Chương 16: Onwards, Towards Violence

The system is very excited about what I just did. I am not. I step past the lingering mist, ignore the blue windows blooming at the edge of my vision, and head straight for the treasure chest instead. Priorities. I open it, quietly absorb the potions into my ever-expanding hoard, and Inspect the rest. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Stalker's Eye Ring (Uncommon)] A ring set with one of the crystallized eyes of the Mistbound Stalker. The gem retains a faint predatory presence.

Runic Patterns: Inferior Perception (+5) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Fogstep Sandals (Uncommon)] Sandals woven from Mist-Threads. Naturally dampen footstep noise during movement. Runic Patterns: Inferior Stealth Enhancement (5%) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Stalker's Eye (Uncommon)] The remaining eye of the Mistbound Stalker, crystallized with lingering predatory essence. Consume to gain +10 Perception ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Okay. Mixed feelings.

Let's go in order. The ring is good—obviously. I study the runic patterns with appropriate solemnity. Overly complicated. Excessively so. As expected. I slip it onto my finger, then send an exasperated glare at the sandals. They do not respond. Rude. Not only would they leave my delicate feet completely exposed to roots, rocks, and overzealous rodents, but I can already replicate their effect by simply existing. Their runes are also complicated and unfamiliar, offering me nothing but mild academic annoyance.

Naturally, they go straight onto the ground, where I will immediately forget about them. It's not littering if it's a pocket dimension. … Probably. Assuming that is what this place is. I pause, tilting my head. Come to think of it, the system never actually explained what this place is. Just that it's "a block containing users and a controlled ecosystem of monsters." I instinctively assumed pocket dimension, but honestly?

It would be hysterical if the System just procedurally generated a forest and stapled it onto reality as a Tutorial. Deeply irresponsible. Mildly horrifying. Mostly funny. … Anyway. That brings me to the third item. And this one actually makes me stop. Mostly out of outrage. It's not only an eye— —but a crystallized eye. And it wants me to consume it. I stare at the thing. Does the system genuinely believe I would crunch down on an eye-flavored Jolly Rancher for less than a single level's worth of Perception?

My tail flicks in deep, personal offense. Then flicks again. And once more, just to make sure the sentiment is fully conveyed. Naturally, I place it on the ground beside the sandals that I have already emotionally disowned, and turn toward the exit that has obligingly appeared. Skipping stat-boosting items is going to become a recurring theme, isn't it? My soul sighs. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Would you like to exit Zone 2 (Mist-Veiled Grove) and enter Zone 3 (The Deepwood)?

Options: Yes / No ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I narrow my eyes. The Deepwood. I tilt my head up toward the sky.

"If this is a'walk for six hours and somehow end up where you started' situation," I inform the universe calmly, "I'm setting the forest on fire." Good. Now that the System has been properly warned, it should know better. I click Yes. … Twice. Maybe three times. But definitely not four. I have standards. I attempt to flick my hair haughtily—only for my ponytail to deny me the satisfaction. Unacceptable.

The fog surges forward once again, swallowing my vision— —not before my tail gets one last irritated swish in protest at the transition. After a few seconds, the fog peels away, and the world snaps back into focus. I take a long, relieved breath. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Ah. Air. The oppressive mist is gone, freeing my vision from the ever-present haze of questionable game design decisions. I blink. Hm. Then, I nod appreciatively.

Seven out of ten. Now this is a forest. The trees here are taller than the ones in the Grove, their trunks thicker, straighter, bark dark and ridged like something that has learned not to bend. They don't crowd together. Instead, they stand apart, giving me a clear view a solid fifty meters deep before the forest finally closes in. Civilized. Suspiciously so. The canopy sits higher overhead, letting sunlight reach the ground in broad, broken patches instead of dramatic-but-useless shafts of light.

Ferns, low shrubs, and young saplings fill the spaces between, though much of it has been trampled down into uneven paths. Not people-made paths. Too wide. Too rough. The kind of trails left by things that don't care about etiquette or infrastructure. The air is heavier here. Damp wood. Sap. Old leaves. And something musky layered underneath it all. I feel it in my chest when I breathe—thicker, denser, like the forest is packing on mass for a boss fight.

