10 - Mind Palace Again!

A strange, pulsating black blob. I’ve seen this before, this… familiar thing. No, it isn’t a thing. It’s… a sensation. A feeling. Like-

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Heartbeat.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Uhh… gimme another… forty minutes…”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Is someone at the door…?” I mumbled in my stupor.

I slowly sat up on my bed, eyes half-opened. I could make out the soft, orange glow around the window, the warm ray of sunlight illuminating the room.

“Muu…”

I perked up after hearing that familiar cry. I bolted out of bed and rushed to the door, opening it to find-

“Woolie!”

I jumped out and hugged his ample wool, elated to see him again so soon.

“Muu!”

“You came back so quick! Don’t tell me… you only left to find a place to sleep for the night?”

“Muu.”

“Ooh, Woolie… I’m so glad you’re back!”

While I did have plans for the day, I decided to put them on hold. Watching Woolie frolicking about chasing butterflies put my mind at ease, and some relief from constantly thinking of survival was something I sorely needed.

*

“How about this one?”

“Muumuu.” Woolie shook his head.

“This?”

“Muu!” Woolie nodded.

Woolie and I were out in the forest again, foraging for food. Equipped with a backpack-style basket I found in the kitchen, I could now transport food back home and start building up my stock. It was a little difficult to tell, but I suspected winter was coming, and anything that can keep for a long time would help out immensely.

As a precaution, I didn’t go further beyond skirting the edges of the forest. Woolie didn’t seem to be worried though, being his usual carefree self. With him around, I can be certain the various berries and herbs I stuffed my basket with are safe for consumption.

I also ran a few tests with my blades. After swapping out the vines for some leather I found at home, I hacked away at branches and was shocked at how great they cut. It wasn’t a clean slice like you’d see in the movies, but a few good ‘thwacks’ was enough to get me a piece of wood I could use to fashion more tools. But for fully grown trees…

“I’ll need lumber at some point. These blades are super tough, but aren’t very suited for the task…”

I thought about making a little house for Woolie, but with so much I had to take care of before that, I lowered it on my priority list.

“I want to explore the forest, but I need to prepare for it. I’ll train a bit more, and familiarize myself with the plants in here…”

As I mumbled to myself, Woolie tugged on the sleeve of my shirt.

“Oh, did you find one, Woolie?”

“Meh!”

I followed Woolie a little ways ahead, spotting a particularly thin tree standing out among its larger, towering peers.

“This one? Mmm, it looks good.”

Its trunk was about as wide as my torso, which isn’t much considering my size.

Carefully, I drew my blade and began sawing away at the base, making slow but steady progress. It’d be better if my blades were serrated, but this’ll have to do for now.

“Alright, now that I’ve made an angled incision, saw away again until a chunk of it comes of… like so! Now-”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I hacked away at the cut, the blade penetrating deeper and deeper until it was difficult to pull it out every swing; about mid-way.

“Now for the finishing touch-”

I took a few steps back, sucking in a deep breath-

“AH-HAH!”

I thrust into the trunk with the palm of my hand, causing it to jolt and shake upon impact.

“AH-TOHHH!”

Bam! Bam!

I continued to pummel at the tree until I heard a soft cracking with every strike, increasingly louder and louder with every successful hit.

One more should do it-!

“HYAAHOO!!”

With a cry I leapt into the air, kicking the weakened tree with all my strength.

Crack!

The trunk fell over backwards, the tremor I expected never occuring due to its inadequate size.

“I did it!”

I rushed over to sever the last bits of bark clinging onto the stump, securing my first bit of lumber.

“Hnngh…”

I placed the end of the felled tree onto my shoulder, heaving with great effort. Despite the absurdity of a child dragging a tree with her bare hands, I was beginning to understand my strong suit wasn’t so much physical strength, but explosive power.

Even so, for a child my strength was off the charts. I’m beginning to wonder if my body really was extraordinary, or this was simple the norm for inhabitants of this world. Of course, having never seen another person before, I have no comparison.

“Nothing… a little training… can’t fix-!”

“Meh!”

Woolie picked up the other end of the tree, supporting it on his back and taking a huge load off my shoulder.

“Thanks Woolie!”

Together, we brought our spoils back home.

*

“Hoot.”

“Ahaha… sorry it’s been a while, Hooty.” I apologized to the miffed owl perched atop his rack.

It’d been about two days since I’ve entered my mind palace. I was so busy figuring things out at home I neglected to visit Hooty.

The mind palace was a strange space; despite me having to fall into a meditative state akin to sleep to enter, my body didn’t recognize it as such. Entering my mind palace did not restore my energy like rest would, and it wasn’t possible for me to enter it in my sleep either.

“Sorry Hooty, it’s just been a busy couple of days. Oh, I finally found my home! At least, I think it is… there’s this doodle on the wall that kinda looks like me, the clothes I found fit me to a tee too, and-”

“Hoooooot.”

“Huh? What do you mean you know everything? Can you see the real world in here?”

Hooty pointed to a book on the table, one I didn’t manifest myself.

“Did you learn how to manifest objects? I didn’t teach you how to do that. How did you learn- I can’t read this…”

I flipped through the pages to find lines upon lines of text, likely written in the language of this world. Unfortunately, my illiteracy courtesy of god made sure I had no means to read-

“Oh, convert to video!”

