Half observing the world through her eyes and half through her Magic Sense, Kaltyr followed her memory, and the long knife marks in some trees she’d made, in order to revisit the river she’d found the day before, all the while doing her best to not be mesmerized by the beauty of nature.

“Mother Nature did one hell of a job…” She found herself whispering as she traversed the wilderness. “It’s dangerous to be distracted, and all, but…damn!”

Kaltyr was aware that allowing her attention to wander when beasts were potentially considering making her their next meal was stupid, yet too many factors played a hand in dulling her attentiveness.

Firstly, the vegetation was simply extraordinary. She’d noticed it the day before, but her strained nerves combined with her having lacked the Magic Sense skill for most of the day prevented her from fully appreciating the marvel that was life.

Mighty, unyielding trees stood proud with their trunks stretching far into the sky, providing a sense of strength and safety. A myriad of lush, vibrant bushes and other undergrowth virtually blanketed the dirt, giving a captivating texture to the ground as a whole. Vines, flowers, and fungi could be spotted everywhere, splashing the forest with bewitching colors and hues that appeared magical themselves. With a layer of magical essence on top of all the visual charm, Kaltyr couldn’t help but wonder if she were within an enchanted forest.

Even her other senses—besides taste and touch—weren’t spared from the forest, as birds and bugs alike chirped their sweet symphonies for the world to hear while a variety of fragrant smells bombarded her nose! One patch of purple flowers even tempted Kaltyr to fall into their awaiting embrace, where she would relax and take a long, soothing nap... But after realizing that she was giving the dangerous idea serious consideration, she sped up and stayed clear of the area.

Secondly, for whatever reason, Kaltyr didn’t feel as though she was in any danger…despite all evidence pointing toward the notion that the world was covered by powerful man-eating beasts that wouldn’t hesitate to turn her insides into outsides. Somehow, she just felt supremely confident in her ability to survive.

Which wasn’t to say that she wasn’t careful. No, the girl did her best to fight every factor that participated in distracting her from the dangers that be, but that was an active job, because Kaltyr’s subconscious insistently indicated to her that everything was fine. That she was safe. That she would have no trouble defending herself.

“Which is stupid!” She told her subconscious. “This random arrogance might even be the effects of some unknown entity trying to get me to lower my guard…”

Lastly, coinciding with the erroneous confidence, was the vague feeling that she’d done it all before. What “it” referred to, Kaltyr wasn't sure, but the feeling persisted, nonetheless. The strange sense hinted that she’d been there before, though not necessarily to that location.

“Kinda like I’ve trekked through countless forests and other biomes, but not in a déjà vu way. Just that… It’s sort of like I’m familiar with the wilderness in general.”

Kaltyr’s brows furrowed at the mysterious anomalies of her mind as she crested a gentle slope, where she remembered she’d have a view of the river from. Yet, before she even managed to glance at the life-giving body of water, a sound from somewhere far behind caused her to freeze.

Eyes wide open, the girl immediately dropped to her hands and knees, and with as little sound as possible, turned around.

Nothing. Trees, flowers, vines, and shrubbery, but nothing else.

The distinct noise sounded again—clearly a hiss—before a pained screech pierced the ambient music of the forest, silencing it.

Kaltyr’s unearned confidence slowly bled away as a small shape somewhere ahead of her moved, seemingly uncaring of the noises it made. The shape, trudging along in a straight line, broke twigs and crushed countless dry leaves as it rustled the many bushes it passed through. Kaltyr even thought she saw it dragging something larger than itself behind it.

When the unknown entity moved far enough away that she couldn’t hear or see it any longer, the girl began slowly letting out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. It was quick and lacked a confrontation, but the minute or so that the being was within the range of her senses almost seemed to stretch on for hours.

G-great. I’m even shaking…

Kaltyr looked down to see that not only were her fists white from how hard they gripped the pocketknife she’d taken out, but her legs tremored with such strength that she wondered if she’d be able to stand. Even when she did get to her feet, she couldn’t seem to move her gaze from where she saw the creature.

Those eyes…

Because where she assumed the head of the beast lied were two circles that sparkled like a million tiny mirrors. But not only that, as Kaltyr had unconsciously extended her Magic Sense's awareness to its limit, just nearly reaching the two creatures…and discovering that both of them were stronger than her, individually.

It's, uh, it was like a feeling from my soul... I could somehow feel how powerful they were in their last moments of battle when my awareness stretched close enough to them. Like a…like an aura? That thing wasn’t that powerful yesterday!