A fallen tree blocks part of the path ahead, its trunk split lengthwise, bark torn away in long, brutal gouges. Tusk marks. Fresh enough that the sap hasn't darkened yet. I step over it carefully, because tripping would be such a catastrophic blow to my dignity that only burning down the forest would feel proportionate. The ground rises and falls in shallow waves, roots pushing up from below like the forest forgot to put things back where they belong.

Some are as thick as my arm, twisting across the soil before disappearing again. Moss blankets their sides, slick and dark where the light doesn't reach. My ears perk slightly. So far, so good. No obvious design flaws. No stupid environmental effects. And the branches look perfectly sized for a fox— and her six-foot-tall sword companion. A sharp crack echoes through the forest, snapping me out of my assessment. A branch. Not a twig. A branch.

That kind of sound only comes from something large enough to break wood by accident. I glance at the nearby trees. The branches here are thick—thick enough that I couldn't wrap my arms around one even if I tried. I nod to myself as the heavy footsteps draw closer. This one is big. Naturally, I wait. Whatever it is already knows where I am, so I'll be gracious and let it make a proper entrance—preferably with a dramatic organ solo and a three-page villain monologue.

The culprit finally thunders into view after about fifteen seconds of impatient foot-tapping. I blink. For once in my life, I'll admit it. I was wrong. Big isn't the word. I don't think three Lyns stacked on each other's shoulders would reach this thing's height. I'd been expecting an oversized bear. Instead, I got a boar that looks like it belongs in the same weight class as an elephant. I Identify it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Deepwood Boar (Level 11 | Tier 1) Species: Boar Aspect: Force A massive boar native to The Deepwood. Highly territorial and prone to violent charges when disturbed. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Oh. That's useful. Identify actually shows Aspects. I don't get nearly enough time to appreciate this revelation, because the boar immediately decides to charge with the enthusiasm of an unsupervised freight train.

I take a single step and Astral Step triggers, yanking me sideways in a burst of starlight. Flashy. I approve. The boar barrels past where I was, tearing a straight line through grass and low brush, fails every possible steering check, and slams headfirst into a distant tree at full speed. The impact booms through the forest. The ground shudders beneath my feet, moss rippling outward in a visible wave. I am fairly certain I saw the shockwave race through the air. … Note to self: never get hit. Ever.

Not that getting hit was part of the plan to begin with. I Dash toward it across the open forest floor, boots skimming over uneven ground as I fumble my sword out of its sheath— —and promptly drop the sheath afterwards. It skids through the grass and disappears somewhere behind me. Fantastic. I'll pick it up later. Before the boar can recover, I'm already moving again. I leap, starfire flaring along my blade as I swing down toward its flank— My ears twitch. Every instinct I possess lights up like a warning siren.

I react instantly, lowering my gravity and snapping my blade up in front of me. A heartbeat later, a wave of pure force detonates outward, ripping through the shrubbery and flattening grass in a wide arc. It slaps me out of the air like an insect that had the audacity to exist. The combination of blocking and reduced gravity keeps the damage manageable. There is, however, one minor issue. I am currently airborne. Very airborne. And moving at speeds usually reserved for projectiles.

The open space between trees vanishes all at once as one looms directly in my path. Synapses fire. Plans form. Thousands of futures branch and collapse in a fraction of a second. My mind becomes a divine temple of strategy, devoted entirely to identifying the optimal course of action. After simulating all 8. 4 quintillion possible outcomes, I reach the conclusion: There is nothing I can do until my feet touch the ground. My tail flicks in profound offense. Then I slam into a tree with a sickening crunch.

Pain detonates through my body. I ignore it. A thick branch mercifully catches me before I can continue my career as a ballistic missile and plummet to the forest floor below. I immediately check my health. Health: 11 / 150 … The bonus Vitality from the mole shirt just saved my life. Unacceptable. I now owe a debt of gratitude to the next mole I encounter. Using my unbroken left arm, I fumble at the spatial ring on my very broken right, produce a health potion, and down it with a pained grunt.

