Irena was pretty pumped up. She found a huge beehive, and partially robbed it, using her flame manipulation to smoke the crap out of bees.

She also hunted down another hogzilla, albeit one of a small stature and level, so no level ups occurred. But its meat was pretty good with honey.

The plan was simple. Leave one of the bonded items behind, and set out in search of someone willing to sell her spices, veggies, and such. Her newest ability would make sure she could always return to the part of this forest she made her home.

And she did want to have an option of returning. This place had a lot of food, not much danger, and even looked nice. Not to mention all the time and effort she went through to make herself a house.

Yes, house. Every day, her living space has been constantly improved, and although it still looked like an iron age hut, it was starting to feel like a high end one. Something that would belong to a reasonably wealthy member of a Celtic village, instead of a poor drunk’s shack.

Irena was tempted to just leave one of her socks behind, but that wouldn’t do. This place was not only a nice resting space and a testament to her efforts, but also a base she would have to fall back to in case of a catastrophic failure.

If she ever lost the items she would take with her, and was forced to run back to this hut, a worn down sock wouldn’t be a perfect piece of equipment to allow her to rest and recover.

‘Also, socks are important if I’m going to be walking a lot.’

Shovel was out of the question. Digging holes is super useful, and it was also the hardest hitting of all her weapons. Machete was nice as well.

She could make a staff to hit stuff harder, and dig with her machete, but honestly, that shovel was just so comfortable to use.

Water bottle would be useful on her journey.

That left the knife. It wouldn’t be necessary to carry it, as she had two blades already (Yes, two. That shovel could get razor sharp when she pumped it full of mana.)

Third blade wouldn’t be all that useful on her journey, but it could save her ass in a worst case scenario.

Which is why she’d dug a reasonably deep hole, and buried her pocket knife after encasing it in beeswax, so it wouldn’t rust to dust.

After that, Irena sealed the entrance to her hut with stones, dragged thorny branches to make the entire place harder to approach by wild animals, strapped her shovel to her back, and started walking westward.

The journey was quite interesting for Irena, even if uneventful. There were types of trees she had never seen before, smells, sounds and sights quite different from normal forests she was used to.

Al those experiences were amplified by her sharp senses of [Hunter’s perception]

But yeah, otherwise it was mostly boring.

Irena walked straight, and heard a bit of rustling above. She ignored it at first, blaming it on wind and leaves, but when the noise appeared to get closer at a rapid pace, she had no choice but to jump aside, and face whatever made the sounds.

She only had a second to fire off [identify] before the creature ascended, and prepared to attack again.

[Mad Gale Hawk LV. ??]

‘Hawk, huh?’

Normally, hawks rely on their eyesight to fight, which meant her new trick with shouting loudly would just give her a headache.

Shovel was much too slow, and she would have to it get it off her back anyway.

But she was in a clearing, and it was raining the previous day.

Irena reached into her pocket, and took out her matchbox.

‘Feathers aren’t fireproof, ya?’

Ding!

[Flame manipulation] reaches level 7

A stream of fire traveled upwards, wide enough to swallow everything in her field of vision.

But the hawk wasn’t going to just keel over and burn to crisp.

It waved it’s wings, and dispersed part of the fire.

However, the gigantic flame was but a diversion, meant to block the hawk’s eyesight.

The real attack was above.

Irena jumped, shovel in hand. But the way she held it was wrong. She was holding it by its blade, preparing to hit the hawk with its handle.

The reason for that was the amount of mana growing and compressing inside it. Before the bird could react, it was thrown to the ground by an explosion that broke tree branches 30 meters away with its shockwave.

Irena also suffered some damage, but not enough to be unable to finish the bird of prey off.

[You have slain a Mad Gale Hawk] for defeating a foe 20 levels above your own, additional experience has been granted.}

Ding!

[Giant longhunter] Reached level 19. Stat points awarded.}

Ding!

[Flame manipulation] reaches level 8}

Ding!

[Self regeneration] reaches level 12

‘Nice. I’ll redistribute the stat points after I look what’s inside this bird’

Irena unsheathed her machete, and started rummaging through bird innards. Looking closely at its head, Irena saw reddish eyes.

‘Is it that the sickness that Dryad warned me about? Let’s not eat that.’

Ding!

[Dismantle] reaches level 4}

Irena continued her journey without using up her skill points. That could wait until she had more.

But it wasn’t long until her lazy stroll was interrupted again, albeit in a different manner.

As it was, Irena found a little person. Or a normal person, depending on the point of view. Kinda like with dwarves. It’s a small step for a man, but a gigantic leap for a midget.

They were lying on the ground, unmoving.

Ding!

[Identify] reaches level 2

[Warrior LV. 22]

Irena picked up the poor thing. It was still warm, and upon closer inspection, seemed to be a man, albeit feminine. It He had sharp ears sticking out, just like Irena, and was breathing.

The only problem seemed to be his legs as Irena was pretty sure they were bending the wrong way. That being said, She couldn’t be certain if it wasn’t just a racial trait of whatever this guy was.

After all, just because it looked like an elf, didn’t mean it was one.

And even if this really was a specimen of elven kind, no one ever said their knees are supposed to only bend in one direction.

Irena decided to check.

“AARGHHHTTAAUGHT!!!”

“Oh. So it’s not supposed to bend this way, after all? Well, at least you woke up.”

The elf(?) calmed down, its breath heavy, looked at Irena, and unsheathed a dagger.

Well, for her this deadly weapon was closer in size to a toothpick, so it didn’t intimidate her. Quite the contrary, this small one was cute!

“You okay, little buddy? Want some help getting to your fwends?” She cooed

“I will not lead you to the home of my people even if I get devoured myself!!! I swear to protect them at a cost of my life!”

'Eh… This is going to be difficult.'