This’d be fun.

Ducks swam in peaceful circles by the edge of the pond. Little did they know that I was running toward them with the speed of a freight train.

Splashingly, I sprang into the shallows, sending the ducks squawking and flying! They went up and away in a big cloud of feathery fear.

All except one!

All the better for me to pounce.

The one duck that couldn’t get away in time must’ve been old, sick, or injured—that’s the way it usually goes in the wild. They were still flapping and lurching, half-submerged in the pond, when I drilled my claws into their back.

Together we fell in the water. Just the shallows, thankfully.

In our flurry, the duck turned toward me, readied their bill, and, with a flare of white energy, clocked me in the head.

HP 70% (56/80) SP 63% (41/65)

I may have been a little overconfident here.

How high was this duck’s Level? What right did ducks of all animals have to be so strong?

And yet I didn’t give up. I just grew more relentless. See, I figured that since this duck had been unable to fly with the rest, it couldn’t have had much stamina, despite its clearly substantial Attack Stat. If I could just kill them really, really fast, I’d reap some major rewards. Higher-Level foes meant higher Experience, after all.

While dodging the duck’s slinging bill, left and right, I dug into their hide even more with a Swipe.

SP 32% (21/65)

Then my mind received a minor revelation…a “cheat code” that would allow me to instantly score a finishing blow. Was this the true power of Wisdom…?!

I chomped the duck on the neck, and with a twist—

Crick.

I won’t get too grisly. Suffice it to say, that duck went into my Inventory seconds later. I checked it out.

Pink Lotus Flower This plant can grow even in muddy water. Hence, many humans see it as a symbol of purification and rebirth.

Wood Duck Corpse Nourishing, but won’t heal HP or SP.

“Wood duck” …so that was the type with all the pretty colors.

Fleeting questions showed up in my mind—what was that locked “Meat Locker” thing my System had mentioned? and was it gross? it sounded gross—but left as soon as a new box came.

Level Up!

Lv. 4 → Lv. 5 EXP: 13% (99/750)

HP 100% (105/105) SP 100% (80/80)

ATK 15

INT 7

DEF 11 (+1!)

WIS 8

SPD 12 (+1!)

I was surprised to see my Defense Stat get a bonus for the first time. Then again, in the incredibly brief climb from Level 4 to Level 5, my defining combat moment had been a beak in the face. Ergo, Defense boost. In hindsight I wished I’d done something Wisdom-related instead, but hey, a Stat up was a Stat up.

Stolen novel; please report.

No matter. There were way more pressing matters to attend to.

For one thing, I had to get out of this water! Ninety percent of me was dripping wet, and that was eighty-five percent more than initially intended. Though I rolled out of the shallows and shook myself out, I felt soaked down to the bone marrow. Urgh. Give it time, Taipha, give it time.

For another thing, that blue girl had given me a lot to think about. Now that it’d been a few minutes, my mind had caught up with it all.

That witch had said the magenta-haired girl was named Reed. Which suggested that she owned that place my System called “Reed’s Cabin.” Good, because she seemed the most even-tempered out of all of the cabin people. She wouldn’t cut me a raw deal, right?

The witch also unloaded a ton of directions on me, and really fast, as if that would help me find her!

But the funny thing was…my mind was catching up on those directions now. Here and now in the glimmering woods, I remembered bits and pieces.

And while a few of those bits were three- and four-syllable words I didn’t even have the vocabulary for yet and thus couldn’t decipher, some of them were useful and distinct, like…

“Mountain”? There were those here? Had she really said that?

Then there were her gestures. She’d definitely pointed, and multiple times at that…always toward the west.

That settled it.

I was tracking down Reed to find out who she looked like once and for all!

Quest or no Quest, nothing could keep me from this adventure.

A tall, sturdy spruce stood right by the coast, reaching up even higher than its neighbors. I hopped on, latched on, and climbed. On my way, I braced myself against the stubbly, surprisingly-close-to-sharp blue-green bits and took special care not to step in a woodpecker’s hollow. Sunlight tingled against my drying fur. I almost felt like I was climbing into heaven.