The girl quaked from the realization that she was already falling behind. If the auras she'd felt were any indication of the general level of her enemies, then Kaltyr had some catching up to do. The creature that the starry-eyed beast killed seemed to be a step ahead of her, while the starry-eyed beast was a step ahead of it. In total, the mysterious starry-eyed entity that stalked her during her first night was two steps ahead of her, which probably translated into it being two levels higher…which also likely meant that it had killed a lot of other beings.

After several deep breaths, and very many glances at her surroundings, Kaltyr slowly rose to her feet.

“At the very least, on the assumption that these beasts level up at the same rate I will, then I know I can catch up—especially if fish contribute to it. Plus…”

A wicked smile tugged at her lips.

“When I made the initiative to attack, the creature lost its nerve. Now, it might have just not expected me to be able to use mana when I did, but I'll hope that it's a coward in the face of aggression, or better yet…that the differences between individual levels are small.”

With that thought in mind, Kaltyr puffed up her chest and swaggered down the gentle slope, intent on emanating an aura of confidence to make up for her apparent lack of a magical aura…as though she wasn’t just scared to submission mere moments before.

……

“Yeah, got another one!”

Kaltyr pumped her fists into the air and cheered, then immediately pulled her arms back to her sides with a cringe, unsure of whether the river's soft crashing did enough to dampen her voice.

“Well, I can’t take it back, so I'll just keep my guard raised and keep on keeping on…”

Keeping one eye on the trees on her side of the river, she waded barefoot into the shallow portion of the gentle waters until her knees were submerged.

“Thankfully, a pair of shorts came with this outfit. I don’t know much about molds and stuff, but I suppose keeping one's clothes dry is important.”

The girl eyed the pair of cargo pants she left behind on the shore, considering the impact of microorganisms on her chances of survival in the wild without modern conveniences.

“Not that I remember very many ‘modern conveniences', but I definitely didn’t have to deal with a lot of this shit before appearing in Manic. Oh, here it is!”

Kaltyr smiled as she located the corpse of the fish she desecrated with a rock before bending down to pick it up. Its scales were slippery, causing her to drop it a few times, but it wasn’t long before she was trudging back to the gravel shore with her catch in hand, which she tossed onto a pile of her other winnings. The pile sometimes twitched, and blood constantly poured from it in little streams, but the sight was a source of relief.

“I may not be a wilderness survival expert—well, I have no idea if that's true—but I'm getting pretty good at catching fish! Though, it feels like I should be using a tool I don’t have access to at the moment.”

The girl sat down on the shore, unsure of what the mysterious tool she had in mind looked like, yet had an idea of how to use it.

“Something like…”

Kaltyr mimed grabbing a handle with both hands, which she then lifted over her shoulder to gather strength with, before abruptly releasing the tension and swinging her hands forward over her head.

“Ugghh, that doesn’t seem right…”

She brought her hands back to her side and tilted her head, looking up at the now orange sky with a questioning look.

“What kind of tool to bring in fish would need to be thrown? I remember it having a handle, so it can’t be a net… Maybe? Some weird kind of spear?”

Sighing in exasperation over wasting time on pointless speculation, Kaltyr let her body fall backwards so that she lied on the gravelly soil, facing the river. She was tired from fishing and needed a rest…

But The System seemed to disagree, as shrubbery behind her began to shake, followed by a threatening squawk.

Kaltyr allowed her unexpectedly quick reflexes to take over as she pushed off the ground to land on her feet in seconds, after which she had a good view of the two-legged “dinosaur” charging at her. The large, vibrantly colored raptor resembled an oversized goose with both its visage and battle cry as it quickly dashed toward her, too close to dodge.

So she crossed her arms in front of her chest and braced for impact…which hit unexpectedly hard, sending her backwards into the river.

“Knife!” Kaltyr thought as soon as her back hit the riverbed. She floundered around, reaching into her pants pocket for her most effective weapon. “Shit!”

Regaining her bearings, the girl found her footing in the waist-high water, now soaking wet, and fixed her attention on the pair of pants she left behind on the shore…where the vicious goose merely stood, seemingly not daring to follow her into the water.

It won’t cross into the water? Dumb of it to have pushed me in, then!

Ignoring the pain in her ribs, Kaltyr scooped up two rocks from the riverbed in one hand while lifting a large one with the other.

“The knife may not be in my reach, bird, but stones can still break bones!”