Let's hope these can heal broken bones. Because I'm fairly certain I have at least four. The effects are immediate. My bones snap back into place— loudly —and I bite down on a hiss as something inside me shifts, organs sloshing back where they presumably belong. A deeply unsettling sensation. I would like to unsubscribe from it permanently. Alright. Mental checklist. What went wrong? What can I fix? Who do I blame? (Spoiler: me.) First: Vitality is far too low. Next few levels—straight into Vitality. No debate.

Second: I did not properly account for Aspects. Third: Lowered gravity is fantastic for impacts. Less fantastic when there's a tree waiting behind me to finish the job. I nod to myself, filing that away, before standing and stretching like nothing traumatic just happened. No more jumping attacks. For now. Unfortunately, my sword was violently yeeted out of my hand during my brief but illustrious career as airborne debris, and is currently somewhere in the tall grass outside my line of sight.

My tail flicks in irritation. Whatever. It was too big anyway. I'll just make another. Starlight flares in my palms, condensing with practiced ease. This time I keep it thinner. Lighter. Closer to a longsword than a greatsword. Naturally, I inscribe the same runic sequences. The blade finishes forming, and I nod appreciatively. It's still long—about five feet—but crucially, it's now slightly shorter than my wingspan. Meaning I can actually unsheathe it like a civilized person. It's also not lopsided like before.

Progress. I glance down at the boar, which is still staring at me with what I can only describe as continued poor judgment. I shrug. I'll make the scabbard after I finish cooking the bacon, I suppose. I lower my gravity again and hop down from the branch. My boots hit soft ground, moss compressing quietly beneath them. No knee bend. Perfect. They don't even hurt this time. The boar— naturally —has strong feelings about my continued existence in its general vicinity. I ignore it. It looks deeply offended.

A successful Charisma check. Probably. It lowers its head and charges again, tearing a straight path through grass and brush, hooves gouging shallow furrows into the earth. Truly a shame that it's only about half my speed. Otherwise this fight might matter more than the sudden force-slap jumpscare. I Astral-Step out of the way again. It barrels past, continues on its doomed trajectory across the open space, and—eventually—collides with another tree. Because of course it does.

Intelligence is not a social construct that overgrown boars subscribe to. The impact sends another tremor through the forest floor. I Dash forward to close the distance again, deliberately choosing not to leap into the air like an anime protagonist prioritizing spectacle over survival. As expected, my instincts flare. This time, I make myself heavier and drive my sword into the ground.

The force wave detonates outward, flattening grass and whipping loose leaves into the air, my skirt and hair snapping dramatically in the blast— —but fails to move me even an inch. Excellent. And now the pig is at my mercy. It recovers faster than expected and stomps its foot into the ground, sending a tremor through the forest floor. The world wobbles. Briefly. Loose soil slides. Moss shifts. But one hundred Dexterity is no joke—I regain my balance almost immediately and surge forward.

I swing my sword, starfire igniting along its edge— —and it bounces off the boar's hide. Oh. This again. It whips around, tusks arcing toward me with lethal enthusiasm. I step back just in time, letting the massive head pass inches from my torso, wind rushing past me. Ending the day with a basketball-sized hole through my chest would be deeply inconvenient. I raise my sword overhead, a low growl slipping out before I can stop it. Runes flare. Starfire roars. A sapphire vibration hums along the blade.

Then I bring it down.

"Horizon Slash." This time, the pig does not survive. My blade carves cleanly through its head, cutting halfway before its momentum dies completely. The boar collapses in a heavy, final thud. A notification chimes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ You have slain Deepwood Boar (Level 11 | Tier 1) A slight experience bonus has been awarded for slaying a monster 1 level above you. You have gained 13 Tutorial Points. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I stare at the lightly charred corpse. Then I nod solemnly.

Thank the stars for stellar fire. If it didn't cauterize everything on contact, I'd currently be standing in a steamy blood shower. A truly horrifying thought. I don't think my dignity would recover. I stretch out my hand, shaping a simple starlight scabbard, and sheath my blade with appropriate dramatic flair. Time to hunt more. I take a step— —then pause. I glance around and spot my old, oversized scabbard lying abandoned in the nearby grass. The sword itself is nowhere to be seen. I consider this. Then shrug.

Maybe someone lucky will stumble across it. I have better things to do. Like ecosystem disruption. My ears perk slightly. Now— finally — The fights are starting to get interesting.