The forest is terrifying at night.

During the day, there aren't many animals besides the deer(?), but as soon as it gets dark, everything comes out.

It's weird, you'd think it'd be the exact opposite, considering those terrifying wolves come out at night.

Those terrifying wolves that we are about to purposefully provoke…

This is a bad idea. This is a terrible idea. We are going to die.

Hooo, okay, just breathe. It'll be fine. Our traps are good. They'll fall for our traps.

Will they fall for our traps?

Damn it, I don't know.

I thought this was necessary, but now that I know we can level up without having to do anything as risky as this…

Wouldn't it be better to just stay inside our cave, slowly growing stronger?

Risking our lives like this… I don't like it.

Could I get Gloria to reconsider this if I asked her now?

Probably not…

I guess there's no choice.

[Fir!]

Ah, yeah, there's really no choice, because the wolves are right there, staring right at us.

Hm.

{Run!}

[A-ah… it's l-like last time. I can't m-move.]

{Give me control, I’ll do it!}

[Okay…]

I take off running as soon as I get control, the wolves right behind me.

We really should have tried to get some kind of speed increasing skill.

More fear tolerance, huh?

Yeah, I get it. I'm definitely completely terrified right now.

The wolves must have some kind of skill that inflicts a fear status effect or something like that.

That would explain why Gloria freezes up whenever we encounter the wolves.

But why can I move just fine?

Well, ‘just fine’ is a huge overstatement.

I’m barely managing to run away without tripping over my own feet.

But still, I can move and Gloria can't. That doesn't make much sense.

Ah, but I really shouldn't be distracting myself with these thoughts right now.

A wolf just lunged at me.

It missed me, but only barely. If I lose focus now, we’re dead.

Another wolf lunges, this time managing to bump me to the side, tripping me for a moment.

But only for a moment.

I manage to fix my footing before I wipe out completely, and continue sprinting full speed away from the wolves.

Halfway there.

If it were day, our cave would be visible from here.

Just a little further.

But the wolves are gaining on me. I can sense their footsteps right behind me.

I need to go faster.

My legs are screaming at me, but if I listen to them I'll be dead in an instant.

Just a little further.

The cave is right there. I think I'm going to make it!

But it seems someone beat me there.

On both sides of the cave, the piercing eyes of wolves stare at me.

But I can't let myself panic.

Even the slightest hesitation right now will mean my death.

They're probably expecting me to keep running as I am, so they'll probably pounce at me.

In that case, what I need to do is…

Jump!

The two wolves leap forward, but miss me as I sail over their heads, colliding with each other in the air.

Take that you stupid dogs!

But it's not over just yet.

I've made it into the cave, so now the real battle has begun.

I need to maneuver past our traps while trucking the wolves into stepping right into them.

Luckily, it seems this won't be as hard as I thought.

For some reason, I can faintly tell where the traps are, even in this pitch darkness.

Ah, must be that.

I dart through the cave, diving into our tunnel home without looking back.

This time, there's no moss covering the hole, so the wolves will definitely find us if they don't fall for the traps.

It all depends on the traps now.

I hear the sounds of a struggle from above.

It seems like one of the traps managed to work.

But the wolves will probably be more cautious now that they know about the traps, right?

I push my head against the dirt, feeling for the vibrations.

I feel dirt caving in. Another wolf in a trap.

And again. Looks like they aren't as careful as they thought.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Hold on, aren't they a little too stupid?

That's five wolves in traps now, and it hasn't even been that long.

I thought we’d get three wolves at most when we entered the cave, then two at most when they decided to leave.

But we’ve already caught five!

{Gloria! It's a huge success!}

[That's g-good.]

Seems she's still under the effects of the fear.

It's so odd that I'm not affected.

I wonder why?

Wow, level six already?

I'm a little tense, sure, but I wouldn't say I'm afraid right now.

Is it because Gloria's still suffering from the fear?

It must be really bad if it's causing us to level fear tolerance this fast.

I feel bad for her… but I won't complain about a convenient grinding method.

More vibrations.

Six wolves now.

The time between catches has increased a lot, but they're still falling for our traps.

I wonder how many wolves were even chasing us?

I'm definitely not going to peek my head out to check, nope, no way.

Things are going amazing right now, I don't want to test our luck.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

More vibrations.

Seven.

Now I feel footsteps.

Seems like they've lost enough to decide to retreat.

More vibrations.

