Day… four? I don't know, I haven't been keeping track. Probably four.

We spent the rest of yesterday training until we were too tired to do anything else.

We woke up early this morning and had a delicious breakfast consisting of moss, and some water from the waterfall.

I think drinking from the waterfall should be fine, right?

It looks pretty clear, and it's moving water. That's a good thing, right?

Whatever. Even if it's dangerous, we probably won't die.

We might even get some kind of virus resistance skill if we’re lucky.

I'd rather there just be nothing in the water though.

Even if some bad water won't kill us, it probably won't end well for our bowels, and I don't want to experience that kind of thing without any of the modern hygienic luxuries I'm used to.

That kind of thing is bad enough with a toilet, toilet paper, and a nice hot shower afterwards.

I think I'd rather drop dead here and now than have anything like that happen to me.

No, us.

Gloria is here too, so it’d be even worse.

Seriously, talk about embarrassing!

Ahem, where was I?

Gloria has already begun digging, so I should get to work on soul manipulation training.

I focus.

My soul comes into view.

First, let's try freezing the center again…

I calm myself, gently manipulating the currents of my soul, bringing the center to a complete stop.

It begins to solidify slowly, but faster than before.

That level increase really helped. The speed is visibly faster than before!

I wonder if I can manipulate the shape a bit more now?

I change my focus to the surface of the liquid.

It ripples, its form changing slightly, but barely noticeable.

Damn, still not great.

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way?

Alright, let's think about this.

The current form of my soul is a weird blob.

The goal is to make it a sphere.

With a high enough level of soul manipulation, I'm sure it's possible to brute force it, but that will take a while.

Hmm…

Suddenly, a quote from a certain series I used to enjoy popped into my mind.

‘everything is circular if it spins’...

That's it!

If I spin it, won't it naturally turn into a sphere?

I must be a genius!

Let's do it!

Hastily, I begin to rotate it.

It’s slow. The movement is barely visible.

But it's speeding up.

Hah! Light work!

Let's make this a bit tougher!

I concentrate.

The center of the mass begins to freeze and solidify.

By this point, the shape of it has begun to be affected by the rotation.

It keeps speeding up.

The ice grows larger.

The pulsing cyan light coming from the ice pulses faster, like an increasingly fast heartbeat.

This isn't too bad!

The surface begins to ripple rhythmically.

The ripples and the pulsing light are almost hypnotizing.

Nice!

Now, I should brag to Gloria, since she hasn’t-

Nevermind.

[Fir! I did it!]

{Good job!}

[Now, let's kill those wolves!]

Ah, right, I did agree to that.

Sigh.

{First of all, we need to find sharp objects to put at the bottom of our trap holes. We should be able to sharpen ordinary sticks pretty easily.}

[Got it, step one, collect sticks!]

Gloria excitedly exits the hole, which has now become a tiny, cozy den.

[How many sticks do we need?]

{I don't know. Just get as many as you can carry.}

[Got it!]

She’s so excited.

I wish I could be excited about this, but I’m worried more than anything.

What if the wolves don’t fall for our traps? What if they get lucky and don’t step on any of the traps?

So much could go wrong.

And if anything goes wrong, it’s game over.

We die.

Living as a monster has sucked so far, but I don’t think I wanna die just yet.

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

I at least want to survive until we can find out if humans exist in this world.

And then, I want to find out if we can evolve like I think we can.

Then, assuming we found out the answers to both previous questions was ‘yes’, I want to find out if we can evolve into a form that allows us to integrate into human society.

But I think I’m starting to get ahead of myself. None of that can happen if we die when the wolves come tonight.

So I need to make sure we survive.

How can I do that?

I can’t think of anything to do in this scenario except set up the traps and hope they work.

I guess the most I can do is plan the traps out, to make sure they have the highest possible chances of working.

So, the traps.

At the most basic level, they’re going to be holes with sharp stuff at the bottom.

Wolf falls in, wolf gets stabbed, wolf dies.

But it’s not that simple in reality.

The traps need something covering the top. If they don’t have any kind of covering, the wolves will be able to avoid falling in just by looking.

But the covering can’t be too stiff, or wolves will be able to walk on top of the holes.

So, what should we cover the holes with?

Leaves might be a bit too suspicious. I don’t know how smart the wolves are and it’s better to be safe than sorry, so it’s definitely a no to leaves.

Wood? Even more suspicious.

Apart from that… Moss?

We have a pretty good supply of moss. Turns out the stuff grows pretty fast, so we basically have an unlimited supply of it.

And that just adds to the moss’ camouflage ability.

Since there’s so much moss in our cave, the holes, when covered by moss, won’t look any different from the other patches of moss in the cave.

Moss is also a good material in terms of its ability to stay solid until we need it to collapse, like when the wolves step on it.

So, moss it is.

Now, what about the spikes?

Gloria is collecting sticks right now, so we’ll use those, but I feel like using another type of object wouldn’t be a bad idea.

A backup plan, in case the sticks fail.

So, what else could work?

Rocks? No, rocks seem obvious, but they vary too much in shape and size to be used effectively. We can’t shape them ourselves either. Not yet, anyway.

I’m sure we’ll be able to one day.

If not rocks, then what else is there?

[Fir, look!]

In front of us is a herd of the deer-like monsters we saw when we first found the forest.

Now that I have a closer look at them, they’re not all that like deer aside from their general body shape and their antlers.

Their faces are tall and flat, their mouths covered by a thick flap of pale skin.

The upper part of their faces are bony, their eyes sunk deep into their head.

