It has been a while since I started off in this new direction and I had eaten many Bane Berries to help my hunger. But now I had no choice other than to find something else than these Bane Berries. On one hand they decreased my hunger by a bit, but on the other hand they made me feel weird and uncomfortable, as if my exoskeleton crawled about.

I looked at another Bane Berry and my body shivered, due to the approaching chill, or my body was giving me a warning. I decided to listen to my body and ignore the Bane Berry, there was something called poison in them, and I had no idea what that was, and I think it’ll be better if I start eating it less frequently.

Even though I was hungry, I trotted past them, continuing to go up the hill that I found myself on. My legs felt uncomfortably hot, yet I pushed onwards, not due to hunger but due to the setting sun.

Why is there no safe area?!

I was starting to get annoyed, no matter how much I looked, I could not find anywhere to stay when the moon came out. I’d rather not have to deal with another Stalker or some other shadowy creature.

How does that white cub live in such a dangerous place?

That cub was white, and from what I’ve seen the creatures living here are either using the black environment to their advantage, or they are blending into the environment. The cub can’t do either of those things.

At least, I think.

Well, if it could, it would’ve easily sneaked up on me.

Whatever, I’m getting distracted.

I shook myself out of my thoughts and focused on my surroundings. The limited sky I could see showed an array of warm colors, it was beautiful sure, but it also meant it was getting darker and darker.

That’s when I reached a flatter part of the hill and saw my last chance at survival. An opening into the hill, small enough that the big creatures wouldn’t fit, but big enough for small creatures like me to fit. That meant there was a chance that another creature was already there, but I was willing to take that chance.

The opening was slightly covered by the roots of one of the larger trees, and did make the hole smaller, but after squeezing through, the space got significantly larger the further I went in. The tunnel led me around in a curve, which blocked my view from the sight I was not ready for. It was an oval space with some sort of moss growing on the walls, which for an odd reason glowed, lighting up the area, which allowed me to see two brown furred creatures. They were smaller than me considerably, but they had 4 appendages at the end of their limbs ending with claws. Their mouths were agape allowing me to see the large sharp teeth they had, though they only had 4 of them. The ends of their bodies had a long pink line attached to it.

Me and the two creatures simply looked at each other, both being surprised at the others' presence.

Well, I wasn’t too surprised, I did assume some creatures would be in here.

Knowing how aggressive creatures were, I didn’t hesitate to use [Appraisal] on both, I was not leaving this place and going into the darkness.

Name - [???] Age - [2 years] Species - [Mouse] Sub-Species - [Burrowing Mouse] Level - [1/25]

Name - [???] Age - [2 years] Species - [Mouse] Sub-Species - [Burrowing Mouse] Level - [3/25]

Due to constant use of the [Appraisal] skill, the skill has leveled up!

The last blue rectangle came out of nowhere and I was curious to what that meant, but I dismissed all the blue rectangles as the burrowing mice started moving.

The two burrowing mice got low to the ground and made a strange hissing sound in turn to my [Appraisal]. With the higher-level prowling forwards. Since I didn’t have any area to dodge in the tunnel, I finally entered the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed another tunnel to my right, but I ignored that for now.

I felt something pellet my fur, too close to my eyes for comfort, so I hurriedly shielded them away using my only working wing. It worked as I felt objects hit my wings, then a large object hit my wing and I saw claws tear into my wing.

Not too bothered, I swung my wing as hard as possible, feeling it strain as it hit the sturdy dirt wall. I heard the mouse on my wing exhale loudly, but I ignored it as the pelting continued. Closing my eyes, I ran towards the mouse which had stayed behind. Yet I only collided with the wall behind it. The pelting hit my back which was fine as now my eyes were not in danger.

But every object that hit me made me shake. I hurriedly turned around and used my wing once again as cover, thankful that it wasn’t broken. Through the holes made by the first mouse, I could now see through my wing, yet only a bit due to the size of the holes and my blood. What I did see was that the first mouse was already getting up and running back towards me and that the second mouse had small balls of dirt form next to it and flung at me. Yet I noticed that the balls forming was starting to get slower.

It seems that the other mouse learned from its mistakes and this time it ran to the left of me, I decided to try something not knowing if it was going to work or not. I raised one of my legs on the left side and waited.

The moment I saw the mouse get close to me, I moved my wing out the way and stabbed at the mouse, missing completely, digging into the compact dirt below.

But this caused the mouse to pause and skid to a stop. Not wishing to lose my opportunity, I chomped down even if one of my eyes suddenly went dark as one of the dirt balls impacted it.

