As Lucy screamed, the forest grew darker, the trees seemingly moving closer together.

The tree branches slowly reaching down, threatening to capture the helpless Victoria. She couldn't move, paralyzed by fear.

At the same time, the monster grew more horrifying. It became bigger, its muscles rippling, growing, ripping through the skin. Small slit pupils opened in its eyes. First one. Then a second. Then many, many more, all looking directly at her as yellow gooey pus drips out of them.

The branches reached her, turning into wrinkly purple tentacles as they wind around her limbs, keeping her in place.

It didn't matter. Victoria was too horrified to move as she watched the monstrosity's skin peel off in long strips, revealing the sickly black flesh underneath.

Something was wrong.

Its head turned to her, the eyes within its eyes looking directly at her.

Victoria could feel it in the back of her mind.

The strips of skin started floating up from the ground, meandering lazily like snakes ready to strike.

This wasn't real.

The monster went into a crouch, ready to jump at her.

With every ounce of her being, Victoria denied this reality.

Victoria blinked.

She was back in the forest. The normal, though oversized, forest.

In front of her, she could see Lucy, lying on the ground in fetal position. The giant squirrel was looming over the girl, screeching, but not moving. Freddy was somewhere to her right, screaming like a little girl.

Victoria could only guess what was going on, but in all probability, Lucy had unlocked her Psy. But instead of the telekinesis Victoria had used, Lucy was creating some kind of telepathic or empathic illusion.

But that meant this effect wouldn't last forever. Rather, it would be over very soon. Victoria had to do something, and quickly.

The problem was, what? Just earlier, she had stupidly used all of her Aura in one big burst to prevent it from reaching Ferdinand, driving her spear into its side. She was incredibly exhausted and would need a few minutes of rest before she could even stand back up.

Victoria quickly found her answer. Her body was tired, but her mind wasn't. Despite just breaking out of the illusion, it had taken surprisingly little Psy. Maybe it was so because the illusion was never meant to be one, but just a very explosive mental projection from Lucy. But that only meant she had to hurry even more.

But even if she had settled on using her telekinesis, Victoria still needed something she could injure the monster with. The spears could injure her opponent, but they were big and heavy, and hard to control with telekinesis.

A stone could work, but even with all her power, the blunt projectile might not be able to pierce the skin.

No, she needed to make something herself, something she could perfectly control. It also had to be sharp and small enough to pierce its skin.

Quickly, a telekinetic needle manifested in front of Victoria.

As quickly as she could, she stuffed all of her Psy into the tiny manifestation and aimed.

A second that felt like an eternity passed. A second eternity. A third...

The almost invisible projectile shot off, right into the monster's eye.

The sound of the projectile penetrating through the eye was almost inaudible.

At this point, Victoria could only hope. Hope that the picture of a squirrel skull in her head was even remotely correct. Hope that it was even applicable to these creatures. Hope that the needle somehow reached the monster's brain.

Hell, she wasn't even sure why the hell she knew how the skull of a squirrel looked. She probably saw one around the same time she found out that whales had penis bones. Well, wouldn't be the first time the web taught her strange things.

Victoria could hear a barely audible squishing sound.

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Then, the giant squirrel slumped over, falling to the ground. Luckily, just barely missing Lucy. It would be truly ironic if the girl died not because the squirrel killed her, but because she got buried under its corpse.

Congratulations! You killed [Dire-Squirrel level 5]

You earned 2lvl => 4exp

Level Up!

With the second message, Victoria's exhaustion suddenly lessened. It wasn't much, not like a videogame where you regenerated all your MP and HP when leveling up. She had just regained a small sliver of Aura and it hadn't even affected her Psy, at least not in a way that dulled the headache in any way, but it was enough.

With a groan, she pushed herself up from the ground and walked over to Lucy. Almost exerting what little strength she had regained, she lifted the girl from the ground, carefully untwined her trembling fingers, and buried the girl's head in her chest so that she had no way of seeing the monster.

Victoria felt stupid and helpless. There had been signs. She should have noticed. And now, there was nothing she could do but give the girl a hug. Hell, she didn't even know if that actually made it worse! She could feel Lucy's entire body trembling.

Even worse was, she had a very specific understanding of what the girl was dealing with. How she was seeing the world around her, the fear, anxiety, and helplessness. No, the Illusion might have even been nothing but a weak echo. For Lucy, it might be many times worse.

But Victoria couldn't do anything. Maybe, she might have been able to use telepathy or empathy, project a feeling of calmness and security into her mind. But even if she were ready to take that risk, to mess around with an already mentally ill person's head without any proíor experience, she couldn't.

She was completely out of Psy. As indicated by the pounding headache. She felt helpless.

At that moment, she heard Freddy groaning. Looking in the direction where his screams had stopped without her noticing, Victoria saw him slowly coming to his feet.

