"Okay, let me get this right, you are from a different world, you got into some kind of accident that should have killed you, but instead you transformed into a tentacle monster, changed your gender, were chased and teleported into this world upon which you lost part of your memories. Did I get this right?"
"That's more or less correct."
"And despite that, you nonchalantly sit here, without a single care in the world, trying to... actually what are you trying to do?"
"I'm trying to catch fish."
"It looks to me like you are doing a weird dance..."

Rude, I was genuinely trying to catch our breakfast.

Telling her everything took quite a while, so, albeit reluctantly, we decided to carry on with what we were doing. Karen resumed washing her remaining clothes while I attempted to catch a fish or two. Continuing from yesterday my current count of caught fish hadn't exceeded zero yet.

Sometime after, Karen finished washing her clothes while I was exhausted from thrusting the spear at fish all the time without success. I didn't think I was particularly clumsy but my lacking strength and the bad vision into the water certainly didn't help. Since the light was broken upon hitting the water's surface, you couldn't aim straight at the fish. It took quite some time until I remembered this particular problem, but even afterwards I was still gloriously failing, albeit not as bad as before. I succeeded in strafing some fish a few times, but following that, most of them dispersed around me and now I was additionally completely lacking targets.

"Yumi, sit down and rest a bit, I will continue for you. You can make preparations for the fire. You can also dry up at the fire then, you will catch a cold like that."
"Uhh... I wanted to at least catch one fish."
"With some practice, I am sure you will someday."

Not 'some time,' but 'someday.' That meant not today. So Karen did not believe that I would catch even one fish today. This girl could be quite mean with her sudden side jabs.

Going back to our belongings I searched the surroundings and collected a few twigs and branches for a new campfire. We kind of abandoned the old one. When we confirmed its state earlier the remains of a certain fishy bloodbath were already being scavenged by various animals, making it a really gruesome sight. Therefore we decided to relocate further upstream. That brought us a bit closer to the forest but so far everything was still fine as we hadn't seen any monster, excluding the caught fish.

I felt how my hair was slightly dragging behind me due to the new length, so I went back and put on my sandals. The sole wasn't really thick, but the one centimetre of extra height was just enough to make it significantly less annoying. After around ten minutes I had piled up enough twigs for a small campfire. I glanced towards Karen to see that she had already caught around four or five fish. How unfair the world was.

Karen, who noticed my glance, paused for a moment and turned around to face me.

"If you have time to scowl at me then you also have time to make a fire or sort out the fish."
"Did you already forget what happened yesterday when I tried to use the fire stone?"
"No, I didn't. But you have to learn to use element stones or it will become a problem in the long run."
Why are you so good with arguments, is that your big sister power at work?

Speaking of which, Karen now knew about my actual age and my previous gender, but she hadn't said anything to that.

"Hey, Sis."
"What is up, Yumi?"
"I told you my story but your reaction felt quite weak, especially about who I was previously."
"Mmmm, rather than weak, it doesn't really feel real? Especially that you weren't a girl? No matter how I look at you, you don't seem like someone who just got turned into a girl. Or that you were human before as well. You said you basically met me on the same day you came here, right? For someone who got scammed out of her few belongings, completely changed in race and gender and additionally got thrown into an unknown world, you were incredibly calm and laid-back?"

Now that she said that, most people would probably panic, or have at the very least various problems with their new body. Truthfully, I didn't have much time to worry about all these things, in the beginning, my more immediate desires like hunger were more important. Relieving myself and looking at my own body were, in fact, the only things that bothered me so far and I got used to the former quite quickly out of necessity.

"There is also one thing that has been on my mind when I heard your story..."
"On your mind? What is?"
"Your language."
"My language?"

I frowned. What did my language have anything to do with this?

"What language are you speaking right now?"
"What language you say, of course, I'm speaking..."
Huh? What language am I speaking?

