In his original life, he’d been inspired by his farming game to go fishing. So he had decided to try. Bought all the fancy equipment that he had needed including a fishing hat, a bait box, a folding chair, and had set out to a lake in his first life. Needless to say, he had wanted to catch a fish but was not successful.
Now—in his current life—Heron’s diet depended on his ability to catch a slippery creature that he couldn’t even catch with all the proper equipment and tools.
But that wasn’t going to stop him. He was determined to survive in this world, one fishing attempt at a time.
He’d already seen some fish in the lake from all the times he was down there. He was immensely glad that there had not been any devilish creatures such as piranhas or lake sharks or magical water serpents. Instead, the lake seemed… friendly almost. He’d seen fish swimming in the farther deeps of the lake. Which made it seem worth it to try to catch them in order to eat them.
Heron glanced up at the sky. It was still hot out even though he couldn’t see the sun, but it was a fine day to make his first attempt at fishing. As he’d fainted yesterday after summoning the tiny pot and felt severely ill afterwards, he hadn’t wanted to push himself today into mapping out the planet some more. Therefore, today was a fishing day.
Digging through his brain, Heron sat with his arms and legs crossed. He hoped he wasn’t as disheveled as he felt. It’d been a tough week for a man like him who wasn’t built to survive in the wilderness for more than four hours at a time. He was the equivalent of an indoor-cat but worse because he didn’t even have claws.
So how was he going to catch this fish?
Summoning a real fishing pole was completely out of the question. The one he had back home—his original home—was considerably nice. He’d spent lavishly on his hobby equipment because why not, it’s not like he was a dragon that was hoarding his wealth over countless hours of overtime.
Then again, he hadn’t gotten another chance to fish until now. So perhaps the universe was giving him a second chance in all the things he’d missed out in his first life.
Glancing over to his rabbit companion, Heron sighed, “Now, what shall we do about this?”
His voice sounded hoarser than he remembered it to be. When was the last time he spoke out loud? From time to time, he’d mutter under his breath. But the past week alone, he’d noticed the lack of opportunities to speak. Well, likely it was because there was no one to speak to. Except for this rabbit.
The white rabbit didn’t answer, instead its nose twitched. Like it was laughing at him.
Heron glanced at the fire in front of him, where the tiny pot rested nearby and his bowl was still wet from leftover soup. While cleaning each item, Heron wondered what it would take to be successful in fishing. First, he’d need some sort of equipment. But he couldn’t summon it directly.
So perhaps he’d make his own equipment himself?
The fire died and his wooden bowl and spoon rested at the side as Heron closed his eyes. The primary tools he had figured he would need would be a bamboo pole, fishing line, a hook, and two wooden pails and a wooden shovel. He felt fairly positive this was the minimal summoning he could do without sacrificing any quality. Summoning the fishing line and hook made his skin crawl, as if his body was already preparing for the repercussions of it.
With the summoning of the bamboo pole, it didn’t exhaust Heron as much as he’d expected. But with the fishing line and hook, it took a toll on his body. Dry heaving on the side with cold sweat beaded across his forehead, Heron clutched his face in an attempt to stop the world from spinning. It spun for a while before it settled.
Heron had been able to confirm that by resting in-between bouts of magic usage, he would regain the strength to continue more summonings. Which was good considering he was relying entirely on this newfound ability to summon items at will. The limits of it seemed to stretch to his imagination and endurance.
Opening his eyes and sitting back in his spot on the ground, he stared at the three summoned items that rested on the dirt floor. While he had assumed he could put the three together, it was only after the fact of summoning that he wasn’t sure… how. How was he supposed to put the pole, line, and hook together when he had no other tools!?
Grinning sheepishly, Heron held up one end of the line. Then he picked up the bamboo pole with the other. The pole didn’t have a crevice or an indent of a place to tie the line. What had he been thinking? He sighed, defeated. All he had wanted was to meld the two together—
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A purple glow appeared at the end of the bamboo pole and the fishing line. Heron watched in disbelief as a glowing purple thread connected between the two ends of the two objects. The thread didn’t force the two objects together, but it seemed to whisper to Heron to move it closer to one another. So he did.
When the tips touched, Heron watched before his eyes that the pole and thread melded together into how he had imagined it in order for it to serve as a fishing pole. Once the melding settled, the glow dissipated and Heron stared at the wonder of what the magic had leftover for.
He now had the makings of a fishing pole. It wasn’t fancy or evidently spectacularly useful, however it was now connected together like how a fishing pole should be. With that end completed, Heron placed the pole down and picked up the hook. He repeated the process for the hook and the line.
[ +1 Bamboo Fishing Pole! ]
Heron was winning at life. Peak second life survival simulator. He felt on top of the world. Minus the fact he hadn’t caught a fish yet but that would surely come, right?
Next, he needed bait. He would’ve loved to summon bait from his original world but with the whole milk incident, he wasn’t about to risk it. In case the magic did go through and walloped him into his third life. Or not and sent him into the shadow realms of death. Either way, he was going to have to obtain bait in a more legit way.
