Another one went down the old food-hole, followed by another, and another after that. Lyrhea had no idea if and when the stored stuff in her seemingly infinite stomach would just kinda vanish and no longer provide her with a reserve to rely upon, but she didn’t care right now.

All that mattered was getting these dumbass rabbits with their dumbass horns into her mouth. One by one the nearly five sets of ten hornbuns followed each other into her maw, and at the end of it, she felt great. In fact, she felt so great that she failed to notice that the screen had been up and yelling silently at her about how she had finished the second part of the Tutorial by now.

Eventually, though, her ‘food high’ ended, and she finally noticed the annoying semi-transparent screen that was now shifting between being brighter and darker at an ever-increasing rate in a desperate attempt to earn her attention. She snorted as she waited a bit longer, pretending that it wasn’t there and just lying down to go to sleep.

She had enjoyed today, and her hunting tactic had proven to be successful. Whether it would work on those green deer, though… Well, she would have to reset everything anyway, so she could think about that later.

…

As day broke, Lyrhea opened her eyes to see the game-like screen now mere inches from her face and flashing in various colors. She scoffed and rolled to the other side, the screen following her as she did.

“Fine, fine…” she grumbled as she got up and dusted herself off. “Your senpai will notice you, you obsessive piece of bullshit deus ex machina.” She ran her finger across the screen and the message that previously was there that was alerting her to the completion of her Quest was replaced by a full message, along with, you guessed it, a Part 3 of her Tutorial.

Quest: Tutorial Part 3

So, you finally completed Part 2, you lazy bastard? Took you long enough. Since you are apparently so pathetic that it takes you literally a week to do what everyone else did in a few days, I’ll take pity on you and give you something more pressing to occupy your time. Go kill the Forest Guardian. You know, the thing you keep calling a wolf-bear, or a bear-wolf? If you can’t do it within a week, it’ll come and kill you. Good luck, you lazy bastard!

Goal: Kill Forest Guardian 0/1

Reward: Life, and maybe more stuff if I feel like it

Failure Penalty: Death. A Slow, Painful Death. And a Humiliating One, at that. Don’t test me. Kill the damn thing. Do it! Do it before the next seven days are up!

“Well, the nuclear option it is, then.” Lyrhea spat with a scowl. This was a trial by fire if ever there was one. She would need to up her game, and fast.

But, oh yeah, there was still that ‘Starter Kit’ and that ‘Menu’ thing that had been promised, right? Using what little she knew of typical and generic fictional media, Lyrhea spoke aloud the command phrase “Menu”, and lo, the thing appeared.

It was… lackluster, to say the least, and will not be shown due to that, and certainly not because the novel’s author can’t work a table to save his life. Of some note were things that Lyrhea expected to be on there, such as her name, her species, which was apparently ‘Lyrhean’, and her level, which was apparently 39.

What she saw that confused her was another thing, just beneath her level, labeled as ‘Ascension Rate’. This was labeled as a percentage that she had no concept of the relevance of, as it said she was at 14%. But what Sam Hill was she 14% of the way to?

And ‘Ascension’? Really? What, was she going to become a busted-ass overpowered God so early on in her new life? That would make for a very shit story if ever retold, now wouldn’t it?

Well, she had bigger fish to fry than to worry about that ambiguous bullshit. She sat herself down and nearly freaked out as she realized that there were now things present that previously had not been, and had arrived in place both without sound and without her being made aware of.

“Holy shit on a shingle!” she screamed as her butt touched something hard that moved when it touched it. She nearly shot up and immediately turned around, bracing to fight something, only to see that the ‘Starter Kit’ had been delivered.

“Well, could’ve put that somewhere better…” mumbled the snake-human as she calmed herself and reached down. What she had almost sat upon was a weapon, and not just any weapon, either, but a knife with a single edge that curved back towards the edgeless side. It was perfect for slicing and swinging, and maybe even good as partitioning meat, but Lyrhea had other uses for it besides such things.

Oh, who am I kidding? She was definitely going to use it to cut some bitches first and think about other uses later. Aside from that one knife, she got another one, as well as some new clothes that, unlike her current wardrobe, looked much better and were much less ratty.

Sneaking a few glances around to look for the creep that was the wolf-bear, Lyrhea took her new attire and decided to get changed. After all, the voyeur was nowhere to be seen as of late, so maybe she could use this time to actually engage in a few activities that she’d been putting off for fear of being seen?

…

The Forest Guardian had received an order from a power that was far greater than itself, and that order gave it no choice but to return and kill the nincompoop that it had left behind to hopefully get itself killed by its own hand. It had not died yet, and now the higher power demanded that the Guardian wait a full week before trying to kill it.

If it could not, or if it would not, then the Guardian would die, and that was that. As it trudged back through the forest, it cast aside the formerly peaceful form it once had. Its muscles bulged, its bones extended, its body twisted and reshaped.

It now stood on its hind legs, and its claws reached out to rip and tear and crush and maim and brutalize. The kindly old creature was gone, and in its place was the true form of the Forest Guardian.

Slow, durable, strong, and deadly. It was now as tall as a Polar Bear on its back legs, and while it was indeed slow, it was a tank to be sure, and it hit like a Mack Truck.

When it reached the fool, it would rip it apart slowly, to show it how foolish it had been. And it would not run, for no beast could stand in this forest against it and run from it. Such was the natural order of things.