She paced around her luggage, pondering her next step. Perhaps she could simply walk her way there. It may take the whole day, but she was too far from home and already too committed to the journey to turn back now. Vella had a sinking feeling she was underestimating the time it would take to travel on foot. Her current physical age was major flaw in her plan. There was no way she could haul her luggage all the way to the city in one day.

Forget making it to the city, she may very well perish from starvation out here.

Unbelievable. That farmer left a seven-year-old out here knowing how helpless she'd be.

She didn't have any survival skills. She had been a programming student of a modern, magicless world. A nerd with no athletic traits whatsoever, and even the leaner life she had lived was soften because of her child status.

But she wasn't about to be reborn only to die soon after. She needed to prioritise.

Even if there was no way to take her luggage with her, she could come back for it later. So, she picked a tree at the side of the road and mentally commanded her Yunare to make a hole in it with its horn.

She felt the tension of its muscles. The concentration of its entire body as it focused for one purpose only. Then the hare struck. The human eye could follow it, but not react until it was too late. Vella flinched not at the speed, but at the resulting fierceness of the impact. Her Yunare pierced so deep it needed help unplugging itself from the tree.

Once she had yanked it out, she nodded at the satisfying marker the horn had left.

Next, about twenty steps from the tree and into the woods, she picked a spot and dug with her Yunare. Once the hole was big enough, she dragged her luggage over, and opened it. She put on a thicker coat from within before closing it and pushed it into the hole. Leaves were piled over it to hide any reflective parts from view.

It needn't be completely hidden as she doubted anyone would venture off the road when there was a road they would rather be sticking to. But she felt at least a token bit of effort was needed in concealing her valuables.

With that done, she tackled the next part of her plan. Food.

It may be a day's walk to the city, but she didn't fancy starving all the way there. She had enough coin on her for a few days should she get lost in Zlantic. But coins were useless in the wild. There was also the off chance that she had horribly underestimated the time it would take to reach the city.

It would have been easy for her to forage for food if her summons could actually do it for her. Unfortunately, compared to their natural counterparts, they had limited autonomy and could only go about twenty metres before they started unravelling into the aether. The best they could do was act as extra senses and cover a wider area of search.

Vella kept her Yunare close to her. Its horn gave her a powerful, but one-off attack and she could also utilise its naturally sharp senses for finding fruits. As for the Dawli, she sent it up above the trees to get a bird's eye view to plot her course, keeping the road parallel to her as she moved. Her natural ability might not be powerful in the sense of strength, but she had lived in the information age. Knowledge had always been her best weapon.

After about an hour of fruitless searching, her Yunare picked up a faint clacking noise from further in the forest. Unfortunately, her Dawli could not see through the denseness of the canopy.

It wasn't fruit, but hat noise was most definitely a male Clem. They were a snail-like creature that moved just as slow as the Earth counterpart.

When they looked for mates, they made clacking noises with their shell. Their strange biology included some sort of ringer inside the shell, acting like a bell. Other than looking for mates, they also made such intense racket to scare off their natural enemies.

Another striking feature of a male Clem was the soft blue glow they emit to attract the attention of their mates. Some other creatures try to imitate the sound, so if the blue glow wasn't present, then Vella would know to leave that area alone.

Luckily for Vella, she knew this forest had been purged of predators, so there should not be any impersonating creatures.

Her father- Lilyan's father had always said that Clems, and specifically male ones, were a hunter's best friend when they were out for extended hunts. As a hunting veteran, much of Lilyan's wilderness knowledge came from him. Knowledge Vella had to rely on now.

Clems were plentiful around these parts. They didn't have much meat on them, nor do they taste that magic, but male Clems were certainly a great survival food.

Vella's stomach growled at the thought of food. She had not had much to eat at breakfast due to the argument with Lilyan's parents and now she was starting to regret forgoing her meal.

It gave her the push she needed to go in the direction of the clacking.

As she drew nearer, homing in with great accuracy due to her Yunare's hearing, the faint, tell-tail glow of the Clem's shell could be seen awash against a rock. Near a thick root of a tree.

Finally, something that went her way.

She mentally commanded her Yunare to guard her back as she approached her bounty. However, something scratched at her mind, telling her something wasn't quite right.

