Chapter 4: Chapter 4 – Alone in a foreign world

I just stood there for a long time and stared at the place where she had just been. My head was just blank, way too many things had happened in such a short time and nothing in my previous life had prepared me for this. It was a kind of paralysis of shock. Then I gave myself a jolt. It was no use, I was here now and had to find my way around. World Savior mission or not, for the time being, I had more urgent problems.

Only now I noticed how warm I was in the sun and took off my sweater. Underneath, I wore a simple white shirt. Light summer wind was pleasant to feel on the sweaty skin. I could use something to drink. And to eat too, as my stomach made me understand with a growl. With regret, I thought of the delicious turkey sandwiches my mother had packed for me, now lying around uselessly in my abandoned car somewhere in the future. Thoughts jumped to my parents. Would I ever see them again? Amy, my friends, college... Deep sadness came over me, but I shook it off as best I could. There will be time for that later.

I lifted the leather scabbard from the floor, put the dagger back in it, and fastened it to my pants belt. Then I picked up the pouch that Vaari left for me. Inside were 20 silver coins, each the size of a quarter. At least, I assumed they were silver. The front depicted a bearded man wearing a crown, and the back sported an emblem showing an open book with a sword lying across it. The coins were quite worn. I put them back in the pouch and put that in my pants pocket. I don’t know how much money it was, but it was better than nothing.

After putting the sweater around my neck, I was ready to go. No, wait. One more thing. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. It still had no network, of course, and it would probably stay that way forever. I activated flight mode to turn off any transmission activity to conserve battery power. It would remain in operation for some time and maybe I would find a way to recharge it again. Pretty much anything should work with magic, right? After all, the many photos and videos stored in it contained my most precious treasure: the memories of my family and friends. I looked at the sun, it was still pretty high in the sky. It had to be around noon. I set the cell phone clock to 12:00 and pocketed it again. Now I can start walking, but in what direction?

I looked around again carefully. Towards the north (assuming I was in the northern half of the world), the terrain seemed to be slowly rising, while in the southern direction it was slightly lower. So in the south, the chance of finding water was somewhat higher. And where there was water, there was usually life. I also thought I could see trees on the southeastern horizon. Fine, then I’ll head for them. I marched off.

It was easy to walk over the grassy area. In some places, the plants were almost waist high, but mostly they reached only to the knee. The green was dotted with yellow, orange, white, and blue flowers. A herbalist would surely have enjoyed it, but I had no idea about botany. I had considered using Magic Gaze, but even if I found a magical plant, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

So I just kept walking and walking. My thoughts were just as busy as my feet. I was trying to process what had happened. There were so many unanswered questions, some of which were irrelevant to my current situation. Surely it would be interesting to know the name of the fallen knight and who had sent him to save this world. Where he came from and how many other worlds existed. What demons were and how best to defeat them. But this knowledge would not help me in my current situation.

What I rather wanted to know was where I can find something to drink and eat. Where can I sleep? What are the inhabitants of this world like? Since they had a language and a society, they were intelligent beings. But what did they look like? Were there elves and dwarves here? Maybe orcs and trolls? How did magic work? Apparently, I was now a mage myself, but how could I do magic?

As a physicist, I was boundlessly fascinated by time travel and dimensional portals, but magic was a different story. As a fantasy fan and gamer, the concept of magic was quite familiar to me, but also inseparable from the concept of fantasy. To actually experience it myself and probably (hopefully!) even be able to practice it soon was something else. Well, we will see.

While I was pondering like this, I just kept walking south-east on autopilot, so to speak. The sun slowly moved across the sky and the trees, which I had guessed more than seen on the horizon before, already stood out more clearly. Suddenly the earth opened up in front of me and I had to stop abruptly, waving my arms to avoid tumbling down the steep slope. A deep erosion crevice, certainly thirty feet across, appeared in front of me, just now still covered by the tall grass. The bottom was covered with bushes. Such formations were usually created by flowing water, so I hopefully stretched my neck in search of it, and sure enough, a little to the right, the sunlight reflected off a water surface.

Suddenly, I realized how painfully dry my mouth had become. Sliding and holding onto the slope with my hands, I reached the bottom of the earthen gorge and fought my way through the bushes to the water. It was just a narrow stream flowing lazily, but the water was clear and cool and tasted simply divine. I washed my hands and face and then drank so much of it that my belly felt like a full canister. Afterwards, I sat down on the ground in the shade and gratefully stretched my legs out in front of me. I looked at my watch: it was just before 4pm, so I had been walking for almost 4 hours. Just sitting like that was boring. On Earth, I would now be listening to music, reading, chatting, or surfing the Internet, but all of that was no longer available. Sure, the battery would still last for a few hours of music, but I had to learn to live without a smartphone, so I might as well start now.

But I would have one more thing to do. I closed my eyes and directed my thoughts to my magic core. This worked increasingly well, I started seeing it almost immediately. The glass jar was no longer empty, some golden sparkling liquid was inside. Mana 3/10. Just at that moment, the number jumped over Mana 4/10. Yay, the supply is replenishing, as Vaari had said it would, by what looks like one mana an hour. But why this color? In most video games, the mana indicator was blue. Oh, no sooner than I finished the thought, the liquid in the jar took on an icy blue hue. Nope, this blue was not the one I meant, darker, more intense, like a sapphire. Obediently, the color became darker, the blue more intense. So that’s how it works? It was reminiscent of controlling RGB LEDs, only I was without a remote control. I played around with the colors some more, green, red, purple, and then returned to the original gold color. Somehow, I liked it the best.

Reluctantly, I stood up again. I had to keep going whether I wanted to or not. I jumped over the creek and laboriously climbed up the slope on the other side. My goal for the day was the trees, which were still a few hours’ walk away. With a sigh, I started walking again.

After another three hours of walking, I could already make out individual branches against the backdrop of the already darkening sky. They were deciduous trees, apparently of different varieties, that’s all I could tell. It seemed to be the edge of a forest, because behind the first row of trees, many others could be seen, some of them towering much higher than their surroundings. Tomorrow I will try to climb one of them to take advantage of the better view. But that’s all for tomorrow, today I was already so tired that I wasn’t even sure I would still have the energy for dinner. But since I wasn’t offered one either, that question didn’t matter.

It was already dusk when I stood next to the first tree. In the darkness, I didn’t want to go into the forest anyway. I lay down on the ground next to the tree, folding my sweater into a makeshift pillow. Hopefully, the night won’t be too cold, was my last thought that day, then I was already asleep.