagles in the sky yet here I was trying to fight it.

A lone man with a bit of fire trying to fight the relentless tundra.

My steps did not go back.

I had no idea where to go or what to do, so the only thing I could do was stop hiding.

Even if I die, I just need a lead. A lead to something, to somewhere, or someone.

The more my feet traversed the paths the more aimless it was.

What was I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? How long would it take for me to be able to make a significant difference?

Mildred's voice rang out in my head.

'I ended up running away from home and lived among the beasts in the forest.'

With that, my decision was to leave the village.

Hopefully, I would get to the forest before my untimely death.

My shins waded through the swaths of snow and reached the edges of the village. Thankfully there was no huge wall, else it would be difficult for me to pass. The ball of fire in my hand started to flicker before it disappeared. My mind hurriedly cast another while my teeth grit.

It seemed it was going to be a challenge to not freeze to death. It was also at this point hunger came to me.

...I hadn't prepared properly at all.

I didn't even memorize all the spells. Perhaps I made a hasty decision...

'The first few days ended up being very rough and I almost went back to the village. However, I stayed.'

I remembered Mildred's words.

It seemed that she hadn't made any preparations either and just dived headfirst. It was as if her survival was secondary to her, and it's not like she could just come back to life like me.

my legs pressed onward while my body was pretending it wasn't shivering or starving.

There was a large expanse of trees on the way forward. It would take a while but I could make it there. There was nothing that blocked me on my way towards the forest.

The problem of food came to mind.

What could I possibly eat here?

Maybe there would be plants, but all my eyes found was snow. My decision was still to continue.

The trees seemed much larger up close and the leaves were still green.

My mind started to consider eating the leaves, but it would probably be an unpleasant experience, to say the least.

My hand brought the flame closer to me. It seemed the cold had seeped into my head as there was a raging headache that wouldn't calm down.

For a moment my back leaned on a tree.

It was at this moment my mind recalled Mildred saying that holding spells had saved her life. With that, my mind started to prepare the tunnel spell.

There were no major complications but casting the spell was slow and near the end, my fire went out, so the final bits were spent in the grueling cold.

My body wanted me to quickly cast the fire spell, but despite that, I stopped. Thee was that strange empty feeling.

My legs crossed and sat down in the snow, basking in the cold. The wind brushed past me threatening to freeze my heart.

My mind started to gather mana and was able to slowly cast the spell from Alyx's book.

Actually, I tried to do it before, but it seemed I just barely could not.

That is why I let the cold batter me as my mind prepared this strange spell.

This spell needed quite the amount of mana so it took longer than the tunnel spell.

The spell nearly finished, but the mana paused.

I was actually kind of nervous that maybe this spell type and the elementary tunnel spell would be too much to hold at the same time, but it was like that spell took no space.

Shaking away these thoughts my mind quickly cast another fire spell and my chest almost burned itself trying to get closer.

Any longer and my body may have been unable to move. My eyes surveyed the surroundings and found nothing, leading me to believe it was safe to stay here.

Apparently, my judgement was wrong as an eagle had peeked over from one of the trees.

I felt a little foolish missing such a large eagle but there was no time to mull over it. The eagle dived right after it confirmed my position.

My mind ended up casting both spells without thinking of the consequences. My body was buried into the ground and there was a strong collision above me.

To my dismay, the eagle was blocking my exit.

Panic settled in, what was I supposed to do now?

In my desperation, My mind tried to draw in mana, but it was not easy.

I guess I now knew that I needed to absorb mana from the air.

My muscles were trembling, but there was no way my body would recover before suffocating. Unwilling to give up here my hands pushed against the eagle.

But it did not even budge.

I didn't want to die, I finally came so far.

If... If I was going to die, I would die trying. I twisted my body, trying to get more ground to push down on.

It was a mountain. A mountain that stood above me, so that I would never go up.

...Break it. Along with everything else.

Joints cracked, tendons strained, and bones creaked.

With a scream, my hands lifted it, my foot took a step on the ground and the eagle was tossed aside.

I... I felt so tired... and hungry.

My body begged for rest, but my stomach was begging me for food. The hunger made me move through the pain.

The eagle shrunk and had crushed its head in the tree my back was leaning on. Hunger filled my thoughts but with my last shred of rationality, My hand plucked off some feathers first.

My mind casted a fire spell and my hand the fire at a similar distance Ned would when cooking.

I almost just ate the eagle raw, but didn't.

I patiently and slowly cooked it, directly eating from its body.

Calming down, I started to make out... footsteps?

It seemed that other things were on their way. My heart bled with regret but I ran away leaving the eagle corpse behind.

My feet could barely keep running, much less do anything else.

Unable to help my curiosity my head turned back to see a wolf staring at me. I ran faster.

Thankfully it seemed the wolf had no intention to chase. My legs collapsed while my lungs were trying to get any oxygen it could.

The cold air my lungs hurt but I bore with it.

I needed to sleep... but how would I do it without freezing to death?

...The tunnel spell... my body was warm when underground.

Casting another spell was far past my body's limit.

But what other choice did I have? My hands cleared out the snow next to a tree.

My hope was that I would be able to breathe this way and not too much snow would fall on me. The spell was cast, to my body's dismay.

It was hard to keep consciousness but my mind finished the spell, sending everything but my head underground.

The last thing I felt before I passed out was something burst in my stomach.

There was a dull pain in my stomach as my eyes fluttered open and my head was almost buried in snow. Bursting out of the ground my mind cast a fire spell as fast as it could to warm myself up. The glow of the sun pierced through the leaves of the trees to my face.

A day passed and I was alive.

Worried about the wolf from earlier, I thought it would be best to scale up a tree.

My hand tried to pull me up the tree but was unable to do much, especially since one hand was holding the flame.

My eyes surveyed the surroundings for a tree that wasn't too hard to scale. My dexterity was not enough to scale any tree with one hand so I was forced to cancel my fire spell.

With that, my hands pulled me up the tree.

Upon exerting strength, the pain in my stomach would protest, slowly driving me insane.

My hands were too delicate and were cut up after climbing, but in the end, my body was able to lay down on top of the tree. My lungs took in a deep breath, my mind cast the fire spell, and my body squirmed around, getting as comfortable as it could, entangled in the branches.

My eyes inspected my stomach. There was a hole in my clothes revealing a nasty sight. The wound was already somewhat scabbed over, but it was filled with dirt and looked purple. My fingers tried to pick out dirt, but it ended up being too painful to continue.

The forest surrounded me, the trees and snow were hiding the terrors of this place...

....But I will find them all one by one.