Everything new

Chapter 3

The sun returned to the sky, and the world was bathed with light once more. Somewhere within the expansive Mortesh Forest, a strange young man was sleeping on the ground, beside an extinguished campfire. He wore very plain clothes and had a pained expression on his face as he rested. Around him, several small wisps of light gathered, curious about this unfamiliar visitor.

After a while, the human stirred, and the wisps quickly started hiding, some going behind the trees and some slowly vanishing.

Naoya opened his eyes and sat up, observing his surroundings. He slept well, despite resting on nothing but the cold earth. As his mind slowly recalled where he was and what had happened over the past day, he hugged his knees, and his emotions and thoughts all came flooding back. He sat there, motionless, for quite a while. And then, he looks up, wipes away his tears, and with a new, determined expression and a small smile on his face, he stands up and prepares to set off once again.

Perhaps he realized that there is no time to mope around when a grand new adventure awaits him.

He started breathing deeply and stretching, warming up his body for another day of traveling. As he prepares, he notices the presence of hidden wisps of light around him. He started looking around at their hiding places until, one by one, the wisps slowly revealed themselves. Surprised by their number, he tries to communicate with them.

"Hello! I'm Naoya, and uhhh… I'm a traveler from a faraway land. Can you guys help me?"

He was met with silence. The lights simply floated there.

"Right, you guys can't speak, ummm, how about we use gestures for now. If you guys want to say yes, just move up and down, and if no, move side to side. Does that work?"

To his surprise, the wisps responded by moving up and down.

"Yooo, that's cool. Okay, ummm… can you guys help me learn more about this forest?"

The wisps fly past him and form an arrow pointing further in the woods, urging him to follow. Naoya smiles and sets off with them.

Throughout the next four days, the wisps guided him throughout the forest, pointing out which plants are safe and which ones aren't, how to hunt and which animals he'd have no chance of hunting, and bringing him to some fantastic places within the forest, like a magical lake where seeing your reflection in the water means death, as you'll get charmed into drowning yourself.

The wisps became more and more creative as time passed, slowly growing in number and forming more complex images and symbols to communicate with him. They also taught him what little they could on how to improve his control over magic, letting him be more creative with how he uses it and improving his senses.

He was glad that he somehow found companions in these unfamiliar woods and happily followed their instructions. He had plenty of fun and exciting times running away from vicious predators and his magic going haywire, but he was happy that, for once, he wasn't just good at something immediately.

As the sun sets on his fifth day of wandering with the wisps, Naoya spots a light moving in the distance. He follows it quietly, and to his excitement, he finally spots a group of people walking through the forest, a bright ball of fire floating above them. He uses his magic to improve his eyes and see them better.

There were three of them, all wearing a blue and yellow cloak with some golden embellishments on their shoulders. One was a red-haired woman with a ponytail, one was a muscular man with his hands leisurely resting behind his head, and the last was a girl wearing what looked like a beret, sitting with her legs crossed and her eyes closed on top of a horse, which wore a semi-transparent armor and other unfamiliar gear. Naoya looked curiously at the girl, wondering how she was balancing on top of the moving horse, when suddenly, she opened one eye and looked directly at him.

He quickly hid behind the tree he was observing from, shocked that she spotted her from such a distance, but at the same time, unsurprised that she could. It is a world of magic after all, and it was common sense for its natives to be better at using magic than someone who was simply isekai'd. After calming down, he spoke to the wisps around him.

"Okay, guys, looks like it's time to say goodbye. I'll try to get some help from the people over there and see if they can bring me to the city. I had a lot of fun, and thanks for all the knowledge too," he says as he bowed to them.

"And ummm, let's see…" Naoya summons a piece of paper on his hand, folding and cutting it into a small origami sakura flower, and gives it to the wisps.

"In my country, we give this to our teachers, as if saying 'thank you for helping me bloom,' or something like that. I couldn't think of anything to gift you guys, so here you go."

The wisps take the origami. Some form a smiley face, then they form an arrow pointing towards the people, telling Naoya that they are getting farther.

"Oh shoot, alright bye guys! Thanks for everything! I'll visit whenever I can!" He says as he bows again and starts catching up to the group. The wisps watch him leave and surround the origami sakura he gave them, which had now started glowing with a faint pink light.

…

Should I slowly approach them so they don't get surprised? No, they'll probably think I was sneaking up on them. So I should just shout now and get their attention, right? Hmmm, yeah, that's probably better so they won't think I'm ambushing them. Alright, here we go.

As he got closer to the group, Naoya took a deep breath and shouted.

"Heeeey, you guys, I need help! Wait!"

They stops in their tracks and looks in his direction. Naoya excitedly does a small fist pump as he approaches them and stops at the edge of the path they were traveling on, not too close but not too far.

"Finally, I found some people. I've been stuck here for almost a week now, and I need to get to the city. Can you guys help me?"

The group looked at each other, confused. Then, with a swift movement, a sword appears in the woman's hand, a sword and shield appear on the man's arms, and they point their weapons toward Naoya.

Well, that's just great, isn't it? Of course, they wouldn't understand Japanese. I'm stupid. Naoya thought as he raised his arms into the air.

Looking at him with cautious eyes, the woman spoke in a language that sounded foreign but also very familiar to him. Except this time, the words finally made sense, and he could understand what she was saying.

"Who are you? What are you doing in this forest? Are you an agent of Noctis? Where did you come from?"

"Whoa, whoa, Greta, calm down. One question at a time," her male companion chuckles.

"R-right. You, I'll ask one question at a time, and you will answer them briefly and truthfully, got it?" She declares, and Naoya nods.

"One, who are you and where did you come from?"

Thinking hard on how to respond, he tries using the language from his dreams, slowly piecing the words together into a sentence.

"I'm… Shiranui Naoya… I come… from a distant land… called Japan."

The group looks at each other, puzzled at how the young man talks and the name of the country he says he comes from.

"Okay, what are you doing in this forest?"

"I woke up… in the middle of the forest… six days back…no wait… ago. Six days ago. Survive here with… wisps… they teach me… the land and the magic."

"The wisps? As in the forest spirits?"

"Yes… small… bright… creatures," Naoya replies, unsure if he used the correct word.

"Well, that's interesting," the man says.

"Last question. Are you an agent of Noctis?"

"Noctis… what? Is that… animal?"

"You don't know what Noctis is? It's the-"

Suddenly, a loud screech echoed throughout the forest, and in the distance, they saw a large, bat-shaped creature rushing towards them, damaging the greenery in its tracks and viciously disturbing the forest's silence.

"Is that… Noctis?" Naoya nervously asks them.

"It's a vampyr, get back!" The lady called Greta says as their group jumps into action.

The girl with a beret, whose horse now turned almost invisible, approaches Naoya, and with a single word…

"Hide."

…pushes him back with magical force into the bushes. He gets back up and eagerly watches the group engage the monster, not noticing the glowing, pink ball of light with small wings floating behind him.