They’re scary!

But this gives me an idea.

Deer antlers.

Well, ‘deer’ antlers. I don’t know what they are, really. They definitely are not deer.

Their antlers seem decently sharp as they are, so they’d be the perfect spikes for our traps.

So how do we get the antlers?

I know that back on earth, at least some species of deer shed their antlers every once in a while.

But again, these aren’t deer.

But it’s probably worth a shot.

{Gloria! Approach those… Things!}

[Why?]

{Their antlers. They’d be perfect spikes for our traps.}

[We’re gonna fight them?]

{No no no! We’re gonna look for any antlers that they shed off!}

[That’s stupid.]

{Huh? No it isn’t!}

[Yes, it is. Even if they do shed their antlers, they probably don’t do it very often. We probably won’t find enough to be used, if we find any at all.]

Damn it, she’s right.

Is there anything else we could use?

I can’t think of anything…

I guess I’m just going to have to put my faith in sticks.

{Alright… Let’s head back soon. We need to give ourselves time to set up the traps.}

[Gotcha.]

We re-enter our cave, holding as many sticks as we can with every part of our body we can use.

We probably have around half the day left, if I’ve been keeping track of time accurately.

{Time to set up the traps.}

[Right.]

Gloria begins digging a hole near the entrance of the cave.

{Do you remember how big the wolves are? We need to make sure the holes will fit them.}

[More or less.]

It takes Gloria around ten minutes to dig the hole to what I hope is a sufficient depth.

Good, at this rate we’ll have more than enough time.

Now, stick sharpening time.

Gloria fumbles with the stick, trying to hold it in a way that will allow her to keep it in place with one hand and sharpen it with the other.

[Argh! This is hard!]

Maybe we won’t have more than enough time…

[I really wish we had actual hands instead of these stupid claws.]

{Maybe one day.}

[Hm? What do you mean?]

{Oh, did I forget to tell you?}

[Tell me what?]

{Evolution.}

[What about it?]

{Not the kind you’re thinking of. The word ‘evolution’ means something different when it comes to monsters like us. The way it usually works is, and as I’ve said before, this is just a guess, we’ll be able to change into a stronger monster if we reach a certain level.}

[Level?]

Ugh, this is impossible. Why did I have to get stuck with someone who doesn’t know the most basic of the basics?

Seriously, It’s impossible to explain this stuff to someone who has absolutely zero prior knowledge!

{Levels are like… hm… a representation of your strength, I guess?}

Not the best explanation, but it’ll work for now.

I don’t even know if the concept of levels exists in this world.

{We’re probably level one right now, but we might be able to increase it by killing the wolves.}

I don’t think it’s worth even trying to explain XP to her. If levels exist, she’ll naturally figure it out. If they don’t, she won’t need to figure it out.

[I don’t really get it, but you’re saying we won’t be stuck in this body forever, right?]

{Yeah, pretty much, but it will probably take a while.}

[I don’t care how long it takes, I just don’t wanna be this gross mole thing anymore! By the way, I finished sharpening all the sticks for the first trap while you were talking.]

{Oh, good job. Let’s put them in and cover it up.}

[You got it!]

Gloria places the sticks in small holes she made at the bottom of the trap, then stuffs dirt into the gaps to secure them.

{Be careful jumping out, it probably wouldn’t be good if we fell into our own trap.}

[I won’t fall, I’m not stupid.]

{Just making sure, it wouldn’t be the first time you fell into a hole by accident…}

[Shut up about that already! We wouldn’t have found this forest if I didn’t fall in that hole, so you should actually be thanking me!]

Yeah, no.

{Whatever. Just quickly cover up the trap with some moss, we don’t have time to argue.}

[Fine…]

Gloria carefully lays a flat piece of moss over the top of the hole, covering the sides with a little dirt to stop it from falling in.

{Now we just need to do all that like seven more times.}

[Ugh.]

{I’m sure you’ve got this, so I’m gonna practice soul manipulation for a while.}

[Do whatever you want.]

[Fir, It’s done.]

{Good job! How’s it looking outside?}

[It’s just now starting to get dark.]

{Very good. Let’s eat a little moss and then head out immediately.}

It’s time.

We aren’t sure if the wolves will come looking for us on their own or not, so we’ve decided to find them and lure them back home.

This is going to be incredibly dangerous.

Last time we got chased by them, we almo-

Huh?

{Gloria, what did you do?}

[I didn’t do anything, what did you do?]

{I didn’t do anything either!}

[All I did was eat some moss!]

{Hm… Well, that explains the health regeneration, since that moss does taste like medicine, but what about the level up?}

I guess this confirms levels exist.

But why did we gain one now?

In most monster reincarnation stories that I know of, levels are gained by killing other monsters.

Are there bugs living in the moss?

{Gloria, check the moss for bugs.}

[There aren’t any bugs in the moss, why would you think that?]

{It’s the only thing I could think of.}

So, if we didn’t kill anything to gain that level… We leveled up by eating moss?

That makes the most sense out of everything I can think of.

We gained the level at the same time we got health regeneration. That makes it seem like we got them from the same thing.

So, we don’t have to kill anything to level up?

That seems… too easy.

No way it’d be that simple.

The XP gains from doing stuff like eating moss is probably abysmal compared to the XP gained from killing monsters.

But… It’s still good to know that, if worse comes to worst, we don’t need to fight to level up.

[Fir, It’s getting dark. We should go.]

{Yeah, got it. Let’s go.}

Whatever. I’ll think about that later. We have wolves to kill.