Chapter 11:
Their arrival back at camp did not go unnoticed. Daniel felt the gazes of many people upon him. Some were curious, mainly women, but some men too. Others were hostile. Directed at him and probably Nathan, too. Those were predominantly from men. God that was annoying.
“Do you normally draw so much attention,” Daniel couldn’t help but ask quietly, doing his best to ignore the looks.
“I’m not the focus,” Sapphire said innocently. “Seems like they are all looking at you. What do you think they could possibly want?”
Daniel sighed at that. “It’s probably not gonna help with the reveal if half the guys here hate me out of jealousy.”
Sapphire shrugged. “Probably not. But there’s not much we can do to change that. So buck up, let’s go drop off this stuff, and I’ll go get Clark to meet us for lunch. Maybe he’ll be able to channel some of the male jealousy off of you. God, it’s annoying. I honestly thought that kind of behavior would disappear in college, but I’m starting to think people are just like that.”
Daniel bit down another sigh and followed along. She wasn’t wrong. While his college experience had been cut short by the summoning, he’d ended up in an academy setting eventually in this world, and he’d seen the same things there. And of course, he’d seen plenty of even middle-aged adults act petty over the smallest of things. Thankfully his adventuring group hadn’t been like that.
Once they had all the wood and other foraging material they’d gathered on the way back settled, Sapphire went off to go get Clark while Daniel, Jessy, and Nathan went to get what they were preparing for lunch. More fish, but with more mushrooms now and some fresh fruit. The portions weren’t all that large, since they still struggled to get enough food for everyone, but it was better than nothing.
Also thankfully, the people giving out the food didn’t give them a hard time over getting portions for both Clark and Sapphire as well. Judging from the annoyed look he was getting from one of the guys helping with the food, he fully expected some issues with that, if Jessy wasn’t there to be the one who asked.
Once they got all the food, they made their way over to the river, where Sapphire and Clark were already waiting. Sapphire looked calm, maybe a little bored. Clark on the other hand had his brows furrowed with worry. What exactly had she told him?
Daniel handed over the extra portion of food he’d been holding to Clark, while Jessy gave hers to Sapphire. Then the group walked along the river until they’d reached as far as they had yesterday and settled on the ground to eat. Along the way, Daniel couldn’t help but feel all the gazes on them. Part of it was probably still jealousy, but the smarter ones no doubt figured something was happening. After all, both Sapphire and Clark were figures of note here. People who’ve taken leadership positions. A meeting between them might mean something important was being discussed.
“Alright, so what’s the disaster?” Clark asked, a sigh escaping his lips as he looked at Sapphire with trepidation.
Daniel couldn’t help but be confused by that. He turned to Sapphire. “Just what exactly did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” Sapphire said, her tone placid. She took a small sip of water from a container before setting it down. “All I did was ask him to talk with us in private for lunch. You’ll have to ask him why he’s being such a drama queen.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow at that and turned to the taller man.
Clark gave Sapphire one more wary look before turning to Daniel and shrugging.
“I’ve known Saph—ouch!—since middle school,” Clark said, interrupted by a quick kick from Sapphire. He rubbed his knee but didn’t acknowledge it otherwise. ”We don’t really get along… and by that I mean she doesn’t really like me. So her being willing to have lunch makes me feel like something must be wrong.”
That earned a very un-ladylike snort from Sapphire. “I don’t dislike you… I just find you annoying. You're always so chipper and upbeat. It’s exhausting. And if you haven’t noticed, we are stranded in the wilderness and it’s filled with Monsters. That certainly qualifies as something wrong. Also, you can’t ever seem to remember my name.” That last part was emphasized with a glare.
“Sorry, sorry,” Clark said, scooting a bit away from Sapphire with his hands out placatingly. It was kinda amusing. Clark was rather tall and well-muscled. Seeing him act like this to a much shorter woman like Sapphire was rather funny. “Like, we talked the most in middle school. And you were fine with the name then. And now we don’t talk much so I forget.”
“Which is why I had to remind you,” Sapphire said, her eyes narrowing at him. “With some negative reinforcements.”
