“It would have been a sight to behold if this place had the concept of electricity.”, said a lone human bird reminiscing about his former world.
The lone human stood at a height of more than a thousand feet above the ground under the watchfulness of three moons.
“Now this is surely something else.”
The three moons, two almost full and the last a little less than half, took away the breath of the man who could probably control it better than anyone else on the planet.
The human stood still for a few moments, charmed by the exquisite sight, coming all the more to terms with the undeniability that this was indeed a different world.
*chill*
*It's a little cold though."
With the chill breaking him out of his stupor, he looked down to where he had spent his initial days of coming to this world. It was yet uncertain whether this was the end of his days here, for he wasn't sure if he would be able to find another colonization. It was a gamble. In the end, that's exactly what it was.
After he had gotten better accustomed to his power, he tried to get a sense to the extent of the village. Since he had never been able to leave the house, he wasn't sure. Should it be too big for his current abilities to decipher, he would leave it be, but a hunch told him that wouldn't be the case. And right on the mark, it was indeed quite small. He estimated the population between 100 to 200. And considering the kind of stable and well-built houses they were living in, he concluded that the wolf-people must trade with some other tribes or bigger nations, inclining his expectations to the latter. And though his deductions were based on his Earthly knowledge, he didn't really have a choice in the matter; he couldn't just sit still and pretend to be a helpless stranded little piece of human forever.
He decided to do this in the night after having gotten a decent idea of the family's routine. They would sleep late and wake up early, at least the older members of the family. He estimated his time frame of escapade less than 6 hours, till dawn. If he found some sort of living nation and it seemed feasible for him to stay there undetected for a couple of days, he would take the chance. Otherwise, he would return to this house before sunrise.
Another reason for choosing to do this in the night was why he was currently grinning from ear to ear.
“This place might be an exception because of their nocturnal vision, but if there’s one thing living beings are scared of, it’s darkness.”, And just like a moth attracted to a flame, Satoshi started his migration towards the distant source of light.
Since he was still new to this whole flying thing, he stumbled more than a few times and went at an average man's walking pace. But steadily, over the course of an hour, he started to pick up speed, moving at the pace of fast running. He also made sure to practice applying breaks from time to time.
Around the time he judged 3 hours to have passed since his departure, he stopped and looked back towards the place where the family of five lived.
“I have two simple options; continue or go back. If I go back now, I’m sure I can make it in time so that they don’t find out a thing. It’s a safer choice, but I doubt I’ll be able to avoid another questioning session so easily.”
He looked to the front towards the light.
“There are no guarantees if I go this way. That place could be better or worse. One thing for sure is; I will be on my own in an unknown and possibly dangerous territory."
He recalled the faces of Smirnie and the little girl.
"Either way, I will definitely come back someday to thank that family. Hopefully once I can speak this world’s language.”
He spent a few minutes into consideration.
“The biggest issue is food.”
He would’ve ‘borrowed’ some food from the family if he could’ve, but taking into account the respective abilities of the two parties in consideration, there was no way he could do it undetected.
“There’s no guarantee that it will be any different no matter how long I wait. In fact, it’s all the riskier the longer I stay there.”
He looked back once again.
“It's decided then.”
And decided to not look back again.
He continued flying through the night on his lonesome. To stave off the boredom, he did the most effective time pass invented by mankind: blabbering.
“Though I feel like I can travel all the way there without tiring, I don’t think I’ll make it before afternoon. And too risky going in, in broad daylight. So I will have to wait till night to fall again. Also, I have to prepare for my meals. And I can’t really sleep in the wild. That’ll be dangerous. Hmm, only if there was a way to autopilot this flying. But even that might not be a good idea. I don’t know what kind of birds are there in this world. That fatass pig was enough of an eye-opener that I shouldn’t just assume anything from Earth's standards. There might be a giant-ass eagle that could eat me mid-air. Though I guess there are no nocturnal birds, seeing as to how I haven't encountered any since I started. Surely, if there did, one or two might have already tried to dive into me, head first with their beaks open. Or maybe they just don't know that flying human prey exist. I don't think I can outfly them with my current abilities. I might be able to outmanoeuvre them. Since I'm not really flying true to physics, I can stop mid-air and take a sudden turn. And even before that, I can always just blow it up from inside as long as it is living and breathing… Can there be zombie giant ass eagle birds? I would have definitely laughed at myself crazy for even considering the thought before uhh.. everything. But zombie giant ass eagle birds... I cannot outfly, cannot outmaneuver forever with their limitless stamina and cannot burst their lungs. I guess I already know my natural enemies in this world.”