I felt my teeth rip through the mouse and a snap sounded from it. The sweet taste of blood entered my mouth even if the dirty taste of its fur ruined the taste slightly. I lifted my head and the now dead mouse followed, patches of fur desperately clinging on. I had a feeling I couldn’t swallow something as big as this, so I released the dead mouse, yet it still hung onto my teeth, causing me to shake my head spraying the area with blood. Until finally it left my mouth, dropping down with a splat. I looked at the remaining mouse, finally noticing that there were no more dirt balls being flung at me.

The brown eyes of the mouse looked broken as it looked down on the dead mouse. Not wanting for the mouse to break out of its surprise, I ran at it. Something the mouse finally took notice of as it hurried backwards, it was panting now. As I was faster, it was a futile attempt to escape, it did shoot a few more dirt balls at me, but they missed spectacularly.

In a few moments, my leg pierced the body of the mouse and with one finally dirt ball and a squeak, I bit off its head, causing it to go limp.

The blue rectangle came back and congratulated me.

[Burrowing mouse] x2 has been defeated

Level up!

Level up!

You have fought 2 opponents and won while being poisoned and tired! Endurance +1.

I wished I could understand what leveling up does, maybe my [Status] changed, I’ll have to check once the sun rises. Also, poison? Isn’t that in the thing in the Bane Berries? Is it bad? Whatever, I’ll find out eventually.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

So, they need their head to continue living? Didn’t Jack kill that goblin by cutting its torso in half?

I mused as I ripped the second mouse into half swallowing one of the parts whole.

I felt slightly bad about all of this, I broke into their home and killed them, but from what I’ve seen, these creatures would do the same thing to me if I was weaker. Besides what other choice did I have?

I ate in silence, the meat tasted good, yet there was so little of it, mostly hard parts which sometimes scratched the roof of my mouth, fur was also a big part of the mouse, something that I forced myself to swallow so I would have every piece of meat.

It wasn’t long until I finished with both mice, I looked around the slightly bloody room, finding the side tunnel I continued. There might be more of these mice.

There wasn’t, the next room was darker and had no more of the glowing moss, but the light from the earlier room allowed me to see leaves and yellow grass piled up. It was more comfortable than the dirt, so I went into torpor there. My body felt sluggish and tired, and I had nothing else I wanted to do while the moon was up. I would’ve liked to go into torpor outside in the moon light, but that was dangerous, and the forest doesn’t allow a lot of light to go through.

----------------------------------------

I didn’t know when the sun was going to rise, so once I got out of torpor, I wasn’t surprised once I noticed that the sun had risen a long time ago. I was a little annoyed that I wasted time, but what could I have done differently?

Before I could do anything, I felt something going up my throat, I didn’t try to stop it as something told me not to. This did cause a disgusting ball of fur and white protrusions to appear in front of me. I was guessing that this was the fur of the mice, but I didn’t know what the white sharp things were.

I’d rather not know what they were.

Slightly traumatized by the sight, I forced myself to push the abomination of a ball down the hill, hoping I would never see it again.

Doing my best to ignore whatever just happened, I headed off to the creek to wash the blood off me, remarking trees along the way so they also pointed towards my new home. I was quite happy even though I got out of torpor late, I had found a safe place to live in, and I don’t have to worry about being in the open like back in the prairie.

My home was quite dirty with all the blood... but that’s a problem for future me as I had no way of cleaning off the blood.

This time I’ll assume that the cubs are going to be at the creek.

This time I’ll be more careful; I’ll be heavy after cleaning myself until I get rid of the water, though I hardly believe I could outrun them or trick them like I did with the Stalker.

I had quite a way to go, sadly I won't have much to do during the day as I am quite far away from the creek. I’ll spend most of my time trying to figure out my skills, and once the sun rises again, I’ll explore the surroundings of my new home.

I am doing better than I expected!

I happily trotted down the hill and past trees, some starting to have different colored leaves, such as yellow and orange.

Wait what?

That caused me to pause, I stared at the one or two odd yellow leaves among the greenery. They were in almost every tree. I had no idea what that meant so I simply used [Appraisal] on it.

Leaf A leaf from a dark oak.

The green leaf next to it had the same exact description, so I was confused. But it didn’t seem dangerous, so I kept trotting.

After a while, I reached the creek, there was some creature in the distance, but it was far away, so I decided it was safe to clean myself. The water was as cold as I remembered, and it took me a bit to settle into the water. The creek was shallow compared to the large body of water, but it would do. Maybe up the creek it was deeper, but that’s where the cubs could be.

I’d rather not risk it.

