We were in a dire situation. We had no food and our only source of it was gone as well. One may wonder how most people in the slums got their food, but it was surprisingly simple. The local thug group controlling the slums also controlled the food. You could also say because they controlled the food that they controlled the slums. As long as you did as they wanted, they gave you food.

Now, neither I nor Karen had any intentions of getting involved with those people. They would take what they wanted to take, and that, of course, included all the young girls.

Then where did the thugs get all the food? No idea. There were various rumours from magic over keeping livestock and farming to stealing from merchants or even 'processing' their enemies, but which one was true was completely unknown. For all we knew it could've been all of them.

The only other options for food were either the old men that secretly sold food, or stealing food from others. And with the old men gone, stealing was now the only option left.

But it wasn't that good of an idea either. The inhabitants of the slums were hardy people. They knew exactly that people would try to rob them, so they took precautions. Unless you were experienced with stealing it would be near impossible.

And if you thought that the elderly were a good target, I could assure you, they weren't. I saw a kid getting bashed by an old lady with a walking stick. The few elderly only got so old because they managed to survive for such a long time in the slums. They had the most experience and stealing from them was especially hard. At least, according to Karen.

Even if that weren't the case, I didn't want to steal from the elderly. The prospect of having to steal in the first place was making me uncomfortable already. Of course, I just wanted to live as well, so if it came down to it, I would have to resort to stealing. I made my resolve in regard to that. Nonetheless, I hoped I did not have to. Karen similarly disliked stealing, but she apparently had to do it plenty of times already for her own survival.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see how Karen grabbed the waterskin and drank the remaining water.

"We need new water as well. At least that is one thing we don't have to worry about with the river."

"That's not exactly reassuring, Karen. We still lack food."

Thanks to the river we at least got some water.

The river provides us with water, so that is one thing we do not have to worry about, but that's also all it does. It doesn't fill our bellies.... doesn't it? But...

"Hey, Karen?"

"What is it?"

"Is it possible to catch fish in the river?"

"Fish?"

Karen stared at me and thought for a moment. I didn't know whether there are any fish in the river or if they were even edible, but it may have been worth a try.

"It certainly is possible to catch fish in the river, but most of them aren't edible you know?"

"Are they poisonous?"

"You could say that. There are many monsters among fish and without a magician, you cannot distinguish between them. And their mana crystal is so small you would need really long to find it, so it is quite inefficient."

"Are monsters possibly poisonous?"

"That is right. They are in a way lumps of mana that formed a body. Their body is highly contaminated with mana and normal humans will die of mana poisoning. That is also why most animals do not attack monsters that are weaker than them, they know they would die. Other monsters and a few intelligent beasts like dragons can deal with the mana but most humanoids cannot."

So it's like that. Thank you for all your various explanations, Karen.

But wouldn't that mean I can eat monsters just fine? I can probably also distinguish between monster fish and normal fish. But what should I say when Karen asks why I can do that. Uhhh... It will surely work out.

I thought for a few moments about whether to tell her, but I just gave up. Karen had been helping me a lot and I now had the option to help her myself.

"Karen."

"Yes?"

"Let's go fishing."

"Didn't you just listen to what I said?"

"It will be fine. I can probably distinguish between the fish."

At that, Karen fell silent. It took her nearly half a minute to restart herself.

"Yumi, could it possibly be... You can sense mana?"

"I think so, yes."

"Are you possibly a magician?"

"No? I don't think so. I can only sense mana. I have no knowledge or anything about magic."

"But how can you sense mana then?"

"Well... Uhh... I just can?"

Karen stared at me as if she saw something unbelievable. Was it that uncommon to sense mana? I knew magicians had to learn how to do it, but I was sure others would be able to as well with some training. I shouldn't really comment on it since I was able to do it from the moment I came here, but it didn't really feel like it was so hard.

"Yumi, while it's not completely unheard of you should really keep quiet about that, okay?"

"I only intended to tell you anyway."

There was no way I would tell strangers something that could make them suspect me.

"Good. Being able to sense mana is the most basic requirement to learn magic and if you can do that without even learning it... People would chase you everywhere. If anyone ever asks again, tell them you learnt it from a wandering magician or so. But preferably hide that you can do it in the first place, okay?"

That was actually a good excuse. Magicians were rare but apparently not so rare that you would never see one in your entire life.

"Nn. Will do."

With a sigh, Karen stood up and grabbed our few belongings.

"Then, let us go fishing."