She ran through her mental list of a Clem's characteristics. Clacking sound, check. Snail-like creature, to be ascertained. Blue glow from the shell... Check?

The glow was more of a green hue, but that could be because of the lighting of the dim forest. The combination of the tree's brown could very well shift the blue light's colour.

Her stomach's complaints were heard once again.

Without further reservation, she shifted the rock out of the way and was rewarded with something shooting out from under it. It pierced her forearm then dropped to the ground to slither away.

She yelped in surprise, then hissed at the pain, quickly pinching at where she had been stung to remove the stinger. Throwing it angrily to the ground, she inspected the wound that the large centipede-like creature had caused. It was bleeding, but hardly pouring. It would soon coagulate if she left it alone. She just hoped that it would not cause any problems as she didn't have any disinfectant.

Vella looked at where the centipede's stinger was and sighed. At least she knew that female Clems weren't poisonous.

That fact had always fascinated her, and she wasn't thinking about poison. It shocked her the first time to find out that some species had entirely different biologies depending on their gender. She briefly wondered if Earth had any similar animals or insects that only zoologists would know.

Coming back to the task at hand, she looked for the origin of the glow. She found the Clem sequestered away behind another small rock. This time, she stood back and kicked the rock out of the way before quickly retreating a few steps.

Nothing jumped out at her, but she patted herself on the back anyway for learning from her mistakes. Vella reached for her prize. The Clem understandably intensified its alarm, its glow growing brighter. Even as it shone with greater intensity, the glowing was still more of a green hue than blue, but it looked unmistakably like a Clem.

Vella disregarded the difference. After all it was common for nature to produce slight variations in its creatures.

She picked up the Clem. A momentary victory. One not without cost, but a victory nonetheless. Out of novelty, she summoned her mana once again and directed it to make a blueprint of the Clem. Then she promptly cracked it against a nearby rock and the silence returned.

It was probably useless as a summon, much more so than her two other ones, but having a night light might come in handy.

She forged a copy of it but felt herself wobble at the sudden light-headedness. It seemed three summons at a time was the limit of her abilities.

After taking a moment to steady herself, she placed her Clem on the back of her hand and willed it to produce its signature mating call. This could help her search for the more offensively geared, female Clem. After all, that stinger hurt.

The downside to having the Clem glow and clack was the slime it produced. She shifted the Clem further up her arm for comfort, accidentally brushing against the injury from the female Clem.

She hissed in pain as the wound burned but was left confused when the pain suddenly subsided.

Wiping the slime off her arm quickly, she inspected the puncture mark, only to find a dot of reddened skin.

Vella eyed the two Clems she had in her possession, did the slime have healing properties people simply never discovered?

It was possible. Male Clems were generally known as a last resort survival food so contact with them were low. Even as food, they were to be prepared by boiling them to get rid of the slime and cook the meat, the water discarded subsequently. Even when picked up raw, chances were low that it was with an injured hand. Everyone tended to avoid the icky substance.

Spurred by curiosity, she took a minute to find the stinger she had so vehemently thrown on the ground and hesitantly pricked her finger with it. She sucked at her teeth as she accidentally pierced a little too deeply, then quickly ran her finger over some Clem-slime from her summoned copy.

Again, the pain intensified but it stopped so abruptly she had to wonder if it was imagined. She checked her finger and against her earlier misgivings, her skin was adequately mended.

The slime had healing properties. She had just acquired a source of near instantaneous healing. She almost couldn’t believe it.

She was so pleased with her discovery that she almost missed the blur across her Yunare's vision in the dim light.

She whipped her head around in alarm. Whatever it was travelled among the trees. She strained her own eyes but garnered nothing in return. However, her Yunare could clearly see the shape jumping and swinging gracefully from tree branch to tree branch. Heading in her direction.

As it got closer, her Yunare could make out more and more details, and her breath caught in her throat.

The monkey-like creature swung between the trees using its curved, blade-like carapace for forearms. Whenever it needed to gain airtime, it would somersault acrobatically by whipping its thin and scaled tail upwards from behind it.

Everywhere it went, it left behind saliva from its drooling maw that sat a little lower than its chest. What made the sight even more terrifying was that it had no head, so its means of perception was unknown.

Vella recognised it for what it was, even if she didn't know the exact name of its breed.

That was a Monster.