After the fight with the chimera, Satoshi was extremely tired but through sheer willpower, he made sure to put the fire before he collapsed. Then he just dropped himself on a branch and let his mind shut.
The next he awoke, it was night and he had no idea how much time had passed. Instinctively using his power, he gathered some wind to dust himself and fly up.
There, just a few trees away, was the giant patch of land that had been destroyed in his fight with the mighty beast. 3 of the moons were out today and there was enough light for him to tell that the blackness of his surroundings was not from the lack of light. There was almost nothing remaining in the area; whatever hadn't burnt had uprooted in the fire tornado and flew off into the distance.
He made his way towards the lizardman's city. He didn't want to go back to the wolfman's village since they would ask about Feriana. It was his own inability that got her killed and he just didn't want to talk to anyone about it. Her body had most definitely burnt in that fire so at least she had gotten a cremation. And being cremated in the same fire as the beast that killed her; he couldn't think of a better send-off.
As for the wolfman's village, he had done what they asked. He had gratitude for them but now it was returned, one that came at his personal sacrifice. He had no intentions to visit them ever again.
He spent the night in the lizard city and moved back to the beastkin kingdom. He had more or less recovered his strength and if anything good came out of his fight with that chimera was that now he was more confident in his strength. If nothing else, he knew he had it in him to just run away.
He reached the borders of the kingdom and decided to go forward on foot. For some reason, he wanted to take it slow. Not that he had wanted to take it fast at any point, but right now he just wanted to relax a little, look around a little, take in some more of this new world that he was now slowly getting used to. He looked back to the day he was teleported here. All sorts of things had happened since and now here he was. Somehow he felt free again. Even though Feriana had been a good partner and had given him a lot, he had been restrained in some manner, he told himself. Even though she would obediently follow him wherever he pleased, her presence was something that had always been in the back of his head and his actions adjusted accordingly. He had never just walked like this. It was also a mental restraint that he'd put on himself; learn the language, figure out their culture, go adventuring, seek knowledge… yes, that.. Seeking knowledge had always been his number one priority. He was always seeking answers to questions but right now, he didn't care about any of that. Maybe it was due to the fight where he could have potentially died, and it made him realize how important it was to live freely before he is suddenly popped off by some powerful entity. Or maybe it was from the exhilaration of having overcome a powerful adversary. It was probably the first fight he had properly won. As soon as he arrived, he was at the mercy of others; the boar beast, the wolfkin village. After that with each opponent he had faced, there was simply too big of a power difference and he could squish them like bugs. That turned around again when he met the fire elemental and beast king simultaneously. Both of them were enemies he couldn’t defeat and had no choice but to run away from them. It was now that he had finally won a battle of his own and he could look back and believe that his actions till now had meaning.
His mind briefly went back to Feriana, the girl that he had saved, who had also saved him albeit in a different way. If it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t have been close to even start to understand the foreign language. She was a tool for him, he'd always thought. But now, even with how much loved his freedom and tried to use it to optimistically justify his current situation, there was a small part of him that was frustrated at her gone and not just because of her utility.
He walked through the slums, hood donned, not wanting to think about it any further. He changed the density of the air around him to amplify certain dialogues more than the others. He kept walking, listening to their manners of speech and observing their filth. He kept his detection up but no one attacked him this time.
"...elemental…"
Suddenly he heard someone say that word, the one that the rabbit woman and the beast king had spoken with pure hatred.
He didn't know who had said it among the myriad of people in the slum area but now that he was listening for it, it was a repeated occurrence from several directions.
Satoshi upped his detection and forced some air into his lungs to get his brain more focused.
The day he had left with Feriana, they spent the night at the lizadman city and then a full day and night at the wolfkin village. He didn't know how many days had passed when he fainted after the fight with the chimera. So even if estimated a total of around 3-4 days, it was astonishing that the news had spread that fast in such short time, especially considering that this world didn't have any electronic or digital communication methods. But then again, it could be localized to only this area since their fight happened not too far from here. He knew better than anyone how large the kingdom was, having seen it from a bird's eye view. It was hard to imagine that the entire kingdom would have heard of the news.
