WHACK.

The sound of something hitting against a tree reverberated around the forest. Kurushimi stood in front of a tree that had been mildly damaged.

“This… It's rather useless right now, isn’t it?”

Kurushimi stared at the little dent left in the tree. She was practicing a skill in an attempt to make a new method of attack. But at the very moment, she hadn’t made very much progress. Once again Kurushimi channelled mana in her palm to attract nearby shadows.

《Used skill: 『Shadow magic Lvl. 1』!》

The shadows condensed to form some kind of solid object. It was quite rudimentarily put together so it was barely being held together. Grasping the stick of shadow in her hand, she whacked the tree again with all the speed and strength her stats could muster.

The shadow exploded in multiple directions, just as it had done when she had hit the tree just before. The wood of the impact area split apart but the damage was still mediocre.

“I think… the dent is slightly bigger this time?” Kurushimi closely inspected the new dent on the poor tree that had been subjected to being her test dummy.

“I think that’s just your imagination.” Voice-san skeptically watched Kurushimi’s wishful thinking. It was hard to say that the dent was actually bigger. If anyone were to actually agree with Kurushimi here, they would be lying to try and make her feel better.

“Well, as long as I keep trying…”

Kurushimi channeled mana into her hand again. A slightly stronger looking structure, or at least more uniform, was constructed.

“...It should slowly get better!”

SWISH.

The shadow stick swang through the air with tremendous velocity and form. Along with a bang, a larger dent formed in the tree. The stick was only half-destroyed and the damage to the tree this time was actually visibly larger than before. Though it still wasn’t that impressive.

《Skill proficiency reached. Skill: 『Shadow magic Lvl. 1』 has become 『Shadow magic Lvl. 2』》

Kurushimi was thankful that results were actually shown in numbers and levels, unlike a lot of things on Earth. If life on Earth were this simple, it would have been a hell of a lot easier. Though, she would probably trade the new levels to get out her current predicament and go home if she were given the chance.

But Kurushimi didn’t have much faith that she would be able to go home anytime soon. So she just had to keep working to get out of trouble and be able to live comfortably in this new world that she didn’t know the name of.

Currently, Kurushimi was walking in the general direction that the pullumskāl was in her last run. She didn’t know the exact position of it so she decided to just walk about until she heard that unique chicken-like sound it makes.

But randomly walking around without knowing where to go has left her with free time. In that free time, Kurushimi felt like practicing the various possibilities of her ‘Shadow magic’ was a good idea.

《Used skill: 『Shadow magic Lvl. 2』!》

Kurushimi swung her arm in a similar fashion to how she did when using ‘Blood magic’. A large wave of shadow swept by. This time she sacrificed control for speed and quantity. Another tree was quickly engulfed by the onslaught of shadow.

After the shadows dissipated, Kurushimi could witness the damage done. The tree was covered in a large amount of shallow cuts. The cuts were quite spaced out and covered a large area.

“It’s not as precise as ‘Blood magic’ and doesn’t cut nearly as deep but is a lot more numerous. Against a nimble target like the pullumskāl shadow magic might be better for landing hits… Oh! And when it goes into camouflage, I can use it to cover a large a-!”

Kurushimi’s ramblings were suddenly cut off by a noise. Kurushimi didn’t hear what it was at first as she was talking. Kurushimi stopped talking and focused on listening to her surroundings.

JAJAJA.

-That… sounds like the pullumskāl!

The similar chicken-like noise the pullumskāl made when she first discovered it reverberated nearby.

-That way!

Kurushimi discerned a direction and made her way over there. Traversing through the trees and keeping to the shadows to stay hidden, Kurushimi eventually reached the familiar face. The scaly micro-raptor chicken stood there, completely clueless.

Kurushimi began to conjure ‘Shadow magic’, ready to try and capture it quickly with a surprise attack. Just as she raised her arm prepared to shoot it, she was interrupted by Voice-san.

“You tried that last time and it didn’t work, remember? Why are you trying the same exact thing again?”