He kept on rambling to himself endlessly, for there was truly nothing else he could do and his brain was working on extra capacity. Maybe the use of his ability to boost his brain wasn't as amazing as he'd originally thought.
“Ugh... I miss the internet.”
Surely, every isekai protagonist must have thought of this at least once, unless of course, they got teleported with a smartphone.
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Soon, the sun came up for Satoshi to notice for the first time since coming to this world. It seemed a little bigger but other than that it was almost the same as the sun he had known for most of his life. He did not know East from West so he couldn't conclude whether the rotation of the planet here was similar to his previous one. Brushing away another idle thought, he shifted his line of thinking to his next course of action.
“So, it looks like I have covered about a third of the way. The rest should be much faster now that I have good control and decent speed. Food is one issue but I think I can postpone it for a little longer. The problem is how to obtain it. I could try to gather some fruits from around, but I wouldn’t know if it’s safe to eat. I could try to feed it to an animal to see if it’s alright. Or I could kill the animal and eat the meat. Though I’ve never done any butchering, I think I do remember the process; kill swiftly, bleed it, skin it, then remove its intestines before roasting it thoroughly and wallah, ready to eat! *slurp* Damn that stimulated my salivary glands! But knowing what to do and how to do it are two very different things. Neither do I have the tools I would require to skin and roast it. No other choice, fruits, and bugs it is. I’m a little apprehensive about eating bugs though. Not to mention, I think they are probably more likely to be poisonous than fruits.”
He lowered his altitude while maintaining his speed to the destination in sight as he simultaneously started using the other ability that he had developed. He extended his influence thin in a horizontal radius of about 100 meters in every direction to detect movements. He could have done more, but that would be too hard on him while still maintaining the flight when he was still unused to both the vastly different implementations of his ability. In the case of flying, he had to actively control the air pressure to induce his movements while in the other case, he had to passively feel for the air to detect any kind of feedback. With his passive detection, he could make out vague structures if he focused it in a small area, but that was impossible over such a large area. His brain couldn't handle more than 10 meters of detailed construction of his surroundings. By spreading his influence thinner, the details would get blurred but he could cover a large area like he was doing right now. At the moment, with his concentration and range of influence, he could detect movements of animals larger than a football. Anything smaller than that wouldn't cause enough of a disturbance in the atmosphere, unless moving at very high speeds, to be picked up by his brain. A downside to this ability was that the feedback was noisy when the wind was blowing, but that wasn’t much of an issue in the forest, for the heavily stacked trees prevented casual air currents.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Immediately after stabilizing his detection ability, he grasped a multitude of reactions; a couple of big ones from his 7 o’clock and a number of groups of medium-sized reactions in multiple directions. He was interested in one such group of medium-sized reaction that came from his 2 o’clock. The estimated count was not that great, maybe about 5 or 6, it was a little tough for him to distinguish. What did lure his attraction though, was that this group was not on land but high up in the trees. Uncaring towards even a second to mull over it, he started in the direction of his curiosity.
His curiosity did not decree that he follow a straight path to his destination. He took turns and bends to witness as many of the animal species as possible. He considered little to no danger from the ones on the ground, since he was still maintaining a considerable height of about 7 meters over the ground. Moreover, his aim was to simply observe these animals and their actions, so it was in his best interests that he not reveal himself prior to having gathered enough information. The first to encounter was a pack of small deer-like animals, though the likeness was limited to the legs and head. The body was shaped like a wave with a long tail hanging from their rears long enough to nearly touch the ground. Their bodies were a dull brown with spots of either black or dark blue, hard for him to tell. Each of their heads was adorned with a dark blue horn. The horn was long and sharp enough to cleanly stab through a grown human with ease. These creatures of a random assortment of qualities were moving through the forest in a pack of 8, doing absolutely nothing more than merely being out for a stroll. Next, he found a pack of green rabbits with long forearms and big heads, with two small twisted horns on their foreheads ending in a coagulated sharp tip. There was a group of ten or twelve of them attacking a lone 2-meter kangaroo-like prey by half of them jumping horn-first into the prey’s body. And once it was brought down to the ground, thrashing and screaming, the rest bit down on its flesh with their sharp fangs, ripping and chewing the flesh while it was alive.