“Well I’m reminded now, Sapphire,” Clark said, hands still up. When a moment passed, and he didn’t get kicked again, he put them down. “So what’s this about then?”
Daniel opened his mouth to speak, then frowned as he looked back to the camp. They were far enough away that they couldn’t be overheard, and he couldn’t make out much from the camp, but they were still in sight. He’d have to do something less flashy in his demonstration.
But first, the explanation. Again. It was a bit tiresome going over things again but this would be the last time he’d give this explanation. They’d decided that Clark would be let in on pretty much everything. He’d be pivotal in getting people organized, and most of all getting people to actually follow their lead. So being able to talk to him plainly would be important.
Clark might want to bring someone else in, probably Steve since Daniel remembered them being good friends. If that was the case though, he’d leave explaining the basics to Clark or Sapphire.
One more person knowing about the cult situation in Tarnith was an additional risk. But a small one. Combined with the fact that he fully intended for this little group to be some of the fastest leveling out of everyone with them, and the chances of them getting captured any time soon were incredibly low. That risk could be reduced further with training in defending their minds.
Overall, the amount of help having these four—potentially five—knowing the truth far outweighed the risk. They also didn’t even begin to know the full scope of his knowledge, which was another reason he wasn’t overly worried.
The only thing he would be leaving out of the explanation that the other three already knew about was the fate of Alfred. Sapphire had said it would be best to leave that for later. Or else the man wouldn’t be able to focus on the more important parts. He had a strong sense of right and wrong, she had told him, and Daniel’s own experiences with the man agreed.
In fact, Clark had been one of the ones who argued against killing Alfred, despite looking like he had wanted to kill the man.
Clark’s reaction to the explanation was as expected. First confusion. Then disbelief. Followed by shock as Daniel cast a spell in front of the man. Just a simple earth-shaping spell, carefully controlled and contained so there wasn’t any leaking light from waste mana. A ball of earth was carved out of the dirt and floated lowly over the ground over to Clark.
The young man looked at it in wonder, poking it tentatively, then feeling around it as if trying to find something. Probably wires or if there was some sort of air keeping it aloft.
When he was done, Daniel ended the spell and let the chuck of earth fall unceremoniously to the ground and waited to see what Clark would say.
Sapphire spoke up first, though. “In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m trusting his story for the moment. Mainly because if he was the person who brought us all here, you’d think he’d come up with a better excuse than I just can’t tell you how I know stuff. Also, I caught him using magic, and after disarming me, he explained things and gave me back my weapon as a sign of trust. So take that for what it’s worth.“
Clark's eyes were still on the clump of dirt that had been a floating ball, his brows furrowed in thought. Then he looked at Sapphire, an annoyed look on his face. “You said you didn’t have a gun when we asked.”
Sapphire raised an eyebrow at that. “Who said anything about a gun? I just said he disarmed me.”
“Right… And I’m sure, equipped with only a stick or knife, you decided to confront the strange wizard anyway.”
Sapphire just held Clark's gaze for a moment before he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
“This is all crazy,” he said, sounding tired. He then took a breath to calm himself before locking eyes with Daniel. They were calmer now and determined. “I’ll have to trust in you for now. But if you're tricking us… ugh. I’ll make sure you go to jail.”
Daniel stared at the other man for a moment. For just a moment, he could see the man that Clark would become in the future. Strong-willed, and determined. Staultwart until the end. Then his youth showed at that last part.
“Right,” Daniel said, nodding. “You’ll send me to wizard jail, I’m sure.”
Clark blew out a breath at that and laughed. All seriousness from before was gone. “Yeah, I’m sure that threat didn’t sound that great. Not used to talking to wizards in other worlds. Give me some time and I’ll think of something better.”
“Don’t strain yourself,” Sapphire muttered sarcastically.
Daniel ignored it and decided to move on. “Okay, so now you know the situation. Let’s talk about how we're gonna do the reveal and get people moving…”
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The discussion went on for an hour or so, the amount of time generally agreed to leave for lunch, before their group broke apart.
Clark had agreed with their plan to do the reveal that night. Let people mull things over after a night's sleep and then try to move out tomorrow morning.