"Nn!"

----------------------------------------

Two hours later we left the slums behind us and strolled towards the river. Close to the river was a big forest that was home to monsters, but according to Karen they rarely left them. That was also the reason why the forest didn't work well as a means of survival. It was plain too dangerous. Most monsters were highly aggressive, attacking any person on sight. In addition to that, their remains were inedible.

It would take us a bit more time till we reached the river. The sun, which was barely visible from within the slums, shone brightly down on us. It was well into the afternoon and there would only be a few more hours until sunset.

"Maybe we should have gone tomorrow?"

"Hmmm... The summer will come soon so the nights are warm now, it shouldn't be a problem even if we sleep one night outside. But with some luck, we won't have to worry about that. I know of a spot at the border of the forest where we can camp out for a while. Nobody goes there anyway and it is really rare for a strong monster to leave the forest. The most you will find are demon rabbits."

Demon rabbits? Were these like those horned rabbits you often saw in stories? The ones that captivated you with their cuteness and then jumped and impaled you? It didn't seem like Karen was really worried about the rabbits, so I was probably just thinking too much.

I shelved the thought and we continued our small journey.

After another half an hour we arrived. The forest was still some ways off though, so we would walk some more to the place where Karen wanted to camp out at. We did fill the waterskin and drank some water though. Once I actually looked for them I also found fish swimming around. I tried to see whether I could distinguish them by their mana, but the mana fluctuated too strongly with all the fish to pinpoint a single one. We had to actually catch some before I could check.

While dreaming about a sumptuous fish buffet for today I suddenly realized something important.

"Karen, how are we even going to catch the fish?"

"You suggested fishing without even thinking about that?" replied Karen, astonished.

I couldn't really defend against that, I completely forgot about it after all.

"Well, it's rather easy. With a spear. We probably won't catch a lot at first since it is pretty hard if you aren't skilled at it."

No way. My sumptuous fish buffet was disappearing.

"How are we going to make the spears? With branches from trees?"

"Exactly. Then we sharpen them with knives. It may take some time, but we should finish before the sun sets. With some luck, we can also already try catching some fish. With the spears, we can also hunt for some animals near the forest. As long as we don't enter the forest itself we should be fine and if you can distinguish fish you can probably also distinguish the animals, right?"

"Nn. That shouldn't be a problem."

This reminded me a bit of how humans hunted in ancient times. Not to mention modern me, but even for this world, it seemed quite primitive. Mind you, we didn't have much of a choice so we had to do it.

Some birds were flying in the sky and chirping and some trees were sparingly standing here and there. Some distance away, a small rodent, looking slightly similar to a squirrel, was running up the tree. The slums had a feel of an abandoned village where only a few humans lived with damaged buildings, dirty streets and the occasional corpse. But here you got untouched nature, something you rarely saw in developed regions on Earth.

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The further we went the more trees came in sight and at one point we couldn't see more than a few meters in front of us with all the trees.

"We shouldn't go any further than this, let us look for a few suitable branches ."

"Nn."

With a nod, I started looking around. Thanks to all the trees it didn't take long to gather some branches. Holding them we walked towards the camping spot.

Said spot wasn't far away, only a bit away from the river and well hidden between the trees. It was a huge rock that was partially collapsed, forming a small cave. It was maybe three meters deep and one and a half meter wide at most, so we had just enough space to sleep with two people.

After taking off her hood Karen sat down on a nearby rock, grabbed a branch and started sharpening it with her knife. Copying her, I sat down and took the knife that was bound to my thigh. Staring at the branch for a moment I tried sharpening it as well.

Five minutes later I was exhausted and my arm hurt. It barely took a minute before I had to stop every few seconds to rest my arm. My respect for ancient humans.

"Why... is this... so... hard..." I stuttered.

"It is not hard, you are just incredibly feeble. How did you even survive before we met..."

I didn't have any problems before because I was living on Earth and was a man with slightly more strength than now. Not that I can tell her that.

In the end, it took me nearly an hour before I managed to finish. My arms hurt like mad and I didn't want to move anymore. Unfortunately, my stomach disagreed with my sentiment and growled, indicating that I was really hungry.

"We still have some time before it goes dark, let us go to the river and try our luck."

"Just... give me one minute... My arm..."

In the time it took me to make even one, Karen finished three, so we now had two spares in case they broke. I caught my breath after another minute and we walked to the river. The river itself was wide, easily fifty or more meters. Karen and I each looked for a spot some distance away from each other.