“Definitely don’t want to mess with those guys.”
Satoshi moved on and came across many a vivid and unquestionably dangerous species before he finally reached his destination. He found a group of small monkey-like creatures. But their small sizes were unsurprisingly deceiving, as Satoshi could make out their threatening fangs even from the distance. And though their arms and legs were of modest build, their long muscular tails were clearly very strong and equally deadly. The small cute peach colored fruits they were enjoying added further to the scene of irony, for Satoshi was sure he wouldn’t last 15 seconds if these creatures found him.
“Ah, food.”
Satoshi exclaimed, noticing the small hands taking the peach colored fruits to their mouths.
Immediately, an extremely strong gust of wind interrupted the pitiful creatures. A few fell and the rest scattered, all in an attempt to get away from the gale of extermination. They didn’t even get to witness the flying human take their place and put a whole bunch of their fruits inside his shirt.
“I can live with this.”
Giving a satisfactory evaluation to the small but round, bland and somewhat juicy objects, Satoshi flew away from the scene of crime holding a bulging belly with his left hand. The oversized belly threatened to fall out of his clothes should he take his hand away but satisfied, he just flew away, uncaring for any watchful gazes.
“I have food, and time to kill till nightfall. Hmm.. what does one do if he is in a forest in the middle of unknown territory with danger behind every tree?”
Satoshi sat down on a branch on a random tree after blowing some harsh winds to get rid of any pesky insects or other small creatures. He used his influence to keep track of his surroundings and kept blowing a constant wind in a sphere with him at the focus to prevent any bugs from approaching. Then he sat cross-legged and took out the fruits he had pilfered and placed them in his lap. He picked one of the palm-sized fruits and threw it straight up with a light force. As gravity de-accelerated the fruit and eventually reversed its direction of motion, he kept his focus on the fruit using his ability and directed it into his left hand, finally catching it. He swapped the fruit to his right hand, repeating the same exercise. After getting a feel for it, he repeated it again with his eyes closed but failed to direct the fruit precisely causing it to fall down.
“No worries, I know where to get more if I run out.”
He tried it again, with his eyes closed, losing another fruit to gravity and eventually losing all the fruits to the mocking force of nature.
“Ugh…”
Satoshi got up grudgingly and flew back to the place where he picked the fruits, blew up more of those monkey-creatures who had shamelessly returned and again did his air baptism to get rid of insects and other small creatures. Having gathered about 20 of those fruits now, he sat down again to practice. This time, he would open his eyes and catch the fruit with his wind ability if he figured he wouldn’t be able to catch it.
Even with that, he managed to lose half of his collectibles before he managed to catch his first fruit, though with a fair bit of cheating. He tried again sans dishonesty, losing another 4 before he succeeded his first perfectly blind catch. Subsequently, he merely lost 2 more before he could flawlessly guide the small round object to his palm.
“Phew, let’s add more.”
With an action to wipe his non-existent sweat, he picked another fruit and threw it. And before it came down, he took the fruit in his left hand into his right and threw it as well, all while blind. He led the first to his left hand while keeping track of the other midair. As soon as the first one landed in his grasp, he shifted it to his other hand, and threw it up once again and repeated the same for the other with success. He kept the process going till he felt comfortable and picked up a third fruit and had it join the fray without stopping the other two that were already mid-air.
In the end, he managed up to four with his mental strain while also keeping up the detection. Also, his arms were tired.
"I can at the least join a circus if nothing better."
Satoshi flew up high in the sky to get an idea of his position in the woods.
"I had always heard that it's hard to maintain a sense of direction in a forest, but this is something else."
He knew that if he didn't have this new ability of his, there would be no way he'd be able to traverse the woods by his own and that was without taking into account the obvious carnivorous and venomous and infectious dangers.
The sun was high up in the sky and though he couldn't look at it directly for even a full second, he could tell this ball of nuclear fusion was bigger(or closer) than the one he was used to.
As he looked around from a height only winged beings could reach, all he saw were trees in every direction. Thankfully, he knew what he was looking for, and was able to spot the civilization he was headed towards.
"Even if I couldn't, I would just do it in the night."
He would transform into a figurative moth and follow the light.
"Oh well."