Cue summoning a wooden bucket and shovel.
Leaving his bamboo fishing pole by his shelter, Heron stood up and walked to a nearby tree. He hadn’t questioned how many wooden objects he could acquire from the trees, but he’d been alternating between Steve, Jim, and Harold, the three trees nearby. Yes, he named them. No, he wasn’t stealing, he was only borrowing.
[ +2 Wooden Pails and +1 Wooden Shovel! ]
With two wooden pails and shovel, it was time for Heron to dig for worms. After worm hunting, it would be time to fish. And those fish better be ready because Heron was coming for them.
Heron was ready to fish, but the fish were not ready to be fished.
By the shoreline, Heron had found a nice fishing spot where the trees nearby provided shade and kept him nice and cool from the invisible sun. He’d stood for a while and then he had eventually taken a seat. This was beginning to feel ominously similar to his very first fishing experience in his original life. Where no fish bit and he ended up home with an empty freezer.
He knew there were fish in the lake, they just weren’t nibbling. But as time went on, Heron began to fret. It was late in the afternoon now, and evening was approaching. Fishing had seemed a whole lot easier than catching land prey such as rabbits. He wasn’t against eating rabbit meat—not that he’d had any in the past—but now it just felt wrong with his white rabbit friend hanging out with him on a day-to-day basis.
His plan for the fish was just to roast it by the fire. He could manage that much. Ideally, he would love having some sashimi someday, but that was a plan for later. For now, he just had to get some meat in him and build back his strength. Surviving in the wilderness was tough for a man who had worked in accounting and lived an ordinary, sedentary life.
Heron sighed. Was this not good? Was he doomed to fail? It was only his first day of attempting to fish and he had not expected it to go well. But nonetheless, it was disheartening after his preparation work to go unrewarded. He just wanted one nibble, just one catch and he would be satisfied. His mind wandered to the image of his line being tugged, a fish being hooked—
Splash, splash.
No. Freaking. Way.
Heron began fighting the line like he was fighting for his life. Pulling at the fishing pole, he stood up and began backing up one step at a time. His line thrashed as whatever he had caught was also fighting for its life. Eventually the war ended when Heron yanked his pole back, pulling the creature out.
OOMPH.
Heron fell back as the fish smacked him in the face. The wet creature flopped as Heron wiped his face from the wetness. Did he just catch a fish!?
Sitting up and crossing his legs, Heron lifted the caught fish by the line. Its eye stared at him as it flicked its tail. He had hoped he’d catch a fish today and did not expect his wish to be granted so easily. So all he had to do was imagine a fish biting this whole time? Heron felt unstoppable. With the power of imagination by his side, he could achieve anything—
“The lord of the land will not be pleased by this treachery.”
What.
Heron stared at the fish. The fish hadn’t said anything. It couldn’t; it was a fish after all. But Heron had clearly heard a voice and whether it was in his head or out loud, he wasn’t sure. His heart did a flip when the fish began to glow. Holy what—
The fish flicked its tail and it slapped Heron’s chin, throwing his head back. Did the fish just attack him?! He felt the weight of his line and hook disappear and when he looked back at his hook, the fish was gone. He looked further down the shoreline just to see the fish flop its way back into the water. Plop. It was gone.
What the hell just happened?
His mouth hung open as his eyes were wide as he focused his gaze on the calm waters in front of him. There was no way a fish would just talk to him, let alone smack him for catching it and escape back into the waters. Heron was fully convinced that he had bumped into a hallucinogen mushroom at some point and imagined the whole experience.
Immensely displeased by the experience, Heron was determined to catch another fish. And he hoped this time it would be normal. And not what he thought was a hallucination.
The sun had since set and the three moons smiled down with the moonlight casting a glow over Heron’s campsite. His fire crackled as he roasted several skewered fish by the fire.
None of them had spoken to him when he had caught them.
He must have imagined the first fish speaking to him. Besides, if there was a Lord of the land, wouldn’t he have met him by now? Heron hadn’t meant to be rude but it wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go. If he had unintentionally become a squatter due to getting isekai’d, the least he could do was apologize to whoever owned this planet.
As Heron ate his roasted fish and salted it with magic salt, he glanced at his bamboo fishing pool. With the confirmation that the magic he wielded was able to combine items together, it had sprung several ideas of what kind of life he could lead from now on.
Things were about to get a whole lot more interesting.
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FantasySlice of LifeAdventureActionLight Litrpg
Orius Kane already lived his legend. He reached the apex of magical power, survived his age’s greatest calamities, and retired to the Realm Keepers: a circle of Archmages sworn to keep the world from ending.
What to expect
- OP MC
- MC and Apprentice Pov
- Organisation building
- city building eventually
- Weak to strong side character
- Slice of life moments
- No MC romance
Starring
- Orius Kane - Our Irreverent Realm Keeper
- Emmeline De Valemont - Our suffering guide/apprentice
The golden age of magic may be dead. Orius Kane disagrees. He’s willing to drag it back, kicking and screaming if he has to.