I was starting to suspect why the village might have been evacuated. I was a bit more unsure about why Slimes would cause an evacuation and in such a hurry. I had no doubt I was incredibly weak compared to an entire village of people who most likely had a lifetime of learning magic and abilities.

Maybe not all were able to fight and I could imagine not everyone had skills that aligned with combat, the entire town? That seemed a bit too far-fetched.

I was ruminating about this topic after I had woken up after almost rolling off the roof. It was mid afternoon from what I could tell the smell of acrid slime material had lessened somewhat.

Eventually I was able to come down from off the roof. I had to sacrifice a blanket inorder to cross the acid moat. The slimes did a real number on the ground, eating thought almost 6 inches of stone rock and dirt. In fact I was starting to wonder where they got most of their nutrition from, maybe some sort of fast growing algae?

For all I know they were all on the edge of starvation already and if it happened again I could be stuck up on a roof for days. I needed a better way to fight back.

No… what I really needed was a proper meal. I was starving, I needed more calories and I needed protein. There was a forest so I could hunt in theory but I was unsure how to kill animals humanely nor how to skin and dress a carcass.

My last option was the dried beans and I really did not enjoy beans…

It was several hours later and I managed to feed myself the dreaded beans which turned out not to be that bad. I still managed to burn them to the bottom of the pot which was going to be a pain to clean.

After my dinner I was in the process of reassembling the crossbow I found. As it turns out, trying to restring a crossbow took more effort than I had imagined. The compact size and draw weight of the arms seemed almost disproportionate. It looked me the better part of the evening and a 3rd of my Rank for Cursing before I finally had it set. Pulling the string back to the catch was not as bad but I would need to practice and build calluses. After that I called it a night and went to bed.

The next day I was practicing with the crossbow, aiming and firing was not so bad. I had some experience with rifles and while not the same some of the parallels still helped. The lack of recoil from the crossbow was going to take some getting used to however. On my 4th shot I missed the target completely and could not locate the bolt. The 5th shot became a bit of an experiment, I anchored a mana tether to the bolt then fired. The original plan was to detonate on impact but I managed to hit a perfect bullseye on the spot of a tree I was aiming for.

I reloaded a new bolt attached a mana tether then fired again. This time I was aiming for the first bolt, I was surprised when the first bolt was split down the middle. The mana investment was far from free but at only 5 mana a bolt it was far more efficient then just blowing up the object. While a useful combo I would need to test the crossbow on some slime.

I needed more practice with well… everything. I would need more crossbow bolts, a proper short sword, or even a spear would be preferred, and I needed to practice more with magic. I had no doubt there were things I could do that were perfectly mundane to everyone else.

After unstring and packing up the crossbow I decided to practice a bit more with magic. While I could adjust the course of a bolt in the air. I didn't know to what extent but enough to overcome inertia. I did the next bit of practice in the kitchen as I had a warm fire going.

I placed a bolt on the table In Front of me and attached a mana tether to it. I then willed it to move, it gave kind of a jump but nothing more. This time I impressed where I wanted it to be, the bolt started to roll in that direction just like a pen or pencil on an uneven desk. It Seemed to cost me so little mana that it didn't even register. I tried doing the same thing but I picked an arbitrary point about 18 inches above where it was currently sitting. The bolt quickly raised into the air then kind of hovered. It was costing me mana to maintain but it was minimal at the moment. I tried moving it to one of the chairs, it bumped into it but didn't do anything else.

I pulled the bolt back about 3 feet away from the chair then moved it to a few inches behind where the chair was. The bolt rammed into the back of the chair piercing it, in total it used about 16 mana.

"Cool a form of telekinesis or maybe Mage hand? I can work with that."

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I then tried many of the same things again only this time with one of the smaller knives.

I figured a few days of this and other exercises should actually allow me to be almost competent in a fight. Then I would figure out where all the slimes had come from.

I spent the next two days practicing different methods of mana and object manipulation as well as moving to a different house.

I also spent part of the first day back tracking the slime trail to a sewer outlet not too far away from the office mountain complex. For all I knew the Slimes were supposed to be in there to help keep the sewer system clean. But based on the number of slimes I had encountered already that didn't fit so well.

Regarding the move I quickly decided I wanted to live in a place that actually matched my physical stature. The study was not as nice but the other house was a two minute walk anyway.

I was currently in the study going over some books on magic but I felt distracted. I was going a bit crazy as I had taken a coat on a hat rack, stuffed some pillows in it, then added a hat on top. Out of the corner of my eye it could be a person if you were being generous. It was now 5 days sense I landed here… wherever here was.

"Mr Duck… what do you think I should do? I could explore more, learn more about magic, figure out more about where the slimes were coming from, or even try to get back home." I stated

"What of the first, try to explore?" I said in a mock deep tone that I thought might fit Mr Duck.

"Who knows what might be around here, but I'll admit I suspect it will be mostly the same." I told him.

"Then what of learning more of magic?" Mr Duck asked.

"It's an interesting subject for sure, I'm unsure though… I feel like I'm missing pieces and I think I could eventually piece things together but that would take years of trial and error." I replied.

"And the Slime problem?" Mr Duck asked.

"Might be an interesting distraction, I'm worried about going in alone. I would also prefer to have a better way to kill Slimes, I don't think the crossbow will cut it." I said.

"Then test it, didn't you say you have seen slimes around the area?" Mr Duck said.

"No I didn't say anything of the sort… but yes I did see a few in the distance. Also please stop reading my mind, it's weird." I told Mr Duck.

"Look your already crazy for talking like this… getting back on subject. What about trying to go home?" Mr Duck asked.

"I'm not even sure where to begin in that regard and yes I would like to go home. I miss my cats and my family and my friends and my coworkers, I even miss my twin Brother… how I got here is still a massive mystery to me…. I was transported or teleported here that much I am aware of but that process was seamless… at least from my perspective." I told Mr Duck.

"Did you find any indications on the subject in any of the books so far?" He asked.

"Nope none, but there is so much here and I'm going at this almost blind." I said in reply.

"Are there other avenues you can look into, anything unique to you?" Mr Duck asked

"Ah yes, what is unique to me. Well I'm the only person who exists here. Other than Slimes I have not seen anything I can compare myself to." I said.

I then used some mana to 'waddle' the hat rack over a few feet then rotate in place. Just to give the appearance of pacing.

"Then it sounds like your best path forward is to study your magic some more. Also how do you walk me back and forth?" Mr Duck asked.

"I seem to be able to manipulate objects at a distance, to cause them to move for instance." I said.

"So how does that work?" Mr Rack asked.

"I don't FUCKING know!" I screamed. "I just lean you back until you are balanced on one 'leg' then pivot or rotate your entire stand. As to what I am pressing on I still don't understand, physics is useless here." I said.

"Alright ignore the physics for now, then why not just drag me, why the balancing?" Mr Duck asked.

"Because it's less mana/energy intensive…" I said then kind of trailed off.

"You trailed off, why?" Mr duck asked "Please say it out loud it seems to help".

"Right… well it's about friction. With all feet on the ground that is many many times the surface area when compared to the surface area of the corner of a foot." I said.

"Ok so what does that mean?" Mr duck asked.

"It means the fundamentals like conservation of energy are still at play." I said.

"While interesting what can you do with it? You can move objects from a distance. Do what you did in your day job, test and experiment." Mr Duck stated.

Mr Duck was of course correct, I got up and left.

I had only been alone for maybe 5 or 6 days and I was apparently starting to lose it. I thought I could handle lack of contact for a long time but maybe knowing I had the option to talk with others helped. There was a part of me seriously concerned about my sanity.