I was sure I was speaking a language from Earth, but I didn't know its name anymore. And why would Karen understand this language in the first place?

"You noticed, right? You are speaking Akkian, the native language of the Akkian Empire and the surrounding countries. And I don't think your missing memories could cause you to speak a completely new language, right? It might be the cause of you forgetting your original language or their names, but not this."

I was shocked. Why could I speak this language? It should be impossible.

Wait, in fiction, the protagonists always get some kind of ability to translate the language, right? Maybe it's that!

Karen frowned upon hearing my idea. She didn't really think that was the case, most likely.

"Mmm, I got an idea. It can't really prove that you somehow acquired that kind of ability for just Akkian though."
"What do you mean?"
"It is simple. ** ******* ****** ******* **** ** *** *** *** **** ********* ****** ** ** ****"

Suddenly, Karen said some weird gibberish, that made no sense to me. For some reason though, Karen had an oddly serious look in her eyes. It probably had meant something important, I was sure of it.

"Sis, what did you say?"
"That is a secret. Until you learn the language, I won't tell you," she replied with a meaningful smile. Now I wanted to know even more.
"Which language was it, I will learn it immediately."
"It is the language of my home country. Good luck, I will root for you, but you have to do it yourself."

So she wouldn't teach me. But I wasn't going to give up so easily!

"In any case, as you can see, you only understand Akkian."
"But how does that work..."
"I don't know either. I am no scholar, you would probably have to find someone with knowledge about these things."

For not being a scholar, Karen knew an awful lot. She probably had quite the education before she was exiled. That, or she gathered all this knowledge over the years, but I couldn't imagine that you could find this kind of knowledge in the slums.

"But are there even people who would know something like that?"
"I don't know. Your best bet would be the temples, I guess?"
"The temples?"
"Ah, right, you don't know about religion either. I won't go into detail now, but I'm talking about the official religion of this country. Part of their scriptures contains legends about heroes from long ago that were sent from the gods down to our world, or so they claim. Maybe those heroes were in a similar situation to yours? But most likely it is just gibberish to placate the citizens."
"You are surprisingly negative towards those people."
"I grew up among magic worshippers who exiled me to a different country. And that country's religion basically only bothers about the citizens inside the city, despite claiming that their gods watch over everyone, even non-believers, and help all those who need their aid. Growing up like that makes you lose any faith whatsoever. Sorry, but I don't want to talk about that anymore, l don't have the best experiences with this."
"Nn, sorry."
"No need to apologise, I just... need to calm down a bit."

Karen was visibly irritated. I wondered what they had done to her that she hated them this much. She turned back to the river and resumed her fishing again. She probably needed to vent a bit.

"In any case, you are a huge mystery from my point of view, but honestly, that doesn't really matter."
"It doesn't matter?"
"You are here now, aren't you? Whether you were someone else or not, it doesn't really matter for us in the present, right?"
"Why are you always so convincing with everything?"
"I am a big sister, if I can't do at least this much, I would have no right to call myself that."

So I was disqualified to be a big sister by default already.

"Ah, there is one thing that worries me actually..."

Muttered Karen, glancing towards me for a moment. She just caught a fish and the poor animal was still twitching on the tip of the spear. It wasn't a pleasant sight.

"Yumi... you were actually older than me, right..."

Of course, we couldn't just ignore this particular part.

"Nn, I am..."
"It is a bit weird to have a little sister that is older than me but..."

She stared at me intensely. We were still running around without clothes so being scrutinised this much was quite embarrassing.

"Yeah, no matter what, I just can't see you as someone older, so I guess it is fine as is?"
"That's quite rude..."

But it was true. Though I was sure that most people my age would pale in comparison with Karen. After all, she really gave you this capable big sister feel and even if she was clumsy at something she learned it incredibly quickly. It made me a bit depressed since I was the exact opposite.

"Well, that was honestly what bothered me the most. So,... the rest doesn't really matter? Yeah, it is fine as is."

