A sudden breeze made me shiver almost as much as the noise of the untamed river rushing down the valley. Even then, there was another sound I was so used to hearing that now seemed oddly missing—Frie!

  I spotted the otter surprisingly close to me, sitting frozen in an even more surprising silence. Frie’s empty eyes stared at nothing as if she wasn’t all there.

  Had something happened while I met with that white fox? Is this really her? Maybe—

  [Frie, Level 0]

  [A pitiful, unheroic creature. The ideal minion for a new demon lord.]

  Well, it’s still her. Did this appear because of that ‘God Sight’ I acquired? But the second part sounds kind of ominous… “Um, Frie?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  Only after I called out her name a few more times did she finally begin to stir. “Everything is a lie,” she mumbled. “Nothing feels real. I just saw a beaver transform into a demi-human… I-I probably just forgot to take my meds. Yeah, that’s it.” Frie gnced around. “Beaver, where are you? Can you find them for me? I think I left them… in the drawer by my phone…”

  Oh, dear. I think Frie’s mind might have gone somewhere farther away than I did. “Frie, it’s me. I’m here.”

  Her eyes grew wider the longer she stared at me. “Beaver ears… Beaver ears…?” She screamed. “Beaver, what did you just—what is happening, and why are you naked?!”

  “I’m still not really sure what’s happening, either.” I stared down at the bare skin of my new, furless body. “It’s getting rather chilly in the wind like this. I’m starting to wish I had warm fur covering me again.”

  “Beaver, no!” Frie cried. “I won’t let you turn into a furry!”

  “I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

  “Nevermind. So… this means you must have gotten magic or something, right?” she asked. “Do animals in this world gain experience points? Did you level up a bunch after flooding that vilge and get an overpowered css? Were the humans down there evil so you stole my spotlight as the hero!?”

  [Bober Kurwa, Level 1 Demon Lord]

  I gulped. “I don’t think so. Actually, it’s probably the opposite. It looks like I evolved because I’m the next demon lord.”

  When the realization hit her, the otter jumped back. “No…! I should have expected a betrayal like this. After all this time, the demon lord I was sent here to defeat was YOU?”

  …

  Frie defted. “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Hey, I don’t know what I’d do without you! And as a matter of fact, I think that maybe you wouldn’t know what to do without me!” She cautiously approached me again. “So let’s forget about that for now and take this one step at a time. Like, literally. Do you know how to stand up?”

  Up…? Oh, like the other giants I’ve seen: on two legs. Slowly, I began pushing from below with my hands while rising up on my feet. Each moment I rose higher made the ground look so much smaller and farther away—an unfamiliar sensation that almost made me dizzy. When my fingertips left the ground, I stumbled around for a few steps before managing to steady myself with both outstretched arms and my tail. “I did it! Maybe that’s why I kept my tail. How do the others keep their bance without one?”

  Frie shrugged. “Sometimes, they don’t… Don’t worry about it. Okay, step two: it looks like you’re part-human now, and humans have to make their own fur. Otherwise they’ll die in the cold.”

  “That sounds inconvenient.”

  “I can tell you all about the design fws of homo sapiens ter. The thing is, you might st for days without water and weeks without food, but hypothermia will finish you off faster than either! If this was a survival game, this would be the part where you’d have to run around picking up leaves and twigs off the ground so you don’t freeze to death… but since you got an evolution, you’ve got to have a better way! Have you seen any more of those words yet? Ask me anything about them. Trust me, I’m like an expert at this stuff!”

  [Skills: Dendrokinesis Rank 1, Poison Resistance Rank 1]

  “Okay then,” I said. “Do you know what ‘Dendrokinesis’ means?”

  “Oh, I know this one! It means, uh… Trees doing stuff.”

  I blinked at her. “Trees doing stuff.”

  “Look, I never said I was a botanical physicist, okay?! I don’t even know if that’s a thing! But it sounds like you got a type of magic for something that you’re used to. Maybe it will come naturally to you!”

  Hmm…

  Now that I was finally standing up on two legs, I could see so much more than I ever could down on all fours. That mostly meant I could peer over the stumps of all the trees I had felled nearby, and I got a better look at the flooded apocalypse in the valley below… The sight made me shudder.

