Chapter 2: Ch.2: Benevolence

Being lost in the woods is probably a very common fear, at least from what little I could recall. As I walked through the expanse of green I tried to go over what memories I was allowed to keep. Simple common sense, manners, language and mathematics, things like that. I could not recall my name however, neither my age or where I had come from. It was quite an uncomfortable feeling not to know who you are, but in a sense it felt nice. A new beginning. If I didn't know who I was before then all I had to do was become whatever comes into mind.

"So, the Man said this world was called Aladar...The climate seems...Not too cold or too hot, there is a singular sun in the sky and so far I haven't been killed by a strange monster. So far, so good." I reaffirmed myself as I couldn't help but feel something strange tingling at the back of my neck. Like that odd feeling when someone stares at you from behind.

I just kept moving, trying to ignore the fact I hard the crunching of some leaves a few meters away. With the sounds getting closer with each passing moment, I finally took a deep breath and gathered my courage in order to turn around and see what was following me.

"A...pup?"

It wasn't an actual threat, but a small little black pup. Probably a canine of some type, judging by the place we were at at the time, a wolf. It was injured, a clear limp in his bloody rear leg. A nasty cut spread it diagonally. Not deep enough to see actual bone, but painful enough to warrant it to wander about without much to do about it. Under normal circumstances, a wise person would turn around and walk away carefully since the mother could be anywhere close. But seeing how the pup was looking straight at me as if asking for help I....I couldn't hold the need to protect such a cute thing back.

I knew it was a bad choice, I knew I was being an idiot, but this was my second life...Technically. So who cares if I die anyway? If I was to die trying to protect a cute little life, then it would be a worthy death. I approached the pup slowly and in a low position. No smile on my face to prevent it from treating me like a threat, I allowed him to sniff my hands before I gently picked him up.

"Poor thing...Let me see this a bit closer..." I whispered, the pup responding with a wince and a flinch as the wound seemed to catch the air breeze in the open wound.

A somewhat clean diagonal cut. No real sign of a bite of a claw mark. Under normal circumstances I would assume it was being hunted or it was harmed in self-defense by some hunter-gatherer that was caught by surprise. How did I know this things, you ask? Faint memories of me finding myself in the woods were the only thing that really kept me sane. Glimpses of language, mathematical equations I couldn't understand, the feeling of flood running through my hands, the emotions I felt when I killed my first animal...Things like that. Always situations where I could not see my own face, or anyone else's for the sake of curiosity.

Not once did I hear my name in my faint memories, but it didn't matter now. I could understand this creature was in pain, and judging by the blood it was losing, not quite at death's door, but the reaper would be coming for him if I didn't do anything. So, with the pup in my hands, I kept walking. Following wet grass and the smell of moisture in the air until I finally arrived at a small river. It was a generous classification for such a small current, but it was somewhat clean water nonetheless.

Without any real bandages on me, I took my sleeve and tore it off slightly behind my elbow in length. Clothing could always be repaired or replaced anyways, so it didn't matter much. Cleaning the cloth with some water and properly bathing the injury in some of the liquid as well, I gently moved my hands around the poor pup's leg in order to bandage the wound completely, making sure to cover its entirety before tightening a small knot on the inside of it so if it itched the pup wouldn't just rip off the bandage straight away.

"There you go, buddy. You should go home now, I'm sure your mom would be-" And before I could finish my sentence, I heard something.

A howl in the distance. Not too far away from the small river. I knew it was the mother since the pup replied back, something I was truly expecting to happen after I left the premises. Slowly but surely, I left the pup by the river and walked over to a nearby tree. I didn't know my way around the forest so running would just have me getting lost, and the second safest option would be to climb one of these to remain outside the mother's range.

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With a deep breath, I jumped and grasped tightly onto the bark. The tree itself wasn't too thick, which helped me get a better grip around it, and using the tips of my fingers to clutch onto the cracks in its outer wooden shell, I climbed all the way to what was about the top. Sitting comfortably in one of the tougher branches, I waited patiently for the mother wolf to come pick up its pup.

And sure thing she arrived. The beast must've been easily two meters in height, a true giant even on all-fours. The first thing it did was smell the pup and notice the bandage, taking one singular whiff of the air around her in order to find me and look me straight in the eye. She didn't growl or show her teeth, which probably meant she didn't take me as a threat just yet. Before I could instinctually react and recoil into the safety of the main trunk of the tree, the mother wolf howled at me.

I didn't really know what to do, but once she howled again, I kind of howled back at her? I was truly at a loss for words since I had no knowledge of the fauna of this another world, but the wolf seemed incredibly intelligent. Noticing I wasn't a threat and identifying me as someone that "helped" her was something I wasn't expecting upon a first meeting with such a giant beast. Still, it was something unique that I wouldn't have experienced if I wasn't send over here, so for that alone, I was already a little grateful to that mysterious man that called me a benevolent soul for some reason.

Still, the day was not getting any younger and I had not found civilization yet. Without much knowledge on what plants are edible or not, I decided not to risk it and just climb down the tree in order to follow the river downhill. Going uphill would take me deeper into the forest and that was the last place I wanted to be. I wasn't about to push the mercy of the mother wolf, especially after witnessing her size. I could barely imagine how colossal bears must be.

And so, I kept walking. Curious as to how exactly the cut was done upon the pup. According to my odd common sense I inherited from my previous life, attacking a cub was always a bad idea...So actual people shouldn't really have done that unless they were planning on tracking down the mother wolf, and even then...

Just how would they take out such a beast? Especially since it was a wolf and wolves do hunt in packs, that was practically asking for suicide, was it not?

This world just seemed to get slightly weirder the more I thought about it, but as I dispersed my thoughts into the odd behavior of this world's inhabitants, I realized I had finally breached the tree line. Only to find myself at the foot of a small forested hill, where a medium-sized village was built. A small wooden barricade separated it from the forest, and as soon as I made my way out in the open, a pair of people walked up to me wielding what seemed to be some kind of polearm.

'Oh, I didn't think of what to say...' The realization hit me just as the pair of men stopped in their tracks and looked at me with worry in their eyes and asked.

"Where....did you come from?"

Oh boy, this was going to be one long explanation.

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