A number of people began to scale the ladders that ran up to the top of the walls, and once they had reached the top they began to search high and low for the intruder. What they didn’t notice, though, was that the intruder was already inside their walls, having taken advantage of the fact that the convenience store that was half-embedded into the wall had an exit into the town that was only accessible to someone with the abilities of a contortionist.

And Lyrhea’s serpentine biology gave her such a skill, and she was able to sneak her way through a hole in the wall with a slow but steady act of contortion that no one expected. She never made her way to the ground, though, and kept to the tops of the town’s buildings as much as possible, using her reserves and her superhuman hands to let her parkour around rather easily.

She stopped as she reached a certain place, though, and looked down to discover something that sent a shiver up her spine. The wolf-bear that she had heavily wounded, or more accurately had heavily wounded itself, was now merely one of many, with the ground around what looked to be a shrine being patrolled by dozens of them.

They did look a little worse for wear, though, but trying to get through them the unga-bunga caveman way would be suicide for her. She was fast, but she figured that the shrine would have a way of sealing itself up if she was discovered to be close, so she decided to do the smart thing and look for an alternative way in.

…

It had been three days, and yet the intruder had not been caught. The Guardian insisted that it was nearby, and yet it would have lashed out like a mindless monster if it were.

Eventually the Guardian lost its concern and came to the same conclusion. The Monster was out there, in the forest, but it was using some dark magic to keep itself hidden. If the tale that was told of the monster’s voracious apatite was anything to go by, it would reveal itself soon enough so that it would not starve, and when it did the new Guardian Avatars would descend upon it and rip it apart.

…

Lyrhea returned to where she had hidden herself every time the day came and jotted down a few notes on the side of the building’s interior using her knives. She had been planning out her attack, but things had changed drastically.

First off, the town’s population had swelled considerably. No doubt the new people were just those she had seen leave the town in a huff a while back, though they were fewer in number for sure and quite a fair bit more injured.

Second, the Guardian Avatars, the wolf-bears, had left the town, leaving the humans to patrol around instead. She had no doubts that the forests were now on high alert and looking for her. If she went back and tried to survive out there, it would only be a matter of time before she was mobbed and slaughtered.

She had noted one thing once the guards shifted, though. Despite potentially being stronger and more capable with their hands, the humans were far less observant. She had very nearly been detected by a few of those patrolling wolf-bears during her scouting sessions, and the times she nearly had to face what would have certainly ended in her death were far greater than she would have liked when those animals were wandering around.

These humans, though? She knew that, much like the wolf-bears, they were not things she could try and kill. Hell, even the kids would take a beating before she could take them down if her experience with hornbuns was still valid. She had only managed to get so good at dealing with them by the way of the school of hard knocks, and even then she still needed to avoid taking direct hits or risk going out like a bitch.

Given that her rising level seemed to have meant nothing at all in terms of increased physical ability, she assumed it had some other part to play, but if what the system message had said was true, she was back down to Level 5 regardless of that, so maybe Levels were nothing more than an empty benchmark with no real value, just like certain Achievements in certain video games.

Maybe they were just there to brag about, but ultimately meant nothing more than that you’d been able to live through x, y, and z events or be around to do this and that? She didn't know enough about this world’s systems to have any clue, and the system or whatever that was behind all of this didn’t choose to tell her, so she felt it wasn’t worth her time or energy to care.

Still, she now had to do a bit more planning and scouting now that the guards had changed. She still had a metric fuckton of stored reserves inside of her body, though, so if those after her life thought that they needed a few days to wait her out and capitalize on her need to feed, then they would be in for a rude awakening.

Besides, there were prey items inside the town that she could get a hold of, and based on what she had seen regarding their prodigious ability to self-replicate and grow to maturity, she likely could take out dozens, if not hundreds in a few nights and not even make a noticeable dent in their number.

She only hoped that they were not connected to the Forest Guardian. If they were, then her jig was going to be up far sooner than she would have liked.

However, perhaps there was a way to get around that issue, if it existed at all to begin with? She drew her gaze over to a large pot that was just sitting in the corner of the tilted building and an idea crossed her mind.

Walking over to the pot, she grabbed it and began to consult her scratched-out map of the town. She noted where the wells were, where the coops with the miniature chickens were, and where the place where the wounded humans were.

She thought for a bit, and then realized that, if it worked, her idea could very well alter the guard all over again, and possibly for the better. She looked down at the pot and smiled again.

She could hear Sheriff Woody now.