Chapter 4:

Daniel still had some time before he needed to get back to camp. The only one who’d really notice that he was gone was Nathan, and he could be a bit absentminded at times. Despite all the potential worries, everyone back at camp was still pretty relaxed about things. Heck, they were probably more relaxed now than they would be for a long time.

While it hadn’t even been a day since they were all summoned here, enough time had passed for the initial panic to disappear. Without any extra issues, and with it seeming like they’d be able to meet their basic needs, it only made sense that they would be far less on guard and on top of things. Especially since none of the gathering teams ran into Monsters or even any dangerous animals.

Well, aside from Daniel.

It really was a strange twist of luck that whatever burst of mana the summoning released had managed to chase away the dangers in the area. At least temporarily. But then again, considering that same mana burst was probably what alerted Count Caminius to their location, it wasn’t all good fortune. Then there were also the goblins. Both the group that attacked him, as well as the group that might be coming tonight.

Which, now that he thought about it, was rather strange. Caminus he could understand, but why had the goblins not been scared off?

Something to ponder…

Regardless, until the scouting parties returned with their stories of what they encountered, people would be much more relaxed and he’d be fine for the moment.

So instead of heading straight back, he detoured a bit so the scouting team wouldn’t accidentally run into him, before making his way back at a leisurely pace. Along the way, he continued to forage for any useful magical materials, as well as practiced his spells.

Hopefully, he’d reach level 5 before he got back. Which was a rather unique expectation, considering it had been only a couple of hours since he gained the Mage class.

Even for a low-level Mage, this would normally take a lot more time than Daniel was putting in. But despite his much weaker control and mana pool, he just simply knew a lot of spells to cast. He didn’t have to painstakingly learn each spell as a beginner would. Instead, he was simply relearning how to cast them with his much more diminished capabilities.

While the system rewarded struggles and effort, it also rewarded mastery, understanding, and skill. To natives of this world, this becomes the most apparent when the talented are able to level faster with less effort. That was further confirmed by the people summoned from Earth. Their experience and knowledge, combined with their lack of any Classes, would result in them leveling far faster than a native of this world for a time.

And of course, it was the most apparent with Daniel. He had all the experience and knowledge of a high-level Mage but didn’t have any of the skills or levels. Combined with the nature of how Mages could improve, and he would be leveling at startling speeds for quite some time. It was only the fact that the system needed him to demonstrate his knowledge and competency that kept him from just regaining everything he’d lost.

Which was probably for the best. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to shift the focus of his classes and would be stuck where he had been before. Then again… it would have also given him 9 years to increase his strength without starting over again…

Well, that wasn’t possible, so there was no point in thinking about it.

Eventually, he got close enough to their camp that he saw signs of other people passing through. He backtracked just a little bit, cast Shadow Blend again, and hid in the undergrowth before setting up another ritual.

It was for a scrying spell again, but this one was more mana-intensive and complex in some ways. The larger wolf mana crystals should be enough to power it, and his control was still getting better as he leveled and practiced. He also wasn’t as rushed as before, so he had the time to set it up properly.

He flattened the forest floor again with a Minor Earth Manipulation, then drew out a much more complex diagram. There were two circles in this diagram to place objects, but he only put the Monster core in the first one and left the other alone for now.

Then he cast the spell, Detect Creatures, and information started to fill his mind as the mana waves sent out bounced back. It started with the things near him, but eventually would reach out to over a dozen miles. It also didn’t just give him information about everything found in the area covered, as that would have been far too much for his mind at his level and without skills. Instead, it gave him a rough grasp of the location of all living things above a certain amount of mana in the area.

The large-ish cluster of relatively weak mana signatures to the south of him was definitely the camp. While this scrying spell didn’t give too much information, he could still get a rough feeling for their mana and could tell they were human. Or at least, people. Beyond that, he felt the various larger animals that made the forest home.

Perhaps being less sensitive to mana, they hadn’t been chased away as far as the Monsters.