Kurushimi almost lost her balance as she barely cancelled the ‘Shadow magic’. The pullumskāl continued to sit there, completely oblivious of Kurushimi. Now that she was thinking back to it, she did try to capture it with ‘Shadow magic’. The pullumskāl had effortlessly dodged her and started running, which led to a grand chase.

“It’s best to come up with some other kind of plan. Like for example, you could try using ‘Blood magic’ which is faster and has a higher chance of connecti-”

Kurushimi started to reposition herself. Voice-san, who was trying to give her input on what Kurushimi could do, cut herself off to see what Kurushimi was doing.

“Have you thought of some other kind of plan…?”

Voice-san questioned Kurushimi as she slowly touched the ground with both of her hands. One leg was placed in front, the other in the back ready to kick off any second.

“If I can’t get a hit with a skill through the element of surprise…”

Kurushimi quietly started to mutter. The pullumskāl turned its head at the sudden noise, looking over in Kurushimi’s general direction. Kurushimi took no notice of it and abruptly kicked off her back in leg into a full-scale sprint. The surprised pullumskāl momentarily froze at the strange commotion.

“THEN I MIGHT AS WELL GET AS CLOSE AS I CAN BEFORE IT STARTS TO RUN!”

Kurushimi shouted as she ran straight at the pullumskāl. The pullumskāl prepared itself to run away. But what pullumskāl didn’t seem to expect was that Kurushimi unexpectedly got a metre closer in an instant.

《Used skill: 『Short-distance teleportation Lvl. 1』!》

During her run, Kurushimi had been charging ‘Short-distance teleportation’. It was fairly hard to charge it whilst running, but Kurushimi wasn’t doing much and managed to charge the ‘Short-distance teleportation’ to the full 1 metre.

Kurushimi extended her arm out towards the pullumskāl. The pullumskāl immediately jumped out of the way to dodge her hand. As it flew through the air, it turned back to Kurushimi only to be met with a sheet of shadow barrelling its way.

《Used skill: 『Shadow magic Lvl. 2』!》

“You can’t dodge while you're still in the air!” Kurushimi shouted towards the pullumskāl. A sinister smile laid upon Kurushimi’s face as the shadows hit the pullumskāl that could no longer dodge.

Lots of shallow cuts covered the pullumskāl’s body in an instant. Blood poured out from all over the pullumskāl as it projectiled through the air.

“I’m not done yet!” Kurushimi yelled and grasped her hand. Suddenly the blood the pullumskāl had just bled began to vibrate. Confusion filled the eyes of the pullumskāl until suddenly the blood exploded in multiple different directions, causing the wounds to grow deeper and wider.

JAAAAAAAA!??!

The pullumskāl cried as it hit the ground, rolling over a few times before finally losing momentum and coming to a stop. Kurushimi watched the pullumskāl for signs of movement.

“Is it dead…?”

After a few seconds the pullumskāl jumped up. It was badly injured but still going strong. The pullumskāl then suddenly disappeared from sight.

“Camouflage!”

Kurushimi had been waiting for when the pullumskāl would eventually use ‘Camouflage'. She hoped to see if she could find some kind of way to figure out the requirements of learning the ability through the pullumskāl.

It was already confirmed that killing it and/or eating it weren’t the requirements for unlocking the skill, so she had to experiment and try to find out. And the first step to doing that was capturing the pullumskāl.

“Now, where did you go?”

Kurushimi now needed to find the pullumskāl’s location again. It was likely that it would try to run away after the one-sided fight. And ‘Camouflage’ was the perfect tool for doing so.

Kurushimi walked up to the ground where the pullumskāl had just been lying before it got up and went into ‘Camouflage’. Below her, its blood was spilt all over the ground.

“It’s blood isn’t affected by the ‘Camouflage’. It’s likely to have left a trail of blood along its escape path.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too… You’re suddenly being helpful, Voice-san.”

“No, you’re just imagining things. Follow the trail now or you’ll lose the pullumskāl.”

Disregarding Voice-san's changing of the subject, Kurushimi located the beginning of the blood trail and started following it.