I burst through the jungle foliage, my black hair flattened against my head from sweat and humidity. My long-time familiar, a high treehopper named Treepo, was a reddish blur at my feet as he dodged and weaved through the plants, keeping pace. I had completely lost sight of my other familiar, a flying nodmouse named Gregory, but he was probably curled up in some tree, a sleeping blue fluffball, the picture of nonchalance.
At our backs, the black behemoth roared, and my bright blue eyes widened in worry. I created an illusory clone with 5-point magic, and sent it screaming off to the right while cloaking myself with invisibility before I peeled off to the left. Hopefully, whatever this beast was, it didn’t hunt exclusively by scent.
That seemed to be the case and it veered off after the illusion, hooking branches and trunks with its claws and swinging itself forward, a natural at movement through this environment. I slowed down, caught my breath, and considered next steps. If the illusion didn’t work, I planned to escape to the nearby beach and the ocean, making a big assumption that it couldn’t swim as well as it could swing.
Treepo sidled up next to me, panting heavily. I masked him with my invisibility spell as well, and ensconced us, slightly belatedly, in a cone of magical silence. I hadn’t thought to do that when we were first attacked, too surprised at seeing the massive beast stripping the skillfruit tree of branches and consuming the leaves and bark.
I turned and crept back, carefully, to try and get eyes on our pursuer. The large, shaggy, black-furred beast was standing up amidst a sea of destruction, some branches still stuck in the huge hooked claws. It had clearly tried to attack the illusion, making a mess of the area, and with the illusion dispelled was visibly confused. It grunted angrily as its head whipped back and forth, surveying the mess of destroyed jungle.
I summoned a couple of blades of stone from my inventory and used 4-point magic to float them towards the beast from the rear. With a hefty expenditure of my MP, I rammed the stone knives into the back of the knees of the beast. It roared out in pain and stumbled backward, landing on its behind.
A massive stone mallet appeared in my hand as I pulled it from my inventory and I whipped it at the left side of the beast’s head with as much force as I could muster, with a little extra force from some earth magic as a bonus. The stone smashed into the beast’s skull, ruining the ear on that side of its head, and likely delivering a nasty headache should the beast survive. My intention was to not let that happen.
The beast slumped a bit to its right after taking the blow, but started to shake it off almost immediately with a bellow. It tried to get back to its feet and turned to face the direction the blow came from. I had already discarded the mallet, which had cracked from the blow, and was circling in the opposite direction, taking stock of the situation and trying to identify some weakness I could exploit.
I was a bit surprised at how well the beast was still moving after taking all that damage. It was definitely a cut above the beasts I usually faced in this area. I assumed that it, like the mysterious dungeon that I had recently defeated, was Rank D. The dungeon had unnaturally augmented the lesser beasts within into a twisted evolved form and strength level. This beast was the first I had seen of that same strength naturally while out in the Mirut jungle.
We were far enough from the walls of Mirut, the sleepy port town that was my home after I reincarnated in this world, that I could try using a fire attack with my 4-point magic. Normally I wouldn’t risk attracting the attention of the town guard. After all, I was only an eight-and-a-half year old child who had snuck out of town in the first place. I was definitely not supposed to be out there. There was also the risk of starting a jungle fire, though everything was so damp here that I doubted it would get out of hand before I could get it under control.
The bigger issue with regards to the wetness was the heavy coat of the beast. I didn’t think it would ignite properly and wasn’t sure how much MP I would have to pour into the spell in order to do enough damage.
I was thinking through my options when the beast slapped at a tree in rage, splintering the wood and sending pieces flying everywhere. A chunk of wood shot through the air and jammed into my thigh. I clenched my teeth and hissed at the pain, and immediately reached down to rip the wood back out of my body. It must have hit my femoral artery because blood was pouring out of my leg. If I hadn’t illegally acquired 6-point magic to heal myself, I might have been in trouble, but I quickly healed the injury and looked up to see the beast had locked on to me.
Not knowing if it was the scent of blood or the use of healing magic which attracted the beast’s attention, I cast a bright light at its eyes with 5-point magic, one of the aspects of sensory magic that I had used to create my illusion, but this time in an attempt to temporarily blind the creature. I moved away from my blood spill and made sure I was still invisible to creep forward.
The beast had reached up to its face, rubbing its eyes with the back of its claws. I yanked my short sword from its sheath on my belt–really just a large bowie knife, but it was a short sword to a child my size–and pressed forward, waiting for the right moment. When it turned slightly and while its guard was down, I dashed forward and jammed my knife into the beast’s neck, ripping it out savagely and leaping back with my acrobatics skill.
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The beast hollered once more, swinging a clawed limb through the air where I had just been standing. Blood was pouring out of its neck wound, so it was just a matter of time before I had this battle won. I just had to avoid detection until it bled out. The beast was swinging wildly, eyes panicked from the blood pouring out of its body. A huge claw came hurtling in my direction.
