A squirrel imp leaped at me tail-first, but I snatched the knifelike tail before it could get to me, cutting my hand in its sharp end in the process.

it swiped at me with its claws, but I smacked it with my scabbard, backhanded, sending the relatively small creature sprawling, hanging from its own tail. Then, I raised up the tail and threw it to the ground. I pinned the squirrel down with my foot before it could do anything, then knocked the daylights out of it with my scabbard before stabbing it with its down tail, killing it.

You won! You gained 8 Exp.

Cobaltio got 9 Exp.

I stomped on the tail to keep it in place as I ripped the tail’s edge out, planning to use it as a makeshift dagger.

Once the battle was over, I shook my bloodied hand. It really stung from that cut. Cobaltio, who was clinging to my back also gained a little Exp with his [shared experience], but he hadn’t participated in the fight, since he wasn’t all too strong, and his [fire breath tier 1] only recharged every two hours.

I rubbed the bloody knife on a tree, grating away the organic material since that stuff was nasty, then pocketed it after I felt it was clean enough to do so.

I had been running where I thought camp was, but since I had been on a very fast-flying [wyvern] for something like five minutes, it could be up to an hour before I managed to find it or the path. At the very least, I needed to get even further away from the [wyvern] to be sure I was safe, so, I kept running.

I heard a cry from above, the screech of the [wyvern], and immediately hid beneath another bush, hoping it hadn’t seen me.

Darn it, I was hoping it had given up. Well, I at least knew it was still hunting me, but why would it screech, alerting me of its presence?

I poked my head out of the bush and looked for its silhouette in the sky, but couldn’t see it, perhaps because of how dark it was.

After a minute, I cautiously got out of the bush and continued, hoping I would eventually get it off my trail.

The forest was filled with monsters, but I quickly learned they weren’t as strong as the ones I was used to. Or, at least, they were smaller. It was difficult to tell their strength since I couldn’t recognize all that many, and levels weren’t immediately apparent.

I tried to avoid them, which made my pace much slower. Thankfully, Cobaltio was smart enough to not yelp or do something dumb to get us spotted by any.

The most formidable monster I saw looked like a blue and white deer with ram horns, which was drinking from a pond. It was one of the more beautiful monsters I had seen.

Half an hour later, and I wanted to sleep. I even heard Cobaltio yawn on my shoulders.

Patience, as it ended up, wasn’t enough.

As I walked near a clearing and poked my head out, hoping it might have something useful, I heard the [wyvern] cry out again, staring down at me as it soared in the sky.

I had been found, somehow.

My heart skipped a beat, and I ran into the forest with its next, desperately trying to shake the creature off my trail.

How?! How did it find me? I was almost two hours from where it left me off. It shouldn’t have been so simple to search so much of the forest for one person...or maybe it didn’t need to. Classes like [hunter] that helped track things were rare among monsters but not impossible.

Not just that, but I knew the creature had followed me halfway across the country. If it could do that, maybe it knew how to track me through a forest too.

I could run, but I couldn’t hide.

I kept going, as for some reason, the [wyvern] didn’t try to catch me, perhaps because it was too big to navigate the forest on its own. I wasn’t sure as to why the [wyvern] had hesitated to swoop down and attack me, but I knew it was only a matter of time before it did.

As I ran through the forest, I heard a bush shake and leaped to the side, dagger out, prepared for an attack. Nothing came out, though, so I skittishly walked away from it, keeping an eye on the bush.

Then, just before I would have looked away, something large and black darted from the bush into another.

I held my ground, waiting for it to appear. If whatever was stalking me wanted a fight, I’d take it. I waited, and waited-

Some sort of tentacle with a toothed end burst from the bush and swiped at my leg. I immediately bent to parry it, but...my dagger phased through it, and an instant later, the real attack glanced off my blade, hitting my leg.

It ripped through my flesh, the invisible appendage’s serrated spikes tearing off my skin, and who knew what else. I screamed in pain, focusing on standing.

