Max surveyed the pile of loot that lay in front of him.

There was a handful of gold coins, a small breast of meat, a smattering of black feathers, and two talons.

Taking the cash was an instant no-brainer.

+6 Eldercoin

The meat would also be valuable, though it didn’t look anywhere near as tasty as the hornback’s. The value of the feathers and the talons was not so clear. Max only had one available inventory slot now that he had removed the skewered hornback meat from it, and he had no idea what the feathers or the talons might be useful for, if anything at all.

Based solely on the fact that he was in the dark about the value of the feathers and the talons, Max filled the empty inventory slot with the meat.

He then went to the other piles of loot and collected the coins and the meat, there being 4 Eldercoin in the one, and 7 Eldercoin in the other.

He took a look at his total cash:

34 Eldercoin

He loved seeing that number go up. He didn’t know exactly how far 34 units of this currency would get him in this world, but having some money, and a seemingly infinite way of farming it, filled him with a sense of hope and progress.

Now that his attackers had been taken care of, Max returned to his spit roast.

The meat was a little charred on one side, given that he hadn’t been available to turn it regularly, but he didn’t care. The umami aroma coming from it was still nothing short of mouth-watering, and he didn’t want to wait another moment before tucking in. He wasn’t about to let a new wave of hungry hostiles get their beaks on it.

Max took the spit out of the crochets and propped it up against a tree to allow the meat to rest for a few minutes, but eventually his impatience got the better of him.

Using the knife, he carved a slice of the red, juicy steak, and felt his tongue salivate at the sight of the tenderness underneath the seared surface. It was medium-rare, just as he liked it.

Max placed the strip into his mouth, and the flavours hit him immediately. It was more gamey than beef, but somehow not quite as strong as venison; a perfect in-between that also had an extra earthiness and smokiness, no doubt helped by it having been cooked over an open flame.

There were also subtle hints of other unfamiliar flavours in the depths of the flesh, some slightly sweet and exotic, maybe a result of the hornback consuming strange plants along with smaller equally strange animals, and some mushroomy, which was unsurprising given the amount of fungi in the forest.

In summary, it was utterly delicious, and Max soon forgot the knife altogether and began tearing rough strips of it off the spit with his bare hands.

It was even more enjoyable that way.

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Max closed his eyes and savoured the flavours and the texture. This was where he belonged. Not wasting away in his florescent-lit cubicle listening to people moan at him all day long, and eating processed carbs for empty energy as he put money in someone else’s pocket. He belonged in the open air, living life as it was meant to be lived. Forging his own path in in the world and being rewarded for it.

Max still had no idea how he had ended up in this realm of existence, but he was beginning to hope more and more that there would be no going back.

It wasn’t like his remaining family would be that sad if they never saw him again.

Sure, his mum and dad had given him and James a good start in life, and the family home had been a pleasant one, if a little emotionally distant. But when James had died, his dad had just gotten angry with everyone and the world in general, and his mum had filed for divorce and gone off to join a religious cult.

Max had barely spoken to either of them in the last 5 years, and he was no closer to any of his other relatives.

It was sad, when Max really thought about it. A death in the family would have brought a lot of families closer together. But that just hadn’t been the case for his.

Though everyone said they didn’t blame him for James’ death, Max knew deep down that couldn’t have been the case for all of them.

Who knew what his remaining family would think of him suddenly disappearing? Maybe they’d assume suicide.

Max could envision the headlines in the local paper claiming he’d thrown himself into the river years after his brother’s death because he could no longer handle the guilt of having been unable to save him.

Max finished the remainder of the meat, washed it down with a good glug of fresh water, and lay down to let the food digest. It had been the most satisfying meal he had eaten in a long time, and he could feel his energy levels beginning to replenish.

Before long, Max decided it was time to move on and begin making some real headway towards finding civilisation. Based on what he had been taught as a kid, he estimated that following the river downstream would be his best bet, going by the assumption that things worked in a similar enough way in this world for settlements to have been built close to large bodies of water. Sticking to the river would also give him an unlimited water supply should he need it. He still wasn’t sure how vital water was to his survival.

With no empty inventory slots available now that he had filled the empty one with the terrorgawk meat, Max pulled all three of the small breasts out and skewered them one-by-one onto the hornback horn he had used as his spit. Then he placed the kebab as one item back into the vacant slot.

He was starting to get used to this inventory management business.

Leaving his riverside resting spot behind, Max began traipsing along the bank of the river, following its flow, with all of his gear packed, and the map in one hand and his water canteen in the other.

He found that journeying downstream was a lot of fun. There were all sorts of new plants along the way, growing on the riverbank, and in the river itself, and he enjoyed focusing on them, seeing their peculiar names pop up.

In particular, Max noticed there was a great deal of a plant that was labelled as dragonwhisker; a vibrant green reed that had feathery tufts on its tip.

There was also an intriguing new fungus growing on some of the larger fallen logs close to the river. It was orange in colour and seemed to spread in a hexagonal mesh. Max was not surprised when its name was revealed as honeymold.

There didn’t seem to be any hostile beasts along his trek, at least for the time being, but there were seemingly innocent fish in the river; some small and minnow-like that moved in shoals and glistened in the now sinking sun, and others that were the size of tuna, yet patterned with red and yellow stripes, and with long antennae poking out of their heads.

Max nearly considered taking the horn kebab out of his inventory and spearing one of the larger fish on the end of it, but his attention became averted when he noticed a sound that was growing increasingly louder the further he progressed. It began as a low rumble, and then gradually gained a hiss, and eventually became a constant roar.

It could only mean one thing. A waterfall.

Oh, I have to see this, Max thought eagerly, and began jogging, then sprinting.

There was light ahead. A lot of light. He was coming to the edge of the forest.

Leaping over fallen trunks and moss-covered stones, Max burst out of the thicket of trees and steadied himself beside the precipice of the waterfall, gawping at the expanse before him.

“Holy freaking shit.”

For a brief moment, Max thought that something was touching his arms. Then he realised it was the sensation of his hairs standing on end as his entire body was overcome with goosebumps.

He didn’t know what he had been expecting to see, but it wasn’t this.