Ch: 114.2 (Patreon)

I was awake, yet I refused to open my eyes. All I wanted to do, was slip back into blissful sleep, but my mind was not having it.

Slowly, I open a single eye and am confronted by the soft light of the Endless Forest. I immediately shut it and groan as I use my arm to shield my face.

My body felt better than it did when I fell asleep, but that wasn’t exactly setting the bar very high. Everything still felt sore and oddly stiff; at least I could move again. A quick scan of myself and a glance at my condensed status page reveals why I feel like I do:

LV: 75 Experience: 499,970/ 1,054,850

Health: 2,387.34/2,530

Stamina 1,479.95/1,697

Mana: 877.61/1,030

Vitality: 253.02

Endurance: 100.33

Strength: 156.01

Dexterity: 156.01

Senses: 62.67

Mind: 65.54

Magic: 103.29

Clarity: 79.20

Status Points: 0

I didn’t know how long I was out for, but it couldn’t be long if Stamina still hadn’t recovered completely. Though my Health and Mana were higher than expected, that could be due to many different factors, like the points I invested during the fight and the high level of environmental mana.

The point was I was still injured, and a nap wouldn't change that. But it did change some things.

It was subtle, but every one of my stats went up by at least .01. My stats raising wasn’t anything new, but seeing that much growth after I just checked my status page was unprecedented.

Did I unlock a new skill while I was asleep? Maybe something that increased my growth while I was out because that would be amazing. A quick scan of my soul reveals, no, I had not, in fact, unlocked yet another overpowered skill. Too bad.

I wanted to put off getting up a little bit longer, but the world around me was making that hard. Sense Mana was making it abundantly clear what was happening around me, and I couldn’t let the disaster continue.

The disaster in question is Tabitha cooking or preparing to cook.

With Sense Mana, I watched Tabitha prod at a fire entirely too big to cook over. The heat the flames were giving off were cooking my feet inside my boots, and I was over a dozen feet away. With most of my mana recovered, I quickly reactivate Mana Skin, which helps with the temperature but doesn't entirely block it out.

I felt safer with my skill back up, but I knew I needed to end this madness before it got even more out of hand.

“Are you trying to start a wildfire?” I groan to get Tabitha’s attention as I climb to my feet.

Now that I was up and moving, I took a moment to take in everything around me. We were still camped next to the same root we were before, and my gear, including my hammer, was sitting next to me within arm's length. All that was the same as I remembered; the only new thing in sight was the circle of large stones struggling to contain the bonfire within.

Tabitha was standing next to the fire, using her beautiful sword as a fire poker, of all things. If I didn’t have Mana Skin up, I wouldn’t have been able to approach her; the fire was so hot. All the wood around here was practically overflowing with mana and was feeding the flames, making them almost as hot as my forge back home. So why on earth would Tabitha think she needed a fire that hot to cook something that small!?

"Oh, you're up," Tabitha barely reacts to me walking over to her, too busy enthralled by the fire. "Do you think this is enough to cook this properly?" Tabitha gestures to the corpse of a medium-sized beetle lying next to her.

“I think it’s already cooking.” I enjoyed sarcasm as much as the next person, but I wasn’t joking this time. I didn’t know how long Tabitha had the fire going, but there was a real chance the bug was already cooking inside its shell even though it wasn't directly over the flames.

"You think?" Tabitha looks questioningly between me, the dead bug, and the roaring fire. "My skill doesn't say it's safe to eat yet,” she frowns in confusion.

Sighing, I rub my tired eyes. “Move one of those smaller logs off to the side, and push the rest of the fire back,” I tiredly direct Tabitha. The skill she was talking about was Survival Cooking, and I learned firsthand what it did after I stupidly agreed to let Tabitha cook for a night.

Apparently, Survival Cooking was a skill she picked up once she joined the military. As a noble, Tabitha had never cooked for herself before, and while most would unlock Cooking rather quickly, she unlocked a divergent skill instead. Both sounded like they did the same thing, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Your basic Cooking skill helps a person replicate a dish they are familiar with or have an idea of what they need to do. It also hints at when a dish is completed but doesn't outright tell you if what you cooked is safe to eat.

