After getting her emotions out of her system, Lina had had some time to think about everything and came to the conclusion, that she hadn’t actually cried because she was sad some random assholes had died, she didn’t even feel all that guilty, maybe a bit, but not really. They had tried to hurt her after all and had just reaped what they had sown. They literally had it coming. The source of her grief was more the realization, that this was her life now, that she wasn’t safe anymore. She had never thought about that, but all her life she had lived in a safe country, where people didn’t need to carry weapons for self-defence and a random stabbing made national news. Violence and genuine fear for her life had never been part of her reality, but now it suddenly was. She had cried for the same reason a little girl cried when she lost her mother at a supermarket.

She felt pathetic. She always thought she was a rational person, but she was clearly wrong, she had been overwhelmed by her emotions instead of thinking clearly, which she now knew cost her deeply. Not only that, but she had tried to think ahead to what she needed, and still hadn’t thought about asking for a map or the way to the next town. Heck, she could have just used the rope to bind her captive, because that’s what the guy had been, and have him guide her. But alas, that wasn’t an option anymore. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she should have left first since they guy could have just taken the rope after escaping, leaving her stuck in the cave. She had been lucky he had been almost as overwhelmed with the situation as herself.

“You are so stupid.” she chastised herself and instantly thought, that she should probably not talk to herself, but saying it out loud gave her some comfort, although she didn’t know why.

She sighed. Dwelling on it wouldn’t do her any good, she had to get moving and do something useful. Glancing at the corpses, she decided to cover them with moss. She knew that she should loot them and take everything they had, even their clothes, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it, so she at least wanted to get them out of her sight.

“So much for acting rationally…” She admonished herself for being so weak.

With that done, the next thing on her agenda was taking stock. The supplies she commandeered from the surviving bandit included some dried fruit, cheese, cured meat, a water skin, that held water, that tasted as if it was laced with some kind of vinegar, and a smaller one with some kind of alcohol, that tasted a bit like a sweet wine with the bitter notes of hops. It wasn’t bad per se, but a bit weird. The supplies also included some kind of twice-baked substance, that looked like it was supposed to be bread, but the half-assed and made by someone, who had never eaten good bread, kind of bread. It was hard as stone and left chalk-like marks on the cave floor. Maybe it was chalk? But why was it with the other food? Lina shook her head. What really surprised her though was an assortment of spices and a small satchel filled with salt. She had always thought people in medieval times just ate plain, boring, flavourless gruel.

She knew she probably wasn’t on Earth anymore, given that magic didn’t exist there, but wherever she was looked medieval enough to make her think of all the stereotypes, which is why the spices surprised her so much. Or maybe those guys were just weird cosplayers or something. Maybe they were larping… it didn’t matter. Whatever the truth, at least she wouldn’t starve or die due to boring food in the near future.

Having assessed her food situation, she switched her focus to the state of her body. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she had bruises all over her body, a few nasty scratches, and she was pretty certain one of her ribs was at least slightly broken. None of her injuries needed immediate attention, at least as far as she could determine with all the medical knowledge she had gained from watching medical dramas and paying attention in biology class, so she just cleaned herself in the pond and tried to ignore the pain. She had never expected, Grey’s anatomy, Dr.House and Scrubs to be useful. You really never knew which knowledge you would need someday.

“Wait… don’t I have life magic? Yeah, it wasn’t plant, but life, shouldn’t I be able to heal myself?” She muttered to herself.

“... Aaaaand I should stop talking to myself. Come on, get it together, Lina.”

The next couple of hours Lina spent staring at herself, the moss, her injuries in particular and the weird code she could see, trying to understand how healing could work. At first, she was hesitant even using her magic, not wanting to experience what the rope had when she had tried to make it snap, so she tried to reverse engineer the code, but it was hopeless, it was just too complex. Eventually, though, she realized, that she didn’t actually need to understand how the code worked to heal herself. Why? Of course, because her body already knew how to heal itself, it was already doing that, just very slowly. That meant, that she didn’t have to change anything, just make the change that was already happening go a bit faster.

Steeling her courage, Lina focused on a small scratch, maybe a centimetre long. This would be her first experiment. She breathed in and out. When she felt she was calm enough, she began trying to channel her mana, which was what she decided to call the magic energy, into the wound and to her elation she didn’t mutate or rot, her skin didn’t suddenly age and she didn’t develop skin cancer. Instead, her wound healed at a speed visible to the eye.