Karen just caught her tenth fish and put it on the pile next to her.

"This should be enough for now, right?"
"Nn, probably."
"Why are you playing hooky anyway, go and sort them and then light the fire."

My attempt to escape lighting the fire failed spectacularly. Karen wouldn't let me off so easily.
Resigning myself to the immediate future, I started sorting the pile. After a careful check, I found six monsters among them, leaving four normal ones. Karen then started preparing them while I had to face my mortal enemy, the fire stone.

"It won't explode, will it?"
"I am sure you can do it."
"It won't burn me, will it?"
"I am sure it won't."
"It won't-"
"Shut up and do it!"

I made her angry. But it didn't explode into her face, did it? Everyone who had that happen would have been worrying about it, surely.
I first thought that I should maybe pray for it to work but then I remembered that my last prayer ended only in problems.

Holding the fire stone close to the pile of wood, I concentrated on putting in the mana. Very slowly and very carefully. After a while, I could feel it getting warmer and eventually, a small flame appeared on the opposite side of where I 'inserted' the mana. Carefully leading the magical lighter to the twigs I successfully ignited the campfire.

"Sis! I did it!" I turned around and said smugly.

Karen looked up from her current bloody work and scrutinized the campfire.

"It's burning, yes, but with that small fire, it will take forever until the flame grows big enough. Actually, won't it just be extinguished when the wind blows?"

Cold water was poured over smug me. I faced the fire again, realizing I had to do it again. No matter what, the flame was only the size of an adult's finger's tip and it was very slowly creeping along the ignited twig.
I had no choice but to do it again. Therefore, I copied what I did previously and put a just bit more mana into the stone until I got a flame that was good enough. It was honestly still a bit scary, but it became slightly fun, igniting things. I had to take care not to turn into some kind of pyromaniac.

In the meantime, Karen had finished up and brought the fish. Then, she pierced a fish on each of the four spears respectively and pressed their other ends into the ground, so that the fish were above the flame. Now, all we had to do, was to wait.

"We should talk about what we are going to do now,"  proposed Karen.
"First of all, we need information and equipment."
"I don't know anyone except you nor do I know much about this world in the first place, so I can't really help with information. And with equipment, I don't think there's much I can do either."
"No, Yumi, there is something you might be able to do."

Karen glanced towards me, or rather, towards my hair. I could already see where this was going to end up.

"I don't really know what to feel about you trying to make my hair into equipment."
"If you have any other options I am willing to listen to them."

Of course, I didn't. I just didn't want to possibly become a material farm. What should I feel when Karen would try to harvest my hair? It would be a complicated feeling, that was for sure.

"I don't, it's just... complicated. Also, what are you specifically planning with it anyway?"
"I know a seamstress in the slums. She originally worked for a noble but she apparently gained his ire so she is hiding out in the slums. She somehow survives by exchanging clothes for food, I am sure we could get her to make something for us. We can just use a fish as payment. Most people living here would never be able to have the chance, so I am sure she will accept."
"So, you want her to make our clothes?"
"Clothes and a few other things we may need. Since we have the material and payment we should make use of it as much as possible."

That was a great thing but I would prefer that you didn't call my hair a material. It kind of annoyed me, so I stood up and sat down in Karen's lap. Surprisingly she was quite calm and just put her arms around me. This time, I lost, didn't I...

"Things like pouches, or a bag?"
"Yes, depending on how much of your hair we can prepare we could have her make plenty of things. The only problem is, your hair colour really stands out, so we need to use something to dye it. Coal should probably work fine for the short-term at least."
"Didn't you say coal didn't work for dying your hair?"
"Because my hair absorbs it within a few seconds. I never quite understood why though, until you explained to me the relationship between coal and diamonds."

A comfortable and warm feeling appeared on my head. My head was being rubbed by Karen. I leaned back to enjoy her warmth some more, indicating I wanted to be spoiled. Who cared whether it was a loss or not, I won regardless.

