Heron’s eyes snapped open and he winced from the heat that beat down on him.

  If there had been a visible sun, Heron would’ve been blinded by it. Instead, he felt mildly sticky from his overnight sweat but he could see just fine. He froze as his breath caught in his throat—for a moment, he had forgotten where he was. Until his mind registered the clear chirps of birds singing in the forest, the scent of pine hitting him as he stared into the blue sky above him.

  Déjà vu hit him as he groaned—turning his head to the side, the grass tickled his ear and cheek. He blinked sleepily as his vision cleared and stabilized, settling on the image before him.

  Was that a slime… on his melon bread?!

  Not just any slime, it was a cute slime! A perfectly round, voluptuous, jelly-like creature that wiggled and jiggled as it stretched up and down, clearly making a move… on his bread!

  Gasping, he snapped straight up. The slime appeared to be startled by the sudden movement as it slithered away with a chunk of the melon bread inside it like a bandit. The leaves shifted as the slime disappeared into the bush. Heron couldn’t believe it. A slime had swooped in and taken advantage of the abandoned melon bread while Heron had been out like a light. That little thief!

  Sighing, Heron blinked in defeat at his assaulted bread, the edges of it having torn marks from the slime’s thievery. But a hearty chuckle escaped him; the absurdity of being robbed blind overnight because he had passed out after creating the savory sweet by a slime was so ridiculous, he found it difficult to be infuriated instead of amused. It was a fair game in the wild, wild forest—

  Hang on. A slime?!

  Heron knew what a slime was. They were featured in all sorts of media, including his favorite farming game. Designed as the weakest mob, they were the standard level-one creature in fantasy settings. Keyword being fantasy. Heron swallowed, his chest tightening. He had reincarnated in another world. Originally, he had been worried about wolves and bears, and had joked to himself about there being goblins and ogres. Now that he had seen a slime, everything seemed like fair game. What was next? A werewolf or vampire?!

  His stomach growled, and Heron reluctantly agreed with his body that hunger was more of a threat than the unknowable dangers of this world. The danger of starvation and dehydration was more imminent than him meeting another fantastical creature. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully.

  Because at least he still had parts of his leftover melon bread.

  Heron picked up the loaf and stared at it thoughtfully. As he peeled the torn edges off, he was surprised that ants hadn’t gotten to it before the slime did. As he ate the bread, Heron prayed he wouldn’t contract any diseases from the slime. Though he had peeled away the parts carefully, there was no assurance that it was safe to eat. Having a permanent debuff at the start of his second life was not ideal. Oh well, that was a problem for later. His options were either wasting the bread or eating it. And he was hungry.

  As he finished the last bits of the bread, Heron’s mind wandered—thinking back to the previous night. While it was true his fitness was horrendous, he was only in his mid-30s. A whole day of walking shouldn’t have exhausted him to the point of collapse.

  So why had he passed out?

  It was only after he had summoned the melon bread that he’d fainted. His creation had confirmed his suspicions of magic, considering it was not normal for bread to appear out of thin air. And even after a full night, the bread still tasted the same as his favorite bakery used to make. Even without the understanding of how this ‘magic’ worked, one thing was clear: there was a price to it.

  Wasn’t there some kind of universal law of how energy couldn’t be created or destroyed? If Heron applied the same law to magic, it would make sense that his energy was traded for the ‘energy’ to use magic. By all means, he was no scientist. But even a salary-man understood that replicating results was crucial to confirming theories—and Heron knew that it would lead him to understanding the methodologies of this world.

  Especially if there wasn’t an instruction manual to this madness.

  On one hand, Heron knew he should be far more concerned than he was about having reincarnated into another world, but that didn’t stop his curiosity regarding magic. In fact, it accentuated it. While magic was new and slightly intimidating, it seemed to be a useful tool and could be the answer to his many problems; such as surviving as a young, middle-aged salary-man in the middle of nowhere.

  Glancing around the clearing, Heron figured now was as good as any other time to run a magic experiment. He would repeat the creation of water. Following the same exact steps as last night, he managed to summon water between his cupped hands once more. Excellent, at least he wouldn’t die of thirst! Dehydration vs Heron, 0:1.

  Wiping the corner of his lips after drinking the water, Heron yawned reluctantly, as if magic was taunting its price—the cost of energy. Even with the cost, the possibilities of magic seemed endless. The water had appeared at will and from the imagery in his mind, which meant he could potentially apply this magic to anything and create whatever he wished from thin air. And if the price for this sorcery was the limitation of Heron’s energy, then he could figure out how to pay for it.

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  Now that he had confirmed the replication of the magic from the night before, there was one thing he wanted to test specifically.

  Standing up and searching nearby, Heron gathered a pile of sticks and stones. He carefully laid out the stones and covered a space neatly in the clearing, leaving no cracks between the rocks. Then he placed the sticks on top, centralizing the wood on the stones. Sitting down with his legs crossed, he raised the tip of his finger.

  With the imagery of a small flame, Heron stared with determination at the tip of his finger.

  Nothing.

  He stared harder, focusing his vision and visualizing fire. The size, shape, no larger than a candle flame—

  “Hot, hot!”