Survival Cooking was the opposite; the skill didn't help with flavor, and the person didn’t need to know how to cook whatever they were cooking. What the skill did do that regular Cooking couldn’t was clearly inform the user of when the food in question was safe to eat.

But just because something was safe to eat didn't mean it would taste good. After all, some foods were safe to eat raw, while others could be burnt into charcoal before the skill pinged that it was safe to consume them. So the two skills worked best together; sadly, Tabitha only had the one. Meaning Tabitha's skill was a great help in determining if the magic beast meat I cook is safe to eat, but not much else.

“And really? Is this the only thing you could get?” I lightly kick the dead beetle missing its head, before squatting down to inspect it.

“Someone’s grumpy,” Tabitha lazily remarks as she shifts the burning wood like I asked her to. “You should be happy I could catch it at all. It was the only thing I’ve seen since I passed out two days ago.”

“I take it everything else is still avoiding this area, then,” Wait a minute! Two days? I slowly turn my head towards Tabitha. “How long was I out for?” I hesitantly ask.

Probably hearing the concern in my voice, Tabitha finally gives me her full attention. “Well, you fell asleep yesterday morning. It’s noon now, so twenty-eight hours, give or take."

“But my Stamina hasn’t fully recovered!” I say in disbelief.

Tabitha nods, “And it probably won’t for another day. Mine still hasn’t fully recovered, either. But it's normal after pushing yourself as you did. So give it time, and you'll be fine. Moving around should be fine; we just can't do anything strenuous."

“Then we aren’t heading out after we eat?” I stupidly ask, earning a smirk from Tabitha.

“And you complain I’m compulsive,” Tabitha goes back to poking at the fire. “No, we’ll rest here until tomorrow. Animals are slowly moving back in, but the strong ones will hesitate to return so soon. Now, if you aren’t going to let me cook, can you? I’m starving.”

At that exact moment, my stomach joined the conversation and let out a large growl, perfectly mirroring Tabitha’s sentiments.

“Yeah, ok,” I blush and rub at my stomach, trying to get it to be quiet. It was like as soon as I was aware that I hadn’t eaten in over a day, my stomach had become a black hole of insatiable hunger.

Looking around, I spot a pile of sticks that Tabitha had prepared to throw into the fire. Using the different-sized twigs, I fabricate a spit to rest the oversized bug. As I put the bug over the coals, Tabitha separated for me; I took one last look at the insect before I chared it to a crisp.

It was the size of a small dog and weighed many times that. The beetle was a smaller version of the tank beetles we encountered our first night in the forest. We’ve seen them a few times since then, but this would be the first time we tried eating one.

Surprisingly, the idea of eating the giant insect didn't bother me that much. I was so hungry that I’d eat just about anything at this point, and I've already had a giant spider, so why not try a beetle? Of course, Cooking doesn't help me much, considering I was flying blind, but Gourmet would send a sensation down my arm whenever I left the beetle on one side for too long.

With the heat of the fire, it doesn't take long for me to char the outside evenly. I then remove the beetle from the flames and let it sit for a moment. The bug's exoskeleton acted as a pressure cooker, and I knew its insides would be steaming hot.

“What does your skill say?” I turn to Tabitha for the final verdict.

Tabitha moves next to the still-steaming creature and gives it a good sniff. I watched her visibly swallow a lump in her throat, which was a good sign.

“My skill says all good. Should I?” Tabitha gestures at our lunch.

“Let me,” I move next to her and start butchering the cooked beetle. First, I remove the hard outer shell concealing its wings before removing those too. Tabitha had already beheaded it, so I skipped that part and moved on to removing its spindly legs one by one. I taste-test some of the meat contained within the removed appendages, but it was too rubbery for my liking.

With all that done, I carefully crack into the insect’s exoskeleton to get at the meat within. And as soon as I break through its hard outer shell, a faint smell of roasted nuts wafts up, making me want to drool. Tabitha smells it too, and I see her lick her lips out of the corner of my eye.

