After explaining what happened and how I am both, in fact, not crazy, and how the plant hurt my feelings, it prompted Hernon and Nori to look at their own connection to the sapling, the results of which were surprisingly funny.

"Huh, you said it was mild dislike for you, but to me, it feels like simple dislike, it is a lot stronger than simple mild dislike and it is really hurtful when I could step on it by accident and nearly kill it," Nori complains, having trouble deciding whether to laugh at the absurdity or frown at the insult of a tiny sapling.

It makes it even funnier watching Nori be confused as every facial expression is matched by their tail and ears so perfectly it is almost scary how quickly we are adapting to our new bodies.

Hernon on the other hand, seems to be... grimacing?

"This plant has such hate for me it's not even funny," Hernon says simply.

Everyone stops at this, and stares at Hernon, everyone except Anima who seems to only be growing even further immersed in the sapling, stretching into a long silence before I break the ice.

"What are you? A lumberjack?" I joke, before continuing seriously, "Seriously though, it could just be the plant personally dislikes you, or just because of your element, fire shockingly does not go well with plants."

"True, Mr Silver over here might be right, though I don't know why Anima suddenly has a connection to plants when we went past so many things yesterday just fine," Nori affirms while offering some insight.

"Oi-" I start, taking offence to Nori now calling me Silver guy.

"Anyway! We should probably look out for other stuff like that, and maybe something better to sleep on as I don't want the only clothes we have right now to get dirty camping in the middle of nowhere," Nori interrupts.

I take a look at my clothing, noticing how whatever the wizard clothes are made of aren't natural, they don't feel like cloth, wool, or standard cloth stuff, but are extremely sturdy and don't seem to be getting very dirty.

Did just have them for a day though.

"I don't think it's the clothing you should worry about, not only is it super tough, but as I was up last night I had some rather frightening thoughts, such as, can spiders get magic poison? Magic Spiders? Oh god, Magic snake-spiders." I shudder, not remembering much other than the fact I had to deal with spiders and snakes a lot in the last world, so a horrific combination of both seems like something the system would do.

Hernon scoffs, but Nori rightfully recognises the danger, and shifts priorities to looking for any bugs on them, ears and tail twitching in agitation.

At this, I appear to have reached Hernon's limit as they reaffirm his position as leader. "Enough, we need to get a move on, even if we get to the mountain it could be ages before we reach civilisation, come on Anima, we don't have time for this." He says as he kicks the unfortunate sapling, splintering it in an awkward angle.

Anima looks at Hernon in shock, as does everyone else, before Anima grits their teeth in what looks like a good attempt at not talking back.

Fucking children. Must not be in a good mood because of their status, or maybe they just like to be in control.

Whatever, I swear I feel like I'm in a bad anime. I only watched one, once, and never again. It took a lot of convincing to get Jacob to like me after that.

Wait who's Jacob? It's like that Val person I thought of earlier, but they don't ring a bell in my head.

Probably not important.

We begin to set off quietly, and in awkward silence, as my head once again gets filled with questions I think I won't get answers to for a while. A peaceful breeze gently flows through the hills just as we start moving, proving too strong for the remains of the small sapling as it finally bends it past what it can handle, taking half the plant with it into the wind for an unknown distance.

I watch the remains of the plant with bored interest, ignoring the squabbles of what feels like children, as it flies towards the gigantic floating islands that don't seem to be changing in size as we travel, proving that it is either much larger than I thought or that the mountains we are heading to are also near to the floating islands...Ish.

Looking at the magnificent and grant floating islands, I sigh briefly as I instead yearn to head there, instead of towards some mountain to find more humans.

Already seeing people as a different species, maybe I really am changing.

Oh no! Anyways.

Ignoring my lack of care for meeting humans again, I decide that if Hernon keeps up his shenanigans and on how I feel later, to maybe just ditch the group, or at least Hernon, to go head off on my own.

As much as I enjoy Nori and Anima's company, I have known these people for only one day, and I have my own life and adventures to have, not to live in Hernon's little world.

As awkward as it got after Hernon's mild plant manslaughter, plantslaughter? It was not going to get me down, nor stop me from using my fabled professional social skills to clear the air and get some conversation going.

"Guys, since we are technically magic people now, I would think we would have access to magic, so anyone got any tips to layout for me?" I ask seriously, I have never been magic 'given form' before or had much to do with magic outside of game time with, I think it was my neighbour? So I am hoping to get advice from the people around me.

I feel like I should know my neighbour, but I can't remember much other than he was a friend of mine.

Hernon, happy to have something to break the ice, grins as he answers. "I was thinking about how we could use magic too so I'm glad you asked, usually in a world with a system the person uses the system to use or activate their magic," They say, before frowning and bringing their hand to their face, "Frustratingly though, nothing I try to do with the system works so I was planning on using other stuff."

