The night was fast approaching. We had no choice but to set up camp near a small stream that flowed from the main river. Nina picked the place because it was a great spot to search for food such as fish and fruits while also provided a great source of drinking water.
Yuna and Nina both volunteered to set up camp. Nina claimed that she was an aspiring engineer that had taken a few classes before, well, aspiring was better than nothing I guessed. I also didn't really understand why we needed shelter in the first place, we were gonna leave this place tomorrow anyway. Well, Nina will be Nina I guessed. As the two of them went out, I took it upon myself to secure food supply for the night, not for me, but for the two. The sisters were starving and needed energy.
I walked towards the bank of the stream and gazed at the rushing water. The sky was painted pale blue, there was seldom any natural light aside from the faint stars that twinkled in the celestial sea above. To solve the problem concerning lights, I summoned the light orbs again and dispersed them around the campsite. Yuna immediately noticed and immediately turned her head to see the floating lights. She had a wide-open smile painted on her face as her eyes glowed with amazement.
"Not bad," Nina said as she tore a dead branch from one of the trees.
"Hopefully it makes our life easier," I said with a slight smirk.
"It just did," Nina confirmed with a smile. With the hundreds of light orbs floating around and shining us with enough light to see, we continued on with our work. I walked further into the stream, letting the gushing water breeze my boots. Using my enhanced sense, I pinpointed at least seven fat redfish swimming down the stream. I could use my psychic power to just lift all the fish at once but doing so would expend a bit of my energy since I was going to surround several living beings with psychic force.
Enhanced sense, psychic sense, surrounding dead objects with psychic force, surrounding dead or living beings with a psychic barrier, defending against an orbital strike, grabbing a starship high in orbit and slamming it deep into the crust of a planet was all fine, dandy, and didn't really expend much of my psychic powers, hell, I could lift an entire continent with just a flick of my fingers and not cause a dent on my brain. However, if I were to surround another living being with my power that's when the problems start rolling in. We termed it the Newton Phenomenon in honor of the ancient scientist that thought of gravity. For some reason, there is an almost equal opposing force that would appear around a living being if said living being was being surrounded by a psychic's power. It wasn't powerful enough to deter the subsequent psychic grip as long as the psychic doubled the output of power and that's where the problem begins. The power needed to lift a living being in the first place was already large enough and then this phenomenon slaps a times two next to the energy requirements.
Many great psychics of their time thought of many theories, the most widely accepted of which was the 'Willpower effect' in which a living being's willpower was the source of the force that opposed our grip. I personally don't believe in it because of one simple reason:
I had faced many cowards before with willpower weaker than that of an ant and yet the opposing force was still the same as any other human.
But.
Surely seven fat fish wasn't that big of a deal. Yes, the fish really wasn't a big deal but my psychic heat was. Psychic heat, a waste product that built inside the brain of a psychic every time the psychic uses the power in any way. If psychic heat reached critical levels, the person would collapse into a harmless coma for a week or a month at worse.
My psychic heat was already halfway through.
I had already used a considerable amount of my psychic power when I raged back then, surrounding more than eight hundred human beings with my psychic force and then lifting them all up into the air before turning each into a technically handmade ball of flesh was not really the most efficient.
It felt good though.
I had begun to feel the headache a few hours ago, a sign that my psychic heat had reached half capacity. It would take close to a week for all of it to disperse and given the situation we were currently in, it was wiser to save up than risk prolonging the dispersion period.
Thus, I resorted to the most efficient fish catching method I could think of. I pointed my right hand's index finger at the nearest fish. A swirling light manifested at the tip before a think yet bright beam of concentrated energy blasted out. The beam went through the water and punched a small hole on the fish's head. Its lifeless body floated up from the depth and was slowly carried by the rushing waters to me. I did the same thing to the six other fish and before long, seven dead fish were on my hands.
"Dinner is served, I guess," I said. For some reason, I felt slightly triumphant with my catch as I headed back to dry ground. When I arrived, Nina was in the process of punching down the thick sticks she had into the ground while Yuna set next to the small bonfire they made.
As I approached the bonfire, Yuna noticed my haul.
"Wow!" She exclaimed, "Are we going to eat all of that?" She asked.
"Yes, young one," I said as I sat next to her. I took a bunch of dried leaves and then placed all of it on the soil and then placed the fish over it. I then manifested a short blade using my psychic power that was attached to my index finger and began preparing the fish. As I skinned and filleted mu catch, I began sticking one stick on each fish. Little Yuna watched with excitement in her eyes and a vibrant smile on her face. The little blade I made from my psychic force wasn't too much of a deal since the neural heat it gave me was akin to me making several pebbles float.
