The sky glowed red, but only dimly through the overcast. Rain had yet to fall again since…however many days it had been since the first storm, but it looked like the rolling, gray clouds above were prepared to remedy that.

               Kaltyr adjusted the weight of her belongings as she marched forward, uncaring of the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to discern where she was in the forest had she not had such a large destination as a landmark to guide her. Although she could tell that there were very many different tree, bush, and flower species, they all kind of blurred together after the first few days of her trek. To her, the surrounding flora was now just “the forest”, and all that mattered was that she was making progress in reaching her destination—that big thing in the distance.

               Not even time seemed very important to the girl. She’d forgotten how long it had been since she was “born” into Manic, but that didn’t really matter when she could just read through her logs in The System Wishes You Good Fucking Luck… Not that how many days she’d spent in Manic held any great importance. As far as she knew.

               Kaltyr had grown accustomed to the repetitive—and boring—task of marching through untold lengths of wilderness that all appeared the same to her. Days of briskly marching, and foraging for sustenance when she needed to. Nights of recording her experiences in her book before stealthily sleeping among the branches of trees she deemed safe enough. Attacks by relatively strong beasts—and rarely, wild phantasms, though she hadn’t come across anything like that pond spirit again—made for some level of entertainment, but never for long. In fact, the corpses of her foolish, beastly opponents only served to worsen her mood a little because all she got out of them were a pittance of magical coins she didn’t have a need for. She could not carry all the corpses with her until they phantabilized so that she could gain more goo, so she took what flesh she needed for her meals, then “coinified” the rest. It felt wasteful despite literally gaining money, but what other options remained?

               Kaltyr made quite a lot of progress toward her target destination—thankfully so, considering that most of her wilderness survival starter kit had already disappeared. The structure in the distance was no longer just a part of the distant horizon, but steadily becoming more detailed to her eyes. She could safely bet on what the structure was, but chose not to speculate on the matter when she considered that her lack of experience with how Manic functioned could allow misunderstandings of what to expect to take root in her mind. For now, the girl would simply open her mind to every possibility without assuming anything so that when the time came to make decisions, she harbored no misinformation, just ignorance.

               …Though, the structure probably wasn’t anything too special on account of it looking a lot like a—

               Her foot landed on the ground at a bad angle, and she stumbled. Aura flaring as she channeled her mana and reinforced her body, Kaltyr caught herself on a tree and dropped everything in her arms besides her spear, which she held tightly in a defensive posture. She had not merely tripped—her concentration had faltered upon her mind being…assaulted, by a new, peculiar sensation. The strange aura sent shivers down her spine as she expanded her Magical Sense as far as she could, devoting as much brainpower as possible toward deducing the whereabouts of her possible opponent.

               A tinge of fear caused her to gulp.

               Despite the aura’s high intensity, meaning the source should be close, Kaltyr could neither discern what level the source held…nor its position. Her senses told her that the aura emanated from somewhere ahead, but that was all. Could the source—presumably a beast—be so powerful that its presence extended far beyond Kaltyr’s senses? In which case…

               Kaltyr suppressed her aura by greatly slowing the flow of her internal energy, then spun on her heels to leave. If there was something that powerful nearby, objective be damned! She couldn’t reasonably be expected to endanger herself to such an extent to reach her destination…

               She stopped just as suddenly as she’d begun, her foot hovering above the grass midstep.

               What happened to the aura?

               Eyes wide, Kaltyr completed the step but turned around again. The aura had disappeared as spontaneously as it appeared. Had the source ceased channeling mana? It couldn’t be the case that she’d just left the zone which the source’s aura permeated, because auras didn’t have a hard border that if you passed you would stop sensing it. If someone walked away from a beast that released spiritual pressure, the person in question would feel the aura slowly decrease in intensity in the same way sound would over distance. Or could it…?

               Curious, Kaltyr returned to the spot where she first sensed it and originally rose her guard.

               Shit, I was right.

               Her wary speculation was proven correct when Kaltyr was submerged in the same peculiar aura as suddenly as if she’d been dropped into a lake. Just in case, she hopped in and out of the aura’s apparent range… Sure enough, the magical pressure was present, then it wasn’t, then it was, then it wasn’t, then it was…

               “This changes things.”