  Heron shook his hand viciously, blowing out the flame on his finger like he would with a candle. He had expected his experiment would be successful, but he had not prepared for the consequences of his actions.

  Cooling his finger down with his mouth, he stared longingly at the pile of sticks he had gathered—still resting on the stones and completely unlit. All he had wanted to do was create a small fire since fire had been useful to mankind since the beginning of time—

  A small flame crackled as Heron witnessed a tiny, orange glow that appeared in the center of the wood where he had been staring. The flames grew from the glow and began burning the wood happily.

  Oh.

  Turns out, he could’ve just imagined where the fire was supposed to be created. And didn’t need to burn his finger. Oops.

  Grinning sheepishly at the small hearth he had started, Heron was entertained by his mistake but also thrilled that the magic appeared to be working just the way he suspected it would. He was also very glad that with the convenience of magic, he would no longer have to rub two pieces of wood together in hopes of starting a fire from friction like a caveman. Hurray for science—no, magic!

  With the power of water and fire on his side, he would be unstoppable! But even with being an unstoppable force, habits died hard, and Heron felt a strong need to be clean. After all, it had been… how many days since he last showered? He wouldn’t call his company shady but overtime sometimes meant staying overnight and well… After a whole day of walking yesterday, he was done smelling like a sewer rat.

  The lake was much colder than Heron had expected, shivering as he slowly tortured himself while sinking into the water step by step.

  His teeth chattered, his hands clutched his arms as he sank deeper into the lake. He wondered if he should be concerned with piranhas or leeches or unspeakable horrors of using the wild waters as a way to bathe. That wasn’t even the worst possibility, what if this world had lake sharks? Absolutely terrifying. So the best, worst case scenario? A fish would swim up his—

  Shaking his head, he chuckled to himself as he brushed the idea away and did the best he could to wash away the stink from the day before.

  Normally, he’d be opposed to cleaning himself in a random lake due to pollution or coming out worse than he did. But he couldn’t say no to the lake in this new world. When he had passed it yesterday, it had appeared to be so clean, so pure, it made him wonder if it was even necessary to filter it before drinking. Hence, he had caved into the temptation of taking a cold bath. Habits died hard and he wasn’t ready to embrace the life of never being clean again.

  He dried himself off with his shirt and tossed on his underpants. Cleaning his shirt in the lake, he wondered if this world would have soap. Soap was an essential survival item—not because of the smell, but because germs could be fatal. Returning to his makeshift camp and restarting his fire, he set his shirt out to dry.

  At the rate of how things were going, the grass would soon have a permanent butt-print as Heron took a seat in the same, exact spot. Staring at the sky, the three moons were barely visible. It was quiet now that the morning birds had stopped chirping and Heron was by his lonesome once more. And now that he was more than half-naked, he sincerely hoped a traveling merchant would not show up out of the blue and witness Heron’s sorry state.

  While thinking about a traveling merchant, Heron decided to reflect on his journey thus far. With his arms wrapped around his knees, he was warmed by the fire as his shirt gently flapped in the wind, slowly drying. He had been in this world for over a day now. Although no thanks to the summoning of the melon bread that had made him pass out, at least it hadn’t affected the results from a full day’s investigation.

  Yesterday, after he had set out from the small clearing, he had walked as straight as he could since he was aware that folks who were lost tended to steer in one direction or the other, and would end up at their starting spot. Even by being off by a few degrees would result in him curving his path. He had purposefully tried to avoid that issue and had appeared to be successful until the end of the day where he had ended back where he had started. Now he was one of those chumps!

  But that didn’t seem quite right.

  It had taken him a whole day of walking through sparse forests, by a lake, and through a few clearings, what were the odds of him wandering straight to the exact clearing where he had woken up in? Would he have missed it by a kilometer or two? The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was strange.

  Perhaps an otherworldly god was playing a prank on him?

  Heron’s stomach growled in protest as the melon bread from earlier was clearly insufficient to curb his hunger. But if he couldn’t create a breakfast that he was familiar with, then what were his options? What were the rules of this magical world? If he passed out because he used too much of his magic energy, then why did a melon bread take him out? Could it be that the bread was too complex to create?

  So what was simple that would lead to food? Heron combed through his brain, and the image of a seed popped in his mind. A vegetable seed was simple. Ah, but growing crops to eat would not be a viable solution at the moment. He didn’t have time to wait weeks, if not months, for a vegetable to be done growing.

  In his first life, he had primarily played farming games like a certain popular indie game that featured a farmer living in a small town—that didn’t mean he was familiar with the ways of farming or even the bare minimum for survival. It’s not like he could grow crops based off of his limited knowledge from staring at a digital screen. There were also too many things he would have to accomplish prior to farming such as tilling the land, figuring out what crops to grow, how to not drown them—

  Oh? Instead of growing a vegetable and letting nature take its course, maybe he could just summon one to eat right now?

  As he considered what options he had, a rustling noise shook him out of his trance. Turning his body and flicking his head, his eyes widened at the bush behind him. The leaves shook and the shifting sounds made his blood freeze. Something was there and Heron wasn’t alone anymore.

  And he was not modestly dressed.