Day 1 - The Forest and Shima

"Mr. Anima, will you ever come back to Gaia to come to visit me?" Claire asked me. I bent down to her level and pat her on the head.

"Of course, I will! After all, I plan to live here after I learn the stuff I need to. I'll make this town a better place when I come back as well, so look forward to it." I told Claire. She nodded with a smile.

"Alright then, I guess it's time I leave now," I said, looking at the gate I once entered through. Jerry gave me a compass and luckily, it embedded itself within my interface as well. Whenever I thought about a component, it showed up on my interface. I handed him back the compass as I didn't need it anymore, but Jerry pushed it right back towards me.

"Keep it. As a parting gift. You healed my daughter and took care of the residents of Gaia. You might be a Hero, but you had no obligation to help us. Thank you, Anima." Jerry told me. I nodded in response thanking him for the gift again.

"Now, go off to do your Hero duties. Henry wanted me to give you some money." Jerry tossed me a bag of coins next and waved me off as I exited the gate. I specifically waved looking at Albert, knowing that he idolized me as a Hero. I wanted to be a good role model for him when I came back to this city.

The gate closed behind me and I got Deja vu from my last experience leaving a gate. At least this time it was willingly.

Looking deep into the forest, I saw the path that led to Zyphilia. With it being a three-day walk, I had a lot of time to experiment with skills. I had also noticed that when I used all of that mana yesterday, it went up a little by today. If I continuously used my mana at this high rate, I could artificially increase my mana. So, it's decided. I would use [Raise 2] until I couldn't anymore.

I raised my stats over and over again throughout my walk. The path was pretty self-explanatory as the signs directed me accurately, but the lack of monsters meant my level had barely increased.

The monsters of this world reminded me of some of the games I used to play as a kid on Earth. Slimes, gnomes, and several other monsters that I knew how to beat due to previous experience. Some of them were unique, however. A coyote with the only outstanding trait being duller teeth. The slimes all had different looks and colors, some of them had cute eyes, and other ones had no eyes. It reminds me of a game I used to play...

They easily went down with one or two uses of the skill [Bullet 2], but I still felt bad hurting them. Could I get the slimes to be my companions?

I tried talking to the next one I saw. It was an orange one with a smiling expression. It felt weird talking to a slime... but there had to be monster taming, right?

"Hello? Can you understand me?" I asked the slime. It looked over at me and bounced up at my face, dealing slight damage to me. I wanted to take that as a 'no'... but I was still optimistic!

After wasting 75 of my health on a slime, I decided to throw it on the ground and walk off, accepting the fact that I couldn't tame one. Something interesting did rise out of my experiment, however.

When the slime damaged me, I got several prompts that told me I was understanding the slime better. When I understood an animal better, the prompt explained that I would take less damage and deal more damage the higher my understanding of the animal. That being said, the slime did such a small amount of damage that when I fully understood the animal, it didn't take away any health, and actually healed me a small amount.

I was amazed by the depth of how understanding animals worked but surprised, to say the least. They all died with one use of [Bullet 2], and didn't do damage to me... wait! Does that mean...?

I picked one up like it was a ball and held it close to my face. Originally, it would've damaged me, but I actually had a status buff because of it called [Absorption]. Once I analyzed that status effect, it then turned into a skill?!

[Absorption] - Absorb small amounts of damage

I was thoroughly impressed that a slime had a skill like this... but did every animal have a skill like this? I set [Absorption] to my other skill slot, leaving me with 4 filled and 2 empty. Afterward, I put the slime on my shoulder and it sat there with a satisfied look. A new friend!

"Hey there little guy... what should I name you..." I looked at the slime on my shoulder, talking to it like it could understand me.

"Rimu... no, I don't think I can name you that. What about... come on... what was the name of another slime...? Shima? That works! Shima! You're Shima!" I continued to pet Shima as he melted into my hand. I needed some sort of pad it wouldn't melt into... maybe Zyphilia had one? Oh, how would I take care of it at night? What did it eat? I'm not ready for this responsibility!

-

A bit of time passed as I walked down the path. I ran into several other people in a carriage and some of them walked on foot towards me. Either way, they were all focused on leaving the area I was heading to. It made me feel a little creepy. What made me feel secure, however, was watching all of those people with slimes on their characters as well. Some also had slimes on their shoulders and heads, but I didn't feel safe putting Shima on my head.

When I walked past those people with the slimes on their heads, I asked how to prevent the slime from eating me.

"Oh, usually the slime will latch to anything you put near it, so if you put an object inside of it, they will sit dormant. We use it here to carry things." They told me.

I found that interesting and decided to put a small part of my ripped shirt into the slime's belly. Then, it sat on my shoulder without trying to devour my entire body. Even if it wasn't latched to me, it was still stuck and wouldn't move off of my shoulder no matter what.

"Well Shima, I think we should camp out for today..." I looked around for the signs to see a nearby campsite. I was decently surprised, I thought I was going to have to camp out in the forest like all of the other protagonists do.

I walked into the gated area and found several people with their families, all lying down in tents and sleeping bags outside and looking at the stars. I looked up at them and almost screamed out of instinct.

That moon was way too close! I felt like I could reach out and touch it... it was about thirty times bigger than the moon on Earth... and it was green. Like it had grass all over the surface.

I took a large sigh of relief, knowing that I wasn't going to be crushed by the moon. I found a place to lie down with quilted blankets for anybody to use and fell asleep with Shima on my shoulder. In fact, they fell asleep first.

Do I refer to Shima as a girl? A boy? Them? I have no idea anymore... you'll just be Shima, that makes it easier for me.