               Kaltyr picked up her belongings but did not drop her guard. Had the aura functioned according to how she’d experienced and learned they did, then she would not have risked her life by moving toward its source. However, because it didn’t… Well, it didn’t seem a likely coincidence that her target destination was in the same direction as the aura’s source.

               So she continued marching forward, a spark of tenacity glowing in her eye…until several regular beast auras approached from her right.

               “Aaaaaah, fuck. These’re definitely higher-level than me.”

               Kaltyr infused her legs with as much strength as they could contain and bolted, eyes wide in fear, but when she peeked over her shoulder it became apparent that fleeing was not an option. The three beasts were about as fast as h—

               Wait, what?

               Just as Kaltyr dropped her belongings again, mustered all the courage available, and prepared to fight, reality became clearer to her. She was not being chased; the beasts were fighting each other and they were all heavily injured! Some tens of meters away, two dark-green bears—one much larger than the other—fended off what looked like a steroidal chicken the size of a large dog. The mammals appeared to be struggling to gain any ground on the muscular chicken, despite its smaller stature.

               Kaltyr blanked for a moment before shaking her head and throwing out the ridiculous idea forming in her mind. All three beasts were heavily injured, and their auras sputtered with the telltale sign of running low on mana, but the power they threw around in their sorry conditions still rivaled her own. Taking advantage of the chaos to kill them for Experience would still be absurdly dangerous. Her safest option was to continue fleeing…

               But her feet did not move. The girl’s lips pursed as she watched the three creatures, whose levels ranged from 8 to 14, fight. The small bear—which was probably related to the large bear given their fur colors and patterns being the same—mostly cast Externalizer skills that formed in the air around it and affected its companion. This was the first instance of support abilities that Kaltyr witnessed, and her greed flared, bubbling within her like boiling tar that wished to entrap anything and everything valuable—admittedly a strange way to visualize her emotions, she realized. Did those skills, whatever their effects were, work on the caster? Could she learn at least one of them from watching this battle alone? She knew from experience that copying skills from living beings was exponentially more difficult than copying them from phantasms, but it was worth a shot, right?

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               Or even better, if she killed the small bear and allowed it to phantabilize…

Kaltyr lightly slapped herself. There it was again. She had to keep her greed in check lest find herself being the meal of what she tried to hunt. For all she knew, all three beasts would focus her if she made herself out to be a threat.

With a small sigh, she returned her attention to the battle amongst beasts. She still couldn’t quite ignore her greed enough to flee, so chose to at least stick around to see who won and what condition the winner would be in, in case she really could gain some XP from the event.

The small bear seemed to have cast multiple buffs on its companion throughout the battle, because the larger bear’s body was enveloped by sparkles and flashes of colorful lights in different places. Wrapped around its legs appeared to be long, ethereal curtains of verdant winds, presumably to boost speed. Adorned on its head was a scarlet helmet of sorts, which looked very funny. Lastly, gilding its torso was a rough yellow armor, presumably to increase defense, which sparkled so brightly that Kaltyr wondered if it was a real piece of armor made from gemstones.

Despite all the apparent buffs, the large bear constantly lost ground in its melee against the higher-level red beefy chicken. Both beasts primarily utilized Internalizer skills to boost their physical attacks, but the bird’s maneuverability was higher while its skills had a way of cutting through its opponent’s. The chicken’s clawed feet and beak lit up with condensed flames which took the shape of blades, and whenever the avian failed to dodge an attack, it counterattacked the attack, effectively neutralizing the damage it would have sustained.

Additionally, while this little fact had no bearing on the fight, Kaltyr thought it was visually super cool: the steroidal fire chicken left a wake of destruction in its path, burning almost geometric patterns into the grass it danced through.

