Rabbits were tough enough even without Skills and Stats! It wasn’t just their speed, but the way they ran, cleverly cutting their predators off, dashing in zigzags and scurrying into obnoxiously well-placed holes. And they weren’t like rats—at least rats never ran in squiggly lines.

A submarine in the tides of flowers, I lay in wait for a rabbit to come. I had to bite off more than a few big sneezes, but after only a couple minutes, a rabbit came by. And I was ready. Intimidated, but ready.

Don’t be hasty, Taipha.

Petals rustled under the brown rabbit’s feet. Their nose wrinkled. A buck-toothed mouth quietly worked at a flower’s juicy leaf.

I eased forward…

The rabbit stopped, ears cocked, now at full attention.

…I wished I could’ve taken that back.

It wasn’t just their speed and running technique, either. All that and their sensitivity made them tough prey. Now I really couldn’t waste any more time—if any more suspicion entered the rabbit’s mind, they’d bolt.

But I wasn’t too far away. From the distance I was at now, I could easily snake two paws forward and snare the rabbit by the forelegs.

I didn’t do that. Because I knew that with a smidge more effort, I could grab their sides and pin them down.

I pounced. Petals went flying. My claws went securely into the rodent’s hide, just where I’d aimed them, and at the same time, my vicious jaws went for the rabbit’s skull.

But my teeth missed—and my hind legs went flying too. Because the rabbit was bolting, and my free legs hadn’t pinned themselves down anywhere.

With me still hanging on (now for dear life), the rabbit took three long, zigzagging jumps before planting a kick in my snout. Their secret weapon: two strong hind feet, glowing.

HP 65% (26/40)

Ow! Could the wildlife here give me a break?

Yowling and plunging my claws into the hide as far as they could go, I struggled to keep up without half-ragdolling against the plains, paddling my back paws through the air like the pedals of a bicycle on the loose.

Just keep going, just keep going…

But I could feel my claws slipping…

Okay, this isn’t going anywhere.

Begrudgingly, I let go. Part of me wanted to flounder and crash into a flower heap, like some dented and dispirited car. But the other part of me was a fighter.

I ended up running behind the rabbit without skipping a beat. I’d even gotten a bit of a feel for how they moved, tracing their zigzags with my eyes and partly with my trail. We were both at a full sprint, though—a big problem because my Speed clearly couldn’t compete with theirs. The distance between us was getting greater and greater, inch by inch.

How far had we gone? I was so focused on the rabbit’s tail and feet, the target dashing before me, that I didn’t spare a single glance at the forest receding behind me. But I keenly felt the landscape undulating beneath my feet—racing hills.

And those hillsides gave me an idea.

It was like my human brain, or my tiny human brain-gland, activated on the spot. See, we were currently on a long, gentle slope. But up ahead, that slope became more of a ridge, its slope getting more dramatic as it hugged what had to be the mother of all hills.

Soon we were running right along this ridge. I separated from the rabbit, pulling off sideways into my own lane. Then I inched higher and higher, watching the rabbit’s lead go from inches to feet. Did they think they were winning? Let them think that. Sideways and upwards, Taipha.

If I could muster some final, titanic burst of running energy, make a springing takeoff with my hind legs, that combined with the human-mastered power of gravity could give me a burst of speed!

…And if science didn’t work that way on such a small scale, then at least a battle cry could hype me up.

“Mraow!” I roared with a mighty diagonal jump. My hind legs channeled what seemed like the last of my energy reserves.

I saw it—the roar and the sudden move giving the rabbit just the slightest second of pause—and then I reveled in it. Flesh bleeding under my claws, two animals tumbling to the dirt. We rolled, and I wrapped myself tightly around the rabbit, determined not to let go. And when the ground we hit was flat and solid, I tore in.

I’m not going to describe it in much detail. Humans get queasy about blood, and it’s weird, but I’ll accept it. Suffice it to say, though, that I didn’t let the rabbit find space to kick me. It was not a flailing death.

And once they were dead, I began to eat. Not gonna describe that much either.