Lina was thrilled. She had done it, she had healed her wound with her magic. This was awesome. Magic, mana, a weird interface, it was like she was in a game! The sombre feeling from before giving way to childish wonder, she moved on to other wounds. Relatively quickly, however, she came to the conclusion, that healing every wound separately wasn’t the best way to do it and would take ages given how many small injuries she had. Having gained a bit of confidence, she gingerly tried circulating her mana through her whole body and grinned like a lunatic as her wounds closed, her bones mended and the bruises faded. It was amazing, but before she could celebrate, a pain, that felt like someone tried splitting her head with an axe, overcame her and a window appeared in front of her.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

‘Low mana, your mana will replenish over time. Having depleted your mana storage entirely, your mana regeneration is inhibited until you have recovered at least 10% of your maximum mana.’

Lina groaned in pain, pressing her head on the cool cave floor. She stayed like that for a while until the pain suddenly vanished as if it had never been there.

“Urgh, note to me, don’t spend too much mana at once.”Lina sighed while grimacing.

When she regained the ability to do something other than writhing in pain, Lina noticed, that the light coming through the hole above the pond had turned red and thought about what to do. Grimacing, she decided, that she would stay for the night. Although the prospect of spending the night with the corpses of people she had killed didn’t enthuse her, it was better than stumbling through the night in an unfamiliar forest with unfamiliar dangers in an unfamiliar world, so she stopped pitying herself and gathered some moss to make a makeshift bed and blanket.

When she was done, it was already completely dark outside, the only remaining light source the faintly glowing moss, which she now realized was maybe not that convenient, given that it meant her bed was glowing too.

Having laid down, Lina felt how tired she was, all that had happened having sucked the energy right out of her body, and fell into a deep slumber.

When she awoke, she was happy to see, that she had survived the night and was still alone. It wasn’t a lot, but she had to be thankful for the small things in life, like… surviving the night.

Now in a better state of mind, Lina decided to make use of her weird video game inventory power and stored her supplies after having a probably nutritious, but generally not particularly pleasant breakfast. She was just too used to good bread, really good bread. She wondered why it was, that bad bread was always either hard as a stone or sweet and way too soft. This, and other random thoughts, was, what was on her mind while she organized her belongings.

She sadly couldn’t just stuff the whole bag in her inventory, she had to put everything in separately, after which she could store the empty bag as well. She didn’t know how that worked, given that the spice water skin, the spices and so on could be stashed away just fine without her putting every grain of salt into her inventory separately. But then again, who was she to judge the weird magic powers she had received?

As Lina filled her inventory, she remembered the second item she had found in her inventory when she first arrived in this world, a small stone tablet, not much larger than the palm of her hand. After making it appear in her hand, the first thing she did was identify it.

‘Information tablet: Your body has been changed by dimensional forces. Your body can now hold magic energy. Your hereditary gifts are unlocked.’

“That… that information would have been helpful at the start. I guess this inventory thing is this aforementioned hereditary gift? I wish I had looked at that first instead of thinking about that dress.” Lina admonished herself. But then again, back then she had no clue this was even real and thought she had gone crazy, so a few questionable decisions were to be expected. She still didn’t know where the dress had come from, but she chose to ignore the issue. What was an allegedly indestructible dress compared to magic powers?

After analysing the stone tablet, determining, that she could do nothing with it and putting it back into her inventory, she continued with the moss, which was fittingly called glow moss and of which the only ability was, that it faintly glowed. After that, she went over to the weird water and identified it. Maybe it was some kind of magic water, a weak mana potion maybe? But as she identified it, she became pale.

‘Blood of the dark forest. The forest lives, the forest hunts, the forest lures and the forest consumes. Drinking the blood of the dark forest restores a small amount of mana. It is highly addictive and inhibits regular mana regeneration. Subtly influences the mind. If consumed too much, the victim’s mind will be supplanted, making it drown itself in the water to become nutrients for the dark forest.’

Lina shuddered, she had bathed in that stuff. At least she hadn't drunk any of the horrifying liquid. Apparently, identifying anything that seemed even slightly odd was paramount in this world.

Now knowing, that the water was evil, yes, evil! Lina wanted nothing more than to get away from the cave, the corpses and the forest blood, but to do that she first had to climb up the rope and to get there she would have to wade through the water.

With all the willpower she could muster, she ran through the water as fast as she could while holding her breath. It was stupid, she knew that, but she felt like breathing while standing in brainwash water wasn’t the best idea and if she didn’t hold her breath she wouldn’t have the courage to walk through it.

After reaching the rope, the next challenge arrived though, climbing it. If only she had taken better care of herself. Thankfully, she managed to reach the top, falling to her knees and panting the moment she pulled herself over the edge.

She had only spent a day in that cave, but it felt like ages with all that had happened, so she was more than happy to see the sun or suns, as she now realized, again. 2 stars that probably rotated around each other illuminated the sky, one emitting slightly blueish and the other red-tinged light, which together resulted in white light. It was, in a word, incredible. Something you had to see for yourself and couldn’t be adequately conveyed through CGI animations or imagination. Seeing 2 suns in the sky drove the fact she wasn’t on Earth anymore home more than anything else.