Satisfied, he came back down and left to roam once more. He had already had his fill with the fruits while playing.
He encountered many more vivid types of species but refrained from any interaction, until..
"This seems familiar."
He had reached a clearing and on one side, a few trees were broken from their upper halves. In the midst of the clearing lay two giant boars sleeping.
"Is it just me or these fucktards bigger than the one that got my leg?"
The Badasaur that Satoshi had faced on his first day of arrival into this world was still in its growing phase, while the ones in front of him were full-grown adults. But there was no one who could inform Satoshi of this fact so he was left to make his own speculations.
"Anyways. These guys can pay for what the other one did."
A strong gust of wind blew shaking all the trees in the vicinity, harassing all sorts of birds from their rest. When this failed to raise the two beasts from their slumber, a tornado started to form around them rising in power steadily till it reached a height equal to that of the gigantic trees of the forest.
*RRRHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA* *RRHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*
The newly awoken Badasaurs roared, unable to comprehend the sudden manifestation of the bizarre phenomenon. But a tornado of this proportion was naught but a nuisance to beasts of such heft.
Abnormal phenomenon followed one after the other as the tornado that had appeared out of nowhere disappeared into nowhere. The dust that had blown up sedimented as if the moody air did not feel like holding it up any longer. In the next moment, everything all came to a standstill, a calm with no wind and no sounds.
The Badasaurs noticed the human prey at one end of the clearing, ironically under the same trees that had to suffer through gratuitous brutality a few days ago. Neither side moved, as they made their evaluations of their opponent. It was the calm before the storm, with the two parties playing a staring game waiting for the other to make the first move. Or it would have been, if the brown-furred beasts weren’t so stupid and anti-aesthetics, as one of them snorted and charged towards the only perceivable reason of their annoyance.
The human didn't disorient like last time upon the earthen shockwaves; he stood confidently in the boar's path, unmoving and waiting.
“That’s right! Come here, you giant sack of meat!”
At a distance he deemed proper, he bent his knees and put his hands low as if to lift something. Following his actions, a colossal volume of wind gathered under the approaching beast lifting it up and off the ground, ever so slightly.
“Damn you, you son of a bitch!”, shouted Satoshi through gritted teeth.
His face turned red and veins popped out his forehead as he used all his might to force the excessively bulky boar in the air. Even though the effort was mental, the pure absurdity of what he was attempting caused his bones to creak with the stress.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
With the most intense shout of his lifetime, he put his body and soul behind his intent as he forced whatever air he could muster and stood up.
The beast, so heavy that it couldn't even jump, flew. It flew at a height of two meters over the human, achieving a magnificent 180° flip in the air. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion till the airborne pile of meat descended...
*BBooOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*
A shockwave nothing less than an earthquake reverberated through the land terrifying all manner of living beings for miles around to flee.
In the epicenter stood a human surrounded by dirt and dust lingering in the air.
"Haaah.. haaah.."
He huffed as his head throbbed, his body staggered and his vision got blurry. The mountainous amount of air he forced his untrained mind to displace would have caused any normal man to fall unconscious. It was through sheer willpower that he mustered enough reason, even with each and every cell of his brain screaming to be shut down. He floated himself over above to the closest branch before he fainted.
Falling unconscious in the unknown territory could have been fatal, but unbeknownst to the sleeping Satoshi, a number of fortunate circumstances lay in play. Due to the earthquake, no beastly dangers would approach the area at least for the duration of his long-awaited rest. Thanks to the dust cloud, his escape to a nearby branch had gone unnoticed from the other Badasaur, who now through certainly unsteady but would have undoubtedly sought to pursue the human by slamming against the tree in an attempt to bring him down. Last, but not the least, his body and clothes drowned in sweat from the extreme strain causing the dirt to stick to him, making him hard to locate even on the low branch that he lay on. This prevented his detection when Smirnie, leading a group of Primeval hunters, arrived at the scene of mayhem, both to find clues to the disappearance of the human and investigate the unnatural ground shaking occurrence. The only thing that the hunters found was a dead Badasaur lying upside down. It was clear that the beast had died due to the fall, it's back caved in under its own weight, yet they couldn't fathom what power could have possibly lifted a creature of such heft. Thanks to the area being devoid of other animals, the corpse was intact and they managed to salvage as much as possible.
All of this went unnoticed by the dirt covered human that lay on the tree right on top of the hunters.