Chapter 19: the day afterwards

The following day I woke up first. I checked up on Sylvia and saw that she was breathing steadily which was a good sign of recovery. Eric on the other hand wasn’t sleeping very soundly. He was tossing and turning, muttering things about danger and Sylvia. I let him sleep since I’d imagine he needs it after yesterday. I went out to go hunt a bit although I’d need to be wary of the invistia but it shouldn’t be that big of an issue since I could still see Mana. Walking through the forest I was tracking a trail made by what seemed to be two rabbits which would serve as an apt breakfast. I also foraged some berries and other foodstuffs to balance out the diet and prevent any nasty diseases like scurvy from being a thing. The trail I was tracking led to a small hole in the ground with no trails leading outward I could assume that the rabbits were still in there. I quickly grabbed some sticks and made a small fire at the entrance to flush them out. After the first one ran out I quickly grabbed it and broke its neck before starting to drain it. The other apparently didn’t notice anything and followed suit to which I responded in kind by also swiftly breaking its neck and draining it. I foraged a bit more before getting a suitable amount for three people before returning home and starting a fire so I could cook.

My kitchen was rather simple in that it was a stone slab above a hole in which I could make a fire. I’d build a fire in the hole through a side window after which the stone slab would heat and then I could simply put the pot on top. It would’ve been better if I could make it a metal plate but I didn’t have enough metal and trying to slowly but surely create enough metal would probably take upwards of half a year which was a bit too much in my opinion. I skinned the rabbits before cutting one of them into pieces and putting it into a pot. I placed the other rabbit inside of a hole in the ground which was covered by a stone plate since the ground tends to be colder I then proceeded to cut the vegetables and adding them together with some herbs and spices to give it a bit more flavour. The berries I served separately to give a nice balanced diet. I grabbed a couple of plates and some wooden cutlery I made since I dislike eating with my hands. While I didn’t have any extra chairs made, I did make extra plates and cutlery since they tend to break and are easy to make. We’d have to eat on the ground but I regularly cleaned so it wasn’t that big of a deal. The stew started to smell good which seemed to wake Eric whom I heard grumble a couple of times before getting up.
“Good morning Eric, how are you feeling today? You seemed to be sleeping restless.”
“Yes, yesterday was very stressing, the stress must’ve gotten to me”
I give a hum before placing the pot with stew and the bowl with berries on the ground after which I motion him to come and eat.
“That looks delicious, where did you get the meat from?”
“Well I hunt and forage quite often so that’s where I get my food from, there’s no stores here” I said before eating a berry.
“Right stupid question, do you have anything that Sylvia can eat?”
“Not to worry, I can reheat this food so she will be taken care of, from her breathing I can tell that she is doing a decent bit better. My hope is that you two can leave the forest in a couple of days. I’m willing to escort you out.”
“Yes.. yes I’ll have to warn the order that we need more demigods to kill this particular invistia, it’s a lot more powerful than the average one.”
“It is fine if you do so but I might hunt it myself soon, while this may sound like overconfidence, I can assure you that I am quite capable.”
At this moment Sylvia started to awake, Eric ran over to her and told her to take it easy despite her doing exactly that. I called over “Would you be interested in some rabbit stew or berries? I’d imagine that your healing doesn’t work properly on an empty stomach.”
“Yeah I’d like some food, it smells delicious, I am feeling a lot better so I’ll join you two on the ground”
Eric protested a bit but was quickly shut down by a single glare from Sylvia, apparently that didn’t change in another world. I put some stew and berries on her plate then handed it over to her while she sat down. She took a spoonful, savoured it for moment then said “Yep, still can’t taste properly, side effect of the power”
“That sounds problematic but it seems to heal you insanely well, definitely seems worth it to me”
“Oh don’t get me wrong, it really is an amazing power and it makes me one of the stronger demigods in the city but it is a bit annoying to not be able to taste anything”
“I can imagine, care for another portion, anyone?”
We made small talk during breakfast and talked about various subjects like how living in the woods compares to living in the city and I also managed to obtain some information on the so called gods and demigods. Apparently there’s the gods I met earlier in my life who look for people with abilities, the so called demigods. Any person with an ability that is of a certain strength is considered a demigod, below that are the blessed who have some ability but not necessarily a strong ability. One blessed for example could make his food exceptionally good tasting, pretty cool but not demigod level. There’s a decent amount of demigods, about 30 currently but between all of them strength differed radically. The weakest demigod was just a very strong human while the most powerful one could apparently kill with his eyes, threatening indeed. Apart from that the city was mostly what I had seen, corrupt and with a strong social gap but still quite modern compared to the rest of the world. The conversation also went to Sylvia’s healing and they would more than likely depart the next day. I would escort them but I wasn’t going to join them in the city, my house in the woods is much too good of a place to study my magic. We finished breakfast and I showed the around the house. The beast didn’t show up and the rest of the day was rather peaceful with quite a lot of talking and Sylvia healing. I had also given Eric a healing potion since he too was wounded but it was a lot less bad than Sylvia so I hadn’t noticed. He thanked me for that and promised me to show me around the city if I ever went there. The day ended without much of anything else happening.