To his surprise, following the instructions on how to heat up the food in its package results in the food smelling quite delicious. It smelled better than any military rations that he had eaten in his entire time in the Bermudian military. By the time his food was ready for him to dig into, the fish was also ready for Emma to eat as well. Making sure to go ahead and take the fish off of the fire and remove the sticks, he let her go ahead and dig in. At the same time, he took a fork and started to eat what appeared to be macaroni and cheese with meatballs. 

It looked odd, but he was delightfully surprised that it tasted incredible. He wasn't the only one either, as he heard a squeal of excitement through the open cabin door from Marcelina. 

He could just faintly hear her talking to herself saying, "Why the hell is this so good? Who made this food? I wish there was more." 

He walked out of the cabin and saw her through the open door of her makeshift sleeping spot. He told her, "Which one did you get? I basically got macaroni and cheese with meatballs, and it tastes amazing. You sound like you're over there having the best meal of your life."

"I got beef and broccoli with rice. I've had this exact meal like a dozen times in my life and this is some of the best I've ever tasted. Whoever made this needs to get a raise. This is delicious," she said as she walked out and they approached each other. She was clearly loving the flavors. 

Benedictus actually also liked that kind of meal, so he made an offer as they were standing in front of each other holding their meals, "I'll let you try a bite of mine if I get to try a bite of yours. Sounds like a deal to you?" 

"Sure," she got a fork full of meat, broccoli, and rice and offered it to him to take a bite of. 

He accepted, taking the bite of food offered and being blown away by all of the delicious flavors. She watched as he reacted in a way that she understood fully. She knew that he was blown away by just how good it tasted.

Almost teasingly, she opened her mouth, waiting for him to offer her a bite. He got a fork full of nice cheesy macaroni with a juicy meatball and let her take a bite of it. Marcelina couldn't help but agree that his meal was also as equally delicious as hers. As she savored the flavors, Benedictus and her had a moment of realization.

They told each other at the exact same time the exact same thing, "We need to earn more gold. I need more of this." 

Realizing that they were on the same page, they stared at each other for a moment in silent acceptance and agreement. They appreciated each other's tasteful pallets, and he told her, "Let's make sure to finish eating and prepare to head out. I was planning on scouting out the surrounding area a lot more today. This also gives us an opportunity to level up. I don't know what your level is, but regardless, we're both going to need to get stronger if we plan on surviving. Definitely, if we plan on earning more soul cores to buy more of this food."

"Agreed. Give me like 10 minutes to finish this up and grab my knife," she nodded.

Both of them went back to eating their meals and finishing off their bottles of water. Grabbing their individual weapons and other equipment they think might be necessary for scouting the area or fighting wild animals, they make sure that they have all the things that they need. After about 15 minutes, they were both ready, and he actually told her, "Over the next few days I plan to get a better lay of the land and use my earth magic to essentially create a map of the forest as we go. At the same time, if we run into animals that plan on trying to attack us or eat us we're going to try and use them to level up. Can you handle that?" 

"Of course. I wouldn't have agreed to this if I was afraid of fighting some wild beasts. Seeing how you handled that entire pack last night, I can definitely trust you to watch my back if I get outnumbered again," she said with optimism and pizzazz.

"Alright then. Let's head out," he said as he started making his way back into the woods. This time he wasn't alone as Marcelina, Charles, and Emma all came along. 

5 days went by and there wasn't much that had happened outside of the mapping the woods and occasionally getting into fights with smaller wild groups of vinuu. Benedictus himself didn't gain much XP and was only able to gain 4 kills in that time. He was still 10 XP off of reaching level 5. 

However, the majority of the kills were scored by Emma and Charles, who definitely seemed to be much more effective. Emma started learning how to fly while fighting and incorporated that into how she fought against the much larger, more terrifying vinuu. Charles, despite how he looked, was extremely agile, and his horns were strong enough to bludgeon most of the beasts that it fought to death in one or two hits. As a result, both of the animals ended up gaining about 3 levels each. 

Marcelina actually made quite a bit of headway as she went from level one to level 3 in the course of that time. The free level up from scoring her first kill and the additional XP gained passively through helping in combat is primarily how she achieved it. It also helped Benedictus to discover that when fighting in groups, XP is rewarded based off of contribution to the battle. Every enemy that you personally killed gives you the full amount of XP, while everyone who assisted in fighting that enemy to help you kill them gets half as much XP. 

All in all, it was useful information that would help them as time went on. They returned once more to where their shelters were along the river. 5 days of scouting had essentially given them a decent amount of information about the layout of the forest for everything within a roughly 3-mile circumference of their current base. Using his earth magic, Benedictus was able to update a stone tablet that he had been carrying around with an accurate depiction of the layout of the forest as they explored.

He was looking over that very tablet as they arrived back at their camp. He reviewed with her, "With that we can now be certain of at least two things. Currently, unless we suddenly learn otherwise, we are the only people in this forest. We haven't found any traces of any other people. Not even corpses that might have been the result of failing to win against some of the beasts. Which means that other people like us must have been randomly placed elsewhere on the planet, and we just so happen to be both placed here in the forest. Seeing where you started and where I started, it looks like we were both placed about roughly 3 miles away from each other at opposite ends along this river." 

