Edited by: Piamo

“Atlas looks like he is working hard… What can we do to help him survive in the forest?” Sohtris looked at the floating screen that showed Atlas practicing magic. 

Since Atlas didn’t want to set the forest on fire, he practiced with water magic. He tried his best to make the water bubble bigger, thinking he could use it to drown some monsters or beasts, but he found it really difficult to get it bigger than a basketball. 

The boy was struggling, but slowly, he seemed to be getting the hang of it. 

Avlios was sitting next to Sohtris, leaning his head on her neck. “Hmm… Doesn’t he have taming magic? Can’t we create a divine beast to help him out?” 

“That’s a good idea! Should we give him a dragon?” She knew a lot of dragons that could help with the job!

“No. It would be really hard for him to bring the dragon around.” 

“Well, that’s a good point… Ah, I know! Didn’t he have a dog that he grew up with? Why don’t we call the soul of his dog and see if he wants to help Atlas out.” 

Shortly before Atlas was born, a friend of Atlas’ mom whose pitbull had puppies came to the house. She had brought the smallest puppy in the hopes that Atlas’ parents would adopt him. He was dark gray and had floppy ears. Atlas’s parents could not resist the puppy’s cuteness and adopted him immediately, naming him Sir Walter. 

Sir Walter was a gentle dog. After Atlas was born, the dog became extremely attached to Atlas. Essentially, the two grew up together.  

Over the years, Atlas and his parents took many photos of Sir Walter. They cherished him so much that long after Sir Water had passed away, the dog’s photos remained hanging on the walls of their house. 

Sir Walter had passed away when Atlas was 16. After that, Atlas didn’t have the heart to adopt another dog. Sir Walter was his big brother and protected him all the time. They had done everything together. It was no wonder that, 9 years later, Atlas was still heartbroken.

Sohtris exclaimed, “I’m sure Atlas would be really surprised to meet Sir Walter again!” 

Sohtris and Avlios couldn’t do much for Atlas. He was trapped in the Great Dragon Forest surrounded by powerful monsters and beasts. Having a companion by his side would make it easier to survive. 

The two called Sir Walter’s soul and explained the situation. 

Soon, Sir Walter and Atlas would meet again… 

*****

It took a few hours, but Atlas was finally able to understand the magical energy—mana—in his body. 

He didn’t know any of the theories of this world, so he made his own. It was quite simple. 

Mana was stored in the solar plexus of the body. It didn’t seem like it was in the physical body itself, but the soul’s body. There, a mana core was found. Atlas didn’t know what the average core size was for most people, but he estimated that it was about twice as big as his head. He didn’t know if that was impressive or not. 

He would later find out that that was pretty darn impressive. 

Atlas realized that the larger his mana core was, the more mana he had at his disposal. The more compact his mana core was, the more mana he could shove into his mana core. If it was loose, there wasn’t a lot of room, therefore, not a lot of mana. 

According to his made-up theory, anyway.

It was good that he could use magic based on imagination though. As long as he knew the feeling of invoking while imagining, magic was possible. He didn’t have to chant, didn’t have to say anything out loud. As long as he had a clear image, it was possible to just say it in his mind. 

In the forest, he would rather avoid shouting magic spells. Being able to stealthily use magic was a huge advantage to him. 

“Now that I have a hang of using magic… I should probably come up with attack and defensive magic…” 

He didn’t have a book on magic so he had no idea what this world was doing in terms of magic. He just had to create his own magic in hopes they would be useful to him.

As someone who worked in the video game industry, he had a lot of examples he could pull from. He played Drake Quest and the Total Fantasy series for a very long time, so he had some ideas of how to use magic. He didn’t want to copy them exactly, but making magic inspired by them didn’t hurt. As a former writer for a game company, even if he was in a different world, he didn’t want to infringe on the copyright.  

Finally, he figured out how Life Magic worked. According to the usual description of Life Magic, Life magic could be used in day-to-day life. It cleaned a variety of things from clothes, to wounds, to people’s bodies, and even their houses. Essentially any surface that could be cleaned. It could also create small fires for cooking and water for drinking and cooking. It was useful magic and it can be used by anyone as long as they had a mana core. 

Being able to clean his body and clothes was a blessing, considering he had only one pair of clothes. He had no idea how to make clothes so he would have to suffer with this one pair. The only problem was, he didn’t have any shoes… It was a little dangerous to walk around without shoes… 

He decided to gather some sturdy leaves to make makeshift shoes and then later, try to find a monster that had a leather-like material. He felt bad for ruining good monster materials, but his own survival was most important.

