Addar did his best to remain out of sight. It was surprisingly difficult.

As Addar had quickly come to learn, the people of this new world had impossibly sharp senses.

Yesterday had been spent observing a small human-dominated settlement while remaining within the cover of the deep forest, only to be discovered when he had stepped onto a fallen leaf.

From over a hundred meters away, a human woman’s eyes had snapped directly onto him. Even as hidden as he was behind a dozen trees, Addar knew he had been spotted, the woman’s eyes unerringly meeting his own.

How could he tell? Well, Addar had discovered how to increase the efficacy of his own senses, of course.

The System offered the service of increasing certain personal statistics, as measured by its own devices. One of these upgradeable traits was a stat called [Perception]. Each time he ‘leveled’, Addar received ten points to spend on these traits.

The first level’s points had been spent solely on [Vitality] after he had embarrassingly broken his arm killing a surprisingly hostile rabbit. The next level had been spent raising [Strength] when the next rabid bunny had taken too long to kill. The levels between three and eight— his current level— had been spent on perception to observe the woodland village he had stumbled across.

With just a little over sixty points in [Perception], Addar figured his effective line of sight was near doubled. He could only imagine how sharp the senses could be for an individual born into this world.

He hunkered down in the cave he had found. It was more of a crevasse, really. He had hardly managed to fit, actually doubted he could have if someone hadn’t gotten close enough to almost discover him.

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See, Addar had popped into this world as a 'boggart', as the System claimed.

What did this mean?

Well, he was dealing with it at the moment.

Whenever a sentient being got too close, Addar found himself unwillingly shifting into something grotesque and horrifying. It would be cool if it weren’t constantly jeopardizing his ability to remain hidden.

In the same vein as the increased senses, he could only imagine how powerful people were when it came to the other System sponsored stats. Based on what he thought, a person with sixty points in strength should be almost twice as strong as their frame would suggest. He didn’t want to try figuring out just how high these hunters had raised theirs.

Addar felt like the effects of the stats weren’t quite linear, but he didn’t have enough data to be sure. He wondered if his decision to debuff [Intelligence] would hinder him in doing that.

It didn’t feel like it would, only seeming to make him a bit more forgetful up to this point, but again, he needed more data.

Anyway, back to the current problem. When initially someone had come by, Addar had picked up on their fear of something slimy and thin. As was the attribute of a boggart, he became it. It had allowed him to slip handily into this spot.

Unfortunately, that person had left soon after, not only leaving him in his human- er, boggart form but also effectively trapping him behind the sturdy stone. It wasn’t like it was especially spacious once past the initial squeeze, either.

Addar groaned quietly. He couldn’t help it. They seemed to know he was in the area, as another person had drawn too close. This individual’s fear was more sizable and four-legged to be sure. The already uncomfortable squeeze was rapidly becoming intolerable.

It was really weird to suddenly become quadrupedal. Especially when stuck in a bipedal stance.

Addar could literally hear his ribs groaning against the immovable stone constricting him.

And if he could hear it, chances were that so could his hunter.

He really hoped the other reincarnators were safer than he was.