My cooking skill is relatively good, so this could be a peaceful way to show off. I was not really the type to do that before, but hey, new body; new life, right?

Casually strolling through the forest, my steps are light, no noise being made as I make each one. While I always had the habit, being in this body certainly reinforces it while making things so much easier.

Thanks to these light steps, it would seem a little fox did not even notice my presence. I can see it trying to stealthily move further into the forest, though it's not doing a particularly good job at it. My animal lore lightly moves around my mind, informing me that this fox kit should be around six weeks old. While they do tend to journey outside their den at this stage, they are not completely self-reliant yet, so the den should be somewhat close by. Well, this is better than wandering aimlessly, so I follow it for a bit.

Alas, after a short while of trailing it, I figure that any more and I'd be too far than I'd like to respond fast enough should something happen to my employers. Granted, they are likely to be taken alive rather than killed, but it would still be best to prevent that from happening.

Thinking for a brief moment, I speed up and quickly catch up to the kit and take it into my arms, which of course startles it. Without giving much heed to its behaviour, I make a small chant.

"May the will of the forest be with you."

A dim green glow emerges from my hands and is quickly absorbed by the kit's body, which causes it to calm down right away. Now a docile little thing, it looks up at me in curiosity as my nature blessing takes effect. While the effects are not particularly strong, the main benefit of the blessing is that the blessing will fuel itself with the nature mana from the surroundings. Since I made sure to cast a weak version of the blessing, it should last indefinitely as long as the fox stays in the forest. I place the kit down and stroke its head lightly and then walk away with a parting phrase.

"Good luck little one."

Heading back in the direction of the carriage, I silently cast an overcharged lesser life sense spell, which is the nature version of the lesser detect life spell. Though this is much stronger in some places, a forest being one of those. The reason I overcharged a lesser spell rather than just casting life sense or greater life sense is that If I choose the former; I would sense all the small to medium lifeforms, just like that kit from earlier, and if I cast the latter; I could also sense all the more primitive types of life, such as small bugs or plants. I have no need for that now, and considering the fact that I am in a forest, I might just get a migraine from the latter.

After a moment of getting used to the sensation of somehow feeling all the animals and monsters around me, I realise there should be a river close enough to me, based on the actions of the animals close to it, and a humanoid heading towards it. I also pick up a deer nearby. It's not too big, which is just fine since there are only a few of us.

Within moments, I arrived at its location, the doe none the wiser about my presence. I'm really loving this body of mine...Well, I should hold back on the narcissism for now. I casually cast a charm animal spell and have it follow me back towards the caravan. On the way, I take full advantage of all my lore knowledge to collect some herbs and berries on the way back, placing them into one of the twenty baskets I have in my inventory for some reason. The herbs do not have too much use at my level¹This is the general meaning of level, not the game character level. (Which DAWN did not have), since they are at the edge of the forest with no special environmental advantages, but having more never hurts. Plus, some of it makes a great seasoning for meat apparently.

I arrive back at the carriage soon enough, to see a small campfire going and one of the guards missing. It does not take long before I am noticed, and obviously, there are curious looks directed at the doe beside me.

"I found it while taking my stroll, so I figured we can take the chance to have a nicer meal."

The guards all look towards Grande, who shrugs helplessly and gives a nod, prompting a cheer from the lot. Hmm, the discipline is not bad, but they're somewhat relaxed all things considered. Well, not my issue. Taking a brief look at the tracks all around us, which apparently I can identify as if it's second nature now, I realise the other guy also went into the forest, though in a different direction. If memory serves me right, it should be towards the river I sensed earlier, so I suppose he's the one I sensed earlier. Good thing I did not bother doing some preemptive action and killing anyone snooping around.

"I assume the last fellow went to the river nearby?"

Grande raises an eyebrow at that slightly but decides to answer me nonetheless.

"Yes, he has. You seem to have quite some good senses, he only noticed it thanks to being our ranger."

Hmm, ranger? He was dressed just like the rest of them, and I did not even notice a bow on him. Seems they are more careful about staying hidden than I thought, but they're still eye-catching enough...how curious. Still, I suppose I should respond to Grande as a reward for his probing, I do not dislike this type of person.

"Magic is quite a useful thing, don't you think?"

Well, he looks unamused by that, though I suppose it is not surprising, he was likely hoping for a more concrete answer. Still, people like that are only really satisfied when they get the answer themselves, if I said exactly what I did he would just be suspicious about why I was so open about it.

