I cut down towards the forest line in a meandering route. Wanting to block the view of myself from the sky as much as possible, I take advantage of the many outcroppings of rock dotted about the mountainside. Fortunately, no other rock-bearing bird—or anything else—comes along to test the soundness of my choices.

  When I reach the tree line I start walking along it, at right angles to the way I had been walking before. Why? My reasoning is that I need to find fresh water as a priority, and this is most likely to come from the mountain. With any luck, I’ll come across a stream bubbling into the forest. If that doesn’t work, I’ve got a few more ideas to try, but this is the easiest one.

  As I walk, I try to plan a bit for the future while doing my best to keep a wary eye out for rocks about to drop on my head. Or anything else, really. Who knows what other dangerous creatures could be lurking in this forest? Better to keep my eyes peeled as I walk.

  There are lots of things that need doing, that’s for sure. More than I would have ever thought of before absorbing the wilderness survival knowledge stone. Nicholas gave me a knife, which, when I consider what I would have had to use otherwise, is a godsend. A knife is an essential tool, as well as a useful weapon for all its lack of reach, and having a metal one will make a lot of difference. The one Nicholas has given me is practical: a single-sided straight blade about twenty centimeters long with a slightly curved tip, quite similar to a bowie knife. It even has a serrated section on the part of its spine closest to the handle, which will come in handy for sawing through smaller pieces of wood and tough flesh. Fortunately, it also comes with a protective sheath; otherwise, I’d probably have stabbed myself with it already.

  Still, I’m going to need a good number of other tools too, and those I’m going to have to make. Not having either blacksmithing equipment or expertise, I’m going to have to go right back to basics and make them from flint. If I can find any, that is. That’s another reason to find a stream. If I’m lucky, there’s flint below this mountain or forest and a stream will have cut deep enough into the layers of sediment to have unearthed some nodules for me. If not … Well, at least I still have my knife. I can use other rock types to make blunt instruments, but flint is truly the best—according to my newly absorbed wilderness survival knowledge, anyway.

  So, I need to make tools. I also need to sort out my food supply a bit. I have the dead bird in my Inventory, which is a start, as long as it’s being kept in stasis. While it’s possible that the bird will be inedible for me—I am in a different world, after all—my newly gained memories say that it will most likely be fine. Generally, animal flesh is safe to eat, though it should really be cooked to avoid harmful bacteria as much as possible.

  There are some animals that have levels of vitamins or toxins in their bodies that are unsafe for human consumption. Usually, though, those are the result of evolution to adapt to a particular environment or to ward off predators—often in the latter case accompanied by bright warning colors. Carrion eaters can have levels of parasites that render their meat inedible too, but I might have to take that risk.

  With any luck, the “no living things” limitation of my Inventory will mean that there are no parasites living inside the bird, but, again, I can’t count on that. Being in a different world might make a difference to my knowledge about what is edible and inedible. However, the fact that I can breathe the atmosphere with no problems and that its temperature is mild to me indicates that the natural balance of the world is not that different from what I’m used to. Hopefully, Nicholas wouldn’t have sent me to a world where everything was poisonous to me.

  One thing that has been significantly affected by being in a different world, though, is my knowledge of safe plants to eat. I’ve been looking around while walking and have discovered to my dismay that I don’t recognize anything.

  If I’d been relying on my personal knowledge of plants, that wouldn’t mean much. I could name the fruit, vegetables, and leaves that feature in your average British supermarket, and I could probably recognize a number of trees and plants that I regularly walk past in gardens or woods—though that wouldn’t mean I’d know if they were edible or not—but that is it.

  My new wealth of information about fauna and flora comes purely from absorbing the woodcraft knowledge stone. Unfortunately, it was information about a world that was neither Earth nor this one. I haven’t recognized any plants so far and have to conclude that I’m unlikely to. In fact, it’s been somewhat disorientating. I’ll see a plant with leaves of a certain shape that sparks recognition in my mind and then realize that the color is completely wrong, or that it’s a bush instead of a tree, or a flowering plant where it should be a fern type. In short, there’s no way I can rely on the encyclopedia of plants in my head to choose what to eat and what not to.

  Fortunately, my new knowledge also comes with instructions on how to test if a plant is edible or not; the downside is that it takes a long time. I can’t just shove something in my mouth and hope for the best. No, I’ll have to first choose a plant, then separate it into its individual parts—leaves, stem, fruit or flower, roots, and so on.

  Next, I’ll have to test one part for irritation on contact, then try eating a small amount, then try eating a larger amount. The problem with this is that I have to allow enough time for symptoms to emerge—about eight hours for each test. Plus, in order to be certain whether I’m reacting or not to the plant itself, I’ll have to avoid eating or drinking anything but clean water during each test.

  So, either I’ll have to go without eating anything else for a whole twenty-four-hour period, or I’ll have to spend three days testing each part, using my time sleeping as the necessary fast. Did I mention that I have to test each part of the plant separately? At the same time, I’ll have to be working hard to create the tools and shelter I need, meaning that the effects of hunger will be felt much more keenly than if I’d just been in my office all day. I can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. Who knew that it took so much just to survive? Or at least to survive without access to a supermarket and money to buy the things in it. Perhaps I should be grateful that I’m in a place where there’s probably abundant food available and I just need to work out what I can eat. There are many on Earth who are in just as poor a situation and can’t say the same about their environment.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I really do hope that the Inventory stops items from deteriorating. It will make things much easier if I have access to an effective refrigerator. Of course, that may have some sort of downside that appears later. Apart from not being able to put live animals in it, that is. I’d rather have a refrigerator than a live-animal pen, anyway.