It might seem a bit rushed, but the sooner they left, the better. Not just to avoid more monster attacks on the camp itself, but to make it so that they can cover more distance before they might run into Monsters. Telling everyone they know the way to safety early would also prevent the scouting groups from risking their lives needlessly. They would be the ones most likely to run into Monsters, after all.
Also, revealing things soon allowed people the chance to try something stupid, if they were so inclined. Better that happened when it was relatively safe. Clark had been rather put off by that pessimism. He didn’t think anyone would do anything like that, even if they didn’t trust Daniel.
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They’d find out who was right tonight.
But Daniel wasn’t gonna take any chances. Nathan and he would not be sleeping anywhere that someone could try something during the night. He’d offered to do the same for Sapphire, ignoring Jessy jokes about him wanting to sleep together with them. Sapphire, however, had declined. She’d said all of them disappearing wouldn’t be good for morale and she trusted the people that slept near her to not try anything funny like that. And also to prevent anyone else from doing the same.
Apparently, the girls that made up the group that mostly followed her had already organized an extra watch system just for them. In case any of the guys in the group decided to be… troublesome. Considering someone like Alfred had been in their midst, it was a smart move.
One other thing that had been brought up by Clark, was a potential problem that Daniel and the others hadn’t realized. Mainly that Daniel was already standing out a little more than he should. The jealousy of a lot of the guys in the group for Daniel spending time with Sapphire had drawn a lot of attention to him. Which was a bit ridiculous in Daniel’s opinion, but that’s how some people were.
When there was a really attractive person around, people got kinda dumb. Combined with Sapphire’s leadership and she drew lots of admiration. Some of the guys could also be fans of her, though he wasn’t sure how likely that was. She’d been pretty popular, but not anywhere near a household name or anything like that. At least as far as Daniel could remember.
But regardless of how silly Daniel thought it was, the jealousy brought attention. And because of that attention, they’d been noticing his disappearances. Thinking he was hiding away and being lazy or something like that.
Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be a big deal. In a survival situation, where he’s also eating the same amount of food as them, but not contributing as much? Yeah, that built resentment. Obviously, this wasn’t something everyone noticed or felt, or Sapphire and Jessy, or Nathan would have heard about it. But Clark, who interacted with the most people and had the most people coming to him for guidance, did hear about that.
It was a bit annoying but understandable. Thankfully, Daniel had a solution to that issue. If people were annoyed with him for not contributing enough to the camp, he’d contribute something that no one else could manage. Hopefully it would build up some goodwill before the big reveal.
When Daniel revealed what he wanted to do, Clark agreed with the suggestion and even offered to help. Daniel didn’t need it, but extra hands would make it look a lot less strange when he got back to camp. Better the reveal happened after everyone had a full belly.
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“You think you're so great don’t you?”
It was later into the day, maybe an hour or so away from when they’d normally have dinner. Daniel had just walked out of the treeline into the clearing, looking around to see who they could get to help move something heavy.
Before he could, though, he was stopped by several people. Most of them were frowning while some were outright glaring. The majority were guys, but there were a couple of women there as well. All of them were on the younger side for their group, closer to Daniel’s current age. Few looked familiar, beyond a vague sense of recollection from the past, but two were more readily recognizable. One of them, a bronze-skinned young man with black hair, had been part of the scouting group he’d saved. The other was the nerdy-looking guy who’d spoken up when they had all first awoken and Clark was organizing people.
Daniel had expected something like this after his talk with Clark and had hoped to get ahead of it. Though given his luck at times, was it any wonder it happened just now? Right when he was about to wow everyone.
“Not sure what you mean,” Daniel said, tilting his head. He had a rough idea, but best to let the other guy get his grievances out. Then, as long as they weren’t stupid, he could bring them over to where his help was waiting and hopefully make them forget about it.
The speaker was Jeff, the young man Daniel remembered having been taken by the tribes originally. He wore square-rimmed glasses that didn’t hide his glaring eyes. And he’d also been the one who’d look ready to make trouble when he’d been getting the extra portions of food for Sapphire and Clark. His glare was the same as then.