It was time to finally catch fish!

----------------------------------------

My firm belief in being able to catch fish, it was destroyed disappointingly fast. By the time it became darker I still hadn't caught even one, while Karen actually caught way too many. What was up with this, was Karen actually a superhuman?

"Don't be so down, Yumi. Even if I caught all of these, they aren't worth anything until you check them."

I was being comforted. How deep I had fallen to be comforted by a younger girl because I was so useless. I wanted to cry a bit. But giving up wasn't an option. Soon I would be able to catch fish as well!

Moving on, I went to Karen's pile of fish. Taking one of the fish I started inspecting it. Indeed, there was residual mana contained in the fish, and there was something akin to a core inside.

"I think this one is a monster, it seems there's a mana crystal inside."

"Huh, where is it? I wanna cut it out and see it."

Seems I wasn't trustworthy enough and she wanted to check it.

"Ah! It is not that I don't believe you, Yumi, I am sure what you are saying is right. I just wanted to see the mana crystal!"

Again, I was being comforted. Today just wasn't my day.

I told her where it was and Karen took a knife to cut up the fish. Considering the fish were all impaled by a spear already, it was quite the bloody affair, but after she clumsily cut it up, it looked nothing short of grotesque. It took a few minutes but finally, Karen held up a tiny stone, about the size of the nail of my thumb. The mana crystal.

"Huh, so that's what they look like."

"Is this your first time seeing one, Yumi?"

"Yes, I never saw one before."

"Here, you can take a look at it."

She handed me the small crystal and then gathered a few twigs to prepare a campfire. The crystal was brownish and looked more like a rough stone, but you could clearly see the glossy surface. Somehow I felt the urge to...

Chomp!

"Huh, Yumi? YUMI? Spit that out! Immediately spit that out!"

Gulp!

"YUMIIIIIII!"

Karen, who was panicking when she saw me swallowing the mana crystal, ran towards me and started shaking me like there was no tomorrow.

Stop shaking me this hard, it's making me feel ill.

"Spit! It! Ouuuuuuutt!!!!!!"

Karen, veritably screaming now, suddenly pulled my legs and held me up by them, shaking me even more. You definitely were superhuman, right?

"Ka-... Karen...! Stop... shaking me... Burp!"

Heads down, today was the second time in this world, that I unwillingly emptied my stomach.

----------------------------------------

You are surprisingly merciless, aren't you?

The remains of my stomach content were thoroughly searched by Karen while I was lying limp on the ground. I didn't even have the strength to explain anything to Karen right now. After all, how to explain that in the first place was quite a troublesome issue and I could already imagine the scolding she would give me. But she was really worried and still completely panicking, so I forced myself to sit up.

"Karen... I'm fine, really."

"There's no way you are fine, you aren't a monster, right? Just give me a moment, I will save you!"

She wasn't listening. Did monsters commonly eat mana crystals though? I didn't know about that.

"Karen, I can eat those just fine, I can probably also deal with eating monster meat. So stop panicking, I beg you."

Finally stopping in her tracks Karen turned towards me.

"What do you mean by that? Not even a manakin should be able to eat untreated monster meat usually."

What the hell was a manakin now, another thing she took for common knowledge that I didn't know about? I'd have to ask for another explanation later, but for now, let's think of an excuse.

"It's uh... something like the constitution of my body?"

"Is that also why you can sense mana?"

"Nn... it is."

"Hmmm..."

Suspicious eyes were directed towards me. She didn't believe me one bit, I was sure of it.

"You really are just like a monster."

I stiffened in response.

Should I tell her? No, I can't. I shouldn't.

"Ahahahaha... No way."

Please, don't ask.

"Hmmm... If you say so."

She definitely was suspicious now, but it was unavoidable. She was my saviour, she helped me out and took care of me. But that was under the assumption I was a person. I couldn't predict how she might react.

In the previous world, I often read various stories or watched movies. Games with good storytelling were also great. And it wasn't rare that a monster was immediately cut down without any questions asked, under the pretence of 'having pretended to be human'. I didn't want to end up like that, I really didn't.

"Let me tell you one thing, Yumi. If you think you can hide it like that, you sure are doing a bad job at it."

Karen, clearly exasperated, sighed and held her head. The me, that stiffened up again, could only stare at her. She knew already, but how... I was sure I hid it.