Nori, also glad to have something to break the ice, happily chips in with a wag of their tail.

"Oh I know this stuff, my brother showed me it, he told me you had to 'feel for the energies and try to manipulate it, and even if you couldn't manipulate it, finding and doing something with the energy was always the first part." They explain, more knowledgeable than I thought.

Anima looks away, mumbling something about "Damn weebs".

"Well good stuff everyone, sadly, I have no idea so anything more concrete? Or are we pretty screwed at the moment?" I ask rhetorically.

Hernon looks away in self-directed disgust at being the gamer, but not knowing the game, while Nori just shrugs, indicating that we are indeed extremely good elementals that know how to use our own elements.

Absolute authority my behind.

"So... How about that weird transform ability it says?" I again ask, wondering if anyone has even tried it.

"I didn't try it yet, with these ears and... Tail. I have a fairly good idea what it may be." Nori asks, dripping with sarcasm and trying to be joking, but the drooping ears tell a different story.

"Ok so, we know Nori is definitely a dragon in disguise," I say, also with sarcasm, "But what about flame boy and plant girl?"

"Hmm, well from the few fantasy creatures I know, I was hoping it would be a phoenix, but honestly? I have no idea, as when I tried it, even though it didn't technically tell me I couldn't, the system told my brain that it would be a bad idea." Hernon replies, trying to convey what was probably very confusing, being told not to do something without actually being told not to.

Anima just gives a slight nod, "He's right." They say simply.

It was at this that we got to the bottom of another of those rolling hills, meaning it was time to start hiking upwards again, this time on a rocky surface, one of the jagged rocks seems to be more moss than rock as something happened to the rock here.

Shattered and broken is what remains of what was probably a very impressive rock, lying haphazardly all across the hill in both large and small pieces, though there are more small pieces than large. In the shade of a small pile of rocks nearly big enough to sit on, a small blue-green patch of moss is growing out of the sun, narrowly avoiding Nori as they accidentally knock a large shard of rock loose from stumbling a little on the climb.

Hernon's path was the straightest shot to the mountains possible, meaning we pass through these quite often, it wasn't the first time I passed this moss, but the first time I try what I am about to do.

I reach down, gently but firmly grab a small handful of the moss, and bite into it.

It is only when I am halfway done chewing and savouring the strange, exotic, slightly wet patch of moss does someone notice.

Nori looks back to help me over one of the large bits of rock, so as they hold out their hand, they get a full picture of me munchin' on grass as their eyes widen. Even their ears and tail twitch in confusion as I meet their eyes, and continue chewing carefree.

"Silver guy, why... Why are you eating the moss?" They ask, stuck in a mix of emotions that only strengthen when I continue looking them in the eyes as seriously as I can.

"Am hungry," I say, with purposefully bad English and still looking them dead in the eyes, which would look pretty funny since they have the high ground right now.

My attempts at humour sadly go unfruitful as even though they do smile, they do ask seriously, "You don't get hungry, are you scheming something?" They ask jokingly.

"Always," I say simply, like it was obvious.

"And...?" Nori presses.

It should be fine to tell them.

"Well, since you must know, the system said we are immune to mundane stuff pretty much, so I decided to trust it and eat something for once, to see what this tastes like since it looks new and different, and because I haven't eaten anything in over a day... Basically, I decided, screw it, the system said I could so I did." I explain, then give up and shorten it.

Just as I was about to take their hand, they take it away to ponder my words of wisdom, "Huh, I didn't look at it that way, makes sense I guess." They shrug and move on, smirking slightly with a swish of their tail, abandoning me.

I refuse to believe that it is all instinctual, she has to be doing it on purpose.

Frowning slightly, I finish my moss quick, rub off the leftovers back where I got them from and then laugh slightly at what happened.

Nevertheless, Left there with no hand to grab onto, I end up having to climb up it myself which was supposed to be difficult, but ended up being really easy for some reason. It was like I was lighter and had less resistance climbing up, which piques my interest, I should look out for more stuff like that.

I clamber to the top of the rock, only to see the sun blocked by the still large remains of what I assume was the main part of the rock as it passes its apex, giving me a great view of the rest of the hills and plains, contrasted by the mountain that is definitely much closer now.

Probably get there in a couple days at this rate, maybe four if we really take our time but I doubt it.

Smiling, I sit back on the rock I just climbed up on and watch the view for a little bit as Anima comes out of nowhere, probably using their small size to go through a different path as they rush off to join the others a slight distance ahead, but stops and gives me a slight look.

Interpreting the look as, 'hurry the fuck up, old man'. I decide to hurry up.

"Fine, fine," I say resigned, exaggeratedly getting up and giving a slight salute, starting to catch up, prompting Anima to peace out and rush to the others. Leaving me there to use my old-man bones to also rush up.

No respect for the elderly.