  Beside that, a few of the trees that were too massive to chew still remained around us. Most of them were across the river and out of reach, but one of them with many thick, leafy branches stood on our side. Step by careful step, I made my way up to it and pced my hand against its dark, rugged bark.

  So this is what they feel like against furless skin. No, it’s more than that. It’s almost like now I can feel the whole tree with all its heavy branches stretching up to the sky, and every one of its root digging deep below. It’s making me kind of dizzy again. This is totally different than all the times I’ve used my beaver teeth on a tree. Focus: if I still had those, I would probably start chewing right about… here—!

  A chunk of bark tore off the tree, right where I imagined biting into it. I looked back and forth between the torn off piece and the tree’s exposed inner bark.

  Ohh! It’s sort of like Frie said; I can make the tree… do stuff. Alright, now it’s time for the usual, then to make my new ‘fur!’

  Taking aim with my mind, I ‘chewed off’ more and more of the tree. Bits of the tree came flying off, chunk by woody chunk. It cracked where I wanted it to and splintered as I willed it. Within minutes, I had torn out a cavity that would have taken me hours to make before. I began to breathe faster as an unnatural fatigue came over me, but I shook it off and pressed on.

  When the tree’s hole grew deep enough to make the massive trunk start snapping apart, I knew it was time. “Frie, stay back!” I shouted. “It’s coming down!”

  [Your power increased to Level 2.]

  ***

  Frie looked me and my newly-crafted clothing up and down. “Well, you definitely have that primitive ‘survival game starter gear’ vibe going on… but since you made it on your first day with all-natural materials and some magical weaving, I’d say we did pretty good!”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  With the fresh tree cut down and all its leafy resources id bare for the taking, Frie helped me make my own coat of fake ‘fur.’ Tree bark, leaves, vines, and pnt fibers—along with the otter’s guidance—turned into a modest barrier that I wore against the chilly spring air. I reminded her that my real fur would have been more convenient, but Frie insisted the idea was dangerous.

  Each day had once ended with my ke glowing in the warm colors of the setting sun. Now, the beautiful sight had melted into a sinister scarlet reflection over the flooded valley. “We really can’t stay here, can we?” I asked no one in particur.

  Frie frowned. “Maybe if those were the only humans in this world? It’s probably not that easy, though. If there are others who find out what happened here, they won’t be happy about it. And they’re gonna want answers. We need to be as far away as possible before then!”

  That sounds like something the fox told me. “Yeah… This really is goodbye to our home. Let’s find somewhere safe to stay for the night. But first, I’d rather not waste all of this wood.” The huge tree I took down had too many good branches within reach.

  “Oh, I know!” Frie perked up. “If we’re going on an adventure through the forest, you could use a weapon! You need a sword!”

  “A sword?”

  Frie’s test idea started with me using my new magic to tear off a branch. Then I was supposed to chip away and shape it into a long, ft stick with a pointy end, a sharp edge, and a thicker part at the bottom to grab. It quickly became apparent that one branch wouldn’t be enough.

  “Beaver, that one ended up too short… That’s too wide… There’s no room for the hilt there! So wood isn’t exactly ideal for this anyway, but you can do it!”

  I’m used to adding wood together to build something, and now I have to take it away… I really want to get this right!

  [Dendrokinesis advanced to Rank 2.]

  The more I practiced using magic to cut off new branches and shape them, the easier it became to control. It felt like my magical ‘teeth’ could take bigger bites… or smaller ones.

  Long after I lost count of how many tree limbs I’d removed, I felt like I finally made it—a long, sharp bde of wood I could safely hold, worthy of being called a ‘sword.’ “Frie, I did it! How’s this one?”

  I turned to find the otter quietly staring at nothing in the distance, a look that was all too familiar. “Does this mean I… What if I’m not going to be the hero?” she thought aloud. “What if I’m not even the main character?”

  I gently patted her head. “Don’t worry, Frie. You’ll always be my main character.”

  “Oh Beaver, I love you~!”

  Frie was easy to please.

  [Bober Kurwa, Level 2 Demon Lord]

  [Ascension: Phase One]

  [Skills: Dendrokinesis Rank 2, Poison Resistance Rank 1]

  [Abilities: Gift of Language, God Sight]