{Stay on your toes, it might come after us next.}

Whatever it is.

We could run, but it’s definitely faster than us, judging by how quickly those Mushles disappear.

How can we get out of this? Fighting head on isn’t an option, since it’s too fast to see, let alone fight.

Magic… No, none of our spells are useful for this.

I could use soul control to block its attacks for at least one attack, but I don’t know how strong it is, so it’s too dangerous. It could end up knocking me back into a coma like before, or even worse.

Gah! Think, think! There has to be a way out of this.

I just need… to think…

I’ll check our skills. There might be something I’m forgetting, like when we forgot about artistry for a while.

No… Shit! Nothing here would help!

If we could just see it, we’d at least be able to try to dodge it.

But there’s no way for us to see it right now, it’s too dark, even with enhanced eyesight and dark sight.

Wait, no. I have an idea.

It’s just…

Very risky.

But it’s the only thing I can think of at this point.

Damn it.

I begin gathering mana, pushing it towards our head in a hurry. As it funnels in, I start constructing the level one black magic spell, soul sight, within our eyes.

This is the only way. It drains mana unbelievably fast, but it will let us see whatever’s attacking us.

Now, no more hiding!

Blue lights appear within the Mushles that frantically run around us, glowing brightly.

Where are you…

I look around in every direction, desperately searching for a light in the dark.

Finally, my eyes land on something.

There you are.

Now, we just have to watch carefully, and-

With a flash, the light vanishes from my sight, and another Mushle disappears.

Well, that failed fast.

Let’s not waste any time and move straight to plan B.

That being, run away as fast as our little legs can carry us.

As we leave the area, I can hear the sounds of whatever that thing is killing the Mushles.

Hopefully, we can just quietly make our way far far away, and it won’t follow us.

But of course we wouldn’t get that lucky.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I assume it finished off all the Mushles, and decided to follow our trail.

Damn it. We really need to invest some time into leveling camouflage and stealth.

If we get out of this alive, that is.

Right now, we’re just walking slowly, pretending not to notice it. Now that it’s actually targeting us, I can vaguely tell which direction it’s in. At least, I think I can?

I’m not too sure, danger sense is a weird skill.

Regardless, it’s stalking us, watching our every movement. I’m certain that if we do anything out of the ordinary, it won’t be so passive anymore.

Maybe it’s curious about us, since there aren’t any other monsters like us around here?

It’s fine by me if it keeps this up, it’s giving us time to think of a plan. That’s not going great though.

A bit of extra time doesn’t really help against something so overwhelmingly fast.

But there has to be away. We can’t die here, not after all we’ve done.

If we were going to die so pointlessly, I would have rather just died during that huge fall our first day(?) in this world. What’s the point in lasting this long to simply die without accomplishing anything?

I just need to think a little harder! I’m sure a perfect plan is right on the tip of my tongue!

But it’s hard to plan with so little information. We know nothing about this thing other than the fact that it’s impossibly fast.

If we could just get a look at it, maybe I could get some useful information from appraising it.

But again, I only know the vague direction it’s in, there’s no way for me to look directly at it.

...Except, there is. How could I forget?!

Soul sight may not help us track it thanks to its stupid speed, but if all we need to do is look in its direction for a second or two, its more than enough.

We just need to do it without it getting suspicious.

{Gloria, act natural. Keep walking, don’t even think about doing anything else.}

[Why? Did you come up with something?]

{Yeah. Just keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll get us out of this.}

In times like this, it’s great to have Gloria. The amount of focus required to cast magic is too much to do anything else, even just walking forward.

Without Gloria, I’d have to completely stop in my tracks to cast soul sight, which would obviously raise some suspicion in our stalker’s head.

But thanks to her… it’s done, and our fast friend is none the wiser.

{I activated soul sight. Look around for it’s soul, but don’t make it obvious.}

[Gotcha.]

Now, we wait. And as soon as we catch a glimpse of that thing…

Appraisal!

Ah, shit. Those stats are scary.

But that’s not what I appraised it for.

Let’s find out a little more about our stalker here.

That… was more clear-cut than I expected. So we just need to be in light and it won’t attack us?

In that case, what we need to do is completely clear now.

I dispel the soul sight spell, and immediately begin working on another one. This time, the level one basic magic spell, mana light.

We don’t have much mana left, thanks to soul sight, but mana light doesn’t drain it nearly as fast, so we should be fine.

After just a few seconds of focus, a ball of glowing mana appears above us.

What will you do now, Mr stalker? No matter what, we’re not gonna stick around to find out.

This whole time, we’ve been slowly walking towards our burrow. If we had tried to escape into it before, it surely would have killed us before we could make it in. But with this light, it will be completely helpless as we slip away into our home, which it’s definitely too big to fit in.

I wasn’t completely sure before, but appraisal said it’s a big cat, so I’m like ninety nine percent sure it won’t fit inside.

Basically, it’s our win.

I have a feeling my heart’s not going to calm down until we’re back home though.

The moment we step into the safety of our burrow, I dispel the mana light, and we collapse to the ground.

I don’t think we’ll be able to move for a while. The adrenaline was all that was keeping us moving back there.

But, we made it! We lived!

We… almost didn’t.

One wrong step, and that easily could have been our end.

If we want to continue to live, we need to learn from this, and improve.

Against enemies like that, fighting is useless, so training our strength is therefore also pointless.

We won- no, lived because of information.

So, if we want to keep living, we need to improve our information gathering abilities. But not just by leveling our existing skills, we need to get some new ones as well.

I think I have an idea, but I don’t know how long it’ll take, and while I’m doing it, I won’t be able to do anything else. Gloria’s going to have to take over for a while.

If this works, we’ll be much better off against any type of threat. If it doesn’t… oh well, we tried.

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

Fir suddenly said he’s gonna be working on something, and I have to take over the stuff he usually does.

I asked if it was just cause he’s a scaredy cat, and he said that’s not the case, but I don’t think I believe him…

Well, whatever!

Scaredy cat or not, I can handle myself!

Apparently, I also can’t talk to him while he’s busy unless I reeeeally need help.

But that’s also fine! I’ll show Fir how great I really am!

I’ll kick those monster’s asses, all on my own!

Not today though, sleep comes first.