  Of course, before I can even consider any of that, I need to find water and a shelter, which brings me right around to my first aim. I sigh and just continue trudging on, my feet and legs already aching, my eyes squinting as they search for the glint of water.

  Finding water ends up taking a long time. Much longer than I’d anticipated. Apparently, all those films where a person is lost in the wilderness and then stumbles across a stream after only crossing a couple of hills are a lie. Who knew? At least I didn’t end up falling into one like I remember a character doing.

  I run out of things to think about, or, rather, I become too distracted by my actual surroundings to make meaningful plans. This place is genuinely beautiful. I’m mostly walking at the forest’s edge, and the trees are shorter here than the ones I can see downhill. But they’re green and vibrant, and some are literally covered in flowers, berries, or interestingly colored leaves.

  I’m tempted to eat some of the berries but avoid it, knowing just how badly that can turn out. The ones with lots of flowers are magnets for all sorts of flying creatures—I even saw something that looked similar to a butterfly but was the size of a bird and had round wings. The berry-laden trees, however, are attractive to other wildlife, but I don’t see much more than flashes of color from them as they dive under cover at my approach.

  There isn’t much undergrowth, making my steps easy enough—as long as I avoid the occasional hidden hole beneath the mossy ground cover. And the air is just so fresh. It’s full of smells that are completely alien to me: the odor of musky loam from the ground mingling with the perfume of the flowers; damp and rotting leaves combining with the fresh scent of green ones.

  But as my legs tire, my mouth dries, and my eyes start to ache from searching for water, the beauty around me fades. After a while of trudging fruitlessly, I suddenly pause; once more, something from the messages I read occurs to me. I don’t only have access to an Inventory, but also … a Map. If that could show me where to find water, it would save a lot of time. “Map,” I say, trying not to be too hopeful. Despite my attempts to keep my expectations reasonable, it turns out that I am disappointed anyway.

  The Map appears in front of me, a misty screen the background to what looks like a simplistic line drawing. It’s almost completely blank. There are chevron shapes in a ring around the edges of my Map, which I have to guess are the mountains I saw stretching out into the distance. In the space between the mountains, there are many, many drawings of trees—the forest, I guess. There’s also a blinking dot at the edge of the forest, a sort of “you are here.” Actually, that’s probably its best feature for me, as working out my position in comparison to everything around me tends to be my biggest problem when reading maps. Further up the mountainside near the dot is an X shape next to what looks like a line drawing of a boulder—where I started, I have to conclude. Apart from that, nothing is recorded. No rivers, no streams, nothing. So, either they don’t exist, which I doubt, or I have to discover them to add them to my Map, which is much more likely.

  Indeed, the shapes closest to me are the most defined; the ones furthest away, particularly towards the end of the valley, which I had barely been able to see, are blurry. So clearly, being able to see something is sufficient to add it to my map—but I need to see it.

  Sighing, I close the screen and start walking again. It would have been nice for things to be that easy, but it’s not surprising that they aren’t. The Map should come in handy once I’ve discovered some useful spots, but right now it’s fairly useless.

  After some time, I become too tired to do more than just focus on moving forward, and the loveliness of my surroundings fades further into normality. I even find myself not keeping as close a watch on my environment as I probably should. Dangerous. I make an effort after that to keep looking around myself, but I’m tired.

  As the sun starts to dip towards the horizon, a scene of particular beauty occurs. My ears catch the faint trickle of a small stream, obvious in the quiet peace of the woods. I’m lucky. I had actually gone a bit further under the tree cover than before because I’d seen a big bird circling high above. It’s worked out well for me, fortunately. The stream is really just a trickle, emerging from a crack between the rocks, but unless it disappears underground at some point, it should lead me to something bigger. It’s the most marvelous thing I’ve seen in a long time.

  I use my cupped hand to scoop some of the life-giving liquid to my dry lips; the waterskin really didn’t last for long, it turns out. After soothing my parched throat, I suddenly pause. Something from my new knowledge is sending alarm bells through me. I gaze at the water filling my hands and realize what it is. I should really boil this.

  The water looks clean, but what microscopic bacteria or parasites could be floating around in it? What if there’s a rotting carcass upstream? I let the water drain out of my hands and push myself to my feet with a sigh. A mouthful of liquid is really not enough to quench my thirst, but I don’t want to stop to make a fire just now; this is no place to make a camp, as picturesque as it is with the sun glinting off the trickling water.

  Following the stream, I walk in search of a greater body of water, and maybe even a good campsite. As I keep walking, I see the stream gathering tributaries and widening. Eventually, after long enough that the light is starting to dim, I reach a body of water that might even be wide enough to be considered a rivulet—I’m not planning on measuring it to make sure. I have a hard choice to make: stop soon or walk in the dark? Frankly, the thought of doing the latter makes my bowels turn to water. If a bird could almost kill me in the middle of the day, how much more vulnerable would I be at night? Especially when I’d be either blind in the dark or half-blinded by the light if I carried a torch. My new knowledge pipes up to helpfully tell me about several different creatures that hunt at night and exactly how they like to take down their prey. Okay, decision made on that one—I’m not going anywhere. Even if the same animals probably don’t exist here, I bet others that are just as bad do.