"Since you seem confused, let me explain it to you. First, sensing mana is a closely guarded secret of the magicians, it certainly isn't unheard of for people to happen upon it, but it is incredibly rare. The only ones who can instinctively sense mana are monsters and intelligent beasts.

"The second reason is that you even attempted to eat a mana crystal. Even a little child knows that a stone is inedible, also most non-magicians feel a certain aversion towards mana crystals. Even if it was weak, I am sure most wouldn't think of such a stupid idea. But some monsters are known to consume mana crystals for their own growth.

"And the third reason is that you said you could eat monster meat. I already explained it to you earlier but that is not something you can just eat without issue. Only when you remove the mana contained within can you eat it, and that requires a skilled magician. You said yourself you have no knowledge of magic."

She pointed out quite a bit, but none of these was really conclusive, weren't they?

I voiced my thoughts, trying to convince her, but, alas, it was useless.

"There's more, the actually important ones come now. Did you ever bother checking your feet?"

What did my feet have to do with this? I pulled up the robe a bit and checked my feet. I didn't know much about children's feet but they looked normal to me. Cute, smooth and small.

"I don't see anything wrong with them?"

"That's exactly what is wrong!"

"Huh?"

"Yumi, you walked around an entire week without shoes, yet there is not a single wound on them. Even your sole looks and feels completely smooth, like the skin of a baby."

"Even if you tell me that, I don't know why either? Actually, how do you know how they feel?"

"I touched them while you were sleeping. They were adorable, so I played with them for a while."

"Pervert. Lecher. Pedo!"

"I'm not a pedo!"

Surprised at Karen suddenly shouting, I fell on my back. Since I was already sitting, it wasn't a problem, but that was really out of the blue.

She actually didn't deny being a pervert and lecher, did she?

"In any case, your wounds and everything, they are healing absurdly fast. The only humanoids able to regenerate that fast are supposedly the devilkin. Did you never notice?"

They did? I really never noticed. Whenever I stepped on a stone I always thought that I was lucky that I didn't get a cut, but was it possible that they just healed immediately? I'd have to check that sometime.

"And the last reason and most important reason, the mana crystal is gone."

"Gone?"

"You didn't throw it up."

I hoped that Karen didn't make me throw up just to verify this now.

"I was really worried, but you... You probably absorbed it, didn't you?"

"Absorbed?"

"Did you just eat it without thinking?"

At this point, it didn't matter anyway anymore. It was probably better to just be honest now.

"I just felt the urge to. I don't know why I did it."

"The urge... What would you have done if it hadn't worked out? You idiot!"

Karen sighed again. She was sighing a real lot. I vaguely remember a saying on earth that sighing decreases your happiness. I should pray that Karen's happiness would come back.

"So, Yumi, are you... a monster? I don't think there's any other explanation left, is there?"

She was right, of course. I never thought my carelessness would expose it this quickly. I guess Karen had her suspicions for some time longer already.

"Nn, I am. At least I think so since I also have a mana crystal."

I guess all my worries were useless. Give me back all the time I spent uselessly worrying!

"But how did you even think of the possibility, Karen? Wouldn't someone usually think I'm just weird?"

"True, most people would think that, but..."

She looked to the ground, where the butchered fish was still lying. The sun was closing in on the horizon. We would have only a bit more time until it was dark. We completely wasted the remaining sunlight we had, didn't we?

Seemingly having come to a decision, Karen looked up again and stared into my eyes.

"Yumi, before I tell you that, you need to decide on something."

"Decide?"

"Yes. There is... a certain problem... a certain someone I have to save. I want you to help me. But what I will tell you then... it may upset you, no, I am sure it will upset you. And it is dangerous... and..."

Karen looked back to the ground, seemingly apologetic.

"Okay, I'll help you."

"Eh?"

Karen's eyes went wide when she lifted her face.

"I said I'll help you."

"But..."

"Even if you tell me it is dangerous, I don't know the danger. And if you didn't pick me up, I'd be dead already anyway. Dead or worse."

I wanted to repay her, and if I could do that, even if it might be a tad dangerous, I wanted to do it.

Not to mention...

"Aren't we friends? You already know, I'm not human, but you still asked me for help. Did you do that because I'm a stranger to you? Or did you do that because I'm your friend?"

"... You are quite horrible, aren't you..."

"I don't know whether I'm horrible, but at the very least I'm your ally."

Karen leaned back and looked at the darkening sky.

"I understand. Then let me ask again. Yumi, will you help me save my little sister?"

"Nn!"