A victorious box blossomed in my vision. Was it odd that I didn’t pay attention to it for a good few minutes? The satisfaction of a well-earned meal was too distracting. Once the crushing reality set in that raw rabbit didn’t taste nearly as good as rabbit stew—not even to my feral-cat tongue—I looked at my other gains.

Level Up!

Lv. 2 → Lv. 3 EXP: 2% (11/450)

HP 100% (60/60) SP 100% (45/45)

ATK 9

INT 5 (+1!)

DEF 6

WIS 3

SPD 7 (+1!)

Yay! I was going to seriously enjoy that Speed boost more than anything else, I figured.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

But…I was starting to notice a problem, one that was bound to get worse with time if I didn’t untangle it soon. I was gaining Intelligence surprisingly fast…but Wisdom was lagging. It was now my saddest Stat.

Frankly, I wasn’t clear on what Wisdom was good fo—

Wisdom huh.

Error: Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata is unavailable. Please leave a message.

…Um…System tool tips activate?

Error: “System Tool Tips Activate” is an Invalid Request.

System…help?

System Help Desk Activated. Select a category below to learn more:

Stats

Levels

Traits

Skills

Evolution

Quest

Map

Treasure

Inventory (locked by sysadmin)

Items (locked by sysadmin)

Equipment (locked by sysadmin)

Meat Locker (locked by sysadmin)

Existential Purpose (locked by sysadmin)

My eyes swam with all the new, currently irrelevant info. Just tell me about Stats for right now! I thought-implored.

Stats improve your physical and mental capabilities. You can permanently increase Stats by Leveling Up or undergoing targeted physical or mental training, as well as by gaining certain rare Traits. Stats can also be temporarily increased via certain Skills, usable Items, and Equipment.

Select a Stat below to learn more:

HP (Health Points)

SP (Skill Points)

ATK (Attack)

INT (Intelligence)

DEF (Defense)

WIS (Wisdom)

SPD (Speed)

…

Wisdom is the mental counterpart of Defense; one fortifies the mind as the other fortifies the body. Also like Defense, it increases another Stat (Skill Points).

Wisdom is intimately tied to intuition, inductive reasoning, and common sense.

Okay, well, I didn’t really know what two of those things were, so this was a bad start. According to my storehouse of general information, “inductive reasoning” was a fancy way of answering questions, and “common sense” was a bunch of homespun phrases written by farmers. “The early bird catches the worm”? Yeah, I didn’t see how that would be relevant to any cat, much less a human. But maybe I was being hasty—and for sure I was proving how deplorable my Wisdom Stat truly was.

Ways to train Wisdom include:

Meditating

Traveling

Developing social skills

Contemplating nature

Observing behavior

Mastering your own habits and emotions

No wonder I’d never increased this Stat beyond the minimum: besides “traveling,” and besides the fact that as a wild animal I needed to observe others’ behavior anyway, all of these struck me as…boring!

Wait, what the—“Developing social skills”? Did these boxes really think they were gonna sneak that one by me?

Ah, I saw what game Sierra was playing. This was another way to make me “want” to hang out with the humans in the cabin. Same with the way Reed’s Cabin “enticingly” appeared on my Map right after I first hung out there. I mean, I had this cabin as a location, but not Large Helpful Hill-Ridge?!

If my next Level-Up didn’t get a Wisdom bonus from figuring that one out, I didn’t know what would.

Still, traveling and…contemplating the things I happened to pass by and walk on? That much I could do. As I picked off as much of the rabbit as my stomach could hold, I let my thoughts linger on how grateful I was to the Grand Canyon of Hills for, um, happening to be in an appropriate shape for my gambit to take place. Man, this was such a human thing to do.

…Oh yeah! Right, I had a Map to check. And Treasure to pick up, right? Fresh from the health-refueling Level-Up, feeling newly restless, I opened it up and wondered what was in store.

Wow was my throat gonna get parched soon. Maybe the Treasure would be a bottle of water or something. Did it ever rain here? There had to be rain here…