Yep, as I thought, caught one as it was trying to leave.

That's eight now, right?

I didn't miscount, did I?

Because eight seems like… a lot.

It's not like I'm complaining, but it feels too easy.

It's been a while since the last vibrations now, it seems like we’re safe.

I peek my head out from our hole, and sure enough, eight patches of moss are missing, with holes in their place.

{We did it, Gloria. The wolves are gone now.}

[Mm, good.]

She seems better now, but she must still be feeling the fear because she's not as obnoxious as usual.

Now, let's go inspect our kills.

At least, I thought they'd be kills, but this wolf is still alive.

It's laying down at the bottom of the pit, every single spike stabbed through its body.

Yet, despite its sorry state, it's glaring at me fiercely.

Hey, buddy, you have like fifteen holes in your body right now, you really don't need to act like this.

I'm not gonna be scared of you.

Or will I? Suddenly, my legs are shaking, and I can't move a single muscle.

Is this the effect Gloria was under? Why is it affecting me now when it didn't before?

[Fir, I got this.]

{Ah, alright.}

I give Gloria control of the body, causing the shaking to subside.

Well, I didn't really give it to her. With the state I was in, I couldn't really give it to her, but instead just not resist as she took it.

Ah, wait, I think I figured it out.

The fear effect the wolves cause makes you freeze up completely, allowing them to kill you easily. But, it’s probably an activated skill with a decently long cooldown, so they can't just freeze every opponent like Medusa.

It'd be completely impossible to win if they could do that.

So, when they used it on us while Gloria was in control, she became unable to move. However, I was unaffected, which is why I could move just fine after taking over the body.

So, in other words, we’re only alive because of the jankiness of the wolves' strongest skill.

Well, the wolves’ skill isn't what's janky, it's us.

A monster definitely isn't meant to have more than a single soul inside, but we do.

[Fir, you aren't squeamish, are you?]

{Not particularly, no. Why?}

[I'm gonna finish this wolf off, and it probably won't be very pretty.]

{Oh, uh, go ahead. I'll be fine.}

[...you sure?]

{That's just because of the wolves’ fear ability.}

[If you say so.]

Gloria hops down into the hole, carefully avoiding the spikes.

The wolf snarls at us, and tries to stand up a little, but it can't because of the spikes stuck through its body.

Unphased, Gloria walks up to it and places a claw on its throat.

[Thank you. Rest now.]

She pushes down and moves the claw across the wolf's neck.

It closes its eyes as blood begins to drain from the cut, and its body relaxes.

…wow, I wasn't as ready as I thought. That was brutal, but… in such a calm way.

When she said she was going to finish it off, I expected it to be a much more barbaric sight, but…

It was like watching a skilled hunter finish off prey that was unlucky enough to survive the bullet.

As expected, a level up.

Now that I think about it, if each wolf gives us one level, won't we reach level ten?

Gloria jumps out of the hole, then jumps right into another.

Repeating the same process as with the other wolf, she quickly kills it.

…No level up this time.

I guess I was greedy to expect a level from each wolf.

But we must be pretty close, at the very least.

Gloria jumps out again, and back into a new hole.

She kills the wolf, then jumps back out.

She looks into the next hole, but the wolf in this one is already dead. Looks like it bled out before we could get to it.

The wolf in the next hole is alive, so Gloria quickly dispatches it.

No level up?

If the wolf that bled out had given us XP, killing this wolf definitely would have given us a level up, right?

So we have to kill an enemy ourselves to get the XP? That sucks…

Traps are our entire strategy, yet they're so inefficient for XP.

Next hole, dead wolf.

More lost XP.

Second to last hole, aaaaand…

Dead wolf. Damn it.

The last one better be alive. I'm going to be really upset if all we get from this is two levels.

Luckily, it is.

Gloria kills it quickly, and with that, our wolf hunt is over.

Nice! Level five!

It's less than I expected, but three levels is still a lot.

Oh! A title!

I expected they’d exist, but I didn’t think we’d get one so early!

Oh? Oooooh?

Evolution! Finally!

[Hey, Fir! That’s the thing you told me about, right?]

{Yep!}

[So we can finally turn into something that isn’t a gross mole thing?]

{Probably!}

[Nice! Let’s do it!]

{Agreed!}

* Lesser cavern beast

* Spined cavern pest>

{Alright, let’s think about thi-}

[Spined cavern pest it is!]