Seconds became minutes as Kaltyr continued to greedily observe the fight, which the fire chicken was on the verge of winning. It was abundantly clear that once the large bear fell to the chicken’s fiery claws, the small bear would be next, and stand no chance against it. It was too many levels weaker than the chicken and didn’t seem to have any offensive spells in its repertoire. And though the fire chicken was Life Level 14, Kaltyr’s confidence in her ability to take it down soared after the large bear landed a decent blow on one of its wings, destabilizing it. Unfortunately for the bears, that blow came much too late because the large bear was barely on its feet by that point… Barely on its paws?

Suddenly, during a lull in the combat, the large bear abruptly swept its head around to gaze directly at Kaltyr, sending shivers down her spine and causing her palms to sweat. She knew that the beasts were aware of her presence when their fight took them near her, but since then she had entered Stealth Mode and changed location. How was the bear staring at her with its creepy, tiny, beady eyes?!

Oh, it wasn’t, for the most part. Kaltyr released the breath she was holding in after the bear swiveled its head and eyes, looking for her. Perhaps the red helmet-like thing increased its perceptivity, which allowed it to sense her general direction, but not see through her stealth entirely. Regardless, why was it searching for her? Did it… Did it have some kind of ability that allowed it to recover its stamina, health, or mana from eating other creatures?! The girl gulped at the thought, but didn’t take it seriously. It was more likely that the bear was simply wary of her…which it was completely justified in being.

Hmmm…perhaps I should go in to finish them all off? The fire chicken looks tired as fuck, the bears are weak and heavily injured, and the very fact that the large bear is cautious of me means it thinks I could be a problem.

Kaltyr found her logic to be sound, but remained still. She oh so very much wanted to jump right in there and stab everything with her spear…yet pragmatism held her in place. She reminded herself that Manic was not the wonderland of infinite possibilities she may have once hoped it to be. Manic was a dangerous beast-eat-beast world that would spell her doom if she forgot herself and grew arrogant. Kaltyr had to imprint it into her mind that she could not get drunk off her magical powers, that she needed to exercise caution in order to survive.

That being so, it still took considerable effort on Kaltyr’s part to prevent herself from jumping into the fray. With one last sigh, she picked up her stuff and turned—

The larger of the two green bears released a deep roar in her direction before collapsing. Though, it wasn’t a war cry produced to display dominance. It was…sad, somehow. Desperate, even, if she trusted her apparent understanding of bear inflections. Was…was the bear…?

No. She was thinking too much. Of the beasts Kaltyr had crossed paths with, not a single one showed anything but animosity. Why would this one be different? What of the surrounding circumstances changed anything?

The smaller bear, Kaltyr knew. She’d already assumed the smaller bear to be the larger bear’s child, but the girl would not allow childish pity to blind her. Several times before, though it wasn’t common, she was attacked by what she presumed to be parent and child pairings of beasts. Infant animals were, of course, so adorable that Kaltyr’s paternal instincts flared brightly at the sight of them, but such instincts were only a detriment in her situation. Regardless of how cute the baby was, if it was anything more than a normal animal, it had the ability to rend her flesh from her bone if her guard was down.

Thus, Kaltyr knew not to let her feelings affect her judgement…

The girl found herself charging her new opponent before it could finish off the large bear, but her spear ricocheted off the steroidal chicken’s fiery claws, and a wave of heat caressed her face. Wow, the bird’s feet were hot enough to warm much of the air around it. That didn’t bode well.

So much for being stonehearted, but I’ll still gut the bears if I sense even a shred of killing intent.

Before actually exchanging a blow with the chicken, Kaltyr thought she could probably take it down with relative ease even if it weren’t so tired, because surely it wouldn’t be able to compete with her in terms of speed or power with as little mana as it currently had. Right? RIGHT?

Wrong, apparently. What Kaltyr had assumed would be a solid strike, what with the strike coming from a sneak attack, was deflected as though it were expected. Maybe it had been, but that didn’t matter anymore after exposing her presence.

Regardless of the successful parry, Kaltyr’s odds of victory did not change in her mind. The chicken was still running on fumes while she was full on mana. Sure, she could tell from the collision between fiery claws and spear that the chicken’s internal energy was a good amount denser than her own due its higher level, but surely the bird would fight defensively in hopes of finding an opportunity to escape, right? Right?

