At some point, Jack stumbled across the dragonfly-thing he’d encountered a few hours before. It lay on the ground, and upon seeing it, Jack tensed. At first, he thought that the creature was resting and might take off from the ground as soon as it noticed him. However, a closer inspection revealed the creature to be severely wounded. A huge chunk of flesh had been torn out of its body. The nasty wound was bleeding profusely, soaking the ground beneath it. Some of its wings were gone too. There was no way to tell for sure whether it was the creature that had been chasing him or not, but his gut feeling was telling him that it was the same creature. It had a saddle secured on its back, but the rider who had fired their magical staff at him was nowhere to be seen.
Jack looked around one more time to make sure the stranger wasn’t hiding somewhere nearby, waiting for the right moment to jump him. They weren’t around, though. Jack had no idea where the trigger-happy stranger was, but they clearly weren’t anywhere in the immediate vicinity. They might have been killed by the enormous winged monster that had attacked the dragonfly-like creature. Or maybe they’d slid from the saddle and fallen to their death on the ground when their riding dragonfly had been trying to get away from the winged predator.
Jack realized that the creature was still alive when it suddenly let out a tormented sigh. It slightly turned its head to look at Jack with its huge faceted eyes, but other than that, it didn’t move at all. The dragonfly-thing was in severe pain and could hardly move. Jack felt bad for the strange-looking creature.
As he walked closer to it, he spotted a pouch on either side of the animal. He checked his surroundings one more time to make sure he wasn’t about to be jumped by someone or something and walked to one of the pouches. He undid the flap and looked inside. There were some crafting materials he had no use for. Since the stranger had been carrying them, those materials must have had some value, but Jack had no idea what he could do with them, so he left them alone. He walked around the large animal’s body and examined the contents of the pouch on the other side of the dragonfly-thing. This time, he found something more useful.
Inside lay several vials and small bottles containing liquid of red and blue colors. It was health and mana potions. Some of the bottles were the same size as the two weak potions he’d found in the cave he’d awoken in, and some of the others were somewhat bigger. Jack read the descriptions of the latter and learned that they were average health and mana potions. There were also a couple of small water bottles, one of the two half-empty, and lean strips of dried meat in a small paper bag. Upon seeing the food, Jack suddenly realized how hungry he was. Since he couldn’t remember anything before waking up in this world, he had no idea when was the last time he’d eaten.
Feeling like a thief, he grabbed the paper bag with meat and put it into one of his jacket pockets. He shoved the full water bottle into the same pocket, filling it up completely now. Just like the crafting materials in the other pouch, the mana potions were of no use to him because he didn’t know any magic spells yet, but he packed the rest of his pockets with as many health potions as they could carry. When he took a few steps away from the dragonfly creature, he realized it had succumbed to its wounds and died. He felt bad for the creature once again.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” he said.
In the saddlebags were some crafting materials and mana potions, but Jack couldn’t carry any more stuff on him, because all his pockets were already crammed with various things. As to the pouches themselves, they were attached to the saddle and couldn’t be detached from it. Carrying the pouches attached to the saddle in his hands would have been too troublesome, so Jack left them alone. Hopefully, he would be able to find a normal bag or a backpack soon enough.
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He walked away. Now that he’d found some food, he couldn’t think about anything else. He picked a spot at a gigantic tree and sat on the hard earth, leaning his back against the tree trunk. He took the paper bag out of his pocket and picked one of the strips of dehydrated meat. He took a small bite and chewed it. It tasted like beef jerky. Since he was ravenous, it seemed the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten for him at the moment. He finished off the strip of dried meat, washing it down with water, and immediately took another one from the paper bag.
While he ate, he pulled up the Store to examine it with more attention than he had before. After a few minutes of looking, he learned that there were no weapons, armor, tools, clothes, or anything like that in the Store. Most of the things were either crafting materials or consumables like various potions. Then he noticed that there were also some buildings for sale, but they were extremely expensive. The cheapest and the smallest cost a whopping ten thousand gold. As for Jack, he had only eight hundred gold for now.
There was also some food for sale, and Jack couldn’t help but wonder if the stranger had bought the jerky from the Store or cooked it themselves. It most likely depended on how long they had been in this world. Considering they had known how to tame and ride an enormous dragonfly-like creature and had been armed with a powerful magical staff, the stranger had most likely lived in this world for quite a long time.
Jack himself didn’t know where or how to get food yet, so the next time he got hungry, he would simply purchase some food from the Store. But he would have to figure out where to get food on his own because the Store wouldn’t be around for long. It would disappear in just nine days.
His encounter with the dragonfly rider had taught Jack one important lesson: he shouldn’t trust strangers in this place. Just because there were other people in this world didn’t necessarily mean they were friendly. Whoever he might run across next time could pose a threat to him, so he should be on his guard when he encountered not only new creatures but other people as well.
After eating all the meat and drinking the water, Jack turned off the Store. As he stood up from the ground, he realized it was now even darker in the forest than it’d been a few minutes before. While he was looking over the goods sold in the Store, night had begun to fall.
After another half an hour of wandering around, Jack came across two huge roots of a gigantic tree. They formed an enclosed space large enough to accommodate his body. Between them remained a long break wide enough for him to squirm through if he wanted to. He reached his hands inside. The ground there was hard but dry. It seemed kind of comfy in there, and Jack didn’t want to spend the night sleeping in the open. The alien forest was full of dangers, and who knew what kind of predators lurked at night.
So he wandered around for some time, gathering large fallen leaves and piling them in the compartment formed by the two roots. After he put enough leaves into his future hiding spot, he spread them all over the bottom, forming some kind of bedding. By the time he finished, it had become very dark in the forest.
He put his sword in there and then squirmed through the two roots inside himself, rolling over and lying on the soft layer of dry leaves. Only when he was lying comfortably on his back did he realize how tired he felt. For a few seconds, he just peered through the crack between the two roots at the canopy of the forest, which was so high above it was barely visible in the dark. Before falling asleep, he planned to go through the Store one more time. The list of items for sale was pretty long, and he hadn’t examined them all yet. He also wanted to check his stats to learn more about it. There still was a lot of what he didn’t know about the system and how it worked. However, when he closed his eyes for a second, he immediately fell asleep.
Only nocturnal predators didn’t let him rest for long.