Then, as the spell reached further and further, he started to feel the Monsters. Their chaotic and uncontrolled mana was very distinctive. Thankfully none were close to any of the groups of humans. The scouting party he saved was still making their way back from the north, and Joseph’s one, coming from much further to the east, probably encountered their Monster already as it didn’t seem like there were any headed in their direction.

Joseph’s group was also still intact with five people, so it looked like they still managed to take care of the Monster bear that had attacked them. He expected it, but it was good to confirm. And thinking about it a little more, he shouldn’t have waited so long to check that. He should have rushed back and cast this scrying spell to check.

Because given what he was gonna do, and what he’d already done, relying on his future information too much would be a bad idea.

There’s no telling what even minor changes could do to the course of events, and he was gonna make a lot more than minor changes. And while some things he knew would happen for certain since they’d been set in motion long ago. Whether or not someone who ran into trouble would survive or not, was far harder to predict.

Relying on Joseph’s group to survive like they had the first time wasn’t great, but he didn’t really have much of a choice given the fact that the other group he knew would have died. But not rushing to check on them after was a bad move. He’d need to be better about this.

While he couldn’t protect these people forever, not from everything that this world had to throw at them, he could at least protect them as best as he could now, while they were at their most vulnerable.

Self-incrimination finished, Daniel pulled the goblin ear he’d kept from earlier and placed it into the other open circle in his ritual. Then he altered the spell to only show him the human mana signatures, as well as any with signatures that matched the mana still in the ear.

That let him know the rough locations of all the goblins in a 12-mile radius. Which was very important, considering that originally, the goblins had attacked their camp on the first night. Something that may or may not still happen, considering he’d killed all the goblins that had run into him this time. He’d thought that perhaps the reason the goblins found them the first time around had been because those goblins had brought word back.

But as he saw the group of goblin signatures to the south in his mind moving slowly towards them, he realized that he’d been too optimistic. There were about twenty of them, and at the rate they were moving, they’d reach the camp sometime after nightfall. Just like last time. So it seemed he’d have to deal with them.

Which meant he really needed to reach the next level as a mage. And he should probably stop wasting his Monster crystal’s mana with scrying. Still, he needed to check one more thing, just in case.

Quickly, he swapped the goblin ear for the wolf ear he’d harvested and soon could sense any wolf Monsters around as well. Thankfully, there were only a couple more in his range, and none of them seemed to be moving towards them. They were also quite a ways away, so whatever sense they might have used to track down the scouting group wouldn’t draw them this way.

At least for now. Daniel did recall some Monster wolves attacking the camp at one point. Though perhaps they were the ones that killed the scouting group, and thus weren’t a problem anymore.

With that checked, Daniel stopped the scrying ritual and tucked away his materials. He’d have to keep a hold of the Monster parts for now, to make his scrying more accurate. It was a good thing he knew a preservation cantrip, or it would be a lot more disgusting.

With that done, and still some time left, Daniel started casting more spells again. His slightly grown reservoir of mana helped a bit, even if it didn’t grow that much. The additional levels had helped, but until he got the skill for increasing his mana pool, it wouldn’t help enough to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, it would be enough for him to reach level 5. While 20 E-Rank goblins weren’t beyond him right now, especially with time to prepare and a nice big forest to hide in, it was always better to go into a fight prepared.

—

“Oh hey, Daniel. There you are. Ugh, guess we got separated, right? Ha.”

As Daniel entered the clearing, holding a load of firewood to avoid suspicion, he was stopped by someone he hadn’t expected and thought he’d need to track down. Jack, part of the couple who’d ditched him, looked sheepish as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Um, yeah,” Daniel said, still a bit surprised Jack had even noticed. “You two kinda wandered off without saying anything. We were just going in one direction, after all, and suddenly I couldn’t find either of you.”

Jack winced. “Ugh. Yeah. Sorry. Amy was just kinda stressed and I needed to… help her de-stress…”

Daniel raised one eyebrow and tried to keep the amusement off of his face. “Understandable. Though I’d appreciate being told next time, just so I know I didn’t have anyone watching my back out there. Never know what might be out in this forest.”

