"Ugghhhh…"

For once, I woke up tired. No part of my body really hurt per se but there was fatigue. Earlier I'd been able to go a couple of days without sleep by channelling my breathing and would wake up without an ounce of lethargy but this time was different. I'd been relying on my wind ability too much. Irregular sleep, irregular eating and absolutely zero exercise had caused my body to grow fundamentally weaker.

(I don't even walk anymore, for fuck's sake. Well, not that I can walk but still..)

This tired morning was an eye-opener. Though admittedly, the night was quite...consuming. That girl..

"Feriana."

"Mmm.."

She stirred naked in my arms.

She had been fanatically trying to please me.

(Was that 4 rounds? 6?)

I rubbed my hand on her smooth back. Just the day before, it had been extremely rough to the touch. Now that her body was healed, she could enjoy as well. As I'm sure she did with the way she was loudly moaning at some point. I'm glad I don't have to deal with any obtrusive neighbours here. I'd probably kill them with my favourite lung bursting.

(Should I find more innovative ways to kill?)

I did find some more interesting uses of my ability in alternative domains. I'd always wanted to try asphyxiation on my partner, but it is typically a rather dangerous and uncontrollable thing to try. Fortunately, I do not fall into that typical category anymore and needless to say, the results were a resounding success. There were other things I tried which also worked wonderfully, such as controlling my own breathing to last longer and to simulate areas where my hands couldn't reach. Well, there was some incongruity with just one leg but Feriana was enthusiastic enough to overcome it in creative ways.

(Uhh.. I should get up..)

I wanted to get up and maybe start doing some exercise. But..

“Mmm…”

Feriana slept hugging onto me. Her head was on my shoulder and her arm rested on my chest. I could have woken her up but..

(That'd be too easy.)

I discreetly used my ability to create a small air cushion for her in place of my body and slipped out. Innovation at its finest.

“Satoshi...”

(What the..?)

She stirred and woke up as soon as I was on my feet..foot.

(Was it the smell?)

Even though she should have been tired as well from the nightly activities, not to mention the insufficient sleep, seeing me up, she got up as well without a hint of exertion.

(Not that I know how long people in this world generally sleep..)

And walked over to me. And looked at me with eyes full of affection. And gave me a hug with both of us naked.

“Yapar itrak uh.”

Her breasts of the right size to fit in my hands pressed against my chest while my son pressed against her lower stomach. Her height was till about my chin, so she licked me on the neck and shoulder. I’d gotten to know from last night that she had a thing for licking.

(Is it culture in this world, a beastkin thing or just her?)

She continued to hug and lick me for a few seconds. Soon those seconds turned into a minute and that playful licking of hers started to turn sensual and potentially escalate to a few more morning rounds. So I stopped her. It was certainly enjoyable last night but sex wasn't going anywhere. There were things to be done, starting with working out.

"Feriana."

Feriana, already looking at me, gave me an inquisitive glance.

"How would you like to fly?"

--------------------------

We were on our way to the nearby forest lake that I’d earlier found. Feriana was thoroughly enjoying her first guided session through the sky. It was easy to control her body. Even when I started to lift her, she didn’t get scared or flail about, and simply gave me a look of “I don’t care what happens as long as I’m with you”.

“That is one problem solved. Now that I have a native on my side so things should be smoother. Well, relatively..”

When we had reached a considerable height, she was speechless at the breathtaking sight with tears in her eyes. Over the course of several minutes, she had not at all gotten accustomed to the sight and just kept looking here and there, all the while shouting some stuff that was fortunately inaudible over the sound of the air.

“At least she stopped crying. I’m not sure how much of that I could take.”

I understood her predicament and her emotional outbursts were to be expected and I, to a large extent wished it to be that way so I could make her loyal to me, but… It was starting to somewhat get on my nerves.

“I put in a lot of effort to get a convenient travelling companion. I hope I don’t end up killing her if she gets too annoying..”

I was perfectly conscious of my irritability and impulsiveness.

Feriana was flying in front of me so that I could keep an eye on her. While behind me was a big round object wrapped in a bedsheet.

“Now where should I drop this son of a bitch…”

It was Feriana’s father. Just leaving his body in the house would make the entire house smell once it started rotting so I pulled it out. Feriana was clearly aware of what it was even though I’d wrapped another bedsheet on it that had no blood on it. She glanced at it once with an attitude of “You can do whatever you please with it. I have no qualms” and never looked towards it again.

We’d been flying for about 10-15 minutes now and because of Feriana’s first time and her occasional overzealous flappings making her body harder for me to control, we were going much slower than my usual pace. We were currently flying over the large crop fields and would cross over the forest boundary in a few minutes.

“So fat asshole, would you like to be thrown left or right?”

I think it requested left. Without looking, I unwrapped the outer sheet and at a nice 45° angle, launched him towards the right. The speed was fast enough that he would travel dozens of kilometres before hitting the ground where his exploded body parts would be eaten by some kind and environmentalist carnivores.

“Oh! I was looking for other ways to kill people than just bursting their lungs. I can shoot them in random directions. That would be pretty cool!”

Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner!? It was an amazing idea!

“I should have done that to the thugs from the slum. I can make tornados so I’m sure enough pressured wind should be able to lift people without needing to worry if they’re head first or dick first.”

Precise control was hard but brute force? Yup, that was sheer genius.

“Though I don’t want to go around killing indiscriminately. In fact, I don’t want to kill at all if I can help it. Not that I care about the act itself. I don’t really. Do I?”

I introspected for half a second.

“Yeah, I don’t. But I don’t want to get involved in this world’s affairs as much as possible. I’d rather be an innocent bystander and let the world run its course as it is supposed to. That is, as long as it’s also working in my favour, I don’t really need to tweak things as much as I did with her. “

Feriana had long realised that making sudden movements made me lose control over her and cause her flight to get wobbly, so she restrained herself to only head movements. And a lot of jaw movements..

“Well, my long term objective in this world anyway is to explore the fuck out it. And for that, I first need to learn the language. Zem for table, isruk for chair, forgot the word for door and Ragh for house. Yes, yes, one step at a time.”

I had started to point at things and ask Feriana what they were called. She was enthusiastic enough to tell it to me, pointing at more stuff on her own and telling me their names. She was still doing it while in the air, towards the sun and sky and presumably, the forest but again, she was inaudible over the wind pressure. Sure, I could have had us fly parallelly and reduce the wind pressure between us so that I could hear her but I decided to let her get over her excited squealing before any of her banter reached me.

"Yes. One step at a time."

-----------------------

“Baatal.”

She said, pointing at the lake with one hand and holding the sheet that I uncovered off her father’s body with the other, while I hovered both of us down. With the starry look in her eyes, it was a wonder she could even remember her duty of introducing new words to me.

“Baatal.”

I repeated after her absentmindedly. My focus was currently occupied with holding up both our bodies while simultaneously searching the area for any beasts. Controlling someone else’s body like that was harder than I expected. My muscles had naturally gotten used to working in conjunction with the ability due to its sensory feedback. It was just like controlling another limb, an ever-extendible formless limb, but a limb nevertheless(remember the law of conservation of limbs?). Even an inanimate object was magnitudes easier. For one, it did not have a will of its own to be able to cause sudden disturbances. And secondly, there generally wasn't any need to hold it in a fixed orientation. Thankfully, she didn't make many movements (other than her initial excited flails) so I didn't have that much trouble. In fact, she just left it to me like "my body is yours to do as you please" so it was fairly manageable.

Once I had driven off any beasts in the vicinity, I landed us in the clearing right next to the lake.

“Enaim lehpe bhaki baatal hani khade.. Nitka nusrad iah..”

She said something while staring at the lucid lake.

“Baatal.”

And that was all I understood of it. Well, it was some progress…

Then she started walking away towards the lake.

"Oi oi, wait!"

I blocked her with some pressured wind.

"Yak ahu?"

She turned around and asked.

"Baatal. No."

I pointed to the lake and made a cross with my hands.

"Might have monsters."

I made claws with my hands and a scary face. For some reason, she made an understanding expression and started taking off her clothes.

"What the hell did you understand from that?"

I facepalmed and flew over to stop her.

"Ughh.. I should have thought this through."

She was clearly a bumpkin and hadn't stepped foot in the forest ever, thus unaware of any dangers. And now that she had an unhealthy amount of trust in me, she'd totally be believing that everything would be fine. But it's not that simple. My missing leg is a testament to that.

(Can't even explain that to her without a headache. *Mental facepalm*)

"If you want to get into the water… wait for a bit."

I had had this idea the last time I came. It wasn't really feasible for me but maybe..

"Let’s try this."

I pulled her back, a distance away from the lake and focused.

“Watch this.”

She looked towards the lake even though she shouldn’t have understood what I said. Well, me holding my arm out might have been an indication that I was about to do something in that direction. But I needed concentration for this and the palm pointing certainly helped. After all, I was about to try something that I hadn’t tried before.

I concentrated a bubble of air near the lake. And pushed it against the ground. The air started to become denser and denser and as I put all of my focus on it, I could feel the increasingly viscous air molecules strike against the plants and the soft dirt. I realised I was probably going to end up with a headache again if I used the ability to such an extent so I relented some of my focus.

With a new vigour to balance the mental strain with the optimisation of the output, I pushed the air again. A small part of it much, much denser than the rest gathered, flattening out the vegetation underneath. Slowly, I applied rotation to the bubble while simultaneously forcing the high pressured bubble to gouge out as much of the soil as possible. I kept increasing the speed until what formed was a roundish tornado.

I focused some stagnant pressured air around the two of us so that we wouldn't get covered in the dirt that blew off the makeshift excavation drill.

As I continued to apply pressure to the bubble, the soil slowly got pushed to the side and a shallow spherical depression started to form. It was hard and time-consuming to do it with the wind but it worked. I pushed deeper and deeper and kept at it until it was about 3 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep.

“Phew.”

