“On the way here, I passed something, uh, interesting,” Reed said. “Not in a horrible way! Just possibly in a bad way.”

While she was scrambling around searching for me, she’d found a trail of footprints set deep in the moss. We followed these together, with me sniffing the prints as well as I could all the while.

But the mystery wasn’t that deep. It led to a flattened-out clearing the size of a stage.

I could smell traces of several people, along with bits of burlap, a tiny chicken wing still sitting on the spongy moss and being nibbled by ants, and…cameras.

Mystery solved pretty quickly?

Reed nudged the squished moss and grass with the toe of her boot, sighing. “Well, it’ll spring back up eventually,” she said, but I could tell that statement hadn’t made her any happier.

Turning to me, she said, “You saw the other footprints, didn’t you?”

I nodded. Along with the trail we’d taken to find this, there were several other foot-lines extending out, plodding roughly west. There were also traces of other feet going in tiny lines in random directions—prints that I figured came from curious camerapeople wandering a little, photographing bird shadows and wondering if they were cryptids. Maybe they did that a lot.

“I…guess that means we really are all going to the mountains together, us with this famous person and her crew… It could be fun, though!” she tacked on at the end. “It will definitely be something to remember.”

“Mrrr…”

“If you want to turn back—”

“Maow!” I roared. I was in no mood to turn back! In fact—though I sadly couldn’t get this through Reed’s well-intentioned head—the fact that DeGalle was on her way to the Kaugs made me all the more impatient! What if she left before we got there?! I had to see if her reputation was earned!

To try and signal my happiness beneath my near-snarl, I relaxed my body and put more energy into waving my tail. I even made it a little doglike, for my friend, the former dog-ist.

“Are you telling me that you’d be happy to keep going?” she asked.

Exactly right! I nodded at high speed.

“If you’re happy, I’m happy! As long as I can hang back, and try to stay away from them. They might not be that bad, but…”

I understood. Standing up, I considered giving her a rub or nuzzle on the leg, or a hug in my humanoid form—just something reassuring. Too bad wrestling with the wryneck had made me smell a bit like our old garbage.

But I wouldn’t have even gotten the chance.

The earth below us moved. All at once, the big “stage” we were on shifted. At first I couldn’t believe it, and clearly neither could Reed, whose human-length legs were teetering. The next moment, I thought we were in an earthquake—and yet the trees were still.

But in my third and wisest moment, I turned my attention to my paws, and the ground. And the movements under it. The movements weren’t rough and scratchy like anything seismic. They were liquid. The moss-and-grass carpet wasn’t grinding against anything, it was bobbing and slanting like a raft.

Reed got it just as I did: “Oh no, we’re not on solid land!”

Now I could see a definite gash tearing at the edge of the flattened land. Underneath that gash was a patch of near-black water long hidden from the sun.

How much of the ground was even ground here?!

As I frantically wondered whether we were on a glorified peninsula or a patch of plants that was soon to become a full-on island, the gash suddenly widened. I froze up, and Reed’s right hand flew over her shoulder, hovering over an Inventorized sword hilt.

Two dark horns emerged from the water.

I assumed we were either going to fight a dinosaur or a goat.

“Gackern,” Reed whispered, as if that solved it.

The horned head rose further, revealing slimy cyan eyes. The pupils were sideways ovals, like the eyes of a frog…or a goat, even. Air bubbles puffed in angry jets from the still-submerged nostrils.

I U-turned and was about to run for solid land when two more pairs of horns emerged, literally ripping through the green mat that had once been ground.

Darn! I still had some options for escape by darting through the wide space between the horns, but judging by the speed the gackerns had used to rear up just now, escaping without a scratch would be harder than it looked.

Besides…could Reed make it? I wouldn’t abandon her (a second time), would I?

No! She was preparing to run, but at the same time grabbing her sword.

Well, while we were out here standing at a distance, why not test the gackerns’ strength? Fire Spell!

With one gackern on one side and two close together on the other, I knew where my speed and energy were better placed. Pepper cracked, charcoal sizzled, and a fireball launched right where I wanted it to: into two gackern foreheads. It was big enough to sear both and even envelop their heads in flame.

But it didn’t envelop their heads in flame. Their heads were covered in water.

Darnit. I didn’t consider that part.

I’d done a little damage, but clearly not much. Dried eyes blinked with irritation. Then all three gackerns ducked below the surface. Calmly.

“Not good,” Reed rattled off, with an ominous look at the moss we were standing on. We both turned to run, but I’d seen it in her eyes: she worried neither of us could make it.

Scaly ram heads exploded through the moss, directly underneath us! Two gackern crowns started thrashing against the air and our precious limbs. Their horns speared our ankles as we stumbled and rolled aside. Then their algae-cloaked hooves broke the surface, and their thrashing was so determined and furious that it dashed the ground apart.

