The idea that the lettuce moss I was chewing on had grown from the ground where it had quite possibly decomposed a corpse before was revolting. The thought made me so sick that to swallow any more of this food that Esu served me I had to keep telling myself a skill made it, not that it grew up here on some poor chap. The gut-wrenching screams echoing from the clearing weren’t helping, either.

While I tried to satisfy my body’s needs and not throw up, Deckard watched the ongoing battle between beasts and people. When the screaming started again, I couldn’t take it anymore and had to ask. “How are they doing?”

“How’s the food?” he retorted briskly.

A growl escaped my throat, and I bared my teeth covered in chewed moss at him. “Delicious, try it.” I didn’t know how Esu would react to it, but sharing some of it wouldn’t be a problem. The lettuce moss was constantly regrowing as I was ripping it off.

“No thanks, I prefer a good steak,” Deckard replied, turning back to the clearing where the earth-shaking explosion took place. “Traiana’s tits, I didn’t see that coming.”

“What happened?” I asked when my ears stopped ringing. Instead, a disgruntled roar of mossbears surrounding the clearing reached the furry sails on my head.

“Some Shadowbreaker guy just blew himself up...in the mouth of that mossbear. I guess you can imagine how that turned out,” he described what happened through the ring link.

Yeah, I imagined it, shuddered at the thought, but still had to ask. “Survived? The adult mossbear, I mean.”

“It’s missing its head. What do you think?” Deckard replied when a simple no would have been enough for me.

I cautiously glanced at Esu, but saw no reaction, not even a grumble. It made me question if he didn’t mind. If he didn’t care, his offspring had just died. I wondered if he was able to heal it as he did with me? Even bring the fallen beast back to life? He might have been capable of it.

It was not so hard to imagine with this ancient beast that revealed so few of its skills. Every one of them gave me the creeps. What I had trouble conceiving, however, was one man killing a mighty beast like an adult mossbear.

“You should know how dangerous a cornered animal can be?” Deckard added, seeing my doubts. “Humans are no exception, nor are terrans, dwarves, or gnomes. Corner them, and you don’t know what they’ll do. They can break down, beg, attack even more fiercely, do something stupid or unexpected like that chap. It’s hard to tell if it was a skill or a magical tool. It could have been an artifact like those return crystals. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The beast underestimated him, thinking it had won, and paid the price.”

“Hmm...okay, but I thought the mossbears were much stronger...” I argued, chewing on the moss.

“Why?” he asked me instead of answering but didn’t let me reply. “Is it because they are massive and have levels we can only dream of?”

Finding myself in an unexpected lecture, I nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Well, then let me tell you, most beasts that are born with a higher level are like you,” he said, pointing at me. Taken aback by his words, I lifted my head from my dinner.

He grinned. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s true.”

“I’m not a fucking beast!” I snarled my words out loud and through the link at the same time just to realize what I’ve done. Warily looking up at Esu, I hoped he would overlook this little outburst of emotion of mine, that he would disregard my words.

I froze when I found him looking right at me, no doubt judging me. You’re bloody dumb, Korra. I cursed myself and Deckard for making me say something that could have cost me my life.

“Eat, cub,” Esu growled at me so hard it rattled my bones, yet it made me breathe a sigh of relief. So, escaping the death sentence again, I dug into the lettuce moss with newfound vigor.

“I can imagine what that was about,” Deckard remarked, to which I gave him an angry look. It was his fault anyway if he didn’t mention... “Just so you know. I wasn’t referring to your looks, but to your skills.”

Wait a minute! I paused. How could the beasts have the same skills as me? Did every beast have the...[Beast] skill?

“As much fun as it is to watch you rock your brain, I don’t want to risk another outburst, so listen for a minute,” he said seriously, taking a deep breath. “Some beasts are born big, strong, and at levels that take humans years to reach. Can you imagine something like a mother mossbear giving birth to a cute little level one bear cub? No! Though, that doesn’t mean that the beasts will be born with all their parents’ skills or skills at the corresponding levels. Sure, they have certain aptitudes, abilities, some of theirs skills are damn strong at a low level already, but at their core, they’re just like you.”

Trying to take his comparison of beasts and me with a grain of salt this time, I sat in silence and listened to his explanation. Basically, what Deckard was trying to say was that their skills were under-leveled like mine. When I gave it a thought, it made more sense to me now why, for example, the mossy shoots of a young mossbear were unable to break my shield or why the moss piles I tried to avoid in the fight could not restrain me.

But there was also the question of how Deckard knew about levels of my skills. How did he know so much about me when we weren’t supposed to meet until tomorrow? Was he really the man Razso told me about? Doubts sprouted in my mind.

