"Oh my young, Christian heart..." Thane thought to himself as he saw the beautiful girl talk to her.
Thane had always been rather 'unlucky' with the ladies. Even at church.
He was a rather respected servant leader in his youth group, was a small group leader, and even a member of the praise and worship team as a drummer.
But even then, with his added repertoire of abilities, he never managed to get a girl to like him.
By the time he mastered the drums, all the girls of his age were already mature enough that they didn't pursue or were drawn to these skills.
Plus, Thane was very awkward and was even, quote unquote, 'too holy' for some of the girls who expected a life of missions with him.
So even though Thane was very sociable, went out of his way to talk to girls (though he was very awkward and would end up talking about the Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus), still, Thane put in the effort.
But now, a beauty that would have made a girl a superstar model was right in front of her!
Thane's heart kept beating and beating, louder than the bass drum that he practiced on.
"Stupid brat! Now we have two stupid brats here!" One of the other companions of the Princess cursed.
Thane was startled at how the man shouted at her.
"Hey! You guys look like members of the royal guard based on your emblems! Aren't you guys supposed to be her protectors and guardians?!" Thane fumed.
"Oh, shut up! Royal guards? I don't know how you got here... But those skeletons down there... They will keep rising and keep chasing us! We are as good as dead! I don't give a damn about the princess, honor, and all of those! It was that very honor that led us here!" The man stood up in anger.
He was clearly a Knight. He would be equal to a level 10 to 19 warrior.
"We lost three of our companions because we followed this stupid excuse of a princess!" The knight shouted loudly.
Seraphina sat quietly. Not making any noise, her expressions grew more sorrowful.
Thane frowned and observed the companions of Seraphina.
There were two others in her team. One looked like a mage based on her attire, and another was a Shield Maiden.
But even at the outburst of the knight, the two others seemed to have shown no actions or reactions from the knight's rants and attacks on Seraphina.
Thane frowned, but then saw the strange magical strings emerging from him. It was few, but it was the very same strings of magic Thane could see on the mist.
"I get it... They are all affected by the Mist. It looks like they've given up on life..." Thane analyzed the situation.
"Are you alright?" Seraphina ignored the knight and asked Thane.
"Yeah. I was lucky that you threw the rope; otherwise, I would have died." Thane admitted.
"Would have died?! Ha! Well, up here, you will die! And die at the worst possible means! Starvation! The slow suffering of death calls us! We would be like those down there soon!" The knight roared.
Thane noticed that all four were hungry. Even the beautiful princess had clear signs of hunger.
Thane thought for a bit.
"That knight is affected by the mist. He will try to fight me. Hmm... Going by the vitality and energy I can sense from him with my Supreme Perception, the Bonus I had from the Ambrosia Fruit makes him only slightly stronger than he is. Which means, my hits would hurt him... But is that biblical?" Thane thought. Would hitting someone still be a sin? He had no issues with hitting monsters and beasts, but this was a human!
"Nah... Can't be. I already died and went to heaven. Or whatever this place is. I'm pretty sure I don't have the sinful nature anymore... To the pure, all things are pure." Thane recalled a verse in the bible.
"Hmm... Nevertheless, my Christian morals won't let me just go around abusing people. And so I can't show them my item storage ability. Since this world only has powerful mages that allow them to store items, my abilities would be too shocking for them..." Thane thought, recalling the various implied cultural shifts in the shows he watched.
Even the great adventurer Garron Duskbane had an item storage that could only store several marked items in his Item Chamber. And even then, he faced numerous assassins lusting over his items!
"If we survive this place, word of my Item Storage skill would probably bring thousands of assassins like in Garron Duskbane's stories..." Thane shook his head.
Thane reached into his small satchel and withdrew several of the small items that he had.
"It's a good thing I moved several items from the Channel world to my own storage!" Thane thought.
Thane began to take out the necessary ingredients that he had. He had brought some of the stock to his item list, which included several Silverbloom caps, a few Manaleak Vine, a pile of slime jelly, and the manapede hearts on the ready. Lastly, there was the Ash-Thyme.
Thane had managed to plant several Ash-Thyme and took a few that would allow him to cook four meals of Groundling stew.
Lastly, Thane took out the Embervine Coil, which he knew would be a good source of fire.
Seraphina saw Thane pull these items out from his satchel, but as she saw the Silverbloom caps, her hand twitched and somehow did not realize that the items Thane took from the satchel were much larger.
The Knight saw the Silverbloom caps and stood up. The mage and the Shield Maiden also twitched as they saw the mushrooms.
"Boy! Give that to me!" The knight demanded.
"I will! Relax! I'll just cook it so we can make some stew and all of us can be fed." Thane frowned.
"Cook it?! With what?"
"This Embervine Coil can be used as a fire source, and it won't die out quickly. I noticed that the mage there is an alchemist based on her attire. You would have a cauldron with you, right?" Thane asked.
"What use of a cauldron, when we don't have water?! Just give it to me!" The knight roared as he marched towards Thane.
Seraphina tried to stand up to intervene, but Thane pulled her down as he stood up.
Seraphina stumbled in he weakness as Thane met the knight.
The knight reached for the shrooms in Thane's left hand, but Thane let out a swift punch.
POW!
The right hook connected with the jaw of the knight and sent the knight flying backwards!
THUD!
"I said, relax! You are weak and hungry! Don't think that because you are a knight, you could have your way here! I was born with a rather unique physique. Try to force your way again, and you'll get more than just a pounding!"