I’ve been practicing new tactics, and employed one now, leveraging the solidity aspect of a 5-point magic circle: a simple plane barrier. An invisible square of focused energy reflected the claw and sent the glancing blow away as I retreated further from the beast to avoid the flailing limbs. I heard a crack and looked down at my belt where I stored magically shaped stone discs which held my magic circles. The blow had ruined one of my 5-point magic circles, the amount of magic that was necessary to maintain the barrier overwhelming the cheap magical focal point. Lamenting that I didn't have a magic circle better equipped to handle this—bigger, or made of a stronger element like metal—I tossed the ruined one back into my inventory and slotted one of my extras in its place.
The beast staggered, finally running out of blood, a massive pool of red staining the jungle ground. It collapsed, and I watched it heave a final breath. I sighed as the danger passed, cleaning my blade and sheathing it, stepping forward to take a closer look. If I had to compare the beast to something from Earth, something I tended to do since I was reincarnated here, it was like a giant sloth crossed with a gorilla and a bear. I touched the corpse of the creature with my hand and dropped it into my inventory. Once stored, my appraisal skill named it a “shagloth.”
I had never seen one before, let alone kill one, and a beast that strong should have earned me a lot of experience. I opened up my profile and was pleasantly surprised to see that the battle was enough to push me up to the next level.
Pilus Horgson (Lv 14)
HP: 133/152
MP: 54/185
Status: Absorption, Protection
EXP: 68/1400
Skills: 4-Point Magic(+), 5-Point Magic(+), 6-Point Magic(+), Acrobatics, Appraisal(+), Brewing, Butchery, Cooking, Detect, Inventory(+), Literacy, Map, Needlework, Negotiation, One-Armed(+), Ranged, Stealth, Taming(+), Tanning, Telepathy, Two-Armed, Unarmed
Familiars: High Treehopper (Lv 10), Flying Nodmouse (Lv 10)
Leveling up earned me 14 new skill points with which to increase my skills. I pulled up my skill menu to go over my progress so far.
SP: 14
+ 4-Point Magic (0/100)
+ 5-Point Magic (0/100)
+ 6-Point Magic (0/100)
+ Acrobatics (2/10)
+ Appraisal (0/100)
+ Brewing (0/10)
+ Butchery (0/10)
+ Cooking (0/10)
+ Detect (8/10)
+ Inventory (0/100)
+ Literacy (0/10)
+ Map (0/10)
+ Needlework (0/10)
+ Negotiation (0/10)
+ One-Armed (0/100)
+ Ranged (0/10)
+ Stealth (2/10)
+ Taming (0/100)
+ Tanning (0/10)
+ Telepathy (0/10)
+ Two-Armed (0/10)
+ Unarmed (1/10)
I immediately dropped 2 SP into Detect like I had promised myself after the loss I faced in the dungeon, advancing Detect to Detect(+). After a moment of consideration, I put 8 SP into Acrobatics to advance that skill as well. I still hadn’t come to a decision on how I wanted to use the rest of the points, so I dismissed the menus for the moment and decided to come back to it later.
I made my way back along the path of destruction the shagloth left through the jungle and found the ruined skillfruit tree. When my familiars and I returned to the jungle after defeating the dungeon, we discovered a mysterious tree that had grown up in its place overnight, soaking up the remnants of magic in the earth and laden with mysterious fruits that seemed incredibly valuable, which my appraisal skill named “skillfruit.” We collected all the skillfruit for further study, and had returned to see if the tree had yielded more.
That’s when we encountered the beast, consuming what it could of the tree. Perhaps it assumed we were the ones to take its fruit, which happened to be true, as it were.
If we hadn’t been there and been attacked, there was no doubt that the tree would ultimately have been entirely destroyed or consumed by this creature. That would explain why I had never seen similar trees in the jungle and why I had never encountered this particular fruit. If the scent of the skillfruit tree is what attracted the shagloth, lured it from deeper in the jungle, that would also explain why I had never encountered one of those, either.
So much for a second harvest, I thought to myself. Treepo examined the damaged tree, taking a bite from a piece of bark to see what the shagloth had been so keen on and then spitting it out, making a face. I felt a weight land on my shoulder and turned to find Gregory sitting there.
“Thanks for the assist,” I told the small blue beast. Gregory yawned in response.
I shook my head at the silly, sleepy creature and surveyed the damage around me. There was nothing left here but a mess. I walked over to the toppled pile of stone and restacked the cairn, the stone with the name “BIRDO” carved into it placed at the top. Though I had conquered the dungeon with the aid of my familiars, it had not been without losses and hard lessons.
Taking one more look at the ruined skillfruit tree, I turned to start the long walk home.