“Marcus told me it’s easy to tell where your mind is,” Deckard mentioned casually. “I’d say it’s not hard. Kind of amusing, albeit dangerous. Something you should work on.”

Yeah, don’t tell. I sighed, knowing I had even less control over my body than usual. That he knew Marcus didn’t surprise me, nor did the friendly tone with which he mentioned him. He referred to Captain Rayden as San after all. Obviously, there was some sort of connection between them. Probably the army.

Did they give him info on me, a file maybe? But then again, he didn’t know about my poison. Hmm....

“How do you know about my skills?” I finally asked the question I should have asked a long time ago.

“For crying out loud, girl.” Deckard sighed, tired of my suspicions. “You’re not the only slave who had a shitty master and changed her skills as soon as she could.”

“Oh,” I breathed when it hit me how unnecessarily complicated I was thinking about it.

“You’re level ninety-four, your skills are what...on average level twenty? The same goes for them,” said his guess, nodding his head towards the beasts. “You see mossbears at level three hundred, but their skills may be on the same level as yours.”

I glanced at the young mossbear lying nearby, the one I had fought, the one that had wrecked me. It was still a massive beast, looked unbeatable, but I saw it in a new light. Now it seemed more approachable, as it was dealing with the same problems I was. Underleveled skills.

As Deckard mentioned them, I looked at my skills again.

Name: Korra Grey

Race: Human

Gender: Female

Age: 29

Class: Slave (Master - none)

Level: 94

Constitution: 73 (39)

Strength: 40 (23)

Endurance: 31 (25)

Dexterity: 23 (23)

Intelligence: 19 (11)

Wisdom: 17 (10)

Class Skills (6/6):

Indomitable Will (Passive V): lvl 118

Painless Agony (Passive II): lvl 10 -> lvl 11

Tireless Machine (Passive II): lvl 13

Swift as a Whip (Active II): lvl 11 -> lvl 12

Master’s Lover (Passive I): lvl 6

Master’s Shield (Active II): lvl 9 -> lvl 10

General Skills (8/8):

Eleaden Standard Language (Passive I): lvl 9

Perfect Equilibrium (Passive II): lvl 9 -> lvl 10

Spatial Domain (Passive II): lvl 11 -> lvl 12

Beast (Passive II): lvl 12 -> lvl 13

Never-Dying (Passive II): lvl 28 -> lvl 29

Tail of Poison Empress (Active II): lvl 9 -> lvl 10

Heart of Magic (Passive I): lvl 4

Inner Perception (Active I): lvl 9

With a quick glance, I determined the average level of my skills to be around twelve. Significantly lower than Deckard estimated. Of course, I didn’t include an anomaly, or rather a proper leveled skill, like [Indomitable Will]. So did that mean that regardless of how happy I was with my skill growth, it wasn’t enough? Or that despite their low level, I did better in that struggle than I thought. Hence Deckard’s exaggerated figure.

“It’s twelve,” I said, after a moment’s thought, afraid of his reaction. I wanted to know how I fared, though.

“What is?” he asked me, somewhat confused, then he suddenly grinned. “I may call you a girl, but you’re not that young.”

I clenched my fists and let out a low growl. “No, I’m not. I’m almost thirty.” After taking a breath, I added. “My average skill level is twelve.”

“Neither to brag about, eh?” he remarked, and raised his hands defensively. “Sorry, old habits.”

I didn’t see my age as a secret to be ashamed of. But if Deckard thought that I’m just going to let him mock me, he was wrong.

“Not sure why you’re telling me this, though,” he added over my threatening growl. “That it’s a really crappy skill level or that you did well in spite of that?”

“The latter,” I muttered to myself, and Deckard grinned, almost as if he understood my grumbling. However, his words of praise, hidden behind a sarcastic tone, put a smile on my face, which I tried to hide from him in the moss I was eating.

Actually, I’d had enough, I was full and sick of it but did not know how to tell the King of the Woods. I couldn’t get away with pretending to eat it for long.

It took me a while to find the right words, the intention I wanted to put into them. When I did, I stood up, drawing both Deckard’s and Esu’s attention to me.

“I’m satiated,” I declared in a growl. “Full of nutrients, great Esu.”

“Good, now go. Fight,” grunted King of the Woods, making me question my hearing. Did I hear that right? He wanted me to fight the young mossbear again.

“Again?” I asked, dumbfounded.

He did what I would describe as a nod. “Fight, I heal you.”

“Fuck!” I swore and gulped, wishing I could pretend to eat the lettuce moss all night. Until now, I thought I was done fighting and training for the day. Esu saw it differently. What he had in store for me was not training but torture, quite possibly all night. That’s how the idea of fighting the young mossbear that would inevitably wreck me and be healed again just so I can get back into the fight seemed to me.