Beginning evolution>

{Wait! No!}

My mind goes empty as I feel myself begin to pass out.

Damn it…

Hrk…

My head is killing me…

{Gloria?}

[Hm?]

Looks like she got up before me.

{Did it work? Did we evolve?}

[Yep! Check it out!]

She turns our head as far back as it can go, looking at our back.

The thin, bristly hair that used to cover most of our body has been replaced by thick spines, like that of a hedgehog.

{So, why did you choose this over the other option?}

[Cause that one had lesser in the name, and that sounded bad.]

{...seriously?}

[Yeah?]

Ugh. Lesser doesn’t mean it’s bad…

{Gloria… Lesser just means it can evolve further. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s weak.}

[Is that so? Oh well, nothing we can do about it now!]

Ugggh. I guess she's right, but still!

{Just don't do that again please.}

[Uh huh. Anyway, time to taste the fruits of our labor!]

Fruits of our labor?

Gloria hops down into one of the holes, and approaches the body of the wolf.

No, she doesn't mean…

[Time to eat!]

No, no way! Spare me!

Gloria opens our mouth wide and takes a large bite of the wolf, struggling to tear off the large chunk.

{What are you doing!?}

[Having something to eat, of course.]

{Why a wolf corpse!?}

[Because I'm sick of eating that shitty moss.]

{You really think raw wolf meat will be any better?!}

[I don't know if it'll be better, but at least it'll be different!]

{What if it's dangerous?!}

[We’ll be fine!]

She finally manages to tear off the chunk of meat, quickly scarfing it down.

I'm gonna be sick…

[Delicious!]

{Stop lying!}

[Better than the moss!]

{No it was not!}

[So, what's on the agenda for today, Fir?]

{Are you just going to ignore everything I say?!}

[Do you want me to eat more?]

{No! I'm sorry, please don't!}

[So, what are we doing today, Fir?}

{I guess… explore? We don't have much else to do.}

[Sounds good to me! Let's head into the dark area where the wolves come from.]

{Are you crazy?!}

{Gloria, I don't like this. Let's go home.}

[No way! I wanna go on an adventure!]

{Let's go on an adventure somewhere else!}

We stand before the threshold between the bright, sparse woods we’re used to and the dark, unknown woods the wolves come from.

I tried to talk Gloria out of coming here, but it didn't work.

She's determined to go in, no matter what.

But we definitely shouldn't, right?

We might have evolved, but we’re no stronger than before.

We’re still dead if we encounter any wolves.

But Gloria refuses to back down.

There's no way for me to get out of this, so I guess I'll just do my best to keep us alive…

Gloria steps into the dark shadows of the deep woods slowly.

Then she breaks out into a sprint.

{What the hell are you doing?! You're going to get us killed!}

[Says who?]

{Me!}

[Nuh uh!]

{Yes! You are! You're making so much noise, we need to be quiet!}

[We're fiiiiine!]

{We are not! Stop!}

Gloria suddenly comes to a complete stop.

{Thank you!}

[I didn't stop because of you, idiot. Look.]

Right in front of us, there's a crack in the ground that extends outward, becoming a giant chasm.

[Let's go in!]

{What? No! Are you stu-}

As I'm talking, I notice a strange glow coming from the distance.

[Am I what?]

{Nevermind that, look over there. Do you see that?}

[Over where? See what?]

{Beside the big hole, that light.}

[Oh yeah, I see it! Let's check it out!]

{Slowly, please. It could be dangerous.}

[Fine.]

Gloria walks in the direction of the light.

We crawl past bushes and large trees, finally reaching a small crack in the stone cavern walls, which a light gray, perfectly ovular stone sticks out of.

Glowing white symbols flutter across the surface of the stone. They appear to be some sort of language.

[Cool! Think we could roll it home?]

{We shouldn’t touch it. It could be dangerous.}

[Bah! You’re too cautious, I’m gonna touch it!}

I knew that would happen, why did I even try?

Gloria runs up to the stone and slowly reaches out to it.

{Just touch it if you’re gonna touch it! Don’t be so slow!}

As soon as Gloria lays our hand on the stone, the symbols fade away, and the stone begins to hum.

{Run!}

[I can’t move!]

{Let me try!}

I take control of the body, but I’m unable to move too.

{Shit!}

A sharp pain shoots through my head, and we’re launched backwards as a blinding light flashes from the stone.

[{Gah!}]