Atlas searched the nearby trees and finally found large leaves on a plant. According to Dragon God’s Eye, it was harmless, so he decided to use that along with some vines he found, to wrap up his feet. 

With his feet covered, he began to explore the forest. Thanks to the giant tree as his landmark, he felt like he could never be lost. It would be impossible not to notice such a huge tree. 

Unbeknownst to Atlas, while he was gone foraging, a giant silver wolf landed in the center of the forest. 

The wolf looked like a Fenrir, but he was leagues stronger. As a divine beast with myriad possible forms, he simply took on the appearance of a wolf because that was most comfortable for him. 

The divine beast sat by the entrance of the hollow. With his long, fluffy silver fur softly moving through the wind, he looked majestic. The presence he gave off was regal, like a King sitting on a throne, looking over his vassals. 

Divine beasts were sacred beasts that were created by the Gods, so they could come into the presence of the Gods. Meaning, the giant tree where Sohtris once slept next to was a place he was able to go to. Divine Beasts were different from other beasts and monsters. They were able to communicate with the people around them, well only if they were deemed worthy. 

With the blessings of the Gods, Sir Walter was extremely powerful.

Atlas hadn’t gone very far, due to his fear of the forest’s monsters.. He just collected fruits, plants, and firewood. It couldn’t hurt to have as much firewood as possible. It wasn’t winter yet, but by the time winter came, he might freeze to death, so having firewood just in case was good. Also, when he decided to hunt monsters or animals and got meat, it would be nice to be able to roast it up. 

Come to think of it, he hadn’t had cooked food in a while. The thought of french fries, chicken nuggets, and things like that made Atlas drool. 

“When I get out of this forest, I am going to eat good!” Atlas shouted at the top of his lungs. 

No one else could hear him, but he just wanted to yell as motivation to survive. 

After yelling to his heart’s content, he went back to the giant tree. 

When he arrived at the clearing, he saw a large wolf sitting in front of the tree. It was staring at him, but there was no killing intent or anything like that. It seemed curious. 

It was the first time he had seen anything living in the clearing except for the grass and the giant tree. 

Atlas stopped in his tracks and stared at the wolf. Did it want to fight? Was it curious? Did it deem him too weak to even be a challenge? 

He stepped back and was about to use Dragon God’s eye to check who and what this wolf was, when he heard a voice calling his name.

{Atlas, don’t you remember me?} The wolf communicated with him through some sort of telepathy as Atlas could hear it in his mind. 

Remember? Did he know a wolf? 

{We grew up together on Earth. You couldn’t have possibly forgotten me after I died, right?} 

“Sir… Sir Walter?” 

{You do remember me. You look young again. Your hair and eye color is different but your facial features are the same.}

“Sir Walter!” Atlas quickly ran over and threw his arms around Sir Walter.

“How did you get here? Did you reincarnate with me? I missed you so much!” Atlas soon had tears in his eyes. He really missed his big brother and friend. 

{The Dragon God and the God of Light called my soul over to help you while you are living in the Great Dragon Forest. I was surprised to be able to see you again.}

“I will have to thank them.” He wiped his tears and finally looked at Sir Walter in detail. 

Sir Walter had the same color eyes, brownish green eyes. His fur was silver though, and much longer. Feeling Sir Walter’s fur in his hand’s, he found it to be very fluffy and soft. Even though Sir Walter was in a different body, Atlas could still see traces of Sir Walter from his previous life.

He hugged Sir Walter once more, taking it in that Sir Walter really was here with him once again.

{I’m a divine beast now, so you can rely on me.}

“Even when you were just a pitbull, I still relied on you. Please, take care of me even in this world too, Sir Walter.” 

{Of course! You don’t even have to ask me twice. I will protect you every time.} Sir Walter nuzzled his head on Atlas. He wasn’t much of a licker, but he liked to nuzzle Atlas. 

Unconsciously, Atlas activated the taming magic and was able to tame Sir Walter, the Divine Beast.

Atlas could hear that he tamed Sir Walter but he didn’t focus on that at all. In the future, he would be able to see that he gained a new category in his status and Sir Walter’s name was right below it, showing that he was tamed. 

With Sir Walter by Atlas’ side, Atlas felt he could finally rest easily while living in the Great Dragon Forest.