As those two created a growing, watery abyss in front of us, the other one tore through behind—with a flying leap.

“Yeek!” Reed cried, squinting her eyes and raising her sword. The gackern was barreling horns-first toward her face, so even as she stumbled backward on shaky ground, she leveled the sword directly between them. Apparently she meant for the sharp part to cleave right between the horns. That or she just raised it in nothing but instinct and fear…

Meanwhile, on my end, I’d discovered something: these gackerns really weren’t as dangerous as I’d assumed. Not attacking in groups, at least. See, when two big animals thrashed around together, they mostly didn’t hit the small animals caught in the crossfire. Yeah, they’d speared me a couple of times, but never with any focus or follow-through.

HP 63% (250/398) SP 13% (45/333)

So I was achy, and struggling to stay on the rocking, ripping moss, but I was solidly alive. A hoof whirled for me, but I dodged with ease.

Then I caught the distinct smell of cinnamon and cloves and looked up. Reed had boosted her Attack!

Two horns clacked against the sword as Reed put her augmented muscle against the gackern’s full, soaring weight. Then, just as the matter underfoot began breaking, she pushed. The gackern fell back, and she took her chance to charge for the coast, making big slippery bounds.

The gackern chased after her, their two friends ducking into the water with nothing but horns and eyes exposed. When the animal reached land, I could see them for what they were: a capricorn, fish tail hanging off the back, with the size and leathery scales of a crocodile.

Yet their agility on land was unbelievable…in that it could move at all. Racing with the speed of a feisty seal, the gackern smacked its tail against the ground with throaty, breathy cries.

I knew Reed was about to charge forward and finish the beast off. I reached solid ground too and ran with her.

…Wait, no! She was running away! Darn! Darn you pacifists! I was burningly close to my next Level—and the SP recovery wouldn’t hurt at all either!

Would I join Reed, making good on my desire to stay with her in times of great danger like this?

No, since I had already bolted into the earthbound gackern’s face and couldn’t stop now.

“Hrrph!” The capricorn spat a wad of spit in my eyes. That empty insult wouldn’t stop me! Except that it was actually a water-based Skill, as I learned too late, a glob whirling into my flesh with incredible speed and threatening to pulverize it.

I powered through the pain, but I sure did notice it.

HP 44% (174/398)

Still, I didn’t use a Minor Heal to get me back to a good amount of health. Why would I when I was this close and the water magic at play was so…puny?

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

By the time I was hit, I’d closed the gap. But here was where the real challenge lay: not with the gackern’s Attack, but with their Defense.

Even from a distance, their scales looked as tough and rigid as alligator hide. I didn’t doubt that they were stronger still, given that this was Vencia and all. My SP wasn’t getting any higher, so I wouldn’t be able to chance a Slash or even a Swipe. If I hit that skin with my un-powered claws alone, they’d merely score the surface, and several scratches would be as good as swatting a scratching post.

With a little pain in my gut at blowing my resources so soon, I burned off the second of five Attack Ups, boosting my non-Skill power farther. Then I jumped for the vulnerable flesh—the eyes.

I had never done anything this brutal. Spearing another animal right in the eyes…this was definitely a first, and strangely I knew it was far from the last time. I’ll try not to describe the feeling. Well, maybe a little. Plunging two front paws into two orbits was a little like thrusting them in warm yogurt.

Ew.

And as my hind legs found purchase on the gackern’s snout, I felt the head sway, and heard the creature snort.

But even as I ripped my paws out, the gackern didn’t fall.

They had taken an eye-gouging like it was nothing.

The next moment, their head whipped sideways incredibly fast and cracked me against the ground, a makeshift, skull-hard bludgeon. My front paws held fast to the sides of their head, but my back ones skittered off, and as the gackern reared up again, they flailed.

HP 23% (92/398)

Guard! I thought near-instinctively.

SP 6% (19/333)

This was beyond deadly. It was a kind of supernatural endurance and will to live and battle that almost felt like spite. Like the gackern existed to point and laugh at my failure.

No way I was going to stay on this head and let them rodeo-buck me a second time. I dropped to solid earth.

But now I was out of ideas. I seriously wanted to end this battle on a high note…but how? I could go for the neck or the belly, but how would those be any softer than the eyeballs? Should I manage a hairball and see if that worked like the spit projectile?!

A cry sounded out from behind me: “Fireball!”

Reed was watching from the trees—actually, she was racing closer. Had she run far away, noticed I wasn’t with her, and now run right back? It seemed so. I was just glad to have her.

Only…was this gackern’s flesh really dry enough to catch fire?

“Fireball inside!” she added.

Inside of what?

Mentally, I slapped myself. Come on, Taipha, activate that lateral thinking…

She meant “inside the body.” Ew ew ew ew.

