It had been about 3 months since Satoshi came to this world and he was still stuck in the beastkin kingdom - Domania. In his defense, there was nowhere else he could go. According to what he could gather, the nearest human settlement was months away on foot. Flying, he could probably reach it in a couple of weeks but that was if he knew the way. Unless he had a guide, he had enough confidence in himself that he'd get lost. And it was not exactly his fault. It was just how directions and long distances worked. He finally understood how marvelous of an invention GPS was. Maybe if he had a map or something but no one he had asked had any clue where(if) he could get one.
At least the kingdom was large enough to explore. From what he could tell, it was about the size of New York and housed close to 50,000 beastkins. That was a lot of potential people to talk to but unfortunately, he couldn't make long-term connections. People would be put off by his secrecy and weird common sense. And if it was revealed he was an elemental, he would have to kill them. Feriana remained the only exception, understandably, because when he met her the whole elemental legend was just a story but now it was reality and it hadn't been long since the whole kingdom was on high alert after his fight with the fire elemental and the beast king. He had tried a bunch of things since then; coming off as a helpless human, orchestrating damsel in distress events, even tying them up to explain himself but nothing worked. In the minds of the people, it had become human = elemental = evil.
Still he tried to do the best he could to make a life in this new world. Recently, out of boredom and to earn money he was doing adventurer quests. He had rounded up a young thug and forced him to register himself in the adventurer guild. Unlike the time with Feriana, the guild had become more rigorous in their checks for the beastkin species so Satoshi couldn't go in himself. He would send the young thug in to get him a quest that was manageable alone, finish it himself and then send the thug to collect the reward. This was actually his third thug partner after he had killed the previous two for trying to run away with his money after collecting a reward.
He was currently on a quest to hunt a single beast called a Ulul. From what the guild receptionist had explained to the thug and he had relayed to Satoshi, the Ulul was something between an owl and a hawk, more owl than hawk. It was black, with white stripes and had a giant head with big eyes. It could sit still, watching its prey for hours before attacking but when it did there was no way for its victim to escape as it would swoop down and carry something even twice its weight with its giant wingspan. And it was nocturnal, which was a bit of a problem for Satoshi. The whole reason why Satoshi was good at hunting quests was because of his detection ability but unfortunately, it only gave vague results like the number and size of beasts.
Now a combination of a lot of things created the problem; biggest that the beast was nocturnal. So even if Satoshi found it, he couldn't verify it visually. Another problem was that there were quite a few beasts that prowled alone at night, so he'd have to check all of them one-by-one. Also, the beast could fly so there was no way to designate an area as it's hunting ground. The only thing he knew was that it had taken a farmer's 6 year old daughter and while there was no way she'd still be alive, it was important to make sure no one else gets taken. One more big problem was that he would be searching for a moving target. Even if he tried to cover a large area, it would all be vain if the beast moved to a part of the forest he had already covered. All of those reasons combined was why Satoshi had left to hunt in the morning when it was time for the beast to retire. Admittedly, it was harder to look for a beast that was hidden in its nest especially when Satoshi didn't know what kinds of areas it made its home in, but that was a trade-off Satoshi was willing to argue was better than hunting it at night when he couldn't even see the bloody thing.
Well, that was yesterday and now he was lost.
"AAAAAHHHH! WHERE THE HELL AM I!?"
He screamed to the heavens as he floated thousands of feet up in the sky, trying to see something. But the higher up he went, the harder it became to see things in the distance.
"I was so engrossed in finding the beast, I forgot to keep track of where to go back.."
He realized his folly too late.
He had already tried flying up and trying to look for it in the night hoping he'd see some lights but nada. Now he'd tried it in the morning and nada.
"Uhh.. hey mysterious summoning man.. You there? Some help please?"
He recalled the man who had talked directly into his head when the fire elemental had come.
"I might even take you up on your offer if you talk to me."
The mysterious entity had told Satoshi to find him if he wanted what he truly desired.
"Hellooo?? I think I truly desire to not be left in silence. Could you say something??"
He tried repeating it in the beastkin language, just in case but no voice spoke into his head.
"Okay, random direction it is."
He closed his eyes and let the air rotate him and started flying in the direction he opened his eyes to.
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The next day..
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"Well, fuck."
There were mountains in the distance. He hadn't seen those before.
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The next day..
He was having a flying contest with a wyvern.
He had gone over to the mountain to see if he could probably find some dwellers there but he only found more vicious beasts like the wyvern that was intent on snatching him out of the sky.
The wyvern was white with blue linings across its body, the perfect camouflage in the snowy mountains, and was about five times his size.
Originally Satoshi had thought he had found a dragon but in the last hour of playing Catch The Human with it, he hadn't seen it do any kind of breath attack, fire or frosty.
"And I ain't an expert by any standards but I expect a dragon to be, I don't know, like 50 times my size?"
He spoke towards the wyvern that flew at him, jaws open.
He collapsed the air pressure under its right-wing causing it to disorient and fall. He had lost count of how many times it had fallen for the same thing but just kept going.
"And I'd like to think dragons aren't as dumb as you."
Satoshi was starting to develop a headache from the overuse of his abilities. He was maintaining his flight, surrounded himself with an insulation barrier due to the cold (similar to what he used against the fire elemental to keep out the heat), keeping up his detection in case there were more predators, and last, messing with the wyvern that was trying to eat him.
