NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3: Renaissance
I wake up, staring at yet another unfamiliar ceiling. I’m lying on my back, on a grassy patch in a forest. My body feels… different, but for the first time ever, it feels right.
I take a slow, deep breath, making my chest rise, not quite believing how comfortable I feel. Lazily, I raise my arms up to the sky so I can look at my small, feminine hands, then drop them down onto my belly when I’m satisfied. I’m so relaxed... I could just fall asleep... I take another slow, deep breath, feeling my hands rise as my lungs fill with the crisp forest air.
As I start to slowly close my eyes, a soft breeze makes my new ears twitch. Right... I probably should get moving.
I sigh, sitting up from my natural, grassy bed and blushing slightly at how cute my sigh was. “Hey, I’m Amicia,” I say softly. “It’s so nice to meet you!”
Oh my Gooood. It sounds so good. I blush even more and giggle to myself. I can’t believe this is happening!
I do realize I basically tailor made this voice for me, but hearing it come out of my own mouth? Oh boy, that is an amazing experience. Getting up, I realize there’s another piece of my body that feels a bit different, and a little numb...
“Oh yeah, I have a tail now!” Definitely should make sure not to sleep on it again in the future. Shaking the life back into it, I inspect the rest of my body and my grayish healing robes.
When I look around a moment later, I find a staff lying next to where I spawned. Though it does just look like a big stick, that tends to be the case with starting gear.
“Now, how do I open my character info?” I said aloud, partially to hear more of my voice. With a bit of trial and error, and by following the advice of years of isekai tropes, I manage to open it with a simple swipe of the hand. My starting skills are a basic ranged heal (which I thankfully can cast on myself), a resurrection skill with a pretty long cast time and mana cost, and a basic ranged attack.
I try out my attack skill on an unfortunate tree nearby. A ball of blue light shoots out, hitting the tree and leaving some nasty scorch marks.
“Sorry, mister tree, it was for scientific purposes,” I say, patting it. “But maybe…” I cast my healing skill on mister tree. A ray appears around the tree, starting to emanate a light with hints of green and a similar blue as my attack skill, which I lovingly refer to as the blue-ball-of-death. Gradually, the scorch marks from that ball of death disappear.
That’s cool, I can heal nature too! I lean in close to the tree, inspecting if there is any lasting damage, finally pulling away and patting it once more. “Sorry again for the inconvenience.”
After some more testing, I come to understand that all of my current skills require my staff as a casting focus. At least I can whack stuff with it when I run out of mana.
Further inspecting my character info sheets, I finally figure out how to access my inventory, finding a limited number of inventory slots. I put some small pebbles from the ground in one of my robe’s pockets, watching as they pop up in one of the inventory slots. An entire slot, just from those pebbles... “I sure hope there’s a way to enhance this, otherwise I’ll run out of space real fast.” I mumble to myself.
Emptying my pockets, I look at the world map. Except for my immediate surroundings, it’s almost entirely blank. I assume I’ll need to fill it in myself, probably by exploring, which is fine. Fun, even. I smile at the map. “This is going to be amazing.”
Using my surroundings to determine my orientation, I set out towards the one city that appears on my map, Cacogonte. It doesn’t appear to be that far from where I spawned, but I guess it’ll probably still take me a couple of hours.
It feels simply amazing not to stumble over my own feet like I normally do. Sprinting through the trees, jumping over roots and bushes... It just feels so blissful — my hair blowing in the wind...
Until, suddenly, a growl stops me in my tracks. I look over my shoulder, to my left, to my right, but... nothing. I crouch down to make myself a smaller target and perk my ears up. Again I hear a low growl, but this time I know where it’s coming from — right in front of me. I silently move up, making my way from cover to cover, until while peeking out from behind a tree, I finally see what’s making the noise. A wolf is circling the body of a person. They don’t seem to be moving.
I huddle back behind the tree. Shit! I didn’t expect to run into a hostile mob that fast, let alone a wolf. But I can’t just leave that person there with it, can I?
Gathering together all my courage, I take my staff from my back.
Okay, let’s do this. I slowly peek around the side of my tree friend, but the wolf isn’t there anymore. Where the hell did it g—
From the corner of my eye I see the wolf leaping at me from my side. I barely manage to dodge it with a backwards roll. Ooooooh shiiit!
The wolf skids past me and lands only a couple of meters away, already preparing itself for another leap. I begin casting my blue-ball-of-death, but the wolf doesn’t grant me the time need, leaping at me once more. Fuck!
This time, instead of trying to dodge, I duck and use the bottom end of my staff as an impromptu spear, jabbing the wolf full-force in its belly. It barely does any damage, but it has the effect I’m looking for — the wolf lands badly, stumbling and gasping for air. That gives me plenty of time to cast the BBOD.
