He set out further along the river, the dead Goblins far behind his back. He tried equipping the dagger he got from the Goblin to no avail, and his own dagger that he’s been using has been washed in the river. It was more like a stream than a river, but he decided to call it a river.

He was starting to get worried at how much time he was spending just walking aimlessly in the forest. His mana has risen to 67, which indicated he has definitely walked at least a couple of miles, even if his progress was slow.

The sun was still up in the sky somewhere overhead, and there was a ways off to go until night would set in, at least according to his calculations, but it was still worrying that he couldn’t find anything notable in the forngle.

The trees and the shrubbery were more or less the same as far his eye could see, and he wasn’t keen on trying to pick up mushrooms off them. Eating them would be a lottery between being fine, seeing things, having bouts of unpleasant illness, or straight up death, and he wasn’t liking his odds for now.

If only the Helper function worked on things he could see instead of only the screens in front of him. And if only it worked.

Curious to what it might actually do, he snatched a nearby brownish mushroom growing on top of a tree root and tried mentally using the command on it.

Nothing happened, apart from the mushroom vanishing.

[Mushroom added to Inventory]

That wasn’t that much useful. He hasn’t actually considered how much he could carry, or in what state foodstuff and organic matter were preserved in the Inventory, if it was preserved at all. The Inventory didn’t say, and the screens remained silent as always.

It was time to load up on mushrooms.

He continued going through the forngle, following along the incredibly peaceful river, picking up a few mushrooms as he went. Maybe they'd be useful later.

He noticed some fish in the water but wasn’t sure how to get them from point A, the river, to point B, not the river.

Thinking of spear-fishing, he picked up a branch that had any spear-like qualities, like a sharp end or relative straightness, which just ended with it transported into the Inventory and a screen to accompany the disappointment.

[Spear incompatible with current class]

He needed a net, maybe. Now would be a great time to catch up on those wilderness survival videos. If he had any.

The fish in the river mocked him for his inability to extract them out of their habitat by leaping out of the water occasionally.

He wasn’t particularly hungry, considering he ate the sandwich provided in the backpack when he got it, but he was definitely annoyed. And worried that he might not receive sandwiches anymore.

He had a knife and a skill that projected a barrier that stopped things. Maybe it could work somehow?

There seemed to be a definite limit to the size of the barrier, and its shape was more or less convex when he cast it the first few times, but perhaps he could influence that.

He pointed at the river, imagine something more like a dome than a sheet and said ‘Shield’. He had a decent amount of mana, and if he stayed here, where it was relatively silent, for a while, he could get it back.

A glimmer appeared in the river and a small dome hovered over the fish, stopping water from flowing for about a second before it shattered. The barrier deflected arrows with ease but seemed to have difficulty holding in running water.

But now he had an actual plan to go along with, and he got his dagger at the ready.

He glanced at the number on the right.

[13]

Whether someone was following him or whatever exactly the number meant, it was put to the back of the mind. The number has risen since the past few hours, so he needed to ponder that as well when he got to it.

For now, fish was on today’s menu.