Chapter 15
The next morning, Ezekiel prepared breakfast for everyone which was just scooping the rice porridge that he cooked before called Arroz Caldo. Checking the remaining porridge in the pot, it seemed like it was still good for four more servings for the three of them. He then prepared glasses of milk and water as well. He cast his Prestidigitation spell on the glasses of milk so they would taste like strawberry milk and the glasses of water so they would taste like orange juice and he prepared the multivitamins that he purchased before.
Ezekiel didn’t know if he still needed to feed the three of them the vitamins but since he purchased them already, might as well drink them. When he bought it, he was so worried about their malnourished bodies.
After everything was prepared, he switched out the Fire Bolt spell that was in the 1st level slot with Mage Armor. He planned to cast the spell on all three of them before they left for the forest to hunt some more game animals that they could sell in the market to add to the boar that was still in his 4th tab.
Looking at his 4th tab, Ezekiel was happy with the space that he had since it was now 3 cubic meters.
The boys woke up from the smell of the rice porridge since it was still smoking hot and as fresh as the day Ezekiel made it. Before they started eating, he asked his brothers to drink the vitamins then they devoured the porridge. He must say that he was impressed at himself for cooking such a delicious breakfast meal and possibly the reason was he followed the recipe to the letter and he was stress-free of making a taste mistake since if he did back then, he would just cast his Prestidigitation spell at the dish before eating.
After their meal, he told his brothers that they would leave in an hour for the forest so they better prepare and use the toilet first since it would be hard to poop inside the forest.
Luke suddenly said that he wanted to poop so Ezekiel went to his little brother and removed his clothes and brought him to the outhouse. When the boy was done, he was gobsmacked at the mess the kid made. He was so thankful for his forethought in removing the kid’s clothes and that his Prestidigitation spell was a ranged spell.
He cleaned Luke thoroughly using his spell and cleaned the toilet as well then asked Robert to do his business but to remove his clothes first. After the boy was done, Ezekiel also thoroughly cleaned his brother and his clothes with the spell and cleaned the toilet again then he did his business.
After all of that was done, he cast the Mage Armor spell on himself, waited 2 minutes, cast the spell again on to his brother Robert, and after another 2 minutes, cast Mage Armor again onto Luke. He then switched out the Mage Armor spell with Fire Bolt they proceeded to enter the forest.
Ezekiel was just glad that the Mage Armor spell was invisible. He wondered how the villagers would react if they suddenly entered the village market glowing with the spell. He also thought that the spell would only probably react once they were attacked.
“Did you put magic on us?” Robert asked.
“Yes. The magic will defend you in case of an attack from an animal,” Ezekiel answered.
Inside the forest, he imagined the three of them plowing noisily since they didn’t have any sort of bushcraft ability. There were a lot of tiny animals in the trees like squirrels and he made an effort to look at the surrounding area to see what kind of fruits they would see.
After about an hour's walk, Robert tapped his back and pointed at the two far-off pheasants in the distance. They were already in range of his Fire Bolt spell so he immediately cast two Fire Bolts one after another. Ezekiel was so happy that his spell had a homing ability and both Fire Bolt hit the head of the pheasants and immediately died.
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Ezekiel immediately checked his experience bar and sadly he didn’t earn any experience. Was it because the birds were not aggressive? After he cut off the burnt parts, he immediately stored them in his 4th tab then they continued walking.
While they were walking, Ezekiel also checked out the map once in a while in his system browser to make sure that they wouldn’t get lost. After an hour more, Luke complained that he was thirsty so he retrieved the cold purified water bottle from his inventory and they all drank one glass of water each and immediately stored the bottle to keep it cold.
They kept on walking and soon, they heard the sound of the river. Ezekiel was hesitant to go further since from what he knew, the water source could be very dangerous this deep inside the forest.
He took a view of his list of spells again. Currently, he had 3 Fire Bolts slotted in his cantrip slots and 1 Prestidigitation. Then on the 1st level slot, he slotted a Fire Bolt spell as well so that meant that he could fire 3 Fire Bolts every minute and 1 slightly more Fire Bolt every 2 minutes.
Ezekiel decided to go ahead and check out the river. When they arrived there, the three boys were aghast to see a huge bear hunting for fish in the river. Unfortunately, the bear saw them and they must have looked delicious since the bear abandoned his fish hunting and decided to run towards them.
Ezekiel thought that he would unleash his spells then he would run with his brothers and when the spells were ready again in a minute, would cast them again towards the bear so he did precisely that.
Four Fire Bolts came out of Ezekiel's hands and one of those was slightly more powerful than the other three. Because of the wonderful homing abilities of the spell, all four Fire Bolts hit the bear’s head.
The three brothers were about to run but then Ezekiel saw the bear’s head explode and the huge animal fell. He waited for all of his spells to get out of cooldown and he shot a Fire Bolt again just to make sure. The Fire Bolt hit the bear’s neck since it obviously didn’t have a head anymore and he felt a bit foolish. He gave an internal excuse that maybe the bear had some sort of attack in its death throes so he was just making sure.
They cautiously headed toward the bear and then Ezekiel prodded the huge body with his boots. When the bear’s corpse didn’t react, he stored them in his 4th tab. He was mighty glad that he added a cubic meter to his 4th tab last night and because of that, he was able to store the large animal.
His 4th tab was almost full though so they decided to go home. On the way back, Ezekiel was extra vigilant. He didn’t want to encounter any accident when they were just going home. He was also using the journey to check the surrounding area for possible things that he could use as an excuse to sell things to the market like stumbling on an orchard in the forest and managing to harvest fruits, berries, and nuts.
He was hoping that they wouldn’t encounter any more danger like the bear’s mate or something like that.
Ezekiel wondered about this forest. They had been inside the forest for hours already and he hadn’t seen any magical creatures of any sort like goblins, slimes, sprites, or things like that and thought that there was really a chance that this wasn’t a magical world and maybe he was the only one with magic.
Of course, he wouldn’t stick to that sort of delusion and would prepare himself for anything but imagining the situation wherein he was the only one who had magic was a little bit exciting.
Robert and Luke were already complaining that they were hungry and Ezekiel kept telling them that once they reached home, they would eat a lavish meal.
They reached home without any issues at around 1 in the afternoon. Ezekiel immediately prepared food for them. He decided to eat the beef stew on top of rice followed by a bowl of ice cream and cold water.
After they ate, Ezekiel cast Healing Elixir three times to make sure that they were all healed from any injuries that they might have experienced while walking through the forest like scratches and muscle strain then he cleaned his brothers using his spell and asked them to take a nap. He told his brothers that they would still need to go to the market so they could take a hap for an hour or two.
While waiting for his brothers to wake up, Ezekiel wondered how many coins he would receive from the bear. He knew that it must be valuable. Not only for its meat but also for the intact skin.
He also knew that he would need to create a bigger board that they would use to drag the bear so he started immediately. When he was done, he retrieved the bear and laid it out on the board then Ezekiel realized that it would be impossible for him to move the bear by dragging the corpse using the board that he had made. It was extremely heavy and it would be very suspicious to claim that the three of them dragged the huge bear from the forest to the market.