Then I proceeded to do something similar but on a much smaller scale to create a narrow path from the giant lake to pour itself into its tiny artificial offspring. If I let the flow of water be turbulent, it would pick up the mud and make the small water body muddy and unusable for a while till all the dirt sedimented. Instead, I made the path narrow to allow a gentle inflow.

Even though we stood at a distance, I knew that my idea had worked. I led Feriana by the hand to the edge of the gradually populating mini-lake and showed it to her.

"Whoooaaa.."

A small puddle had formed at the bottom of the lake and steadily growing in size. She sat down there, content to watch the puddle grow.

(She gets excited over the smallest things.)

After doing a quick baptism for bugs and somehow telling Feriana to stay put, I flew over to a branch to exercise.

"Finally. Let's do this."

I'd already thought of a few ways to do this while on my way here. I did a set of chin-ups on a nice branch, upside-down crunches on the same branch, bench press using a hefty fallen branch, push-ups, etcetera. Using continuous proper breathing made the entire task easier and more effective while I supplemented areas where I lacked strength or form using my ability.

I kept at it for a while, taking care not to push my muscles too much on the first day.

“Phew.”

After I was thoroughly tired, I sat mid-air to meditate and exercise my ability.

“I should name it something. It’s getting annoying to always refer to it as ‘ability’.”

I floated cross-legged, optimising for the amount of focus on my body to keep it there and use the rest to sweep across the area for living beings. I could indeed do both but I had to keep focusing on it and any kind of sudden disruptions would cause me to lose focus like it had happened back at the slum. Also, using it too much was never a good idea as it leaves me highly susceptible should any other danger jump at me the moment after.

“Hmm.. Windy?”

Also, keeping focused so much didn’t always leave me space for idle thoughts. I wanted Windy to become second nature just like moving and feeling around with any of the other limbs.

“Gustina..”

I had been keeping track around the immediate vicinity for any incoming beasts. Fortunately, I hadn’t detected any after I had quickly dispersed the ones that were around initially. As I extended Gustina to cover more area, I did pick up on quite a few presences, none dangerously close to us though.

“Breezienne... Wait. Should I even be naming it? I kind of think of it as another limb and I never really named my hands or legs either. What if they think I’m being partial and mutiny?”

I didn’t focus enough to determine how large any of the presences were but just enough to tell if they were humanoid or beasts. None of them seemed to be humanoids according to Breezienne but I couldn’t be sure if she detected right without me giving her my full attention. She was indeed a little naughty in those regards.

“Zephyr.. That was the Greek God of wind. But I knew a girl named that as well. So I guess it’s decided. Sorry, Greek God, I’m gonna use your name as a chick’s name for my ability because I would rather it be a girl than a guy.”

I let Zephyr do another sweep across the area. Finding no reasons for concern, Zephyr felt around Feriana. She seemed to be waiting in the exact same way I left her.

“Well I did kind of ask her to stay put… Haahh… It’s like I’m training her… Why can nothing ever come to me conveniently? It’s only you, Zephyr my precious, ever so loyal to me, who is making my life peaceful.”

I stopped my meditation. Maybe if someone could understand me, they'd think me crazy talking to an imaginary being but for one, no one can understand me and two, I couldn't care less even if they did.

I was still sweaty from the exercise, having refused Zephyr’s attempts to assist in the evaporation. I slowly flew over to where Feriana sat looking into and playing with the now filled mini-lake.

“Feriana.”

I called out to her. She got up and came over to me. I pointed to the sheets in her hand.

“Dardach.”

She said, holding it out to me.

“Dardach.”

I repeated back as I let Zephyr take the sheet off her hands and spread it over the ground next to us. Then I pointed at our clothes while removing mine.

“Depak.”

She told me as she starting taking off hers as well.

“Depak.”

I answered diligently.

Once both of us were naked, Zephyr flew us near the main lake while simultaneously flattening out the overgrowth under us. Flora does flourish near freshwater and it wasn’t a good idea to let it be like that should any venomous insect be hiding there.

With quick blasts of air, I had Zephyr make a shower for both of us and I let Feriana wash the tired me which she was more than happy to do.

In between, she kept giving me more words to learn, this time relating to body parts.

Once we were done, I instructed Zephyr to promptly guide Feriana to the mini-lake. Zephyr, being the naughty girl she’s supposed to be, dropped Feriana near the edge inside the water. Right as I’d guessed, she didn’t know how to swim so she flailed about a bit before finding a foothold. It was good I instructed Zephyr not to drop her in the middle. Though the mini-lake wasn’t very deep, it was still deep enough for an amateur to drown in, given enough panic.

(I think I'll stick to 'ability'. Some people might end up thinking it's a sentient being, otherwise.)

Feriana pouted at me who flew at a distance. There was no way I was going in where I couldn’t have immediate control over my body with my ability. Feriana kept looking towards me with an expectant gaze to join her but I ignored her and dried myself with a nice and cool application of wind.

Once I was dry, I picked up my clothes to put on. These were the same ones I’d stolen off of Smirnie in the wolfmen village.

“Once we get back, the first thing we’re gonna do is get me some new clothes.”

*grumble*

Apparently, my stomach did not agree with my choices.

“Okay, the second thing we do is get me some clothes.”