“You know exactly what I mean,” He said, sticking his finger out at Daniel. “I’ve noticed, and so has everyone else. Everyone’s working together, fishing and gathering food and wood. But you disappear for hours and only come back with an armful of things. You're eating the same as the rest of us, but you're slacking off.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow at that. The guy wasn’t wrong, as far as they knew. But then again… “Aren’t you one of the guys that spent the whole first day fighting with the spears?”
Jeff’s face flushed in probably both embarrassment and anger. “It wasn’t the whole day. And that was important too! Didn’t you see the goblin monsters? We need to figure out combat classes or who knows what else we’ll face next! And this isn’t about me. It’s about you. What do you have to say for yourself? How are you gonna make up for slacking off, but eating the same as the rest of us, when we barely have enough food?”
Daniel clenched and unclenched his right fist. He wasn’t good with confrontation. As in he got angry rather easily. It was something he improved a lot with… her help. But after the final battle, and now all this, his control was a bit frayed. Still, he held himself in check. The guy wasn’t wrong from their perspective.
Daniel took a quick breath and then smiled. “Well, not sure I need to make up for anything, as I wasn’t slacking off. But since all of you fine people are here, and seem to think the same thing, why don’t I show you what I’ve been doing all this time? I think you’ll find it worth more than some fish or berries.”
He then gestured behind himself in the direction he’d come from.
“You think you can bluff your way out of this?” Jeff asked, still angry.
“This isn’t a bluff,” Daniel said calmly. “I was coming to camp to get some help with it. Nathan, Clark, and Steve were already helping me, but I thought we could use a couple more hands. And also what would be the point of the bluff? Lead you into the forest, there is nothing there, and then… What? That would be pointless. Now, who wants to come help us bring it over here? I’m sure you’re all sick of fish and want something more substantial.”
“Wait, you don’t mean meat do you?” Someone else asked from the group. It was the nerdy-looking guy. Daniel really needed to learn his name, just so he could stop calling him that. “You hunted something?”
“Yep,” Daniel said, turning around as he headed back to where he came from. “Now come on. I’m sure you’re all hungry, and the faster we get it back over here, the faster we can eat.”
He kept an ear out, just to make sure no one was gonna rush him or something. But no one did. Instead, he heard some muttered conversations as they followed behind him. That was good.
One potential issue avoided. Many more to go.
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The sight of the large deer carcass Nathan, Clark, and Steve had been helping Daniel bring back brought shouts of surprise and excitement from the formerly angry band of people behind him. Without any prompting needed, they rushed the carcass, and after a couple of moments to figure out how’d they would go about it, they started hauling it toward camp.
The three men who’d been helping were happy to let the other people take the lead, as they’d been hauling it with Daniel for the last half hour or so. Clark had brought Steve along both to reveal things to his friend and to have an extra pair of hands just in case.
Daniel had scried and hunted the buck much further away from here. Before getting too close to camp, he had been using magic to make the trip much easier to the point only one of them needed to drag it. Unfortunately, when they got too close to the camp and ran the risk of running into people, he’d stopped with the magic to avoid spilling the beans early. The spell, one that lightened an object, had a very obvious visual effect.
That had made covering the last part of their journey much more tiresome, but manageable with the four of them. Hauling a deer carcass through a forest was not easy, with the rough terrain and the body's tendency to bounce around. Especially not with the deer of this forest. Because of mana, even the normal deer here were larger than the ones back on Earth.
Not that Daniel could complain too much about that, considering that it would definitely be able to feed their group of fifty. They certainly were big enough for that.
“That’s a lot of people,” Clark said, walking up beside Daniel. “Did you just shout about having meat and they came running?”
“Something like that,” Daniel said, looking at Clark. “You were right about people noticing me disappearing. They all decided to confront me about it. So I just said they could come see what I’d been doing instead of just gathering things. Thanks for the warning about it by the way. That could have been annoying.”
“No problem,” Clark said with a shrug. “We’re both working to keep everyone alive and get out of this place, right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel said, looking up at the sky. It was still clear. And would likely stay that way for the next week or so. Another reason to leave as soon as possible. He didn’t want to relive weathering a storm under slapdash lean-tos. “I just hope everyone else will feel that way.”