“Yeah… Sorry again. Don’t worry. Won’t happen again.”

“It’s fine,” Daniel said, though he couldn’t help but ask something. “Though to be honest, I’m surprised you noticed and are apologizing. You two seemed kinda distracted. Part of me wondered if you had actually just forgotten I was there.”

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“Oh, umm….” Jack said, wincing and shrugging. “Um, you know that chick. Like Sapphire. The really hot one who's been organizing stuff? She noticed we came back without you, and when we realized what happened, she kinda chewed us out.“

“Huh…” Was all Daniel said, as he looked around for the woman in question. He saw her directing and helping people as they set up one of the last few lean-toos they were building.

Sapphire was always a very composed and competent person. One of the best leaders in their group, and had managed to reach a high enough level in 10 years to matter in the final battle. Guess it shouldn’t be that surprising that if anyone noticed one of the people they’d only met today was missing, it would be her.

“Well, it’s fine. Just try not to forget about the people around you next time, and just give whoever you're with a heads up or something.”

“Yeah, will do man,” Jack said, smiling sheepishly before wandering off.

Daniel nodded at him, heading over to where people were stacking the firewood. As he placed his things down, he couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between one of the girls cooking some fish and the guy beside her staring at her hands as she worked.

Both seemed vaguely familiar. More than just being people he already saw or met in the original timeline. Meaning they had left some kind of impression on him, but he couldn’t quite remember why or their names.

“Still can’t believe you decided to take the cooking class. That’s so lame. And what if you can’t get a combat class now?”

The guy was a young man, probably around Daniel’s body’s age, with curly black hair and glasses. His name… Daniel thought it started with a J, and he remembered the guy and a couple of others had been trying to spar with spears to get a fighting class.

The girl was a stocky girl with light brown hair and freckles on her face. She rolled her eyes as she turned the fish before taking it off the fire and putting it aside. Around the fire were several makeshift bowls made out of large carved stones where water was boiling. “Then the rest of you will have to protect me. After all, everyone loves food, and maybe if I level it high enough, I’ll make super delicious food despite working with a campfire and no salt or spices. Besides, if things really are like a video game, maybe I’ll be able to make magic food that gives buffs or something.”

Daniel paused for a moment as he let her words wash over him and thought. Her voice finally seemed to jog his memory and a name came to him. Evelyn. And the other guy was Jeff so Evelyn and Jeff…

Right. The memories came back to him quickly. They hadn’t been at the final battle and he left what remained of their summoning group after escaping from Tarnith, so he’d kinda forgotten them. But they’d been part of their twenty that eventually reached safety in Auraxas. Before that though, they’d been part of the group that had been enslaved by the mountain tribes who had thought they were from Tarnith.

By the time Daniel and the rest had met with them again, they’d managed to get at least some of their surviving members freed from slavery and joined up with the rest of them after they made deals with the Tribes against Tarnith.

They’d been pretty instrumental then, but nine years was a long time, especially for an adventurer, and he’d all but completely forgotten them.

“Maybe,” the guy said, frowning. “Though it doesn’t really look like your skill is doing anything. It just looks like you're cooking.”

“That’s probably cause the skill is called Basic Cooking, Jeff. What can you expect?“ The girl said, exasperatedly. Then she picked up some herbs and shook them around. “And it does more than that too. I just know in my head these herbs are fine, and the other fruits, and some of those mushrooms too. You’ll see once Clark’s tests are done. Then maybe you’ll stop whining about it. Being able to tell what foods are edible is a great power.”

“I guess…”

Daniel stopped listening after he finished piling the firewood and walked away, looking around. Considering Sapphire's unexpected perceptiveness, and the potential of more like her, he probably shouldn’t try to sneak off again until nighttime. And now that his mind was more centered and he had an idea of what he was going to do, he wanted to find Nathan.

