Caius barely kept his eyes open long enough to cook and eat the oats. They were extremely bland and undercooked, but he was too hungry to care. He remembered a German proverb he'd learned. Hunger really was the best cook.

  The sun was starting to set. He'd been planning to head down to the little snow shelter to sleep. After all the effort he had put into digging the thing, it would be a shame to waste it. And he was expecting it to get bitterly cold.

  Still... He could lay back and rest his eyes, couldn't he?

  He folded one of the cloaks and set it down in a little hollow between tree roots. "Please be more waterproof and insulating than you look." He told the garment. The ground was literally freezing cold and frosted with a bit of snow he couldn't be bothered to sweep out of the hollow. Light flickered again, but that time it was probably one of the trees blocking the sun from one specific angle.

  Even if he did take a little nap, the cold would wake him soon. He pulled the other cloak over himself and promptly fell asleep. After the day he'd gone through, his little hollow was as comfortable as a feather bed.

  Caius woke up some time later. Wasn't there something he'd been planning to do? Oh right, go to the shelter he had dug. But he felt perfectly cozy where he was...

  Sitting up, he glanced about. It was snowing. Snowing quite a bit, in fact. Didn't the air temperature have to be around freezing for it to snow? He didn't feel nearly that cold.

  He caught a few snowflakes on an outstretched palm, then held them up. He could barely see anything, but the flakes had melted. His palm felt like it dried very quickly. That was normal for the summer back home where it got up to 28 Celsius, not when it was cold enough to snow.

  Come to think of it, how could he see anything at all? Caius looked around, trying to get his sleepy brain in gear. The fire was long burned down. He should probably have doused it, it was irresponsible to leave a fire burning unattended.

  Dense clouds covered the sky, sifting snow over the landscape. Or so he imagined, they blocked the moonlight and he could barely see anything beyond...

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  His immediate surroundings were very faintly illuminated. Like he was glowing? But wouldn't the blanket and clothes block that?

  Reaching down, he extended a fingertip toward the ground. The area just beneath it did look slightly brighter.

  Caius decided this issue could wait for morning. He lay down and went back to sleep.

  When morning came, the rising sun woke him. He procrastinated considering the various questions he had in favor of breakfast, since he felt the beginning of a ravenous hunger.

  The meal was a repeat of the previous day, just some of the meat and veggies slightly fried before being simmered with the grain. While waiting for said simmering to finish, Caius realized something.

  "Why am I not sore all over?" He asked aloud, just to break the silence. He never would have guessed that he would miss the sound of other people talking, but the absolute silence was a bit unnerving.

  He stretched, experimentally. No screams of protest from his muscles followed. But it was only one more mystery to add to the pile.

  A much more immediate concern was hygiene. Caius hadn't bathed since he woke up in the snow the previous day, and had gone through some vigorous physical activity. For a man who normally showered at least two and sometimes three times a day, it was more than a little unpleasant.

  Not that he was likely to find hot, running water around here.

  Caius collected the cloaks while he thought. Might as well do some tidying up. But when he picked up the one he was lying on, the one that had belonged to another man...

  The ground underneath had a puddle of water on it. Caius examined the cloak, which was perfectly dry. Which made no sense.

  Caius thought hard, examining the cloak and the clasp he had fastened to the outside of his sleeve. Both were clearly of superior quality to the ones he had been wearing when he woke up. So the previous owner might have been slightly more well-to-do than his fellows?

  If Caius was indeed in another world, maybe waterproof cloaks were just a thing here?

  He checked the food. It could do with some more cooking. Which meant he had enough time for an experiment.

  Scooping up some snow and letting it sit in his hand until it began melting, Caius let some drip onto each cloak. The nice one shed the water like a sheet of plastic, whereas Caius' behaved exactly like he would have expected.

  Another mystery. Caius was accumulating a concerningly large pile of those. A small voice in his head was asking questions he had no answers to. But Caius couldn't quite hear that small because a much louder voice was evolving a solution to his hygiene issue.

  Was it a good solution? No, it was objectively a terrible idea and would probably be much more effort than the problem justified. He could absolutely just go wash himself and his clothes with water from the stream like sane individual.

  The food was cooked. Caius would try a proof-of-concept after his stomach was full, it was starting to grumble. He sat down and tucked in to the plain but hearty fare.