Without paying much more attention to him, I turn around and, in their blindspot, summon a small sharp dagger I had lying around. I promptly use said dagger to make a clean cut right across the doe's carotid artery, along with a second one right across the spinal cord. Aside from the surprised looks on the guards, who clearly do not know where the dagger suddenly came from, it also caused the charm animal spell to break, though that is to be expected.

Still, the doe does not have a chance to run because the cut spinal cord prevented any movement aside from some twitching.

That done; I use some blood magic, namely the classic blood manipulation, which is actually an ability granted by achieving a sufficient level in blood magic. With the heart still beating, it is easy to guide the blood outside through the cut I made, all of it collecting into a nice sphere floating beside me. What would have taken minutes, I made sure is done within one. Of course, I could have simply forced the blood outside, since a simple deer lacks any meaningful resistance against magic, but that would have caused the blood vessels to burst, making the meat needlessly bloody.

Thinking for a moment, I look at the sphere of blood floating beside me and decide to put it to use. No need to be wasteful after all. Blood from the sphere flows out in controlled streams towards the ground, all of it systematically creating a magic circle from my memory. The circle ends up quite a bit smaller than the volume of blood, around a metre in diameter, but that's because it is layered quite thick. With the circle finished, I run nature, as opposed to blood, mana through it.

The circle shines slightly, before being absorbed into the ground. Honestly, blood from regular animals is not too useful for magic due to the absence of mana, but it still enough for some hybrid magics if the blood magic is the lesser focus. Here, I combined nature and blood magic, using the blood just to make the magic circle and serve as the conduit. Most of the actual power came from me, but it is still more convenient this way as I could make it last longer.

With everyone focused on the disappearing magic circle, not-so-quiet murmurs being traded between themselves, I put my attention back to the dead animal and start preparing it, my abilities making the whole process smooth and instinctive. Eventually, Grande approaches and asks carefully.

"You are quite an accomplished mage for your age, especially considering your talent as a pugilist. What was the purpose of that magic circle?"

Interesting, he assumed I am a pugilist rather than believing I used magic during my earlier experimenting. I can understand that, I suppose. I did use my hands without any obvious magic focus, and the results do possess some resemblance to the use of ki. That said, I clearly did not use a fighting stance back then, and just used my superior condition and natural grace to dance around them. If he gets a chance to observe my fighting once or twice again, perhaps he will figure it out. Especially since I showed my blood magic. Actually, speaking of blood magic...

"Looks can be deceiving, though I am sure you are aware of that. The magic circle was used as an alarm of sorts: If a large enough living being approaches I will be notified. On a related note, I hope this is not one of the regions that consider blood magic as forbidden? I probably should have checked beforehand."

Due to the many different gods being worshipped, and the many cultures around, there aren't really any schools of magic that are banned across the entire continent, but different regions have different opinions, and I know there are at least a few that made blood magic forbidden. Honestly, I probably should have pestered Aria for information on the region once I admitted that I lived a long time ago. I'll get on that during the journey tomorrow, I suppose.

I can practically feel the stare from Grande at my question, but eventually, he chuckles and answers.

"No, it is not forbidden, though Count Acquarone has a personal distaste towards it, which you should keep in mind."

Hmm, based on his tone, he seems to be quite friendly with the Count. While the words were mostly formal, he made it sound as if he was making fun of that distaste, though the lack of bite made it more similar to someone ribbing their friend rather than mocking an enemy.

Well, whatever. Thanks to my skilful movements, the animal's body has been properly harvested and we have plenty of meat to work with. I use the collected forest bounty to make an impromptu sauce and cover the meat with it thoroughly, and then simply roast it over the open fire. Sure, I could be a lot fancier and make a fantastic dish, what with cooking being one of my highest general abilities, but I couldn't be bothered doing it at the moment. Besides, if I make it too good, they will want me to do it for each time we camp.

Soon enough; the food was finished and the ranger returned from the river with water, which I used a portion of to make some herbal tea. I left waking the siblings to Grande while I took my meal to the roof of the carriage. Sure, it was not made with the intention of someone sitting on it, and it did not exactly have a ladder to climb up, but that's hardly enough to stop me. Gracefully sitting on it, I enjoy my meal while looking at the stars, which are so familiar and yet totally alien at the same time.

The world of Durion indeed.

MarkedBites

Small change: I'll be making any magical chants in italics as well, previously only the spell names were in italics while the chants were just normal speech.

A shorter chapter this time, but based on the events in the next one it's best to finish it here. On a related note, chapter 7 will be from Aria's perspective.

 

Thank you to everyone that commented on the previous chapters, it was fun reading and responding to you ^-^