A long time ago, before all the chaos and death that was this world, he’d been Daniel’s best friend. They’d met in elementary school and had been friends all the way to college. Then they were summoned and everything went wrong. Quite some time after his death, Daniel still wondered if there was something he could have done, even though he knew how stupid that was.

Despite his absurd luck in surviving the goblin ambush his first time, he had just been too weak to change anything back then. Not this time though.

After only a moment of looking around, Daniel managed to find Nathan. Despite, from his perspective, it being a long time since he’d seen his friend, he’d recognize that tacky hoody with the Chinese characters for “Random Words” on it anywhere. It would have been funny and clever had his friend actually known what it had said.

Though it wasn’t like Daniel had known back then anyway. Without the Gift of Languages translating for him, he didn’t know how to read Chinese, despite being half Chinese and knowing how to speak it. He’d only realized once his dad had laughed and explained after seeing Nathan around the house.

“Hey Nathan,” Daniel said, getting the other man's attention. As Nathan turned around, though, Daniel noticed who he had been talking to.

A rather familiar girl, with light brown hair and emerald eyes. He’d seen her around at the final battle before it began in the back lines with the rest of the healers. He’d felt a little awkward then, and still felt that way right now. He’d thought they’d been friends once, hoped for more back then actually.

But, well… He’d been pretty bad with women back then. Not that he was amazing now, but he was a lot better. And he’d realize that he probably mostly made her uncomfortable with his crush on her and not being able to take a hint. Also by not being nearly as subtle as he thought.

“Elizabeth,” Daniel said, nodding and getting a tired nod in return, before he turned to Nathan. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Nathan said, sounding incredulous, before closing the distance and shaking Daniel. “Where the hell have you been? I noticed you missing an hour ago, and then I heard that the two you were with said that they’d lost you. I was gonna start trying to form a search party, man.”

Daniel winced a bit at that. He’d hoped that Nathan wouldn’t have noticed, since he was probably the only one who knew him and would be paying attention to him. Still, it wasn’t that bad, if Nathan only thought he’d been gone for an hour.

“Sorry. Those two kinda ditched me, but then I thought I’d just clear my head in the forest. It’s not like it’s easy to get lost out there as long as you aren’t dumb. We left a pretty good trail. And I guess I just kinda lost track of time.”

Nathan let out a long sigh and hung his head. “Whatever man. Just don’t do it again. Like, we still have no idea what’s going on. And we should stick together with the people we know at least, right?” He turned and looked at Elizabeth, who’d been standing there awkwardly. “Right Liz? We should stick together, right?”

“Um sure,” She said, her eyes briefly flashing towards Daniel before looking away. He pretended not to notice. Then she looked to the side, where Clark and a couple of other guys were cutting some firewood with rocks. A couple of them had their shirts off, or were at least only in undershirts.“Though it’s not like the other people around here are bad. They seem pretty nice to me.”

Nathan turned to look and snorted. “Yeah. I’m sure you base that completely off of your powerful intuition on their personalities.”

Elizabeth looked embarrassed, then looked at Daniel as if gauging his reaction, before shrugging. He had to sigh internally as he continued to ignore the looks. She was expecting him to be jealous or annoyed, which was fair, as that was what the him of ten years ago would have done. That would have mostly come out in the form of sulking, but he’d no doubt been way more obvious about it than he’d thought back then.

Daniel was pretty sure Nathan tried to talk to him about it before, but he’d probably assumed Nathan was exaggerating because they’d known each other for so long, so it was only obvious to him.

Goddess, he was a bit of a dumbass back then.

“I’m fine with sticking together,” Daniel said, looking back at Nathan, and avoiding looking at Elizabeth. “But most of the people here seem fine too. I doubt we need to worry too much about them. However, if you team up with Jack and Amy in the future, just keep an eye out. Or else they might sneak off for some alone time and leave you alone. They said they were sorry and wouldn’t do it in the future, but best to be safe.”