With a snap of my fingers, the huge holographic screen appeared in mid-air, translating the text into video format.

“Just like magic.” I grinned. “… I wish I knew how to use magic.”

When I looked up to see what the screen displayed, my jaw dropped.

It was a first-person view of someone scrounging around in the woods, picking up various herbs and berries along with a fluffy companion-

Someone jumping all over the place, fending off a boar with bladed tusks-

Someone taking in the magnificent view beyond the fence, to the big unknown beyond the highlands they found themselves in-

“Are you- are these my own memories?!”

“Hoot.”

“How… oh! Of course!”

How did I not realize my mind palace could be used in such a way? It’s a space to store all of humanity’s knowledge…

“I’m still part of humanity, reincarnated or not. Which means my knowledge is also part of my mind palace…”

I can store everything I’ve seen and learned here.

“That… that means I technically have photographic memory! I just have to come back to my mind palace and search for what I want to find… and! That means I also have perfect memory! I just have to come back here to look for it…”

Amazing! Who’d have thought something like this could be possible? Is it because god was so sloppy at granting abilities? Well, I not gonna complain.

“Hooty! Can you help me look up stuff in the future if I need it?”

“Hoo-hoo.” Hooty grunted.

“Hehe, thanks.”

“Hoot!”

Out of nowhere, a training dummy manifested in front of me.

“Woah, that’s kinda sudden. Hooty?”

“Hoohoot.”

“Oh… oooh, I see.”

The training dummy Hooty manifested was one made of the same wood I’d just obtained, the bark shaven clean off leaving only the smooth, stripped wood underneath. Stiff branches were stuck on to simulate limbs, giving me a practical blueprint for what is possible to make out in the real world.

“This is great! I’ll look up some woodworking tutorials later, thanks Hooty!”

“Hoot!”

“Yeah, I’ll take a few swings at it. Hehe, prepared to be surprised at how much better I’ve- nevermind, I forgot you can see everything I see in the real world too.”

Thump! Thump! Thump!

I recently started learning martial arts as well on top of body conditioning, but without a proper instructor my progress was limited.

“Hoo! Hoo!”

Thump- Thump- THONK!

“HYAAHOO!”

Using the same move that felled the tree, I kicked as hard as I could-

Thwack!

Uprooting the training dummy and sending it crashing into the wall.

“Ooh, umm…”

“Hoo…”

“I think I’ll have to go a little easy on it in the real world. Not to mention… There’s also another problem, Hooty.”

“Hoo?”

I raised my trembling, flushed hands.

“Oowwwww…” I sniffled.

“Hoot…”

“Just keep hitting and I’ll get used to it? I know that Hooty, I know… but I’m still just a kid!”

“Hoothoot!”

“Yeah yeah, I know what conditioning is… And yes, I know I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere. It’s just… now that I’m able to move about freely, I wish I was given a normal life.”

The short time I spent in this world was fun, great even. Despite the trials in the way, being able to journey through such a fantastic region of the world more than made up for any hardship I faced. Sleeping out in the wild didn’t bother me much, nor did the life-and-death situations I found myself in sometimes.

But now that there’s a place for me to return to and settle down, I had time to really sit down and reflect on all that happened, and it always led to my displeasure at god’s sloppy handiwork.

“Hooty, do you find it annoying I can’t let it go? Even though I’ve been given such a great second chance at life, I still find so many things to complain about.”

Hooty turned to me with his eyes narrowed, as if scrutinizing every part of my frowning face.

“Hoohoot.”

“It is, but you think that’s perfectly fine? Oh, Hooty…”

“Hoot!”

Despite voicing his displeasure, Hooty didn’t make much of an attempt breaking free from my hug.

“Hoot, hoohoot.”

“I should spend more time learning and honing my skills in my mind palace? Well, this place really is convenient, but relying on it too much will dull my sense in the real world.”

“Hoo…”

“… Yes, I did get that line from a manga I read long ago, but it still applies, right?”

Hooty sighed, shrugging his feathered wings.

“Alright, enough of that! Let’s see… how about we look for a video about woodworking now? I recall there’s a method of construction involving slotting materials together like legos… that’d be useful since I don’t have access to metals right now.”

“Hoohoo.”

“Oh, I still have to figure out what that wheeled contraption at home is. I wonder if I can manifest my memory as an image and search that way? But it may not work since it’s an item from another world…”

“Hoo.”

Hooty smirked in an all-knowing fashion, as if he’d already prepared the answer to my question I’d just asked a second ago. The screen flickered to a well-known search engine ‘Nuudle’, which also had a very useful image search function-

“It’s a sewing machine!”

The images I saw weren’t quite the same as the contraption at home, but the finer workings appeared to function the same way.

“Says here it’s a sewing spindle? The one at home’s a lot bigger though, especially this part here- oh, it’s some kind of weaving machine- tool?”

I didn’t expect to find such a thing in my own home, and especially not in the middle of the highlands with no access to civilization.

“Come to think of it, everything inside the house was very well-built too, albeit a little old. Who built it…?”

“Hoot.”

“Mmm, you’re right. Dwelling on this is a luxury saved for after I’ve gotten the hang of things. Let’s get back to studying, shall we?”

“Hoot!”

“Alright, Hooty! Nuudle it!”

I manifested a blanket as I snuggled up to Hooty, our eyes glued to the bright screen as the cheery instructor gave us the run-down to basic woodworking.