Another flipping [phantasmal attack]?! I didn’t know what class let a creature make their attacks illusions that mimicked the real thing’s movements, but if I ever got my hands on the ‘god’ that designed it, I would talk some sense into them! How was I supposed to know the attack didn’t exist!?

Pissed to all hell and confident I could defend against whatever stupid attack was sent my way, I watched as the tentacle retracted into the bush. For a minute, I waited for the damned beast to run out like the idiot I knew it was, deep down.

And it did, like the sucker it was.

Another tentacle swiped at me, and in an instant, I crouched, then swiped where I was sure it would be. Then, it retracted, and before I could get a swipe in, the real creature pounced at me, leaping from the bush.

Damn, it was a feint! I, uhh, totally expected that, though.

It was apparent that it was a very big cat. I had no idea how to defend against one, but I knew enough about delf-defense to know I had to stop it from knocking me prone.

I swung my dagger where I thought its neck would be, driving it in with two hands. I was a little scared when its phantasmal image swiped, then phased through my face and stopped as my attack struck true. I felt the cat claw at one of my arms before I threw it to the side, leaving a nasty scratch. I tried to ignore the pain, hyper-focusing on the battle.

The ‘cat’ was black and large, of course, and protruding from its back were two tentacle things with bonelike serrations protruding from their ends, moving autonomously.

Nasty!

The creature recovered from my strike, which had apparently missed its mark by just a little, being stabbed more into its shoulder than its neck. As it did so, it sent the two tentacles to distract me, swiping at me from each side, forcing me to sidestep one, raising my foot to do so, and parry the other.

While I was in a compromising position, it leaped at me again. The cat was heavy, so with only one foot on the ground, I couldn’t move it aside, and it would end up throwing me prone. When it came to any kind of attack, I needed my whole body behind it, and daggers were no exception.

This time, though, I was prepared for what came at me. I used my uplifted leg to turn my center of gravity right, dodging the attack with what looked like a misstep, and barely managed not to fall, comically bouncing out of the beast’s way on one leg. I felt Cobaltio leap off my back, likely feeling scared and sick of the movement.

The creature wasn’t perturbed, though, and turned on a dime, not wasting a second to pursue me.

This time, though, I pounced on it. I swiped my dagger down, hoping I knew where it was. I intercepted it as it leaped at me, driving it to the ground mid-jump.

Oh, so that was why people didn’t take that class. It was super easy to combat [phantasmal attack] once you knew the trick!

The creature was still too large for me to so easily stop, so it crashed into my legs, causing me to trip over it.

I realized my mistake as I fell. From both sides, its tentacles snapped at my legs. With no way to dodge or block both of them midair, I despaired as I blocked one, and the other flew towards me.

Then, Cobaltio leaped to my other side, snatching the invisible appendage with his mouth and tugging on it as hard as he could, keeping it from me.

He’s a legsaver!

I landed atop the beast in a really strange fashion but was able to safely grab the end of the tentacle I had blocked and hold it alongside my [drake] companion. Before the cat could bite at me again, I stomped on its head to get away and ran off with its tentacle, which I could feel writhing in my grasp, pulling towards the beast.

It tried to stand up, injured in two locations on its shoulder, but bleeding a potentially fatal amount. In a desperate attempt to kill Cobaltio or me, it would probably-

Using its appendages as a slingshot to get up quicker, it tugged as hard as it could, sending Cobaltio flying towards it and me willfully dragging through the dirt just as it threw a claw at Cobaltio.

Similar to how I had saved Maladrain at the flood, Cobaltio used his [death wing], so he wouldn’t fly into its attack, while I used the momentum to cushion its backward leap with my back and give a particularly pointy ‘cushion’ for its head.

The creature’s remaining momentum sent me stumbling a few feet back, and when I looked at it in its last moments, it was flailing around, tugging at its appendages, and tried to swipe at Cobaltio, only for its claws to scrape against his scales harmlessly.

You won! You gained 21 Exp!

Cobaltio gained 64 Exp!

Cobaltio leveled up!