Stopping at the base of a tree Mia scanned her surroundings, attempting to rely on [Presence Detection] while keeping hidden, question is how well that would work.

She knew next to nothing about the complexities of hunting but figured with her brief experiences with her dungeon exploration and combat it was as simple as finding something and killing it before they had any time to react… she hoped… and with the help of [Sneak] the animals should have a harder time noticing her.

The problem was finding an animal to kill.

Her goal was a rabbit or any small animal… did rabbits live in the forest? Where should she start to find one? Her gaze went upwards, towards the sky, she shouldn’t be gone for too long either…

She saved, if worse comes to worse she could just brute force it and take all the time she needed. With that the time limit was solved, but not the current one, where to look.

Her ear twitched, reacting to rustling in the trees, following the sound she saw a bird on a branch. “…can you eat birds?” It looked small, just a tad bit bigger than her small knife, with a black body with a red belly, but it hadn’t noticed her yet.

“Can try.” She knelt down, remaining hidden while she contemplated her options. It might fly away if she tried to approach, she could throw the dagger? What if she missed? The only better range option she had was her ice magic.

She decided to try it, pointing her open palm towards the bird and imagined an icicle shooting out from her palm, poured mana into it, and watched as it released, flying into the bird and obliterating it flying straight through another tree branch behind it.

“…”

She watched in silence as the severed tree branch fell to the forest floor, accented by a few feathers falling shortly after, the bird’s carcass no where to be seen.

“Too much power.” She frowned, reloading her save and looking back to where the bird would soon land, only for it to not appear. “…mn?”

Confused, she reloaded again, only for the same thing to happen. “what…?” Why didn’t the bird appear?

While confused her ears twitched again, bringing her attention to a different branch that the same bird landed on.

Crooking her head to the side, Mia was thoroughly confused as to why it would land on a different branch, or did she just get the branch wrong… where did it go the last time? She shook her head, it was too small of a detail to care about, what mattered was it didn’t just up and vanish.

She raised her hand towards it, trying to hold back this time she fired out a smaller spear only for the bird to burst as the spear blew right through it and flew off into the forest.

“…”

Was the bird just that weak? Or was her magic just that strong?

Another reload and bird locating later she tried again, this time imagining the thinnest and smallest ice spear “careful…” She fired, the bird exploding the moment the spear entered its body and then bounce off a nearby tree.

“WHY?!?” She cried out, the needle didn’t even penetrate the tree?! Was it really that weak?!

One last time she reloaded, didn’t find the bird, reloaded, found the bird and fired a pure stream of ice at it, freezing it in its entirety. “…there” It would have to thaw, but at least it was intact.

She climbed the tree, prying the bird from the branch and getting a better look at it, it really was small, with the only part that could be called plump being its red belly but it’d have to do for a first catch. She climbed down from the tree, bird on her back and ready to locate her next prey, halting once she realized she did not want to haul this dead bird around.

“Need an inventory…” it really wasn’t fair how all the other heroes seemed to have some kind of storage they could put stuff in, minus her aunt, who she didn’t remember seeing use one, was it just a human hero thing?

“Whatever.” Maybe she could find one when they go to Lexon, for now she decided to run back to Hiiro and check what he was doing.

---

“Ah, welcome back.”

Finding Hiiro wasn’t that hard, having a general idea of where he’d be she found him not from it, she had just left after all. “Got a bird.” She said cheerily, holding up her frozen prize.

Hiiro recoiled from the sight of it a bit, shocked at its frozen state “That is uh, why is it frozen?”

“Kept exploding.” Mia huffed.

“Exploding?”

“Yes. Slightest touch, it goes boom. Freezing worked.” Mia nodded “Can eat?”

Hiiro stared at the frozen carcass, a look Mia recognized as appraisal, and he immediately took a few steps back “uh, Mia.”

“What?”

“I uhm, know why it kept, uhm, exploding.”

Mia crooked her head to the side questioningly “Why?”

“Its uh…God should I tell her…” Hiiro looked away, pondering he started mumbling “she looked so happy…” He sighed, giving up “Mia, that uhm, bird…is actually a monster.”

Mia looked at the corpse, holding it up and inspecting it, it just looked like a regular bird to her “Can’t eat monsters?”

“Well-“ Hiiro paused, looking away “I don’t actually know that… no, that’s not what’s important.” He shook his head. “That monster is called a Crashling…a baby bird monster that uh, explodes when it dies.”

“…”

“…”

“…can’t eat?”

“No, it will likely explode the moment it thaws.”

“…”

Mia felt her face heat up, remembering how triumphantly she presented her first catch, only for it to turn out to be not only a monster, but also inedible and would have harmed them if they tried to eat it if it wasn’t for Hiiro’s appraisal. She dropped the bird, letting it drop to her feat as she covered her face.

“H-hey! It’s alright it was the first one i-“

Mia loaded, her face heating up again with embarrassment as she heard the familiar fluttering wings land near her. She instantly locked onto the bird, and blasted it with a full powered ice spear that tore through the bird and leaving shattered holes in any tree it passed through.

Standing there with her hand extended she let out a slight chuckle “It’s ok, never happened, no big deal, no problem.” She nodded to herself “No one saw and no one will remember.” She nodded again, not really understanding why she felt this way, but the burning in her face didn’t go away, this was a first for her.

She took a deep breath, calming herself down, her first attempt never happened and now with the thing that shall not be named out of the way, she knelt down and proceeded stealthily through the forest.

After a few hours and a few more Crashlings exploded Mia finally found a target, a deer, the animal was bigger than her and a lot bigger that what she was searching for but it was something edible. She kept low, saving just in case she messed up, she raised her hand towards it and launched a spear at it.

It let out a loud groan, the spear imbedding itself into the upper part of its leg, and turned to run away but the moment it put weight on the injured leg it fell, flopping onto its side as it let out a series of groans and cries.

“Got it.” Mia smiled to herself, she rose from her hiding spot and approached the deer, who let out a cry and tried once again to run away but couldn’t even get up. Mia pulled out her knife and leaped towards it, stabbing it into the deer’s neck and holding it in place as it struggled, eventually halting, dead.

She stood up, nodding to herself. It was a lot better first kill than the last, and hopefully Hiiro knew how to cook it. But right now, standing above the dead deer she felt a sense of accomplishment and pride…that hopefully wouldn’t be squashed when it turns out this deer is some sort of monster and inedible…

She shook her head, lifting up the deer with some difficulty, but as soon as she got it onto her back it suddenly became a lot easier to lug it around “[Packer] huh…” she found it odd she could just lift it with her 81 strengths…speaking of she should point that, progressively pointing it as she walked back to find Hiiro, stopping once it reached 101.