And then I reached the top.

Since the tree was too lush with prickly green stuff to hold by the bark, I hugged the prickles. Up here, the breeze made the tree wave slightly. It didn’t trouble me at all. I was too enchanted by the view.

I was seeing everything.

Well, that was what it seemed like. In reality, I was seeing a mere fraction of the Vencian Wood, and I wasn’t even seeing over a lot of the trees. Still, it was more than enough to make my heart thrill.

Toward the south were all the places I’d seen before—mostly swaddled in trees. Those had to be hiding the Rabbitfoot Hills. And I suspected those same hills continued northward, and even curved around this pond. I could tell because the expanse going north rose higher into grassier, more dramatic ridges, so far away that they looked blue. Beyond that? No idea. That was the limit of my view.

But northwest of me was the place I would call Reed’s Mountain.

(At least until I could give it something more creative.)

The silvery pond with the mirrory surface trickled out at the foot of a tree-dotted peak. The peak stood alone. It was cloaked in dappling evergreens until, toward the top, it was planes of grass on jagged gray stone. And it wasn’t even all that far off. I did some extremely approximate cat-math in my head. With one full day’s trip, I reckoned, I could reach it.

That mountain was enormous. I wondered if I’d even be able to find Reed there, with all the ledges and caverns and huts it had to had.

Still, I’d call it Reed’s Mountain, and I hoped my System would follow suit.

I brought my thoughts back down to me, and down to earth. I was no longer soaking. The earth was pretty far down, meters and meters, certainly far enough that I was scared to make the jump.

That was okay. I’d just climb down.

…Um…if cats could sweat much, I would’ve started sweating at that point.

Climbing down this spruce while keeping my body upright would require me to use my claws in an uncomfortable, unintuitive way. My claws and ankles were designed to arc downward and pull my body upward, not vice-versa.

So the logical alternative would be climbing with my body upside-down and that was just plain terrifying.

I heard a new cry in the distance and swiveled my head. A bird, a predator, was arcing around the mountain. Then another one swooped up from behind it.

I tensed. A duck I could handle—barely. A raptor, maybe not.

Gritting my teeth, I turned my body upside-down and swatted back spruce needles.

Urgh, all the blood in my body was going to my head. Now the vertigo decided to kick in.

I kept telling myself, Just be methodical. Nothing to it. Left front, right back…right front, left back… You’ve got it.

But according to my screaming heart, no, I didn’t have it. I was moving at a snail’s pace down the side of a tree so tall that every little gust of wind made the whole thing wave. And I couldn’t even see the bottom, thanks to all the prickling branches.

Hm. Prickling branches. That gave me an idea.

Spruce branches were longer, or at least fanned out further sideways, toward the bottom. And there were so many! If I got myself onto one branch, I could drop down onto the next one pretty confidently even if I couldn’t see it underneath me.

Alrighty, then! I flung myself onto the nearest one.

It broke instantly.

I squeaked. Now I was falling, my paws wrapped around nothing.

And I didn’t fall safely on the next branches down because they were just as flimsy. I was passing through them like curtains.

Too far from the tree trunk to simply reach out and grab it and dazzled by the sight of so many prickles whizzing up past me, I twisted and turned pointlessly. With every little scrape and bop of a needle, my HP chipped off.

HP 84% (88/105)

This had to end sometime—and the branches had to get sturdier at some point. I let my body obey its instinct to point my legs straight down. Then I trusted some big, strong branch to come and wallop me in the torso. It’d sting, but at least it would end this nightmare.

Then I hit it! The branch I’d been waiting for!

I bounced off like a ragdoll and went hissing down to earth.

HP 65% (68/105)

Then I hit the ground. On my back, no less.

HP 42% (44/105)

No wonder wild cats looked down on city cats.