Chapter 6

Friendly Neighbor Leo

Leo got handed a new quest--to build yet another tree house.

This time around, however, it was requested by the friendly neighbor red-eyed owl, and it wasn’t so much a tree house as it was a tree nest. The materials required to build it were barely the third of the ones needed for the monkey’s tree house, but Leo accepted it rather happily. He didn’t even care that the ‘only’ reward for completing the quest was the owl becoming friendlier. The clothes from last night were more than enough of a payment.

As such, he began to meander about the forest, gathering materials. He was not alone--the owl remained perched on top of his shoulder, occasionally hooting at the seeming nothing, while he was also accompanied by the black panther with white stripes. The ‘kitten’ would run about randomly and come back toward him, snuggling against his legs until Leo rubbed his hands over its head a few times, before scurrying off elsewhere. Perhaps it had some strange, wild version of zoomies, Leo figured.

He suddenly paused, perking his ears up; through the rustling of the leaves in the midday wind, he could hear some low-pitched whimpering in the distance. As though recognizing his intent, the owl flew off his shoulder, flapping its wings, and the panther appeared as well, guiding him eastward through the thick shrubbery.

The whimpering grew louder the longer he walked, until the finally broke free of thick bushes and landed on a mild clearing. There, lying prone on the ground, was a tiny, football-sized bear cub. It seemed to be crying, its left rear paw caught up in the roots of the tree, stuck. There was a small gash there, too, which was bleeding.

“Oh, no!” Leo exclaimed and hurried over; the panther stopped by the cub’s head and licked it once or twice before sitting down, while the owl perched itself on top of Leo’s shoulder once again. “Are you okay, little guy?” he spoke in a soft and baby voice, ruffling the top of the cub’s head gently while inspecting the wound.

The young thing whimpered and cried out once again. Luckily, the wound wasn’t that big nor was it bleeding profusely; that did not mean that it was harmless, however, as it could easily get infected. The issue was... Leo did not know whether any of the plants nearby were this world’s equivalence of an antibiotic. The best he could do was wash the wound with water and wrap it up, bring the cub back to the mud hut and observe.

That would all have to wait, though, as he’d first have to free the cub from the root of the tree. He gently pushed the root a bit more open and the cub immediately yanked its paw free. It struggled for a moment to stand up, but as it likely hurt to put any pressure on the wound, it stumbled and cried even harder.

“Just calm down,” he said gently. “Let me look at it.” He took out the makeshift gourd of water he’d made of leaves and bark, pouring it gently over the wound and washing it clean. It was doubly lucky--not only was the wound short, it was also shallow. It seemed to have only scrapped the top layer of skin. Perhaps it ruptured a blood vessel there which was why it bled as much as it did.

Nonetheless, Leo took a leaf off of a plum-like fruit that he’d been snacking on occasionally, washed it with water, and gently wrapped it around the cub’s wound. He used thin vines to steady it and make sure it wouldn’t fall.

All the while, both the owl and the panther observed gingerly and curiously, neither making a motion or a sound.

At the end, the small cub whimpered and began to lick Leo’s knee, slowly moving its paw until it felt it had enough strength in it to stand up. As it did, it looked up at Leo’s face with a certain level of smugness, as if to say ‘look at how strong I am!’, before roaring rather cutely. Just as Leo was about to chuckle at the adorable sight, the ground began to shake--at first it was mild tremors, but soon enough he could barely keep himself steady.

The owl flew on top of his head and even the panther leapt into his lap, both staring at the same direction, prompting Leo to do the same--within a moment, the wall of trees parted and was felled by a ginormous figure that came bursting forth. It was a bear, Leo believed, the size of a small house. Its fur was apricot brown, with strange, runic shapes dyed silver across its head and stomach.

It rushed until it reach the cub and stopped, bending down--indenting the dirt beneath it into a crater at the same time--and sniffing the cub. The latter began to roar rather freely, climbing on top of its rear legs and swatting at the mama-bear’s face.

The large bear began to lick the cub for a few moments before it stopped, its attention turning toward Leo. He had to admit--were it not for the system’s help, he would have probably peed himself by now and passed out. However, all he could really do was sit there dumbly and wait for the bear to determine his fate.

Suddenly, the bear roared, and then the owl hooted, and even the panther procured a sound that was a mix of meowing and roaring. And they continued to produce noises for nearly a minute, as though they were having a conversation.

Ultimately, the large bear glanced at Leo one last time before biting into the cub’s neck and lifting it up, tossing it onto her back. With one last roar, the two disappeared deeper into the forest. The ground continued to quake beneath what Leo assumed was at least a hundred thousand tonnes of weight, leaving him further aghast. At least... at least he was alive.

