Chapter 11

The Future

Standing there at the treeline, Olivia watched Ameril head back into the town. As she got smaller and smaller, Olivia knew that it was time for her to move on.

It was still light out, but she felt that she needed to get moving and journey out into the wide, wide world.

Really it was the forest that she would be seeing first, but it was better than nothing.

With her new clothes on, a dagger at her hip and a bag and spear on her back she was geared up and ready to take on this journey.

Looking out over at the town, she headed towards the east, making her way to the dirt road or path that was leading away from the town. There want a specific reason for choosing the eastern path. It was only due to the reduced amount of traffic along it that she chose that path over the others.

She could have just headed in any random direction into the forest but felt that it would be better to be near the well-travelled path. While she couldn’t just join the people travelling along it, it was likely that she would be better suited to getting any necessities if she travelled along it. If she really had to a little late-night thievery could be done. There was also the benefit that it should end up taking her to a water source that the next town or village use.

She gave the town a wide birth as she headed to the path, being sure to keep out of sight of the guards and any other people travelling to and from the town. Once she was there, she gave the town one final look, and started her new journey, heading east into the forest.

A journey that currently had no real purpose.

.....

…

As she travelled, she realised that now was the first time that she actually had some time to think. Ever since she woke, she had been dealing with some kind of conflict or struggle. First was figuring out what and where she was. Then came the fight with the deer thing and the wolves. Then it was the rescue of Ameril from the man, and lastly was worrying about Ameril in the town.

Now that she was alone and had no one trying to kill her, she actually had some time to figure out what she wanted to do.

So that’s just what she did.

Being in this new world and having a different body, she realised there was a lot she could do. Explore the land, settle somewhere and all manner of things. Unlike the modern Earth that she came from, she no longer had any responsibilities. There was no more turning up for college and studying. She felt truly free.

But, as she delved into all these possibilities she realised there was a lot more that she couldn’t do

While she could go on a massive adventure and travel all over the other kingdoms and see the wonders of this world, her appearance would not be well received by anyone. She would always be seen as a monster to all the other races.

This bared her from ever seeing the inside of towns and villages. She would never be able to just walk up to someone and start a conversation, or make friends with anyone. While Ameril was the exception so far, the only reason they were truly able to become friends was because she had saved her from being assaulted by that man, twice. Unless something like that happened again, there wasn’t any other real way she could meet people.

As she came to that conclusion, she also realised that the fact that the first person she met had been under such dire straits, meant that this was not a peaceful world. Similar to what all of Ameril’s stories had already shown. The chances of her actually meeting someone else under a similar situation was quite possible.

So, baring her meeting someone outside of a town and under attack, as far as she could see, the only other people she may actually get along with, were Orcs and Goblins. From her memory from before she ended up in this world, she was sure that she was a mixture of orc and goblin. So, of all the races out there, they were surely the only ones that would welcome her with open arms.

Whether this was the case or not would only be known once she made contact with them.

There was also the problem of actually finding them.

From the stories Ameril had told her, the goblins and orcs had been hunted to near extinction. While they were still regarded as the stuff of nightmares, whether there were any actually left was anyone’s guess. The only place she assumed they would be is somewhere in the forest. But that doesn’t help when it is a massive forest that you need to search. Especially if having nearly been culled, they would have ended up going into hiding.

So as far as she saw it, this was a long-term goal for her. If however, she manages to meet other races some other way without being killed, then great. This would put finding the goblins and orcs on the back burner.

Another long-term goal she could think of was actually being able to enter a town or village without being attacked. To do this, she would need to form relations with the right people and have them help with getting her access to the town. This, like finding the remaining orcs and goblins, would be a task that would take a long time to come to fruition.

For the short-term goals, she decided that she needed to learn to survive. She needed to know how to fight with her weapon, fight without it, and how to live in the forest. Sure, she had a basic understanding of all of these things, but she was by no means a master of the spear or whatever weapon she ends up using. She also had no hand-to-hand fighting experience, and if she doesn’t learn how the forest works in this world, such as what can be eaten, what the poisonous plant are and other key things, then she would probably find herself in an early grave.

For this to happen though, she needed to find someone to help her.

Again, without being killed by them.

The only way she could see this happening, aside from saving someone in peril and having then help, was to find a small village. Once there she would need to find someone who could fight, and someone who journeyed out into the forest regularly. Then she just needed to broach the subject with them. How she would do that, she didn’t know. But it was as good a plan as any right now.

She could try this in a town that would have more people to choose from, but it also had more people that could kill her.

So on she went, following the path away from the town and heading on her journey to improve herself. As she travelled still worked on her muscles with exercises, ate some more fruit and drank some more water until it started to grow dark.

“Better make camp.”

Tonight would be the first night that Olivia would try to use her new camping equipment.

She turned off the path and headed into the forest looking for somewhere to lay her head.

As she headed further and further from the path, she managed to find a nice clearing. There was some shrubbery and fallen trees lying about, but for the most part, it was clear. It was surrounded by trees forming something of an easy-to-breach wall all around it. But what really sold it for her, was the drooping trees on one side of the area,

Heading under the trees, as far as she could see they were benign and looked similar to a willow. The drooping branches gave her some more cover and protection from the elements. It was quite a good spot to rest.

Gear on the floor, she got to work on the tent.

And it almost killed her.

…

“Why won’t the stupid thing stand up.”

The bundle of cloth came with several wooden poles in order to prop it up, but no matter how she arranged it, it just would not stay there.

She continued for a good twenty minutes until she finally had something half decent. It was a little lopsided and a stiff breeze could probably knock it down. But it was home for the night.

She headed into the forest and gathered some firewood, where she also tried her hand at hunting some food for dinner, but had no such luck. Until she acquired some actual snares or hunting lessons of any kind there was little to no chance she would be having deer or rabbit for dinner for quite some time.

Back at the tent, and with the tinderbox out, she lit a small fire, which she surrounded with stones. As it was getting dark, the small fire kept the cold at bay.

Thankfully the tree she was under was large enough that none of the branches were anywhere near the fire, as that was sure to cause some problems.

She started to munch on another of the fruits in her bag, but as she did she noticed she only had a couple left. Once they were gone, she would be on the camping rations.

On the journey here she hadn’t seen any more of the fruits which worried her. While it was a problem, it brought up another thing she needed to learn about. What things were edible in the forest.

It also occurred to her that she should have asked Ameril these things, but realised that given she was a noble girl, she probably didn’t have much information on these sorts of things.

With her meal now starting to digest, she put aside the worry over her food, and headed into the tent.

She kept the dagger close at hand and the rest of her gear she was able to tuck into the corner the tent.

Now all she had to do was get some sleep.