“I’m sure things will turn out well,” Clark said, giving him a smile and a pat on his shoulder. “You're too pessimistic. Just like Sapphire. Like I get things could look suspicious, but you act like they’ll try to burn you at the stake or something. Just keep positive and things will work out”
Daniel just gave the friendly young man a dull look and shook his head. “I get what she means now.” Then he walked off to head back to the camp. Needed to make sure everyone knew where their dinner was coming from after all. Hopefully, it would make people less likely to be idiots later tonight.
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“I’m starting to regret picking this class,” Evelyn, the stocky girl who’d picked the cooking class, said as she cleaned her hands off in the flowing river.
Daniel was alongside her, as he’d helped with butchering the deer. The others who’d helped had already finished washing up, as the extra hands weren’t all that needed after they’d separated large portions from the carcass.
The reason Daniel had helped was that he had a lot of experience doing that kind of thing before he learned the spells for it. The majority of that experience was with harvesting Monsters since he killed so many of them, but he’d butchered a fair number of normal animals as well for food. Something any adventurer making their way through the wilds would get used to.
Of course, even in those situations, he had access to the cleaning spell. He really wished he could use that right now, but he wasn’t about to blow the reveal so close to it. People were excited now, but they’d be a lot more content once they’d gotten the food in their bellies. Which should be soon as they’d already put some pieces of meat on the fire before butchering the rest.
“At least someone had soap,” Daniel said, flicking the water from his hands. “Can you imagine having to do that, or gutting fish, without being able to actually clean your hands? Would have been much worse.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Evelyn said with a groan. “I’m not sure what I’m gonna do when we run out of soap. And don’t you try to commiserate with me, mister. It’s because of you that I had to go through that.”
Daniel laughed at that. “Well… if that’s how you feel, maybe you should avoid the meat in protest or something.”
Evelyn turned and gave him a mock glare. “Not on your life. I didn’t go through all that to miss out on the first bit of meat in…” She trailed off for a moment before her eyes widened in shock. “Oh my god, it’s only been three days. Why does it feel like we’ve been here for weeks?”
“Well they do say time flies when you're having fun,” Daniel said with a laugh. “So I guess it falls over and dies when you're miserable.”
“Ugh, yeah,” Evelyn said, finishing her washing too and flicking the water off. “That’s probably it…” She trailed off for a moment, lost in thought before she shook her head as if to clear her head. Then she turned and smiled at him. “But at least something good finally happened. Even if it sucks that I had to be the one to butcher it.”
Daniel shrugged. “I mean, I did say I could do it myself if you weren’t comfortable. You’re the one who wanted to do it for the levels and experience. How’d that go by the way?”
“Oh right,” Evelyn said, perking up. “I kinda forgot cause I was so grossed out by all the blood and stuff. Finally leveled up! I’m a level 2 cook now. And ugh… I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think my skill might have given me more info too, or something. Cause like, I got a butchering skill too, which is why I sped up there at the end. But I also feel like I might have gotten more ideas on how to use all the various cuts and stuff from the deer too. It’s kinda hard to explain. Like, even though part of me can’t help but wonder if I’m just figuring it out myself, another part of me has a vague notion that it comes from my skill…. Ugh does that make any sense?”
“Kinda,” Daniel offered, even if it did actually make complete sense to him. Those experienced with it could pick out what the skill was feeding them. They were able to distinguish between their insights and skill-granted knowledge to avoid uncertainty. For someone not expecting it, it would be both confusing and disconcerting. He’d gone through something similar in the past. “Maybe don’t try to think about it too hard? In the end, whether it comes from you or the skill, at least it's useful, right?”
“I guess,” Evelyn said, sighing. Then she wiped what water she couldn’t get off her hands onto her pants and headed back to their makeshift grill by the fire. “Now come on. The meat should be done soon. As the cooks, it’s our job to taste test and make sure they're good.”
Daniel laughed and followed along as the girl grinned at the cooking meat. Despite a bit of melancholy, it seemed that at least Evelyn was managing with their situation okay. And the meat he brought back was definitely helping. Hopefully, it would help everyone else too.