Day Four

I was awoken early by the sound of Flora entering my tent.

“Hey, Flynn,” she said gently. “It’s your turn for watch.”

“Thanks,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I stood and gathered my belongings, leaving the tent to Flora for the rest of the night. There was still a few hours left until dawn, and the possibility of an attack was still very much real. Standing in the middle of camp, I kept an eye on the tree line.

It didn’t take long for me to get bored.

After what must’ve been less than a half hour, I was already bored out of my mind. The constant chirping of the local wildlife was the only thing reminding me that time was passing by at all. Eventually, I began looking up at the stars.

Sure enough, I didn’t recognize any of the constellations in the sky. Clearly this “other world” wasn’t anywhere near earth. It had to be an alternate reality entirely. One where the Big Bang had spread gases differently, causing stars and planets to form in different patterns. Or, whoever the gods are that isekai’d me don’t particularly care about scientific consistency. Or it’s just a plot convenience and I should just roll with it.

Tired of being meta, I drew my sword and decided to practice the disarming technique Lucille had shown me. While it was more difficult without a partner, I still felt more comfortable with the maneuver after feigning the move several times. While thinking about it, I decided that, while Lucille was definitely just trolling me yesterday, increasing my strength and overall fitness couldn’t hurt.

As I exercised, the sun slowly began to rise, and remembering Lucille’s words, I stopped, scanning the trees once more. It was then that I heard it, a rustling through the trees at the edge of camp. I drew my blade and shouted for the others to awaken. I cautiously approached the edge of the forest towards the sound, trying to buy time for the others to prepare, when suddenly.

*CAW*

A stupid bird flew past me, nearly making me piss my pants as the tension left my body. Lucille dashed out of her tent, fully armored, shakily holding her sword in her left hand.

“Where are they?” Lucille asked, taking up a defensive position next to me. Sofia followed suit, exiting the tent behind her, staff in tow.

“Uh, sorry guys. It was just some crow. False alarm,” I said, embarrassed. The pair of ladies simultaneously facepalmed.

“Dammit Flynn,” groaned Sofia, pounding on my chest in sleepy frustration.

“Hey! I said I was sorry!” I pleaded despite the blows not being particularly hard.

“At least it wasn’t a real threat,” Lucille said. “A false alarm is favorable to being attacked in any situation.”

“That’s true, I guess,” Sofia sighed, relenting in her ****.

“Besides, it was almost time for us to go anyway,” said Lucille, sheathing her sword. “I’ll go wake Flora, can the two of you start on breakfast?”

“Sure,” said Sofia, grabbing me by the sleeve and pulling me over to last night’s campfire. “Get this fire going again while I get ingredients.”

“Huh?” I asked, bewildered. “But you’re the pyromancer. Why don’t you do it?”

“Do you really want me to cast a fire spell? Here? In a forest? Just to light a campfire?” She said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Thinking back to our escapade with the slime, I said, “good point.” Then I tossed the leftover firewood onto the pile before searching Flora’s pack for a flint and steel. After a bit of searching, I found it and turned back to the fire. A few attempts later, I had a roaring fire going.

“Nice work,” said Sofia, returning with ingredients for dinner as well as a pan. “Hold this over the fire.” She handed me the pan. I did as she asked, and she poured some cooking oil onto the pan which began to bubble as it heated up over the fire. I looked over to Sofia, who was de-boning a fish like a pro.

“When you said you were a good cook, you weren’t kidding,” I said, surprised at her speed and accuracy with a knife.

“Not good,” she said, tossing the fish meat onto the pan. “The best.” she boasted.

“Where’d you learn to cook?” I asked, still manning the pan as the fish began to cook inside the oil.

“I’m self taught,” she said, preparing the seasoning for the fish.

“Really!? That’s actually amazing,” I said, remembering her previous cooking.

“You think so?” She said, seasoning the fish. “That’s how I am with most things. As a kid, my father was always caught up in his studies, so I was left in a big house filled with nothing but books and unused supplies. I taught myself a lot of things to fill the time.”

“Like what?” I asked, curious.

“I know 7 languages, I can cook, I can sew, I can play four different musical instruments, I can make potions using alchemy, I know how to brew ****...uh, Flynn? You still there?” She said, waving her hand in front of my face.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m just impressed, is all,” I said. All that from reading books. I had the Internet growing up, and I’m nowhere near as talented as her. She’s really something else.

“Flip!” she said, handing me a spatula. I followed her instructions, slipping the meat to cook it evenly on both sides. Soon enough, the food was ready, and everyone was done eating. Once again, we set out on the long road to Hearthvale.

As we traveled along the road, the wildlife gradually grew quieter, with a single exception. There was a crow that seemed to be following us, cawing at us as we traveled. While Flora assured me they were a good omen in Regnica, I was still getting creeped out. It felt like the crow wasn’t the only thing watching.

Soon enough, we came across the reason for the quiet forest. A giant humanoid creature lumbered out of the woods, shaking the trees with its footsteps. Spying is with its singular, central eye, it uprooted a nearby tree, hoisting it up as a club. It began salivating as it eyed us.

“Hey, Lucille, any tips?” I said, beginning to panic.

“Cyclopes aren’t usually very intelligent, but their large stature belies them great strength. We would do well to exercise great caution,” she said, drawing her sword.

“I wish I had a bow or something,” I said, wondering how I was going to hit it in the eye. I had lost my knife going up against the manticore, so throwing it at the cyclops was off the table. “Hey Sofia!”

“Yeah? Got a plan?” She asked.

“Can you set that tree it’s holding on fire?” I asked. She nodded, launching a firebolt into the tree’s canopy, the fire slowly spreading up the tree towards the cyclops’ hands. That, however, wasn’t why I wanted that fire. The smoke rising from the burning leaves was my true objective.

True to Lucille’s statement, the Cyclops was too dumb to drop it’s flaming tree club, even as the smoke blocked its line of vision, allowing me to sneak up on it unseen. Now behind it, I activated my mana blade skill and decided to try hacking into its ankle.

It went...poorly.

The giant one eyed monster only got angry from some idiot poking at its leg, and decided to kick at said idiot with its free leg, launching said idiot into a tree. The cyclops stared down at me, it’s eye red with rage.

This is it. This is how I die. Crushed by a stupid giant.

At least, that’s what I thought at the time. To my surprise, the cyclops dropped the flaming tree, stomping out the flames with its giant foot. Looking back down at us, it rubbed its eye with one hand, wiping away what looked to be tears.

“You guys mean,” bellowed the cyclops, somehow speaking in mostly intelligible words. The cyclops turned away and limped off into the woods, the crow following after it.

“What? The fuck? Was that?” I said, bewildered.

“I did say usually,” Lucille said. “There have been reported instances of friendly Cyclopes. Looks like there was some veracity to the stories.”

“So you’re telling me that I just attacked a friendly, sentient creature?” I asked, feeling guilty.

“Looks like it,” said Lucille.

“I feel bad for it,” said Flora. “Can we at least go help patch up its leg?”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea,” said Sofia. “Even if it was friendly before, it’s likely gonna be mad now that we attacked it.”