Alice had been studying tirelessly for about a week now. She had learned all sorts of things and was now excited to test it out in a real life environment.

As she prepared everything for a quick outing, Alice quickly went over what she had learned. She now knew basic biology, chemistry and physics, (she skipped anything that wasn’t immediately applicable to her situation) and because of that, she had become passably proficient in her magic. Her healing magic had improved from a waste of time and effort, to barely usable, while she could now use her make fire using her magic, cause some light rumbling in the earth and kinda manipulate the direction of the wind.

It didn’t sound that impressive, but she had actually improved a lot for only a week of training. Due to her newfound confidence in her skills, and her dwindling supplies, Alice wanted to go hunting. At worst, she would be mauled by a bear or some wolves, but she could survive that. Even if only barely.

With optimistically high hopes, Alice made sure to put the textbook her mom made for her in the sleeping bag and tie it back up in the tree. She also took the first aid kit with her, just in case. For a weapon, Alice had a somewhat straight stick ,about her height in length, with a sharpened stone tip that she made over a few hours by methodically sharpening and shaping it using her magic, and a harder rock. It was also sharpened on the other end, just in case something happened to the main spearhead. The spear probably wasn’t going to be too useful though, after all, just because she had a spear now it didn’t mean she could catch up to a deer. She also wasn’t confident in her ability to defend herself with it or her ability to throw it at something accurately.

Alice headed south, keeping to the relatively safe edge of the forest. It was a bit after the sun went up and so all she could see were skittish rabbits that ran as fast as they could at the sight of her. There were also deer and moose that simply moved away warily. The deer would have been good targets if she could get them by surprise, but since they were paying so much attention to her she wouldn’t have been able to do anything to them. And on the off chance that they fought back, she would be in for a rough ride.

As all the animals Alice could easily hunt needed either a ranged weapon, which she didn’t have, (Her aim with magic was questionable and it’s strength meant it was only useful for harassment.) or they were too quick for her to kill at close range. In fact, Alice’s only consistent method to get meat was to kill the wolves that attacked her first. Thinking about this reminded her of her first encounter with the wolves. Maybe she didn’t need meat, but it had been way too long since she last had any protein, and that would definitely be a problem considering she only had roots, berries and nuts to eat. And even if her diet was ignored, she would eventually have to progress to the point where she could consistently hunt wolves safely if she wanted to get to civilisation again.

Alice banished the shaking of her legs and kept searching around. Eventually, Alice came across a trio of wolves who seemed to be eating a moose carcass. There were two dead wolves lying on the ground, covered in blood and gore. At the sight of this Alice felt oddly agitated, but steadied her nerves in favour of stealing the wolves kill. Even just chasing away the wolves would be fine because that meant two wolves worth of meat and a probably not safe to eat half-eaten deer.

Alice stood about five to ten metres away from the wolves, thinking about her next move. Alice quietly positioned herself in between two trees to limit the directions at which the wolves could attack her. She then made the first move.

“You scattered people, become one under my rule!”

As Alice said this, the air seemed to get noticeably drier and a massive clear ball of water with the diameter of her arm appeared in front of her. This had used about 10% of her total mana.

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The reason Alice said this wasn’t just to alert the wolves, it was because a mage speaking to their spells makes it easier to focus on the image while also making it more effective for the same mana cost. Of course, the exact words said weren’t too important, only the words meaning and their significance to the castor mattered.And even with all the benefits of chanting your spell, it wasn’t very popular since shouting out a whole sentence in the middle of combat definitely had a few problems.

With the large ball of water, Alice splashed most of it onto the wolves and the area around them, keeping the leftover and silently started to heat it up. This was so that she could hopefully stun them for a bit by surprising them while also worsening their footing. And because of the trees, the wolves would be forced to attack her from the front or move behind her.

With her preparations over, Alice readied her spear and waited for them to attack. The three wolves charged at her. The lead wolf prepared to pounce at Alice. In response to this, Alice took the leftover water from her first attack, now uncomfortably hot, and poured it onto the wolf farthest from her to slow it down. The third wolf wasn’t visible anymore so it was probably aiming to attack her from behind.The boiling water attack had used maybe 15% of her mana reserves.

