My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy

After a while, Rose and Madeleine drifted off to sleep, leaving Jack alone with his thoughts as he lay on his bedroll and reflected on his time since his arrival to this new world.

It was surprising to him how natural his new life was beginning to feel. He hated to admit it, but Frumpkin was right. He had almost completely forgotten about anything else about his life from before. And honestly, he was glad he had skipped out on option number one. Compared to the life he had now, even in spite of the threats he had experienced and the possible loss of one of his new friends, the idea of lounging around in paradise without a care in the world sounded just flat out boring.

He couldn't afford to get to comfortable here, thought. The fact that Eleanor was captive by a bunch of monsters was testament to that. But more than that, he had a job to do. Somewhere in this world, there was someone who had been given the exact same advantages he had been. The villain he would finally have to overcome to win. Was this villain having the same challenges he was?

Either way, Jack knew he had a long long way to go before he had a chance of winning. As it stood now, he could barely beat some gnolls, and couldnt keep his friend safe.

He needed more skills. And better equipment. And more allies. He sighed. At this moment, it felt like this was going to take FOREVER.

As he laid there, his thoughts finally drifted to Eleanor. He hoped she was still okay. Every time she crossed his mind, he would kick himself for letting himself lose sight of her, even for a moment. Had that not happened, she would probably be there on her bedroll laying beside him at this very moment, breathing her quiet breaths in sleep.

"That's assuming the shaman didn't just kill you outright if the fight continued," Jack thought grimly.

Jack knew that he was going to have to face off against the shaman again if he wanted to save her. And considering it'd beaten Ellie handily, beating him was going to be no small feat. Jack honestly wasn't even sure he had it in him to do it, even with the help of the sisters and his other wish benefits. But he didn't have a choice. He had to save her. She was his friend. And it was the right thing to do.

The fact he also found her incredibly stunning, and she seemed to actually like him, absolutely also factored in there somewhere, though he wasn't ready to admit to himself how much of a part those feelings actually played into it all.

He found his mind wanting to slip into fantasies about her, but he stopped himself. There would be a time for indulging those thoughts, but now was most definitely not the right time. As he pushed them out of his mind, however, he found his mind flooded with new images. Images of something horrible happening to her... the dogmen taking turns beating or violating her. Having them appear all at once made him simultaneously nauseous and furious.

If they laid a single finger on that girl's body, he'd fold every single one of the dog-faced bastards inside out and wear their pelts for slippers. It didn't matter to him if he died in the process, so long as she got away. He'd already died once. Doing it again couldn't be that terrible.

It took him a long time to finally clear his head enough to calm down, and when he finally relaxed, sleep overtook him almost immediately.