I still have to remove the beetle's long and weird-looking organs, but 70% is pure meat. With the guts gone, Tabitha and I both reach in simultaneously and rip out a chunk of meat with our bare hands. Unfortunately, we didn't have anything fancy like dipping sauces, so we were forced to eat it à la carte. Typically, I'd have gathered some wild spices during the day, but for obvious reasons, we had none with us at the moment.

But that didn't matter because Tabitha and I were both starving, and hunger was the best seasoning of all. Tabitha and I nod to each other, and together, we throw our heads back and shove the beetle meat into our mouths.

When the soft meat touches my tongue, I’m forced to hold back a soft moan. “So good,” I smile.

“Indeed,” Tabitha comments before reaching for another chunk. I follow her example and shove another piece into my mouth.

The meat was sweet and just a bit salty, although I didn't mix anything into it, and it had a wonderful nutty aftertaste. “I think we’re going to need to keep an eye out for more of these,” I chuckle.

"Most definitely," Tabitha wholeheartedly agrees.

Like starving animals, Tabitha and I quickly tear into the beetle carcass and pick it clean of every speck of meat. Afterward, I sit back down on my canvas to digest my meal while Tabitha picks up the beetles’ legs and starts cracking them open with her hands. She didn’t seem to care that the meat within was tough. Then again, after seeing the food she would eat if she had to cook, I’m not surprised she could stand the rubbery texture.

While she continued eating, I used Meditation to scan our surroundings with Sense Mana to make sure Tabitha was right and there weren't any strong magic beasts around.

Oh?

Almost immediately, I start getting hits. Nothing overly strong, but there was more life around us than there was a day ago. I ping hundreds of signals from different birds, small mammals, and giant insects. In fact, there was a great deal of them moving nearby.

Opening my eyes, I looked in the direction I sensed a lot of life signs converging. It just so happened that the direction I was facing was where we fought off the goblins.

"What is it?" Tabitha walks over to me, happily licking her fingers.

“Still hungry? I think I know where we can grab another beetle if you are.”

Tabitha follows my gaze. “I could still eat,” she turns and toothily smiles down at me. Tabitha offers me a hand to help me up, which I take.

I grab my weapon, and we leave the rest of our gear behind at our campsite before heading back the way we came.

“Did you sense anything dangerous?” Tabitha asks me as we jog together, reminding me in her own way that we should avoid trouble for the moment.

“Nothing within range, but I can only see 2,100 feet out," I tell her.

Tabitha raises an eyebrow at me. “Since when could you see that far?”

Oh, yeah, I forgot. “Sorry, I got so caught up with the food, I forgot to tell you. A bunch of my skills leveled up after the fight, including Meditation and Sense Mana. I can see 500 feet farther than when you helped me test it."

Tabitha’s eyes widen in surprise, but her expression quickly shifts from one of shock to one of hunger, and not the type of hunger for food. "Did your combat skills also level."

“Of course, they,” I start and immediately choke upon realizing what I was doing, but it was already too late.

“That’s good,” Tabitha grins at me like a predator seeing fresh prey. "After recovering, we'll have to test what you're capable of."

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I start, but Tabitha quickly cuts me off.

“Nonsense, in fact, I insist.” Tabitha doesn’t give me a chance to protest.

At least she wasn’t suggesting we start sparring now as we are, so there's that.

The two of us swiftly make it to where we fought the goblins the other day, and when it's 700 feet in front of us, I signal for Tabitha to stop. “Something wrong?” She asks me in a quiet voice, instantaneously going from a crazy yet caring teacher to trained warrior mode.

"Nothing strong, but there are many magic beasts up ahead. What should we do?”

“You’re the one guiding us,” Tabitha softly points out to me. “What do you think?”

Tabitha gives me the biggest supporting smile I’ve ever seen, and I know as long as the two of us work together, we can overcome everything. “Let’s check it out,” I grin.

“Let’s,” Tabitha repeats with a smile of her own.

So, we move forward, side by side, ready for anything.

**********

2,500 words.

Sorry for the late post. I knew where I wanted this chapter to go, but I struggled to put it into words.

What do you guys think? Did it turn out ok?

I hope you enjoyed it, and as always, stay safe.