Wrong, apparently. The steroidal chicken regained its previous vicious fervor despite the many wounds lining its body and lack of energy. It took full advantage of its denser mana, as little as there was, to claw Kaltyr’s face off. It almost succeeded, too. Blazing lines of fire trailed the chicken’s feet through the air as it launched itself upwards at speeds Kaltyr could barely track. Barely. She managed to lift the haft of her spear quickly enough to block the clawed attack, leaving burn marks on her weapon.

Then before the chicken could land on the ground the girl gave it a mighty kick, sending it barreling through the air before colliding against an oak. Aura wavering, the avian had no time to recover from its failed attack because a spearhead followed it, piercing its torso, pinning it to the tree.

With one eye on the bears and one on the chicken, Kaltyr retrieved her spear. She waited until confirmation of the foe’s death in the form of a rush of XP filling her soul before forgetting about the bird. Somehow, the girl could tell that she hadn’t received very much Experience, likely due to the fact that she hadn’t dealt most of the damage. Nevertheless, striking the finishing blow allotted her a decent amount.

“So…” Kaltyr began, spear pointed toward the green bear as large as her, “…you intelligent, or what?”

Silence reigned and her blood pressure returned to normal, allowing Kaltyr to pick up on environmental details that her mind put off during fights. For one, the strange, invasive aura she discovered earlier had never disappeared. It was always present during the battle, but she’d somehow managed to forget about it. Strange, especially considering how overwhelming it appeared to her when she first felt it. She almost felt…accepted, by the aura, as though she were now best buds with it.

Secondly, the bears’ fur had faint stripes. Not very important, but cool…

“Oh.”

Regarding patterns on their fur, they had more than just stripes. The little bear sat down on its bum next to its presumed parent, exposing its belly to Kaltyr. On its belly was drawn, undeniably, a tree. Well, not really drawn, so much as formed from its fur colors. Most of the bear was dark green, but on its belly was an oval of light green, and within that oval was the depiction of an…oak tree? Formed from more dark green fur.

Though the big bear lied on its belly, preventing her from checking it for the same image, she could see a little bit of light-green fur poking out from beneath it. Presumably there was also the oval and tree on its belly.

Before she could even question whether it was a good idea to turn over the large bear for the sake of science, it grumbled. Having had her guard up the entire time, Kaltyr remained steady, weapon pointed toward it. If it was going to try anything, she would be ready.

“Well, are you intelligent or not?” She nodded and shook her head as she spoke. “Yes, or—”

Much to her surprise, both bears nodded.

“Err…you can really understand me?”

Again, the large bear nodded from where it lied, and the littler bear nodded from where it sat.

Shit…really?!

Waves of uncertainty buffeted Kaltyr’s mind as she recalled how close she was to leaving the green bears to die. She still clearly remembered her conversation with…Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth regarding how she didn’t need to worry about coming across any beasts that had minds as complex as her own. Yet, here she was…talking to bears.

Anger bubbled within Kaltyr’s stomach. Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth—The System—knew she’d be going this way. Was it aware of these bears when it told her not to worry about all that? Were there more such beasts in this area? Did the strange aura have anything to do with any of this?!

The girl lowered her spear and pinched the bridge of her nose, groaning.

“Uuuuggggggghhhhhhhh… For fuck’s sake.”

She turned to the bears again, who were nodding again.

“So, you’re people? I assume you can’t speak, uh, whatever language I’m speaking?” The word “English” came to mind as the name of her native language, but Kaltyr couldn’t be sure she was speaking it. After all, she was in a different world, right? Maybe a foreign language had been installed in her brain.

The bears nodded their heads.

“Okay, so…I probably shouldn’t ask for your names, huh?” Kaltyr tried for levity, unsure of what else to do, but positive that humor was universal.

The bears nodded, and she smiled. She was right.

“Then, um…” Lost for words, she mumbled to herself, “What now?”

The bears nodded, drawing a confused look from Kaltyr. An inkling suspicion arose within her.

“Uh huh… Are you guys bears?”

They nodded.

“…Are you also purple platypuses?”

They nodded again, and Kaltyr facepalmed for the nineteenth time.