"Then coal should work fine. But there's still one problem."
"Problem?"
"Nn. I don't think I can regenerate my hair endlessly, it would be better to find out how much I can deal with."
"Yeah, it wouldn't be good if you suddenly collapsed when we are in the slums. Want to try now?"
"We can do that after breakfast. We should for now think of what we need her to make and what other things we can do."
"Other things we can do, right... Did you find anything in regard to the mana crystals you absorbed yesterday?"
"No, not really. But when I was trying to move my hair I noticed something. My mana crystal is taking in nearly all the mana in my body as well as the mana in the surroundings, so it probably completely absorbed the mana from the crystals."
"So, your mana crystal is basically the cause of you having nearly no mana capacity? Because it just absorbs all your mana in your body?"
"Nn, I believe that is the case, so unless I find a way to stop it from taking all my mana, I probably won't be able to utilize any mana in my body."
"Can't you use the mana from your mana crystal?"
"I probably could but... I don't know what might happen then. If the crystal has insufficient mana I will probably die and I don't know what happens with the absorbed mana. I at least get the feeling that I shouldn't try that. Just the thought is scary anyway."
"So it is like that... but is that not rather bad? You need mana for various things like transforming as well, don't you?"
"Nn, but I had an idea in regards to that. Did you take out the crystals from the fish already?"
"Yes, here you go."

The head pats stopped regrettably and I was handed six stones. They were about as large as my pinky's fingernail and had a brown sheen to them.
I took the crystals and the fire stone that was lying nearby. Putting five of the mana crystals to the side I held the remaining one in my right hand and the fire stone in my left. Then I concentrated on the mana crystal, trying to grasp the mana contained within.
Unexpectedly, I succeeded nearly immediately and successfully pulled the mana into my body. The mana crystal in my hand suddenly lost its glossy shine and broke apart. Ignoring Karen's surprised gasp, I then tried to move the mana from inside my body to the fire stone, without letting it be absorbed by my own crystal. Carefully pushing the mana into the stone, a small flame appeared on the tip. I increased the strength and the flame became quite big, then I let it burn for around a minute until the mana was exhausted.

"It worked!"
"What did you do?"
"I pulled the mana from the mana crystal and used it to power the fire stone!"
"Could you repeat that... I think I didn't hear right... you used the mana from the crystal and used it on the fire stone? Just like that?"
"Nn, exactly."
"You really ignore whatever is common sense, don't you? Well, you are a monster so it probably isn't surprising."

Right, people were unable to deal with natural mana in their bodies in large quantities, but I had no problems with that.

You can praise me more, you know!

My thoughts must have reached Karen since she patted my head again. That alone made the effort worth it. But I still had another idea. I put the fire stone away and took a crystal in each of my hands respectively. Then I pulled the mana from one crystal and pushed it into the other one. The result was, to say the least, astonishing. The crystal with more mana grew slightly in size and the colour got darker as well.

"I am not going to be surprised now, but did you just transfer the mana from one crystal into the other?" asked Karen with an impressed voice.
"Nn, it worked well, didn't it?"

I took the remaining mana crystals and filled the bigger one with their mana. When I was done I had a crystal several times the size of the original one in my hand. Not only was it larger but its colour was also significantly darker than before.

"I honestly don't know much about mana crystals, but isn't this rather impressive? You can make higher-grade mana crystals without hunting powerful monsters..."
"Nn, and I can use it as a battery, and that is probably right now more important. My regeneration probably uses mana as well so if I can feed it with mana we should be able to get quite a lot."
"What is a battery?"

Ah, the wonders of modern civilisation, they weren't known here, were they?

"It's basically something that stores energy for later use."
"Hmm,... Well, it is great that we found a way to deal with your low mana capacity."
"Nn!"