"It's sad to see that nobody else got sent here like us. Still, it does mean that we don't currently have to worry about anyone showing up in the middle of the night trying to attack us or rob us," she remarked.

He gave a nod and then informed her, "There is one area I would like to check out tomorrow. That cave we found had a lot of signs of vinuu. It might be a den for them. If that's so, it might be a good way to boost our levels and potentially find another soul core." 

"I'm actually surprised that we haven't found another one of those things. You would think after getting into the habit of butchering every kill we make we would get lucky," she annoyingly noted, kind of upset about it. She had hoped that they would be more common. 

He suggested and tried to reassure her, "It might just mean that they're only things you can find in elite monsters or boss monsters, like in some games. Although this world does have a lot of game-like qualities, it still follows a lot of the same principles of the real world. Hopefully, when we check out that cave tomorrow we might get lucky."

"Yeah I know. Anyway, let's eat. I want to try out that new idea you had," she said as she went to grab a pot.

He gave a nod and looked at the slightly larger fire pit he had made outside the night before. He knew it was possible to make a more primitive stove from the bushcrafting videos he used to watch a lot of. He knew exactly how to recreate it, but last night he was so tired after all the scouting that he stopped after he made the outside fire pit for it. 

Considering he had more than enough mana and uses of his geo manipulation left after today's scouting, he went ahead and finished manipulating the stone and metal to make it. Creating a mostly stone oven with a metal plate top that would be heated from the burning fire pit underneath to make a makeshift old-fashioned stove. Once it was ready Marcelina got water from the river and used the new purification ability that she had picked up. Immediately purifying it of any bacteria or microorganisms that might be harmful, leaving her with a pot of completely purified fresh water that she planned on using to help better heat up and rehydrate their survival meals.

"Which one are you trying today," she asked him as she set the pot on to the stove, and he used his pyro manipulation to ignite the wood. 

"I had seen that there was a steak and gravy with mashed potatoes. I haven't had that in a while, so I'm looking forward to it," he answered as his stomach was starting to get a little hungry, and he couldn't wait to dig in. 

She applauded the nice choice of meal and said, "I tried that a few days ago. Just like the rest of them, it was excellent. I think there's a couple more, so why don't we both have it tonight?" 

"Sure," he quickly said.

At this point, he had become a lot more comfortable having Marcelina around. It helped that Emma also seemed to like her. Not only was Marcelina and Charles very helpful, but she was actually quite the sweetheart. Charles himself was also protective yet kind. He and Emma definitely did an amazing job keeping Ben and Marcy in high spirits. Plus they played together often, which was very cute to watch.

Once they started heating up their food, Ben looked at Marcelina, and he found himself actually smiling at her. He definitely thought that she was a beautiful lady, but he made sure to control himself. He didn't want any intrusive thoughts to ruin their current slowly growing companionship.

Although he did like what he saw. From her beautiful milk chocolate brown skin to her bright blue eyes. Her perfectly shaped nose was reminiscent of more European facial features and her stylish blue dreadlocks that matched the color of her eyes. Not to mention she was a naturally curvaceous woman, but despite being well-endowed with a voluptuous body, she was in very great shape. He was surprised when she started joining him in the mornings for his workouts, but happy to have someone to spot him. 

Before he could think about it any longer, she caught him staring, and he looked away nervously. She definitely took note of the fact that he seemed to find her attractive. Especially since she was currently wearing a pair of the clothes that he had got for himself when he had bought that bundle of men's clothing. Although she did like the style of the baggy hoodie and sweatpants with comfortable sneakers that she was now sporting.

She also thought that he was a very handsome looking man. His face wasn't much to write home about, as he was pretty average in appearance in that regard, but she liked the rest a lot more. His dark tan skin complimented his long curly white hair that he often kept in a French braid. His bright red eyes made her think that he might be partially albino, but as far as he talked about it, that didn't seem to be the case, especially with his still dark complexion.

The main thing she liked to look at whenever she found herself staring at him was his physique. Sure, he wasn't 6 feet and built like a brick house, but he was close enough and that was just as attractive. His muscles might not be that large, but they have a definition to them that most bodybuilders lack. His physique definitely suited his fighting style, as it was light enough that he was still able to be somewhat agile and flexible in combat, but also beefy enough that when he hit an enemy it definitely would yelp in serious pain. 

For her, she liked any man that took care of his body and had a great personality. Something that Ben seemed to have both of. Despite initially being somewhat cautious, he seems to have warmed up to her and, as a result, she has gotten to see just how kind he really is. Seemingly going out of his way at times to help her, even with the small things. She enjoyed how he tried to keep her motivated and encouraged her. His compliments always seemed to work well at making her smile.

She found herself enjoying his presence as well, only to be distracted until he tells her, "I think the water is done." 

Looking at the pot she saw that the water was starting to boil a lot more than it needed to, and she quickly took it off the stove. While they soaked their packets of food in the hot water from the pot, she looked at him and asked, "Ben..... What's the plan after we finish getting a layout of the forest? Do you plan on just surviving here or do you plan on leaving at some point?"