[... you have helped a ?????? Cub. Favorability with ??????? Increased by 1. You are now considered an acquaintance]

Leo dismissed the window right after, taking a deep breath.

“You two convinced her I was just trying to help?” he spoke to the owl and the panther, gently caressing both of them. “Thanks so much, you guys! Okay, tonight, I’ll prepare something extra-special for you! I call it... Fruit Juice! ‘cause it’s juice... made of fruit! Aah, it’s gonna be great. Right. Gotta grab the rest of the materials...”

Leo stood up, dusted himself off, and put away the enormous fears in the back of his head, resuming his collecting spree.

About an hour later, he retreated to the mud--the owl had specified which tree it wanted the nest on, and it was one of the trees within fifteen yards of the hut. It seemed as though the entire forest was now aware of this place, as more and more animals converged. Only a few were what Leo would consider ‘permanent’ residents, those who stayed within the hut itself or the immediate vicinity. Most were ‘nomads’ who’d sweep by--usually during one of the meals--and then disappear off somewhere into the forest.

Once again, just as every other time he’d be gone from the hut for a while, there was a small mountain of fruits and veggies nearby. In fact, he was beginning to form a nice little storage, but he feared that the fruits would go bad. As such, he tried thinking of new ways to utilize them, eventually landing on the idea of a fruit juice.

Before he dedicated the rest of the day to that, however, he quickly fashioned the owl’s nest--it was cylindrical, like a spinning top where it was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom.

As soon as it was done, the owl flew off his shoulder and started hooting as though it were singing a fairy song. It flapped its wings about happily, spun its head 180 degrees in the most horrifying way imaginable, and nuzzled its beak against Leo’s forehead.

The window informed him that the owl now considered him a ‘good friend’ as he descended the tree, stretching and looking at the fading sunlight. Realizing there wasn’t much time, he began picking up the few empty gourds lying around and running over to the pond of water.

Filling them all up, he struggled quite a bit to carry them back--there were six gourds, each of which could hold up to fifteen gallons of water through what Leo assumed was pure, unadulterated magic, and it stacked up quickly. Even for his cultivation-endowed body, it caused him to sweat buckets. Setting them down, he ignored the curious gazes of the animals around, and began to beat down the fruits and squeeze them of their juices.

He also fashioned a few simple, wooden cups that he poured the juices into, combining both the fruits as well as water and testing them until he came across flavor profiles that he liked.

Jotting them in his head, he continued to experiment long after the sunlight had faded and he was forced to light up a torch to keep the light going. A number of animals converged around him and carefully inspected what he was doing, but he seemed wholly absorbed in the process to notice.

It wasn’t a new thing for him--he used to enjoy ‘experimenting’ with drinks back on Earth, not necessarily to create the best cocktails that would sell like hot cakes, but just to create unique flavor profiles for the fun of it.

By the time he was done, almost four hours had passed, and he hardly realized it. In the end, he was only really happy with four flavors he created--one of them was just a straight up an explosion of fruity flavors, as though someone set off a packet bomb inside the mouth. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but it settled into a nice aftertaste.

The next flavor he managed to recreate was a sweet and sour combo that he wasn’t quite certain animals would love, but he certainly did. Right after he managed to recreate the good, old-fashioned lemonade, just without the sugar or any other sweeteners. And, lastly, through some magic he managed to create an almost exact replica of kiwi juice.

Standing up and stretching, he finally realized there was an armada of animals around, prompting him to smile. Though he was alone... he never truly was. Even if they couldn’t talk or understand him, their company was like a fire that kept him warm in the coldest of nights.

“Alright, gather ‘round,” he said as he started mixing them into the cups as quickly as he could. “Grab one cup each, okay? Just one cup. The green one is kiwi juice, the yellow one is lemonade, the somewhat blue one is, uh, is unique. I wouldn’t recommend it. And the multi-colored one is... well, go for it. Hope you like it!”

The first one to approach, unsurprisingly, was the red-eyed monkey. The creature curiously looked at the cups and settled on the kiwi juice--as soon as he drank a few gulps, his eyes widened into saucers and he began to clap madly toward him, as though cheering on somebody he really cared for.

Seeing the monkey’s reaction, the other animals began rushing and quickly taking the cups away, and Leo struggled mightily to keep up. In the end, he burned through all the water he had but, shockingly, a falcon and an eagle brought back another set in just a couple of minutes, so he continued making the juices. In fact, he continued doing so for hours, until all his fingers were aching, and his eyes were begging him to close them so that he could go to sleep.

However, he managed to make one cup of juice for every animal that was there. Tired, happy, and jubilant that they liked it, he retreated into the hut and lazily sprawled onto the bed, falling asleep immediately, feeling entirely worry-free.