When it hits, the blue light scorches the wolf’s fur, but that’s definitely not the end of it. Instead, it only appears to piss him off.
Now it’s a race against time. The wolf is getting back on its feet, bloodlust in its eyes. It jumps at me, but while it’s in midair my second BBOD casts, setting his already scorched fur completely ablaze. I roll out of the way of the flying, burning furball, and it crashes into the dirt, completely immobile.
What a shitty way to die. “I’m sorry wolfie, it was you or me.” After quickly using some dirt to put out the fire on the wolf’s corpse, I run back to the downed person.
When I arrive, I see she’s an elder lady, with bite-marks and scratches all over her body. No signs of life. Remembering my resurrection spell, I immediately start channeling it. Another ray of light — this one pink and blue — comes from my staff, entering the lady’s body. After approximately 15 seconds, the channeling is over.
“Please, please work.” I move closer to her body and sit on my knees. “C’mon!” For good measure, I cast my healing spell as well, causing all her visible wounds to disappear. But, still... no movement.
Tears start rolling down my cheeks and I throw my staff a couple of meters away. “I was too late…” Even though this is just a game, and I don’t know the old woman at all, it just feels like... such a failure. I’m already sad, but combined with the pure exhaustion of casting the resurrection spell, I can’t help but start full-on crying.
A couple of moments later I’m startled by a sudden movement right in front of me.
“Why are you crying dearie?” I almost fall to my back from the surprise. “Y-y-you’re alive?”
“Well, yes, and thanks to you I take it?”
I shuffle back towards the old lady. “I think so? Do you feel alright?”
“Yes, my old body just needs some time to restart.”
I offer some help to sit her upright, and ask, “Were you all alone out here?”
“Indeed, I just wanted to take a stroll through the woods, like in the old days.” She snickers.
“Isn’t that pretty dangerous? I mean, at your age.”
The old lady looks kind of upset. “Young lady! Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m defenseless!”
She opens her hand, showing black flames intertwined with red lighting. “That bugger just got the drop on me.” With a slight wink, her angry look turns into a playful pout.
I can’t hold back a laugh. “Maybe you should get some of these.” I point towards my cat ears, making them twitch. “Super useful.”
“If only I could, dearie,” she laughs.
My laughter dies down as I smell the burnt fur of the wolf I killed. I look over towards its charred remains, feeling somewhat sad about what I did to it.
“Want to give it a burial?” The old woman asks, picking up on my train of thought.
I nod. “I feel bad for burning it... I read that dying by flame is such a horrible, painful death…”
“You have a very compassionate soul, child.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Help me up and maybe I can give you a hand.”
I lift her back to her feet and together we start making a small grave for the wolf, only then it striking me that the wolf was incredibly skinny. “Must’ve just been looking for food…” I pick up the wolf’s remains and put them into our makeshift grave.
“These forests get over-hunted by the emperor’s men, making it hard for beasties like these to find food for themselves. So, I can’t really blame them for going after humans... Although, more often than not, that doesn’t end well for them.” The old lady begins filling the grave.
I collect some small stones and place them as a little marker on top. Wanting to say a prayer I remember that I actually don’t know any deities of this world.
“Uhm, granny, this is maybe a bit awkward but I’m pretty new to this...area... what deities are followed here?”
“Hmm, I figure you want a deity that fits best with you, right? You do have the aura of someone who’d pray to Veanya, the Goddess of love and compassion.”
“Thanks, granny!” Wait, why have I been calling this old lady ‘granny’?
I look at her smiling face, realizing what I’ve been doing. I feel my cheeks redden.
“Don’t worry about it, dearie.” She pats me on the head, only making me blush more.
After calming down, we both say a prayer to Veanya. It does give me some peace of mind.
“Dearie, this old lady needs to start heading home now. I don’t really have much to give you as a thanks for saving me, but I still want to give you something, because you are such a lovely, sweet girl.”
What’s up with this lady? Is she deliberately trying to make me blush? “Y-you don’t really need to give me anything.”
“But I insist!” She grabs my hand and opens it, putting in a small round ball in a paper wrapper in my palm. “Eat this when you feel unhappy, it will help you a lot.” She smiles and turns around, starting to walk off.
“T-thanks!” I yell after her. “I still haven’t heard your name though!”
She calls back over her shoulder, “‘Granny’ will do just fine, dearie!” Then the woman disappears from sight.
I can’t help but blush. “What a lady.” I sigh with a smile and turn once more towards my own destination. “Cacogonte, here I come.”