The first wolf then pounced at Alice’s throat, Alice then pointed her makeshift spear upwards so that the wolf would impale itself on it. Unfortunately, the wolf managed to twist itself to avoid lethal damage, it was heavily wounded though. It was at that moment, Alice heard the crunching of leaves and twigs behind her.

Alice immediately jumped forward onto the injured wolf, avoiding the one behind her, wasting no time, Alice stabbed it with the wooden tip of her spear, burying it about a hand deep. Alice promptly moved back from the now dead wolf and saw the half-cooked wolf now on its feet, standing off-balance next to the sneaky wolf.

At this point, Alice’s heart was hammering and her limbs were shaking, but she felt oddly calm. One down, two to go. Alice stood ready in front of them, waiting for their next move.

After a short growl, the uninjured wolf leapt at Alice. Alice positioned her spear to impale it again but noticed that it was leaping at an angle such that it would harmlessly pass her. Noticeably disgruntled Alice took a step back and noticed the injured wolf was already in the air, headed directly at her. With such a surprising turn of events, Alice froze, for just a second, and was tackled to the floor.

Alice struggled to throw the wolf off her, but before she made any progress, the other wolf snapped its jaws shut on her right hand, forcing her to let go of the spear and helping the burned wolf. Having been faced with a similar situation before, Alice activated [Flames of vengeance].

As Alice struggled to stay alive, the blood leaking out of her arm became a fire that spread across her body. After the five seconds it took to completely cover her body, it began spreading to the wolves that were still touching her. Immediately, Alice felt her skin burning, like it had been submerged in boiling hot water. She could also feel a stab wound in her left shoulder. On the other hand though, both wolves were now bleeding profusely from their right forelegs. In response to their sudden injuries, the wolves stopped in surprise. Using this opportunity, Alice threw the burned wolf of of her. Her increased strength was probably a result of her skill. She did note however, that she could feel the pain from the wolves impact with the ground.

Sitting up, Alice punched the wolf that was biting her right in the jaw, tearing up her arm a bit in the process. She could feel the punch she had just given, it felt like she had dislocated her jaw. But both wolves had their injured legs torn up a bit more. Alice shot to her feet and ran at the burned wolf. When she got close enough, she kicked it in the head as hard as she could, a cracking sound filled the area. Strangely, she couldn’t feel any damage from that kick but the fire covering the wolf ate into it and turned it into ash.

Alice turned to look at the last remaining wolf. It whimpered and ran away with its tail between its legs. As the wolf got further, the flames around Alice died down.

Alice walked over to the first aid kit she had dropped at some point and bandaged up her wounds. She then tried to accelerate the healing process with magic, but noticed that all her mana was gone. Alice decided she would drag the the wolf she had killed back to the camp as a trophy of sorts. She did want to take all of them, but on account of her injured arms, one corpse was the most she could take back.

As Alice walked back ‘home’ she reviewed the fight in her head. She was outnumbered and outmatched, so her moving into an easy to defend location was a too move on her part. And her next move of splashing them with water … did less than she imagined it would, it did surprise them for a moment and buy time for her boiling water attack, but it did nothing about their footing. From there, everything went well up until the last two wolves tricked her, forcing her into a vulnerable position. There were many things she could have done, if she hadn’t been so surprised. But on the bright side, she could learn more about one of her divine skills.

As Alice got back to her hideout, she removed the sleeping bag from the tree. But before she could sleep, she had to bathe, she was covered in blood after all. At this thought Alice looked at herself and saw her slightly tanned skin dyed in a thin layer of blood. Flashes of the night her parents died brought Alice to her knees, crying. She could feel it. The warm drops of her father’s blood, streaming down her face, along with her tears.

After her slight breakdown, Alice cleaned herself and re-bandaged her wounds.

That night Alice sorrowfully celebrated her first successful hunt.