“Lucky girl,” was Deckard’s reaction when I told him about my would-be training. Not what I expected or wanted to hear.

“Seriously. If you want to improve your skills, you need to train with someone stronger or more experienced. In the case of beasts, visit the deeper levels of Falens Cry, and if you don’t want to die, have a healer on hand. A good healer. It all costs gold, and you’re getting it for free.”

When I glanced at the young mossbear, which was still lying in the same spot, I felt to be a lot of things but definitely not lucky.

The eyes of the beast were on me, following my every move. It made me wonder if it imagined what I tasted like. Was it thinking, as I was, how to approach the fight? Did it waver as I did? It didn’t seem to. Yet, it seemed hesitant to start a fight, waiting for me to make the first move.

Lucky me. Yay!

Without taking my eyes off the beast, I used [Tail of Poison Empress]. Why bother if the poison has so far been ineffective? I needed to test the larger amount of poison my glands were supposed to produce. To do that, I only had one shot, though. Despite how long my rest was, my mana didn’t have time to restore. So Esu forced me to fight with only half my mana. Now that Sage has gobbled up most of it, even less.

It wasn’t something to cry about, though. I was aware that this was part of an unfair life that I won’t always be prepared for the struggles I’ll face. So far, I’ve never been.

So the question was, what next?

I really wish I knew. No advice, no sarcastic remarks. Deckard left it up to me, which reminded me that he treated this like an audition where he wanted to see what I was made of. I really hate to leave him disappointed, but I was afraid he’d just see a lot of broken bones and blood.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with anything other than being faster and more agile than before to prevent a repeat of the previous scenario. I shuddered at the memory of it, telling myself that if only I had been a little quicker, reacted faster, I could have avoided being crushed. The only way to do that, in my opinion, was to concentrate less on where I was stepping, now that I understood why the moss on the ground wasn’t a danger to me.

Trying to block some of the beast’s attacks with my shield was also something I could try, especially if I wanted to test how that shield bleed through works, whether it might be pretty helpful combined with my regeneration or entirely worthless.

I sighed, clenching my fists, and growled at the lying beast, letting it know I was ready. It roared back, standing up, but instead of the attack I was prepared for, it watched me warily. That was something I didn’t like. I didn’t want to wait in suspense to see what the beast would do. I wanted to get it over with. So I took the initiative and charged.

It wasn’t a headlong rush, though. Despite how hopeless I saw my chances of victory, the beast inside me wanted to win, to see my opponent bleed. That was not something that could be achieved by making rash decisions.

So I tried my tactic of approaching the side of the mossbear, slashing my claws as fast as I could. It wasn’t long before the moment I’d been waiting for came, not a rollover, but the moss shoots. The shield formed in front of me long before they reached me, but I had no idea how to approach the damage transfer. How to even trigger it. That is why the first few shoots were shielded without the assistance of this damage bleed through.

It took me a while to figure it out. I had to dodge two rolls from the beast that wasn’t just standing around waiting for me to solve my problems. Why would it, right?

In the end, turning this damage transfer, this shield bleed through on and off wasn’t that hard. All it took was a simple trick while using mana to form a shield. For the shields I was creating, I was the anchor, a big shortcoming, in my opinion. But in this very connection between the shield and me was enough to leave a specific link. A conduit that transferred the damage from it back to me.

When I blocked a shoot attack aimed at my face with the shield while using this ability for the first time, I expected pain that didn’t come. There was no prick to the cheek, not even a slight one. It came as a surprise to me knowing that the attack wasn’t that weak. If it was a matter of displacing the damage to a particular place, I would have to feel something.

Logically, it had to be the second alternative, which I verified in the following attacks. My whole body mitigated the damage. It put some pressure on it, a tension that could have resulted in a more serious injury with more accumulation. For now, my regeneration didn’t seem to have a problem dealing with it, but that was just a few attacks so far. Low level attacks, defended by a low level skill.

What my body had trouble dealing with was the amount of venom in the glands on my tail. What I feared had happened, the pain with which Sage used to warn me about full glands was becoming unbearable. My current tactic of waiting until my glands were full to surprise the enemy with a full dose of poison was no longer practical and required reworking.

Just like my offense. It didn’t take long before I found myself on the defensive again, unable to land a bigger blow, do more damage. Unsurprisingly, more poison didn’t work on the beast either.

And it wasn’t just that.

My shield may have been able to block the shoots, yet when I tried to use it to block a swipe of the paw or a pounce, it shattered like glass even though it should be 10% stronger. The difference between the strength of someone at a level nearly three hundred and skill at level ten was just too great, not to mention the mass behind the attack.

I simply couldn’t shake the feeling that it was impossible for me to beat this young mossbear. Not a good mindset to have, in the situation I was in.