Fine! Fine, maybe that was the only way this battle could turn out well for me. And maybe this was my just desserts for always craving more brutality!

Either way, I was going to have to jump and latch on again. That was hard when the gackern was flinging its head down toward me again—horns turned like a two-pronged club.

I bounced away, but the club caught my tail.

HP 15% (59/398)

The pain made me grit my teeth, but it was nothing serious. Thanks to Reed, I was ready to end this now.

Doubling back, I made a second bounce that landed me back on their head. The gackern rose undeterred. They had no idea what was coming.

I jammed my paws into their mouth. Then there was burning.

Why couldn’t more animals be like the wrynecks and just challenge other forest friends to wrestling matches? Why did these gackerns—who definitely looked like herbivores with their flat teeth and goatishness—take us on with crazed delight?

These were just excuses. I found myself making them more and more, deflecting a guilt I had never felt when I had to fight back on Earth.

Fire, I thought, the fight ending with a bitter pang.

Heat had erupted in the gackern’s skull. I jumped away, and a bleat followed me down. The body fell sideways, and the head smoked.

I looked away from the body. Suddenly I noticed how quickly I was breathing.

Level Up!

My power boost did feel earned. It did feel deserved. And I didn’t feel wrong for pursuing it…did I?

It’s fine. You’re fine, I told myself. And you’re already working on a solution to…well, the guilt you’re beginning to feel. You challenge your friends to stuff!

But it just wasn’t as effective as killing walking bags of Experience.

Well, I added, if you get stronger, you won’t have to splatter others’ brains just to land a solid hit!

…I had to admit, that was too true.

I heard two more bleats not far away. The moss where Reed and I had once stood was now officially a pit of water with strips of lichen bobbing around on the surface. Were those other two gackerns preparing to make a new net of it or something, renew the trap? Or were they…oh, darnit, they were mourning, they had to be mourning.

Time to shake the melancholy thoughts out of my mind. Reed was here, and she waved with a smile.

“I’m sorry I abandoned you,” she said. “I’m supposed to be pulling my weight here, and…I never expect you to be as interested in combat and hunting as you are.” She smacked herself in the side of the head with regret.

My thoughts were going in a few different directions here. I refocused on my Level-Up:

Lv. 17 → Lv. 18 EXP: 42% (1123/2700)

HP 100% (420/420) SP 100% (355/355)

ATK 67

INT 46 (+1!)

DEF 48

WIS 35 (+1!)

SPD 60

Meat Locker Unlocked! New Trait Added: Inventory (Stage 1/4)

Your Meat Locker, much like your Inventory, is an interdimensional hyperspace carrying case. However, this one is reserved exclusively for storing your grisly kills. Meat maintained in the Meat Locker will be kept as fresh as the day it was slain.

Agh! Getting this upgrade would’ve felt perfect if I’d gotten it a few days ago. Now I wanted to vomit.

Any matter which was recently considered animal (within the span of 365 days, unless exceptionally preserved) can be carried in your Meat Locker.

Currently you can hold up to 3 meat types in your Meat Locker. Up to 99 of each meat object can be carried.

And on top of everything else, its restrictions were weirdly different from the baseline Inventory too. Much smaller. I was so glad I hadn’t gotten seriously excited for the Meat Locker.

At least it could get this gackern body out of my sight as soon as possi—

Oh, Reed was taking a close look at the horns.

“Maybe if we take this home,” she said, “I can put these to good use. Only if you don’t mind.”

I did mind, but I’d stop minding within twenty-four hours. For now, I just nodded and pocketed the body in the no-longer-mysterious Meat Locker.

Meat Locker: 1/3 Gackern (Whole)

Texture: Tough

Flavor Profile: Gamey

Tip: Pair with dark wine.

…I had no words.

I think Reed sensed my odd discomfort, even if she couldn’t place what it came from. So she shifted the subject a tad. “I heard that about half of the Aerie Swamp is solid ground, and the rest is just water and hard-packed moss,” she said. “It’s stable through most of the year. It only loosens up or breaks when, well, there’s an atypical amount of pressure.”

She pursed her lips. “The wildlife here knows you’re not supposed to have large herds or gatherings here. Too many tromping feet and it sinks. But not by cracking, like ice. Like I said, it gets loose first.” Her gaze went back toward the gackern pit. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we found lots of cameras and chicken wings in that water.”

And that might have made the gackerns angry, confused.

I told myself to walk with caution—and reserved—the next time I caught myself out here.

image [https://i.imgur.com/r2hkuht.png]

Current Location: Gackern Swallows (S.C5)

We trotted on southwest, gradually curving pure-west, as I listened to Reed muse on ideas about how she could communicate with me better. This only made my spirit sink a little lower. I couldn’t talk, and her talent at reading a cat could only go so far.

Give it time and the bad mood will pass.

Time and Levels.