I pushed my head up against Karen's hand that was still resting on my head, and she resumed rubbing it. That reminded me... What would happen if I were to use my own mana and push some of it into the crystal? I couldn't use a lot but I got the feeling something would surely happen.
I immediately put it to work, held up the mana crystal and carefully pushed some of my own mana into it.
At first, nothing happened, but after I put around a third of my total mana into it, it changed rapidly. The crystal grew to around the size of my fist, became oval shaped and pink coloured, the same colour as my hair.

"What did you do now..."
"I tried pushing my own mana into it but this..."

It was oval, pink and the size of a small child's fist, with a lot of mysterious decorations and patterns in the colouring. No matter how you sliced it, it looked like an overly fancy Easter egg.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one that thought this was an egg.

"Scrambled or sunny side up?"

Please do not eat my egg!

---

We postponed the issue with the mana egg and first ate our breakfast. Karen complained that it was hard to eat while I was sitting in her lap but she made no attempts to get me to leave. Once we finished eating we checked whether our clothes were still wet. They were still slightly damp but it wouldn't take much longer until they were dry.

We decided to use the remaining time to test the limits of my hair regeneration while I would investigate the pink egg.
Now, my back was facing Karen who had a small mountain of my hair next to her. I felt like a sheep getting sheared.
The regeneration required mana to use but the amount was so small that it would probably take around an hour before I would run out. Considering that my initial capacity was barely existent already, that just spoke of how efficient it was.

"Yeah, I don't think we need to continue, it is still hard to cut but at this rate, it will never end," complained Karen.

Having her cut my hair so many times gave me a really good grasp of how to manipulate the mana within. I should later practice moving my hair, but for now, the weird egg was more important.

"Sis, I finished inspecting this... egg."
"So? Is it going to hatch?"
"No... I don't think it is going to hatch, I'm sorry, Sis."

Did she want it to hatch that much? I wasn't a bird, you know.

"It's not really an egg anyway. It's a mana crystal, the same as before. The flow of mana is slightly weird and it interestingly absorbs mana from the surroundings. I couldn't figure out anything else."
"It absorbs mana by itself... maybe something will happen if it absorbs enough?"
"I don't know, but for now, it still works like a battery. A pretty good one since it just recharges by itself."
"It doesn't help us right now though, but I believe it is good we won't have to worry about your mana too much for now."

Without magic or any interesting magic abilities I wouldn't be able to utilize it much, Karen was right about that. But if I ever got into a position where I could learn magic or if I learned some new abilities, it would surely come in handy.

"Well, we can at least deposit as much mana as possible for future use for now?"
"Better than nothing, is it? But we should keep it a secret. If people figure out you can fuse mana crystals, being a guinea pig for monster research is the least of your problems."

Becoming a guinea pig wasn't something I wanted either, though.
I stood up and stretched. Sitting for so long made me feel stiff. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the amount of hair that Karen had cut off. It was quite a small mountain.

"How are we even going to transport that?"
"We can take a number of strands and twirl them into something rope-like. Then we can carry them below the robes. If we need more we should cut some of your hair there. If we had a big enough bag it would be easier though."
"Nn... Can't we remodel your skirt into a bag? You'll be wearing the robe anyway."
"Yumi... I don't have any of your exhibitionist tendencies so I would prefer if I can avoid that."

So I was an exhibitionist. I would remember this for sure.

"But it will be really troublesome if we accidentally lose some on the way, right?"
"Uh... That's right, isn't it."

Watching Karen's internal conflict I collected my clothes and, after confirming they were reasonably dry, put them on.

"See, nobody can see anything with the robe."

And that was enough of a push for Karen to accept my suggestion, albeit still reluctantly.

Twenty minutes later we had collected everything, Karen got dressed, rolled the hair up in the skirt and made sure nothing stuck out. The provisional bag looked a bit like a long sausage, but it was at least easy to carry. For Karen, of course.

"Then, let us go."
"Nn!"