But this only frustrated him more. There was so much information going around right now and it would just slip past his fingers.
He kept walking, going through back alleys now but still keeping his vigilance to the max.
He came out near the district Feriana's house was in. There was a small pinch in his heart as he remembered the ferret woman but he suppressed it.
There were a lot more adventurers going around now and almost no residents. He noticed that there were armed beastkins that had the same insignias on their armors; a lion's head in red.
(Army..?)
It was obvious that they had something to do with the beast king who was also from the lion sub-species.
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(This whole elemental thing is a lot bigger than what I could have imagined)
Satoshi considered if he should just leave the kingdom. There was no knowing what kind of capabilities the people in this world had. The beast king and the chimera were a brutal reminder of the power level difference among individuals.
But then, he didn't have anywhere to go. There was the wolfkin village, but he didn't want to go there again now that his debt was paid and he lost his partner because of their request. The lizardman city was out of the question; there was no way he would fit in there. Same for other tribes, if he tried to look for them. That only left this place. Though if he was right about the localization of information, the districts in the opposite end of the kingdom should be safe.
Just in case, he decided to collect any information he could here before he left. He walked around to the adventurers guild but didn't dare go in. He just felt around the insides with his power and finding nothing interesting of note, walked away. He reached Feriana's house and keeping his mind straight, felt around the inside. It was empty and probably no one had been here to check for him. As far as he could tell, there were no signs of the house having been wrecked from inside. It made sense since Feriana's involvement wasn't really known. One loose end was Meste's party, since Satoshi had at that time revealed his human nature without knowing about it too much. Now that there was a massive fight and the existence of elementals had been revealed, he had to expect that they were aware that he was an elemental and could have told the authorities. But thinking back on it, Meste had visited Feriana's house so he knew where they lived. Did he not tell anyone or was it a trap? By no means could Satoshi claim himself to be an expert on this world. The chimera beast's ability was a reminder to not assume anything about his opponent. They could have booby-trapped the house somehow and he wouldn't even know how to detect it.
Satoshi simply left the place, not bothering to collect his remaining things from the house. It was only a bunch of clothes anyway. He could buy them again.
He took a long way about, going back to the slums and even further before he took flight. Then he flew over to the opposite end of the kingdom and made his way over inside again on land.
He kept his detection up as he simply walked around. He also made sure to keep his eyes open, just in case. He had a feeling that the chimera's ability to escape his detection was unique but again, he was by no means an expert so he decided it was better to be as careful as possible.
He found a bunch of thugs and stole their money. There was no damsel in distress this time so he left them alive after suffocating them to unconsciousness. Then left to get some food in his stomach.
The place had many empty tables so he just took one and gave his order. He adjusted the density of air till he could clearly hear what one of the groups in the inn were discussing. Language comprehension, he decided, was what he was now going to focus on, day in and day out. And it turned out a good thing for him. Once he stopped giving other things much of a thought and only focused on the language, he started to catch more words and join pieces to figure out their meanings quickly. He later went to buy some more supplies for writing, his previous ones also lost in the fight against the chimera. In fact, his robe itself was shredded from various places as it would occasionally get stuck on some branch here or there and got torn during the fight.
