Silva woke up from the most peaceful sleep he had had since the beginning of the invasion. He was still underwater, floating a few meters above the lake floor. 'I must have drifted deeper into the lake while I was sleeping. There's so many caves here. The crabs must have dug them, they were doing something similar back on earth.
'I expected it to be dark but the blue light from the portal really brightens up the place. Blue should be the color of portals to earth. How fitting. I should go explore the area and get lay of the land. Hunting a few monsters should help me assess the average strength of the monsters here. I'll also have to find edible monsters and fruits too. Sigh, I've got a lot to do. ' Silva swam upward before he stopped, 'Did I just sigh underwater? '
Surfacing at shore, Silva noticed an extinguished campfire. He approached it and looked around for traces of who it belonged to. He felt something enter his domain that he had passively deployed. Silva activated his domain and stored the item away. He looked into the forest toward the origin of the item.
'An archer? He didn't use a magical attack so he's either not a mage or he was sure that he could have ended it with just that attack. He's outside of my domain and he knows that I've seen him so he's already moving.' Silva turned Frisbee into its blade form within the inventory then let it shoot out of his inventory at the very edge of his domain. He controlled Frisbee to aim for the fleeing archer's ankles.
Silva followed the screams of the archer. He entered the forest and Frisbee moved between the trees silently claiming the lives of four out of the five people that set up an ambush in the forest. The last person Silva left alive was hiding closest to him. Silva was about to ask him to surrender so that he could gain information but the guy shot out from behind a tree.
He threw one of the axes he had at Silva then bolted away as fast he could. Silva dodged easily and was about to command Frisbee to kill him but he decided to stop. He let the man run off and approached the heavily bleeding archer. The archer seemed to be begging for his life but Silva couldn't even understand the language he was speaking.
'This is going to be hard if I can't even tell what they're saying. I guess it makes sense that I wouldn't understand some random otherworldly language. I guess there's no choice then. ' Frisbee moved and severed the archer's head. Silva thought about chasing down the escaping man but let him go since killing humans provided less energy than the clean crabs.
Silva went on a murderous stroll in the forest. Frisbee killed all creatures that entered Silva's domain. The enchanted weapon entered and exited his inventory in short bursts allowing it to mimic teleportation. 'This forest is mostly filled with small creatures and the mantises were the top predators here. There sizes vary greatly but the average should be the length of my arm.'
Silva moved around the forest till around noon before finally stopping and returning to the lake. At the shore of the lake, a pile of corpses formed as Silva emptied his inventory. Giant bugs, small mammals and even birds made up the gruesome pile. Among them were the bodies of the people he had killed.
Silva scanned the pile for a while before picking up a weasel carcas. It was one of the few that were beheaded instead of being split in half. 'I don't have any spices but it should be alright after I cook it. Shit, I don't know how to start a fire without a lighter. Sigh, I guess I'm going vegan. I would have picked fruits if I had known about this. '
Silva went back into the forest and began his search for fruits. Back at the lake, a large group of humans, mostly armed with crude weapons, arrived. They saw the mound of corpses and felt disgusted. Some directly puked in disgust. Fear and rage spread through the crowd as they saw the corpses of their own mixed among those of monsters.
There was a single man among them that wielded a wooden staff. The body of the staff was marked with hundreds of tiny runes. He calmed the crowd with just a few words. It took a long time but he eventually convinced them to take the bodies of the deceased and leave the area. He stayed behind and surveyed the area while drawing runes on the ground. The runes disappeared after he completely drew them.
Silva walked out of the forest confidently, completely ignoring the man whose presence he had felt with his domain. He sat on the shores of the lake and pulled multiple fruits out of his inventory. Silva then took a bite of one fruit and immediately spit it out. He crawled to the lake and used the lake water to rince his mouth. He then went back to the shore and repeated the process with a different fruit.
The mage had been staring at Silva since he left the forest. He was feeling conflicted about what to do with the half naked young man. As a logical person, he knew that this person eating wild fruits was dangerous. The villager that reported the incident didn't even understand how the others had died. All he knew was that a humanoid creature with scales walked out of the lake, turned into the human before him and all his friends started dying.
But as a mage and a seeker of knowledge, he wanted to learn everything about this creature. What intrigued him the most was its ability to turn human. He really wanted to know how it worked. It might be the key to learning transformation magic. He knew that most magic came from observing how beasts used their own. 'If I can capture it alive and take it to the association, I'll be rewarded greatly. I can finally leave this forsaken village and live in a city like a noble. I'll be rich. '
Silva wasn't lucky in the slightest. All the fruits he took were either bitter, sour or stunk horribly. 'What do I do? Do I really have to eat raw meat? But the risk of food poisoning is even higher that way. I could go back to earth but the crabs would surround me. I guess I can't go back there until I'm sure of being able to break through the encirclement. '
'Looks like I have to deal with this guy. Wait, he might have some food. I'm so stupid, why didn't I just do this earlier? Plus, he hasn't attacked me yet so he's probably not going to do it so soon. ' Silva stood up and walked towards the mage who instantly backed away. Silva stopped, gestured at his mouth and at his stomach. He then pointed at one of the fruits on the ground and back at his mouth.
'So the monster is hungry. From the looks of it, it only eats fruits. That means that it only attacks those who provoke it. I must be careful.' The mage thought to himself. He saw that the monster kept gesturing at its stomach. He slowly walked away while gesturing at the monster to follow. Surprisingly, the monster was quite trusting and followed him earnestly. They were about to reach the forest when the ground glowed. 'Oh no, I forgot about the traps.'
Silva had been following the mage casually. His domain alerted him that the ground was emitting faint energy fluctuations. He ignored it and kept following the mage. The energy beneath his foot surged wildly,Silva felt the energy explode as a bright flash blinded him. He felt weightless for a moment before he slammed into the water.
Pain. Blinding pain. Silva's skin was burned, his left leg was a bloody, broken mess. His body was already adapting to being underwater. He could feel his body being forcefully reconstructed. His adaptation drew energy and nutrients from other body parts to heal the leg.
The mage watched as the water churned. The clear water was dirtied by the blood of the monster. He expected the monster to be on its last legs. Anyone else would have charged in to finish the job but he wasn't a novice. He knew that a monster's dying struggle was usually the worst. Multiple runes glowed on his staff and a barrier covered him.
Something struck the barrier and got deflected upward. The mage looked up to see a circular blade vanish in thin air. He didn't get to react to the blade suddenly appearing within his barrier. The blade flew upward from between his legs, splitting him in half. The barrier, along with multiple rune traps deactivated upon the mage's death.
Frisbee disappeared into Silva's inventory. Silva himself was nothing but skin and bones. He rested underwater until night fell. He then dragged his pale, malnourished and tired body to the pile of monster corpses. He didn't think about the taste or risk of eating raw flesh. All he did was eat. Even when two men came and saw him eating flesh in his night form, he didn't stop eating.