With an unidentified dead fish in his hands, he decided to do the next experiment.

[Fish added to the Inventory]

He decided to not actually push his luck further. He was able to put a dead thing in the Inventory, and he hoped that making the fire would take not enough time to check how it would keep in there. He assumed that there was no refrigeration option.

If he was in a game, maybe it would be a paid feature. What would the price be of a DLC for life?

He decided to make a camp, or rather a fire, before figuring out the rest of his woes. If someone was actually following him, like the number to his right suggested, at least he would try to eat before his inevitable demise in that case.

The number changed from 13 to 16 in the time it took him to catch the fish. Maybe that meant he was making progress. If more people wanted to kill him, that meant he was more successful? That’s how life worked after all.

He got out of the water, tried his best to shake himself dry, then put on the pants and the shoes. The next item on the list would be to set up a camp. The light had already started to wane, especially considering there wasn’t much of it to begin with in the forngle.

He searched for fallen branches and dead wood on the dirt floor, hoping it would be dry enough to make fire with.

After what seemed like an hour of searching, he finally was happy with the amount of dried twigs and some bark that would hopefully work as tinder, as well as some branches to work as firewood.

He discovered he couldn’t put each individual piece of wood in the Inventory, but enough of them would miraculously count as ‘Kindling’ or ‘Firewood’. Surely, Inventory was the most broken thing ever in this reality, and he was glad he had it.

He decided to make camp relatively close to the river. It would provide him with fresh water and there didn’t seem to be any large animals that he came across, if the two Goblins from before weren’t counter. It seemed like a safe enough location.

He put the pieces of wood and bark on the ground, ordered them in a campfire-y fashion, and cleared out the area in hopes of not starting a wildfire. That would be really the highlight of the day.

He got two pieces of wood and some dried bark and leaves, and set out to make the fire the old fashioned way — friction.

Several minutes, or perhaps a bit more, and a lot of huffing and puffing later, a small fire was happily lit close to the river bank and a fish was impaled on the spear-like branch he dropped from the Inventory.

It was fairly hard to actually stick the thing into the dirt. He had to not consider it a weapon or the same red screen he got the first time would pop into existence and the branch would be plopped into the Inventory.

That taken care of and the fish — thankfully retrieved in the same state as it was deposited — gutted and with some of its rougher scales taken off was roasting slowly in the fire.

Even though the sun was setting ever so slowly, unnaturally so, it was still quite warm, so he decided to not bother with trying to fashion himself a shelter, not that he knew how to make one in the first place. Was a tent or a sleeping bag too much to ask for in the backpack?

He finally decided to take some time off and enjoy the peace and tranquility of his environment, with the only sounds being the kindling fire, the murmuring river, and the constant whirring and buzzing at the back of his head. That last one was something he was definitely starting to get used to, but was still unsure of what it meant.

The other mystery was the question of the follower count. What did all that mean? He definitely required more information about his circumstances.

For now, though, the sun was setting and he had food. Times could be worse. He was actually feeling a bit tired, perhaps the day was finally catching up to him and the meal would just be enough to get him to sleep.

His contemplation on the spot to sleep on stopped when chittering came from somewhere behind him.