Third Person POV

Satoshi found them an empty house quite fast. It was a testament to the improvement of his control over his ability. What had once taken him several minutes of meticulous searching, now only took a few dozen seconds or so of crude search, sufficient to establish the presence of a living entity. Now that he knew what to look for in the confines of the target house, he simply swept through all the rooms and halls at once while looking for signs of any movement. He did get a few false positives for those who had slept early but after the first attempt of entering and finding the house locked from inside, he shifted to a slightly more sophisticated search that also involved looking for any signs of breathing.

Once he had found the house, he brought Feriana in and after she cooked up something more substantial to eat from the ingredients she found in the kitchen, they headed off to sleep. Satoshi wasn’t in the mood for any night activities so he slowed her breath intake to make sure she’d fall asleep faster. The day had been quite a handful and he had a lot to think about.

“First of all, there was the fight but I think I’ve already gone over it enough number of times during the flight here. More importantly, I have to curb any risks of potential pursuit. I don’t know the full capabilities of this world and it is entirely possible that there exist ways to track me for long distances.”

He could only hope that him being able to fly and hence cover very long distances very fast will be sufficient to put a huge enough gap between him and his potential pursuers.

“Moreover, I am confident that in a stable environment, unlike that super-heated one because of the fire kid, I can detect any and all presences that may try to sneak up on me, even that monster of a king… though being able to react in time is another matter. I am sure something will work out.”

If nothing else, he was confident in his ability to swiftly escape.

“What I really need to figure out was this entire elemental thing. It sounds like the entirety of my existence could be explained if I could just understand what Feriana was trying to tell me. Though it felt like even she does not know all that much. But there must be someone who would, considering how she was telling it to me as what I assume was a story. Though at the same time, I have to assume that not everyone would be as convenient as Feriana in me being able to reveal my identity. In fact, I think it would be better if I expected hostility at all times that a possibility of me being an elemental is revealed. Also, there are five humans.. elementals. I am air and the fire-kid is dead. So there must be three others. Air, fire, earth and water sound like standard choices. What else? Light and darkness? That would make it six. I’ve seen healing, is that perhaps a part of light or water? If not, is that the fifth? The fire kid’s mind was being influenced, so mind magic? I need more information. As always.”

He shifted on the bed. Just when things were stabilising for him, it all went haywire.

“As for my next plans, I can either continue on towards the wolfmen village or I can look forward to a new random direction. I can try asking Feriana for suggestions but I doubt she will have an idea of which direction to head in for her intended destination, if any. Neither do I think we can get any directions here in this lizard shit of a city. I guess I’ll just have to ask her in the morning. If not, we can go the wolfmen village and enquire there. I wonder how that little girl is doing.”

Satoshi’s mind drifted to that little wolfkin he had met in Smirnie’s house. He couldn’t remember her name but the memory associated with her was a good one.

“I should at least give her my thanks.”

It was with her, that Satoshi practised his powers for the first time. Her ignorance to what his ability could have meant can be attributed to her being so young, but it was exactly because she was so young and pure that Satoshi had developed a favourable impression of her. It wasn’t like it wasn’t the same for the rest of the family, but it was more out of gratitude for saving his life and looking after him when he couldn’t do so himself. Smirnie apart, the others maintained their distance, barring the breakfast and dinner times.

“Maybe I can hunt something as a gift….”

With a last image of the little girl delightfully wolfing down meat persisting through his fading vision, Satoshi shut his eyes and let slumber draw him away.

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Next morning, Satoshi enquired Feriana on suggestions for where to go but either she did not have any ideas or he overestimated his ability to understand her even if she did. As a result, they were on their way to the wolfmen village.

After a few hours of flying and Satoshi trying to learn more of the language out of Feriana’s useless banter, the village came into site.

“That.”

Satoshi called out to her, putting a stop to her running mouth. Feriana looked over to their destination-to-be.

“Is that the ***** *****?”

Satoshi had heard the second part of that word before. He mentally noted it as ‘village’.

“But. Animal meat. Hunt.”

He didn’t know the word for ‘gift’ but Feriana’s understanding face led him to believe that the point got across.

(I’m not sure what would be a good idea to take back. If I end up killing some religious beast or something, that’d be a disaster.)

Satoshi did a brief scan of the forest area around for living beings. He registered a whole lot of beasts and along with that, three groups of humanoids. This far out, it was obvious that they couldn’t be anyone but wolfmen, either hunting or gathering for their small village.

“Shhhh”

Satoshi put a finger on his lips and motioned for Feriana to stay quiet. He wrapped the two of them in a sound barrier and drifted towards the closest of the groups. The barrier was so that they wouldn’t be detected. It also prevented smells from escaping so by maintaining a safe altitude behind the group, it was enough to make sure that they could casually see what the group were up to.