Not bothering to infuse the projectiles with mana after remembering what little it did for the stick, she arched her arm backward as far as she could and immediately snapped it forward, using all of her experience with stoning fish to death to throw one of the two rocks.

And miss.

The golf ball-sized rock sailed past the dino-goose's head, whistling the entire way before striking a tree in the distance with a crash. Despite the near miss that would have left it heavily injured, the beast continued its intimidation efforts, honking and squawking at Kaltyr as she prepared to throw the second rock. It didn’t seem to be a very smart bird.

Suddenly, a sharp pain and spurt of blood sent Kaltyr's rock careening to the left, way too far from the dino-goose to matter.

“A fucking fish bit me?!”

Thanks to the adrenaline coursing through her, Kaltyr held her ground rather than jump in surprise at the attack, and quickly landed a blow on the twenty-centimeter-long fish biting her with the large rock she lifted from the riverbed.

The fish, after suffering the blunt force damage, staggered for a moment before resuming its attack, biting into Kaltyr's left thigh in the same place it had before.

“GGRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHGHGH!”

Teeth clenched shut and expression wrathful, it took all of Kaltyr's mental fortitude to analyze the situation. She snarled in rage, thinking over how she was within the fish's domain and would probably only waste energy by attempting to escape its jaws.

The analysis of the situation cost the girl precious seconds, and the fish bit her a third time, but at least she hadn’t wasted time struggling to out maneuver the new enemy. Just as the slick creature began wrenching its head back and forth to rend Kaltyr's flesh further, she reached into the water with the hand that wasn’t holding anymore stones and grabbed at the fish.

It couldn’t escape her grasp without foregoing its pointless offensive, so Kaltyr quite easily wrapped her fingers around the slick beast's body. She had difficulty finding a good grip at first, but after remembering how such animals breathed, the girl savagely inserted her digits into the fish's gills, before pulling it off of her.

“DAMN YOU!” She shouted at the now helpless beast as she surveyed the damage to her leg. The animal's jagged teeth weren’t long, but it had bitten her thrice and thrashed around to tear as much of her flesh as possible, leaving a mess of blood and muscle just under her shorts.

Filled with vengeful spite, Kaltyr tightened her grip on the fish's gills, wiggling her fingers around within the creature, destroying it from the inside. Not long passed before her attacker died from having its internal organs ruptured, streams of blood pouring into the river, mixing with her own to form a cloud of red that lazily floated downstream.

Expression still hardened, the girl turned her attention back to the idiot waiting for her on the gravel shore.

“You might have been able to do some damage while I was distracted.”

She lowered her fist, and the fish, to her side, further inspecting the dino-goose now that she was sure it didn’t dare enter the river—shallow and gentle as it may be—and paced on the shore as though she would just walk up to it and let it kill her.

The bird, which almost reached her shoulders, found most of its height from its long, feathered legs. However, its arms, despite sporting wicked talons, appeared even less threatening than the sticks it walked on. Kaltyr figured that the beast primarily made use of its also talon-wielding legs—thin stalks though they may be—to disembowel enemies.

Yet, the colorful, flightless avian hadn’t clawed at her during its sneak attack, instead opting to disorient her with a body slam. Why?

“Perhaps its claws aren’t as sharp as they look? It wasn’t confident in injuring me enough in the first hit? And its beak looks like a pretty nasty blade, too…”

She sighed. “I give up; this is too confusing. I'll just assume it’s dumb and do what first came to mind.”

Kaltyr took in a deep breath through her nose, then began wading forward, heading directly for the bird.

“HUUUUANK"

The dino-goose released another battle cry and spread its wings, flexing its feathers so that they popped up and made it appear larger—a technique, Kaltyr knew, used by some animals to intimidate other low-intelligence creatures. Useless on blood-thirsty humans.

Kaltyr approached within a meter of the beast, prompting it to flash one leg up in a slash attack, only for the girl to sway just out of the claw's reach.

And grab the leg.

The dino-goose squawked in terror, using its feeble grip on the ground with its remaining leg to pull away from the enemy it had underestimated…to no avail. Kaltyr yanked the bird forward and off its last leg before briefly letting go of it. The beast assumed it had escaped the girl's grasp, so as it fell forward, it aimed to impale her with its front claws.

Only for a fist to wrap completely around the middle of its long neck and keep it away at arm’s length.

The dino-goose was stunned, having trouble comprehending just how screwed it was.

“Should have chosen a different opponent.” Kaltyr mumbled, bringing her improvised weapon down on the goose's head.