"You okay?", she asked him.

"I see. You got out already? Took me a while to realize that wasn't real. What about L...", he answered. "Oh.", he continued when he saw the girl in Victoria's arms: "What the hell was that? Can't we wake her up somehow?"

"No, I don't think that's possible. She is different from us in the first place.", Victoria explained.

"What do you mean?", Freddy asked with a worried look on his face.

"If my guess is right, what we saw was just a telepathic projection of Lucy's panic attack."

Hearing that, Freddy's eyes turned wide.

"The best thing we can do right now is to wait for her to calm down. Normally you would call an ambulance, but that is hardly possible right now, now is it? Do you mind keeping watch? I need a break as well."

"Sure, for all its worth.", he said and walked away.

He had tried to hide it, but Victoria could see his trembling hands. They all needed a break.

Holding a trembling girl wasn't the best of circumstances, but she did her best to meditate and regain as much energy as she could.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed exactly, maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour. But when she could feel that Lucy stopped trembling, she had barely regenerated enough energy to make it back to the fort.

Half an hour later, Victoria dragged her tired feet through the entrance of the fort. Ferdinand close behind her with the sleeping Lucy on his back. Aside from almost dying, which applied to all of them, and getting quite a scare, which did as well, he was the liest exhausted of them all, so that job had fallen on him. Despite Victoria's initial judgment, he was the only one who had been useless during the fight.

That also translated into the fact that he was the only one who didn't receive any experience. Well, Victoria hadn't asked Lucy, but there was no doubt that a good blow on that squirrel. Even if it wasn't a physical one or on purpose.

"Give her to me, I can take her the rest of the way.", Victoria said after a while.

Aside from carrying Lucy, Freddy had also offered to take care of the report to the commander. So, now that they were in the fort, Victoria took over Lucy, carrying her the rest of the way to Grandma Meg's place.

For one, she would get much better rest there than in the barracks. Additionally, the old woman's Empath Class, was probably the closest thing to a psychotherapist they would be able to find around here, though Freddy would also ask for that while reporting. Also just having someone with her when she wakes up would probably be for the best.

When she opened the front door, she could hear the old seamstress putting aside her work and come to the front.

"You are back already? Thats good, there is still... Hmm? Who do you have there? Is the girl injured?", she asked.

"This is Lucy, we were on the same team. Don't worry, she is fine, physically at least. She just needs lots of rest and someone to talk to when she wakes up. Someone who isn't me."

"Huh? What did you do to her?"

"Nothing. But I don't think it's the kind of thing she would want to talk about with someone who is the same age."

"I see. Put her in your bed and rest for a while. But don't take too long, there is still work to do.", with these last words, Margaret made her way back into the back of the house, continuing her work.

A short time later, Lucy had been put on her bed, and Victoria tried to make herself comfortable. She went from the chair to the table and finally settled on sitting on the floor. Her back against the door and the legs stretched out long.

For a while, she listened to the sounds of the people milling around outside. Some were working, but most had just returned from their first hunt. They were crying for those they lost, laughing, happy to be alive. Some got angry, getting into fights.

Victoria took a deep breath and allowed herself to let go. Her hands started trembling and a single tear rolled down her cheek. She pulled her legs up, hugging her knees, hiding her face between them. Like that, she stayed for a while.

She took another breath, even deeper, and the trembling stopped. There was work to do. Mistakes to learn from. Improvements to be made.

First of all, they had been severely underprepared for this fight. Victoria had been arrogant to think she could deal with those monsters, basically on her own since Ferdinand and Lucy had been barely trained.

Part of it was ignorance and overconfidence, the other was plain stupidity. She thought she could deal with monsters since she could win against Garry, but she had completely forgotten what she had said herself. She only won against him since he was specialized in fighting monsters, while she is in fighting people.

For some reason, she had assumed that it would be easy to adapt to the different type of opponent, but it was everything but. None of the attack patterns and techniques she was trained in had worked, the movements of her opponent too inhuman to use it on them.

All she could rely on were her reflexes and the most basic techniques and rules of fighting. Actually, considering the way she had trained, she had already a massive advantage when compared to someone who only trained in a single type of martial arts.

Still, there had been more mistakes. Most of all that she used up all her Aura. Sure, she got a good blow in and saved Freddy, but that left her unable to move when half as much might have done the job as well. Additionally, monsters seem to be a lot more resilient than their smaller counterparts. It should have been obvious, considering their supposed purpose. If they weren't tanky, everyone would take up bow and arrow and snipe them from a distance. There is no way the gods would allow for such a simple solution to leveling up if Andrew had said the truth.

And lastly, she had far too little information. Just based on the things she had seen, from the games she had played, the stories she had read, she had become overly self-confident and assumed she would know what they might end up facing. A giant squirrely had definitely not been on her list.