01.35 - Campfire Cooking in Another World

It took a while to tame all five young cats.

I used my healing magic on the fifth and weakest of the bunch.

The poor kitten was malnourished and suffered from the cat equivalent of a severe cold.

I did what I could and we fed them all of the little supplies we had left.

Unfortunately, my Skills did not allow me to conjure food out of thin air.

At least not directly. I had some leftover supplies stored in my Hidden Inventory.

Since we didn’t have too many additional supplies to spare, except for a bit of water and a couple High Health potions from Isabella, Geber, Hermes, and my own production, we decided to call it a day and return back to town before sunset.

Our new certainly not indoor cat led the way.

The direct path was surprisingly short. Our new feline friend had led her former pursuers, and us, as the ones following them, through quite the chase. The mother of all detours.

On the way back to the village, each of the kids carried one of the kittens. Reiko transported the weakest one. Our new cat and I led the way while looking out for any potential trouble, but the only noticeable source of problems seemed to be us.

Walking through the village with monsters as our following, albeit tame ones, raised quite the alarm from the villagers.

Long story short, we finished the quest, but had to wait a month to collect the rewards. Just to make sure we had actually taken care of the problem and were not some kind of conmen.

The villagers were quite suspicious, especially after we entered town with our new feline friends.

We decided not to try our luck back in the capital, opting to return home instead and have Reiko and the kids collect their rewards once the agreed on period was over.

—

Back home, life was going the usual way.

There was a time to sow and a time to reap, as some scripture based song back in my old world used to say.

There was a time to mine, and a time to forge.

A time to hunt, and a time to eat.

The kids were already around sixteen years old and made some of their living with adventuring and some helping out back home.

It was a good life, all in all.

A few of the kids wanted to see the world, foremost of them Ryu.

Others, like his half sister Akatsuki, would probably be fine with staying home for the rest of their lives.

Though most of them were in between.

Given other circumstances, Inari would likely have joined whatever local church held the healing monopole and quickly succeeded in their ranks through skill alone.

Hermes had reached and in some areas surpassed Isabella, Geber, and my Skills in Alchemy.

Nami and Nagi would have probably made for good actors, given how they tended to improvise their way around other people.

Ariel should likely have made a career as a singer or musician back in my original world.

Kei would have probably had an easier life In a less rural environment.

Ryu was one or two masteries short of being an elite swordsman and the same could be said of his half sister Akatsuki in regards to the arcane domain.

One way or another, the kids would leave some day, and even if the church had kept some documents on us, after almost two decades, there was likely no one left looking for us. Heck, we could likely live peacefully back in Lichtheim of all places, if the others were to master the Shapeshifter Class’ Transform ability like Ryu and Kei.

But this galaxy was vast, and there were other places to visit.

Just not now.

The war caused by Seth and his allies had continued, and it wasn’t looking like it would end any time soon.

Travel was still restricted.

And if the intel we had gathered back in the capital of ‘Weißfels’ was still accurate, the alliance of the current Elden Lord would probably face another few decades of conflict.

As I said, the galaxy was vast.

There were countless factions.

The current conflict was a seven to thirteen front war, depending on the point of view of the parties involved.

This was clearly madness, but it didn’t concern us.

They had not sunken so low as to try to force people living on small agricultural planets on the outskirts into the military.

Our home was safe.

Or so I thought.

It happened about a year after the kids had accepted their first quests.

We were sitting back home, around a large campfire in the middle of summer.

Enjoying grilled food and some roasted sweets.

Some of the kids were playing with our wannabe menagerie of pets.

Ariel and Kei were singing along with Nami and Nagi.

Some songs were reminiscent of my old world. Some others I barely recognized, were taught to them by Kentaro who had learned them from his ancestors. Others still were from this realm entirely.

As the last notes came to an end and the embers of the fire slowly burned out, the sky turned from black to white in an instant.

One moment later, this world was no more.