Part of Daniel wanted to warn them about the scum in their midst, but he’d have no proof and only Nathan would take his side, even if he’d be dubious about it. Besides, even after the bastard had been caught attacking his second victim, the people here hadn’t had it in them to execute him as they should have. No, best he just eliminated that problem when no one was looking and prevent any future harm.

Nathan sighed and shook his head. “How the hell can anyone think of doing that at a time like this? In the woods no less.”

“People deal with stress in different ways,” Daniel said with a shrug, before looking off to the side.

It looked like Joseph’s scouting team was back. And judging by the blood stains on the side of one of their heads, it had gone about the same as it originally had. Part of him regretted not doing anything about that, but they should be fine. The injured guy healed fine the first time around, without any magical healing. And maybe to assuage any guilt he might have, and just in case a trick of fate changed things, he’d do some basic healing magic on the guy in his sleep later.

—

It was an hour or more after Joseph’s team got back. That had prompted a lot of worried discussions and questions and only got worse after the other scout team came back as well. While they hadn’t been attacked, they had heard explosions and found some remains of some large wolves with odd injuries. Like one of them had an exploded head.

What could have possibly caused that? Everyone wondered. Except for Daniel of course.

Though despite all the discussions and worry from some, most seemed to want to believe that it was just animals. Their main worry had been about the explosions and it being possibly whoever brought them here. But even then, that only prompted everyone to agree that there should be a night watch with a staggered sleep schedule. And not a particularly large one either, with only four people at a time.

The only other thing of note was that one of the guys on Joseph’s team, who had had a gun on him and had been the one to drive off the bear, had gotten the gunslinger class, which he had accepted. The young man had seemed rather happy about that, until it was pointed out by someone else that if he couldn’t find more ammo later than his class might end up useless.

That had put a damper on the man spirit, until Joseph berated people for believing the other world part of the system's welcome message. Then he had convinced the newly christened gunslinger that since the system gave him the class, and the people that brought us here let him have his gun, it would probably be fine.

Daniel, of course, held his tongue. Once the guy was out of ammo, it would be a bit useless, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It was possible to have a class removed at one of the churches to any major god, and even then the guy didn’t necessarily have to do that. They weren’t the only people summoned from Earth, as the summoning had been staggered time-wise for the various summoning locations for some reason Daniel still didn’t understand.

There were plenty of other people from Earth running around, and guns and other technological ideas would slowly spread out through the world. Faster in some places than others of course, especially in the Dwarven Crossroads. So he’d probably eventually be able to make use of his gunslinger class, though with a much different kind of gun than he was used to.

After that little discussion, the camp had a dinner consisting of just roasted fish and some snacks people had on them when they were summoned. The rest of the food was still being tested carefully by volunteers. Testing it on their skin, then their lips, then mouths, before eating a little bit of it and seeing if there were any reactions. Thankfully, they hadn’t started to test too many things before that one girl got her cooking skill, and managed to get them to not bother testing several of the poisonous foods.

Daniel spent the dinner just hanging out with Nathan and a couple of other people Nathan had befriended while fishing. Daniel hadn’t talked too much, as he’d never been the best with strangers, and it was strangely easy to fall into old patterns. He’d let Nathan do most of the talking with their new acquaintances, while occasionally he’d be sure to include Daniel into the conversation, knowing his introverted friend was not the best with new people.

It was nice, in its own way. But Daniel knew it couldn’t last. While he couldn’t talk to others about his ability with magic, and definitely couldn’t explain the time travel until he’d reached one of the grand temples of the Church of Light, which was very far away, he’d probably have to reveal some things to Nathan soon.

Nathan trusted him enough to not push him on how he knew what he knew. And with Nathan in the know, it would be easier to keep his friend safe. If only that was the case for the rest of the people here. But that was life, and it wasn’t like he didn’t already have a bunch of plans for helping everyone else without exposing himself.

Which was why, after dinner, and once he noticed Clark moving off from one group, he intercepted the other man for a quick talk.

“Hey, Clark right? I’m Daniel. Can we talk for a second?”