Satoshi flew the two of them closer but maintained their height above the treetops. It was far enough that Satoshi and Feriana could see the wolfkins a few centimeters in size. Satoshi settled them to a constant pace similar to their stalkees. Through the regular gaps in the leaves, he could see that there were three wolfkins in the party, though he already knew that from his detection ability. Coupled with a more precise application of his detection and what he was seeing, even though they were far, he could make out their equipment. Two of them, the ones in the front held daggers in a single hand each and were armoured very light, optimising for movement. The one at the back had similar armour but carried a large bag, though it was only partly filled.

Satoshi quickly deduced that these folks weren’t here for large prey. With another quick sweep of the forest floor with his detection, his expectations were verified as only small animals registered.

With a sigh, he moved away from this group to the next closest one.

“Why are we ****** not *****?”

Feriana asked him something, most likely related to his stalking habits.

“I don’t understand.”

He replied with probably the most useful phrase he had learned ever, in the new language.

“We ******* ******. Then ***** closer. Then move slow. Then watch. Then move. Then ******. Why?”

(So that last word is either ‘leave’ or ‘move away’ or ‘give up’.)

Satoshi repeated the word to Feriana.

“Hmm.. ”

Feriana thought for a second and careful not to move too much, for the danger of Satoshi losing control over her, made some hands signs. She stuck two fingers out downwards. The fingers did a cycling motion each to indicate walking. Then the hand suddenly stopped, did a 180 flip horizontal and repeated the cycling motion forward.

(So it’s something like ‘turn around’?)

“Walk. Then. Behind walk?”

He asked in what best he could describe.

“Sort of.”

After deliberating over it for a second, he took out his writing supplies and noted down the word for ‘turn around’.

“Okay so..”

He continued in his native tongue while putting back his notes in his robe.

“......”

He realised he didn’t know enough words yet to explain what he was trying to do. In fact, even he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do and that only made it all the more hard to explain.

“Fuck it.”

That was another useful phrase he had learnt. From what he understood, the individual words of the phrase meant “Forget you have eyes, nose and ears” or something like that, so he had noted it down against his own familiar phrase just so he knew what context to use it in.

(A/N: Useless blabber: The phrase is lit. “Forget your senses”. So when once Feriana was explaining ‘senses’ to Satoshi, she pointed to her eyes, nose and ears. Hence his uncanny interpretation of the phrase)

The next group was also a triple, but these were clearly gatherers. They did carry daggers for protection, but with of them burdened with a large bag, the daggers were clearly only meant for defensive use. He again confirmed this with a quick sweep and moved on to the next group.

He had hopes from this group, because for one it was large with about 5 people and it was deep into the forest. Even his crude search for humanoid sized creatures had been able to detect several presences of beasts, making that particular part of the forest the most dangerous if he were to only go by the population density of the larger sized beasts.

At his speed, it took him less than a minute to reach this third group. Then he slowed down and meticulously gained on the group in hopes for a better view. It was indeed five people, his detection ability hitting the mark yet again. From their equipment, they were clearly the best out the three groups, but Satoshi internally remarked that Meste’s party from the beastkin kingdom had better gear. The group had one largish wolfkin in the front with two round wooden shield; clearly the tank. Behind him were two wolfkins, one male and one female, each holding a one-handed sword. To a small distance behind, were two more wolfkins; one ranger, vigilant with a bow and the last one with a bag.

Satoshi decided to call the role for the bag-carriers as ‘supporters’ since that was most likely what their job was. He looked back to the fighters with the sword and nodded to himself. For some reason, he felt swords suited wolfkins more than daggers. But something else caught his eye.

“Is that…?”

Even though the group was quite far, he could barely make out the faces of the group and the female with the one-handed sword seemed familiar.

“Smirnie’s daughter?”

Smirnie had three kids; the eldest daughter, the middle son and the youngest daughter. And unless wolfkin people had very similar faces (which he was sure wasn’t the case with the few wolfkin people he had seen), this was undoubtedly the eldest daughter. It wasn’t as if it was a particularly memorable face; in fact, if anyone had asked Satoshi any time before 5 minutes ago, he would have absolutely refused any memory of what their family looked like, apart from Smirnie himself and the youngest daughter. But after seeing the young woman like this, he was all but sure that it was her. It was certainly possible that his subconscious had kept a record of her. The family had indeed left a considerable impression on him, being the first people he met in this world while also being the first non-human people he had ever met. Truly, his confusion at that time had been outstanding.

He closed his eyes and did a quick scan of the surroundings. He didn’t really need to close his eyes but it just made it easier for his brain to process the incoming information when it wasn’t already decoding visual signals as well.

"Gimme something…"

He'd got many responses from his detection feedback but none seemed to fit his criteria.

"Got it."

He opened his eyes with a glint that wasn't present before and a grin one would label wicked if they didn't know any better. Admittedly, if they knew any better, their conclusion would've been firmer.