"Sorry l have to cut it short. I need some rest."
He dropped his detection and strengthened his isolation barrier for the upcoming flight. One last time, he made the wyvern fall and then took off away from the mountains at a speed that the wyvern couldn't match even if there was no one making it tumble. Even without a streamlined body, he could move that fast because he could control the air resistance in front of him. He could have gone even faster but then even slight turns threaten to mess up his internal organs due to the incredible centrifugal force.
He traveled a few kilometers to reach the forested area again and landed on a branch. He stopped using his ability to let his mind rest. He would do this to pace himself, otherwise he'd end up with a terrible headache at the end of the day.
He only kept his passive detection up. Since it was passive, he didn't develop a headache from it. But it only worked at a very close range of about 50 metres, which might have been a problem against something one of the faster beastkin species, but was more than sufficient against anything else.
He pulled out some smoked meat from his bag and started eating. Over his time adventuring in this world, he had learned how to skin, cook and store meat. It didn't taste good without any salt or spices, but he couldn't afford to go hungry just because of that.
"Need to get more." He was running out of meat rations. Fruit was plenty and easy to collect but he found it hard to just live on fruits. And his way of creating fire involved concentrating the sunlight using an air lens so he could only do it during the day, which was now.
After about an hour of rest, he got up to search for some small animal to kill and cook. He raised his detection to look for something..
"Huh?"
Suddenly he picked up an unexpected feedback from his detection. It was something he was used to sensing all the time but he didn't expect to all the way out here; it was a person.
He rapidly forced air into his lungs to sharpen his senses. Doing this gave him a boost of oxygen through his body, letting him think and react faster. A persistent use would leave him with a hangover but right now it was essential.
He covered himself in a sound barrier and sneakily flew over. He still had to be extra careful though. His sound barrier was basically alternating layers of high and low pressure air that would attenuate the sound much faster and simultaneously disperse it. So while it could separate out sounds inside and outside of it, it itself could create sounds from its edges by rustling the leaves and he knew first hand how sharp the hearing of some beast people could be.
He peaked over a set of branches and could see a figure bathing in a lake within the forest. He couldn't make out their animal species though or whether the person was a he or she. But it was definitely a humanoid creature! Which meant he was saved! But it wasn't so easy due to him being a human, not to mention an elemental.
"I need to plan this out right.", he spoke out loud without worrying due to the sound barrier.
"But that's weird. How come it's just one person all the way out here?"
He closed his eyes and focused on a thorough detection in his surroundings. He couldn't be sure but none of the feedback he got felt humanoid.
"Dang it, I'll just ask him."
It was important he didn't let this opportunity go. Being all the way out here meant that the person was extremely capable but right now he was bathing in a lake, which meant his movements were limited so he couldn't run away easily and he probably wasn't carrying a weapon. At least Satoshi couldn't see one but he was too far to be sure. He had to do this while the person was vulnerable; as a bonus, that just made his entrance all the more amazing.
He remotely killed a random beast by bursting its lungs and used the smell of blood to lure some vicious monkey creatures. He could have used any but that was the closest group. He was going to use his age-old "save 'em when they realize they're fucked".
In a matter of minutes, a dozen frenzied monkey beasts made their way to the person in the lake. The person noticed them right as they did him. With incredible reflexes, the person took out a bow that Satoshi didn't realize he had and started shooting arrows at the monkeys.
"Whoaaa.."
His aim was incredible. Every arrow shot took out a beast without fail but his speed of shooting wasn't enough to get all of them. Around half the monkeys were down when they reached a branch right above the person and jumped at him.
"My turn.", grinning, Satoshi removed his sound barrier and flew close to the ground making it look like he was running.
The monkeys were all over the person brawling with him in water, trying to get a claw in. Satoshi made it just in time and blew away the ones on top of the person, grabbed him in his arms, and started running on water.
"Don't worry, I'll save you!", He said in beastkin.
He was actually flying but he made incredibly fast blasts of air in the water to make it look and sound like he was running on the surface. That's why it took him a few seconds to realize the soft sensation on his head and shoulder. He looked at that and saw raw breasts.
(Okay, I'm carrying a naked woman in my arms right now.)
"Unhand me!", the woman in his arms flailed.
"What did you say?", Satoshi was baffled when he heard that voice. He tried to look up at the woman's face and didn't realize he had reached the shore and his foot got caught in a vine on the elevated ground.
He managed to catch his fall with an air cushion but the woman flew out of his arms. She landed on the ground and rolled to attempt to lower the damage from the fall but couldn't properly because of the speed Satoshi had been carrying her at.
Unable to believe what he had heard, Satoshi slowly got upright and looked at the woman. She had gotten a little bruised from the fall and had a few claw marks from the monkeys but was otherwise fine.
"Did you just.."
*screech* *screech*
The monkeys had also started making their way over and screaming at their food to come back to their mouths.
Without turning around, Satoshi waved a hand and a brutal wind took all the beasts and flung them up into oblivion.
He hadn't stopped staring at the woman. Her face was plastered with horror as she undoubtedly realized Satoshi's identity from that chantless wind attack. She was now leaning against a tree hiding her privates with her hands but they weren't what Satoshi was looking at. He was looking at her ears; at the side of her head like a human but they weren't round. They were pointed.
"Did you just speak English?"