Something was wrong in the forest, and while people had their suspicions, none of them involved the actual truth. Kids who were running around hunting the hornbuns were no longer willing to go there, citing the dark shape moving just out of sight that was stalking them.

Obviously, this was a monster. Either that, or it was a person from the town on the opposite side of the forest. Maybe both, if this incident involved a Ranger or a Druid.

Still, they knew how best to deal with this. This had happened before, or so they thought, and they had dealt with humanoid monsters and the damn bastards from across the forest before, so they knew what to do.

There were other places to hunt, other places to increase one’s strength, and other places to gather resources. Eventually, whatever was in the forest would either get bored and go away or would try and hunt outside the forest, at which point they could be more easily taken down.

Only a fool would try and cross the grassy plain that separated the forest from the town, especially when so many Fighters made their home in the town. They had fought off monsters and Adventurers alike, so they just needed to wait the foe out.

This would turn out to be a massive mistake later on down the road, but that mistake would not reveal itself until many years down the road.

…

Lyrhea was paradoxically upset and happy that the kids were no longer coming to the forest. Her new nature had begged her to kill them every time she saw them, while her remaining human side fought against her more snake-like side to keep the brats alive and untouched.

The battle of natures inside her was ultimately what kept her from even attempting to begin the second part of the Tutorial, but now that those dumb little kids were not around any longer, the urge to kill people was no longer a factor. She was now able to focus, and with that focus, she could explore her new life in a calmer and more neutral environment.

As she sneaked around, moving from bush to bush like some kind of creep, she eventually caught a glimpse through the brush of her first target. That target, though, had caught wind of her, and it bolted off and away, leaving Lyrhea to grimace and look around.

“What the hell did I do this time?” she whispered to herself as a wind brushed over her in the direction her prey had fled. “Ah, that’s right…. Downwind…”

Another hunt ending in failure was nothing to worry too much about. The area she was in had a shit ton of edible plants, and while they were nowhere near as filling or efficient to her body as meat was, to say nothing whole, live meat, it was enough to give her energy and keep her from starvation.

She honestly didn’t expect that to last much longer, though, as she had learned from her past experiences that the life she had was seemingly set to waffle between Easy and Hell Difficulty at seemingly random moments. How long would it be before life decided to fuck her over and make her unable to sate herself with plant matter, or use it as fuel for her healing factor and speed bursts?

She would need to catch something eventually, or she felt that the world would try and punish her for failure. And, if there was one thing she found terrifying, it was dying of hunger. This body burned calories like a fucking oil fire when she ended up pushing herself, so she needed to store as much as possible whenever possible for the odd chance that she would need them then.

Despite the inevitable approach of the fuckery of the world, Lyrhea felt that she had at least enough time to try again. Maybe this time she wouldn’t do something as stupid as trying to sneak up on a hornbun while upwind from it.

…

Closer. Closer. Closer….

Lyrhea nearly crawled forward, moving at a pace suited for an ambush predator. It had taken her another seventeen more tries to get this close, and she was just about ready to strike.

Utilizing her knowledge that her venom was more of an all-purpose substance than something that only worked when it was injected into the body of the target, Lyrhea had coated each of her nails in a few dozen licks of saliva and let them dry out. Whether or not they still maintained the effect after drying, though, was something she didn’t know.

The hornbun ahead of her twitched its ear, and Lyrhea froze in place, her body tensed and ready to burst forward at the slightest motion, but the discount knockoff jackalope didn’t notice her this time, and this let her try her luck by sneaking even closer. Soon she was barely a meter and a half from the white-furred rabbit that had a small set of deer antlers sprouting from its forehead, and she didn’t want to risk any more of her approach being detected.

It was time to strike, and with a burst of motion that neither she nor the hornbun expected was possible for a being of her build, Lyrhea darted forward and drew blood as her nails dug into the eye of the hornbun. Unfortunately for our protagonist, though, the hornbun was smaller and more nimble, and had a reaction speed that made it a hard target to hunt.

The kids could tank the things until they tired themselves out, but Lyrhea couldn't do that. She saw those fuckers headbutt literal elementary school kids and do barely anything, but if they hit her it would hurt like hell. And so, she had to cut her losses when the hornbun took distance from her and began to brace itself for a rush.

Lyrhea tried to back away and move to safety, but the hornbun had already started barreling towards her and began its typical attack. It picked up speed and then launched itself into the air, its antlers leveled towards Lyrhea like a small, oddly shaped bludgeoning weapon.

The hornbun flew like a missile towards her, and she barely managed to roll aside as the critter rocket through where she once was and landed with grace on the grass-covered floor of the forest. Lyrhea panted and counted her blessings; if that had hit it would have fractured a rib at least.

She turned and expected to see the white-furred wannabe jackalope gearing up for another attack, but was surprised by what she saw instead. As it turned out, the hornbun had not landed with grace, instead losing control and skidding across the ground and coming to a stop, panting heavily and essentially being on death’s door.

Lyrhea couldn’t understand it at first, but then it hit her. Her all-purpose orally-created toxin! Not only had it worked despite drying out and being essentially nail gloss at this point, but it had also managed to grant her the second win of her new life!

Now smug and proud of herself, Lyrhea cat walked over to the hornbun that was desperately clinging onto life. The snake-person then Slav-squatted down next to it and tilted her head to the side and looked the creature in its one remaining eye, letting a sinister smile creep across her face for a bit before she let her emotions flow out through her words.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked the near-dead animal. “Probably hurts about as much as what you lot have been doing to me.” She ran her fingers over her chest. “Five ribs. You bastards broke one or more of my ribs five times. I feel it’s only fair to make you feel the same. Now, get ready, because I am fucking famished.”

Lyrhea grabbed the hornbun by one of its legs and held it over her head. The leaned her head back, unhinged her jaw, and swallowed the still-living creature whole. A few seconds passed as Lyrhea let the feeling wash over her.

Victory at last. After what to her was a time that seemed like it would never, ever end, she had done it. Meat. Whole, live meat, after all this time!

Plants? Fuck that shit. This… This was good food! She felt a surge of energy filling her reserves unlike anything she had felt in a very long time, and it was like a shot of dopamine to the brain that sent her over the moon.

She wanted more…. She needed more.

And there were plenty of critters in the forest that she could fit into her mouth just waiting to be given a one-way express trip to her stomach. She was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t even notice the Tutorial Quest update, and for what it was worth, the screen seemed to realize that it had better things to do than deal with the ‘druggie’ that it had appeared before.