This time I kept an eye on the forest line, that white cub could come again to bother me again. That was hard to do when one of my eyes was blinded.

Thankfully, nothing came to bother me, and I was able to clean myself in peace. I quickly shook off any extra water that soaked up my fur and looked around.

Well, isn’t this annoying...

Having only one eye was annoying, but I guess I only have myself to blame. Since there was no creature other than the one down the creek, I used [Appraisal] on myself.

Name – Eclipse

Age – 13 days

Species – Insectoid

Sub-Species – Young Moonlight Moth

Level – 2/25

Stats:

[Strength – 3] [Endurance – 6↑] [Dexterity – 4] [Wisdom – 3] [Intelligence – 10]

[Unspent Points – 6↑]

Skills:

[Flight – Lv1] [Appraisal – Lv2↑] [Intimidation – Lv3] [Pain Resistance – Max] [Mental Fortitude – Max] [Translator – Max] [Starfall – Lv0] [Essence of the Moon – Lv0] [ Dodge – Lv1]

Titles:

[The Last of Your Species] [The Path Filled with Ruin] [Child of The Dark and The Light] [Pain is an Illusion] [The Unseen Has Been Seen] [Traveler of Dimensions] [Curiosity Killed The Cat, But Why?] [New Unorthodox Helper]

So only my [Unspent Points] went up from leveling up?

The only other thing that went up was my [Appraisal] skill, but I didn’t know what leveling it up did.

Oh wait! I should have access to more information, right? That’s what Silven said.

I had almost forgotten the first time I used [Appraisal] back in that alley with Silven.

I quickly used [Appraisal] on a pebble.

Pebble A pebble.

Am I doing something wrong? Oh yeah, Silven said something about organic beings having more information than a rock. I’ll have to try it on a Bane Berry once I start going back.

Now time to figure out what these ‘[Unspent Points]’ are.

I decided to stay beside the creek for now so the sun will warm me up, since it has been getting chillier these days.

I first tried mentally to command them, yet nothing happened.

Points... like the end of a spike?

I did have six legs and six [Unspent Points], but before it was five [Unspent Points] so that makes no sense.

Not knowing what else to do, I tried using [Appraisal] on it.

Huh?

[Unspent Points] Gained every other level up.

Both of my eyes opened wide, allowing me to finally notice the grainy feeling in my broken eye. Finally noticing it made it annoying and itchy, so before I did any more learning, I plunged my head into the water and shook my head rapidly with my eyes open.

After doing this two more times, the itchy feeling went away. Sadly, my eye still did not work. That didn’t bring my mood down at all as I used [Appraisal] on my [Stats].

[Strength] Measurement of physical abilities.

[Endurance] Measurement of health and stamina.

[Dexterity] Measurement of body reaction speed and control over body.

[Wisdom] Measurement of retaining memory and mana recharge rate.

[Intelligence] Measurement of quick thinking and mana storage.

Mana was a word I heard a lot when Alea described Spirits, and I did know what it was, or well the general idea of it. It was some sort of force that can be used by anybody, and most importantly, I can do beautiful things with it! If I ever figured out how to use it that is...

Anyways! Onto my [Skills]!

Ugh there's a lot... I’ll just use it on the ones I want to know more about.

As much as I would like to understand more about myself, I would have to leave some things out as I’ve been for longer than I wanted to, and that creature down the creek did not seem friendly.

[Starfall] Command the very stars themselves and use their power to cause devastation on your enemies.

[Essence of the Moon] Take some of the moon’s power for yourself and use it for your own purposes.

I decided that was enough for now, I had learned so much, yet my two [Skills] made no sense whatsoever, I’d have to experiment with how these [Skills] work later. I had an idea about [Essence of the Moon], but I’d have to put myself in danger to test it out, something I was not happy about.

I dismissed all the blue rectangles and noticed the white cub watching me from the tree line. I looked around for any of the black cubs. Seeing nothing I simply watched the white cub. I was starting to get used to this annoyance, but that didn’t mean I’ll go up to it. I was far too damaged to fight it again. Not knowing what to do, I simply backed up through the water until I was on the other side of the creek.

The water will at least slow you down.

Shortly afterwards, the white cub exited the forest line and moved farther upstream eyeing me the entire time. The area around its mouth was red with the areas close to it being pick. It looked similar to when I was covered in blood,so I was guessing it finally got something to eat.

I waited until it was far enough, but still close enough so I could see it eyeing me suspiciously. Then I trotted over the creek and back into the tree line, keeping my one eye on the cub, who started drinking the water.

It was time to go home.