I was never the warrior that needed or used weapons besides my psychic power. I found no reason to manifest a gigantic gun or sword to combat enemies because my psychic power itself was more than enough to deal with every threat big or small. Besides, any weapon I manifest would be connected to me in some way. I wouldn't want to swing around a sword attached to my fist, would I? Also to be perfectly clear, this was the first time in a long time that I cooked myself and others a meal and this was also the first in a long time that I used my psychic powers to create a weapon. Back then I had a set of cooking utensils I would use to cook my mother's favorite dish.
How time flies.
This small blade was too pathetic to be a weapon in my standards but its sharpness was unquestionable. It cut deep and clean and the heat it generated killed any dangerous pathogens near the cuts. After skewering all the fish, I proceeded to make all seven float using my psychic grip and gently moved them all on top of the bonfire.
"Woahh," Yuna couldn't get her eyes off the floating fish as each had their bellies slowly roasted. Once their bellies were cooked just enough, I then flipped the fishes all at the same time to roast the backs. This process took a few minutes but we had time.
Nina came to the bonfire and sat on my left. She was sweaty and tired.
"How goes everything, miss engineer?" I asked. It came out as a tease but I actually wanted to address her as such.
"I give up, we're only staying in this place for one night anyway," She answered, her eyes fixed on the roasting fish. She began to slightly drool but I decided not to point out the embarrassing.
"Yeah, it's not as if you can build a shelter in just a few hours or under the cover of night," I said as my light orbs flickered as if they were telling me they were there and that my comment was wrong. As if I cared about what the orbs thought if any of them could even think. Though I think they could? I had no idea.
The roasting of the seven fish, yes it's an awkward title, was completed after twenty minutes. I had reduced the number and scope of the light orbs to only accommodate our little bonfire. From more than a hundred orbs a few minutes ago, a mere twenty remained and floated around us. The two sisters were sleepy and ended up using all of their remaining energy waiting for the fish to finish roasting.
"Yay!" Yuna exclaimed as I handed her the stick that had her whole fish. I then handed a stick to Nina and both immediately chowed down on their food. Thankfully I filleted the fish to make eating easier for them since I didn't want the two wasting their time trying to navigate through thin, pointy bones.
I then placed the five other fish on the bunch of leaves I had near me and watched the two enjoy their meal. The fishes lacked any sort of condiments, seasoning, or spice but at least they had something to eat. I was surprised Yuna didn't mind the bland taste of the fish nor the skewered way of eating it. I don't even think they knew that I filleted the fish or what filleting even was.
After they have had their fill, the two sisters decided to sleep. Sleeping with their head on the rough ground was not easy so I decided to lend both my laps. Yuna was all in while Nina still refused because of how embarrassed she was. I was becoming uncomfortable with the fact that Yuna didn't seem to have any sense of shame for a girl her age. Well, I did offer my help. In the end, Yuna managed to convince her older sister to sleep on my right lap while she slept on the left. It wasn't long before the two of them started snoring loudly, a good sign of good, deep sleep.
I didn't need sleep for now. I sat there and did not move the entire night. My enhanced senses kept me vigilant for any potential threat that may pounce on us from the thick wilderness. Time went by quicker than expected, after a night of peace, I saw the morning sun rising at the distant east.
It was now my third.. wait, fourth? Well, close to a week since I arrived in this strange world of magic. Though I haven't seen this magic in the first place, all evidence pointed out that it was real. It seemed to be the only threat to me because of how little I knew of it. I didn't dare look into the nonsense I absorbed from that wretched library fearing that I may collapse into another short coma.
"You didn't sleep?" Nina's voice snapped me from my thoughts. I lowered my head to look at her, she was smiling at me.
"I didn't. I don't need to," I said. Her smile widened after what I said which left me wondering. Maybe she was just cozying up to me, finally trusting me with her heart.
Yuna woke up a few minutes later. Full and rested, we decided to leave camp and head out deeper into the forest. What lied ahead I did not know yet I trusted Nina's guidance. She was going to lead us somewhere safe, well, somewhere safeish. I could just surround them with my psychic force and make the three of us fly. But Nah, I needed to psychic heat to cool down first.
Maybe once my psychic heat had lessened. Maybe then we'll fly away, to someplace truly, but then again let's not forget the 'Newton Phenomenon'
With the yellow sun rising up in the east, Nina and Yuna stood up and stretched.
"Time to go!" Yuna declared as she grabbed the five remaining skewered fish fillets from the ground. She looked at me with her brightest smile yet as if she had found hope.
She looked kinda cute.
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