He obtained sufficient coinage from two more groups of thugs and bought himself a high-quality black robe. Then over the next few days, he started to frequent places with groups of people and he would listen in on their conversation and write notes. He had been traveling on foot (it looked like he was traveling on foot but he had only one so he was actually gliding on the land with his power) to whichever direction looked better. He had gotten to learn a lot in his travel with his focus on understanding the language. Different animal tribes had different accents and it would take him a while of listening to them speak before he could understand the words they were speaking in between. For example, the dogkins had a heavier voice and they would release a lot of air while speaking. Ratkins had a slightly squeaky voice. Feriana herself had been a little squeaky so he could understand the ratkins a little more easier than others. There was also a hierarchy in the society, speciesism, like there was racism in his previous world. The beastkins equivalent of their carnivorous species counterparts were physically stronger and had a higher place in society. They talked different, they walked different and they lived in a different part of the kingdom altogether. Satoshi hadn't taken even a single high rise flight in case he got caught, so he wasn't exactly sure how these areas between high and low class were distributed, though he tried to keep around the low class initially.
A few days later, news of the elementals came to this region as well and from what Satoshi could tell, an emergency had been issued and people were told to keep inside their homes as much as possible. The army patrols started here as well and it became harder for Satoshi to go around, but it wasn't impossible. In fact, it was somewhat better since now he was steadily getting more and more confident going around now and there was information to be acquired.
He found an empty house and made it his base. Then he would go around the back alleys and listen to different groups of people conversing. From what he could understand in bits and pieces, it was similar to what he had gotten from Feriana but now he understood everything a little better.
There existed this legend. Every 300 years, five humans would appear. They would each be able to control one element chantlessly. The elements were: fire, wind, water, light, and earth. Also, they were supposedly really evil, killing en masse and destroying villages, cities alike. He had seen the fire elemental so he couldn't refute that last part but personally, he had no intentions of doing that.
There were parts of the story that diverged from each other, but he summarised the common parts. Curiously, there was no information about the mysterious entity that had summoned him. The legend simply said that the five humans would appear out of nowhere.
There was also a part of the legend that said that the five humans disappeared after a year. This made him anxious. Where did they disappear to? Did the summoner send them back home? Did they all die? But why suddenly after a year? He realised he was collecting more questions in his head and stopped.
He spent his days like this and slowly people started to go out and about in dozens. In another week, the army had also more or less retracted and people were going about normally. Well, as normally as Satoshi could figure. Though Satoshi was surprised and curious as to why the army went back so quickly, he had no way of figuring it out. Having evaded them though, he was now more confident than ever and he decided to take it slow and enjoy his time in this world, while simultaneously trying to grasp the language as much as possible.
In his journey around the kingdom, he saw and interacted with a lot of different people of different species and different regions and hence, different inherent personalities. His interaction had initially consisted of just nodding or shaking his head, or simple one word answers but slowly he had started to speak more. Early on, he would find it hard to converse, especially in more involved topics so he tried to come off as a reclusive person. It only suited his hooded personality so no one minded. But as time passed, his understanding of the language got better and better. After two more weeks of focusing intently on language comprehension and in total a month since Feriana’s passing, he could understand most of the words and once he knew the context of the discussion, he could discern much of the meaning without having to peek at his notes.
Now that the heat from the elemental topic was dying down and he was several times better at the language, he often tried to interact with the people even though he could never go past a certain limit in the conversation. His secrecy with the hood would put everyone off and when he wouldn't reveal himself even after a while, people would get suspicious and would either cause a commotion or make an excuse and leave. Still, he got to learn a lot. Apparently, there were places around the world called dungeons that went deep into the earth and were supposedly full of treasure. Well, more danger than treasure but they sounded incredibly interesting nonetheless. It seemed all kinds of artifacts and magical devices could be found inside those dungeons. The beast king himself had several. He had one for heat resistance, is how he survived the fire elemental's attack so easily. He had one for physical enhancement. Satoshi was glad he wasn't that monstrous by nature. The populous didn't know if he had more but according to some of the adventurers he met and asked, these artifacts could only be found once a dungeon was conquered. Which was their way of saying that they reach the last level. So it was apparently extremely rare to possess an artifact. So, also, these dungeons had levels. The deepest ones were known to go more than hundreds of levels. If you conquered the same dungeon again, you would get the same artifact. He wanted to try going and “conquering” a dungeon himself but that was a task for later.