Akari shot off the ground, her body coursing with energy. She frantically looked around, realizing that she was still in the alleyway she colpsed in. She took a deep breath and almost choked. The air was thicker than usual, matching the darker color. It really felt like she was underwater now.

  Although she felt this, she could still breathe. It was still air, maybe something mixed into it as well. She began walking out of the alleyway, walking through the town as if nothing had happened. She spotted a merchant and asked him,

  “Do you know how to reach the Ignius household?”

  As she asked this, she pointed to the crest embedded into her shirt, right over her heart. It was a dragon's head with fmes leaking from each corner of its mouth. At this question, the merchant looked at Akari with pure confusion. Moments ter, he began ughing, saying,

  “Ah, this must be a prank! There’s no way someone from the Duke of Algoa’s family would be lost in the Cyan Kingdom.”

  “Huh?”

  “How’d you get that crest though? You shouldn’t impersonate nobles, that could get you executed.”

  The merchant warned with a stern face. He then walked off, still chuckling at the supposed joke.

  Akari was left standing there, baffled. The Cyan Kingdom? Isn’t that across the continent from Algoa? Thoughts like these crossed her mind

  She began wandering the streets aimlessly. Her easy life just flew out the window, all because she touched a flower.

  ‘The flower!’

  She began looking around, desperately trying to find a glowing flower of any kind. Sadly, she couldn't find anything simir to the blue sunflower from before.

  She eventually gave up and started pnning on how to get home.

  Akari was stranded on the opposite side of the continent. The books she read didn’t say anything about this world having teleportation. She had no money, nor did she know what the money system was in this world, and stly, she was given something by that thing, Liebe.

  Ever since it touched her forehead, her body has been changing. At that moment, Akari felt energized, her head was clear and she felt like her vision was perfect. Before then, she felt tired, her vision was a bit blurred and her mind felt foggy.

  Akari didn’t know what Liebe did but it seemingly helped. Hence, she didn’t want to think about him right then.

  Her only option at the moment was to traverse the continent to return home.

  She steeled her resolve as she left the borders, entering a forest and walking for around 30 minutes. She strangely didn’t feel tired at all. Her energy was only getting higher the longer she stayed awake.

  *Rustle*

  Akari immediately stopped moving and looked at the direction the sound came from. She felt like everything was frozen.

  What jumped out was a rabbit with a single horn. It had yellow eyes, staring at Akari with an innocent expression.

  Akari began to calm down, realizing that it was probably harmless. She stared at it for a second before continuing to walk away.

  Akari didn’t really care for cute things, not that she found the Rabbit cute in the first pce. She didn’t like the horn on its head and its eyes gave her the creeps.

  She suddenly felt her body move forward, looking down to see blood staining her bck shirt and a horn protruding through it.

  Akari was stabbed. Realizing this, Akari turned to look at the rabbit, which had already jumped off her. Its horn was covered in blood and the white fur on its forehead was stained dark red.

  Akari held her stomach, realizing she couldn’t feel it. If she wasn’t pushed forward, she wouldn't have even known she was stabbed. This realization scared her. She couldn’t feel pain anymore.

  ‘Was this Liebe’s doing? I haven’t felt any pain since coming to this world though.., so maybe this body has always been like this.’

  As Akari was thinking, the rabbit pounced at her, aiming to stab her again. Akari instinctively moved out of the way, causing the rabbit to stab a tree in its path.

  *Thud*

  Its head smacked right into the tree, the horn piercing through the bark with ease. The rabbit stayed motionless for a second before wiggling, trying to push itself out of the tree. Akari knew she should run, but decided not to.

  It was a monster, but it wasn’t intelligent. Akari felt like she could beat it. Once out, it shook its head and turned to Akari once again. It lunged at her, but its horn made contact with nothing this time.

  Akari had moved over again, grabbing it by the neck as it missed and squeezing with all her might. The rabbit scratched at Akari’s hands drawing blood, but she couldn’t feel it at all. Eventually, it stopped moving.

  Akari sighed in relief and turned its neck 360 degrees for good measure. After hearing a small snap, she dropped it onto the ground.

  *Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle*

  Akari needed to run.

  So, that’s what she did. She ran. She ran in the direction she came from. She didn’t know if the rabbit hit a vital spot, but seeing as her body was still allowing her to run full speed, she assumed it didn’t, but that didn’t mean she was safe.

  She was losing blood fast. She was too afraid to stop running though. Her body didn’t know anything was wrong, but she did. She needed to get treatment as soon as possible.

  She should’ve expected that the rabbits would travel in groups. They were too unintelligent to survive on their own. Once she made it near the city gates, her body tripped on something, causing her to run into a tree.

  “Ow..!”

  She immediately realized that she didn’t feel it once again. She tried to give up but her legs wouldn’t move. This was probably because of the rabbit's attack.

  She pushed herself against the tree and sat there, thinking.

  ‘Rabbits are territorial animals. Even if it’s a monster, it still has the same base as normal animals… from what I’ve seen at least.’

  She sighed as she concluded that she was probably safe from the rabbits following her.

  She closed her eyes. She wasn’t physically tired, but she was mentally. Seeing a monster for the first time was an experience she wouldn’t forget.

  She ripped off the bottom part of her shirt and wrapped it around the small hole in her stomach, tying it around the wound as tightly as she could. She sat there for a second, absent-minded.

  Her breathing was normal but she began taking deeper breaths as she couldn’t tell if she needed more oxygen or not.

  Suddenly, Akari jumped. She could feel something behind her, inside the tree she was leaning on. It was one of the few things she could feel now.

  She looked at the tree and saw that it was a normal tree. But when she touched it, she could feel something coursing through it. She could feel everything about it. The age, through the energy flowing in yers, how well it’s doing, through how much energy there was. She could even feel the color of the energy. It was a green light.

  ‘Since when could I feel color, this feels like a fever dream.’

  Akari silently focused on the light, noticing that the more she focused, the more it stretched out. At first she could only sense it from the base to around half of the tree’s trunk, but a few moments ter, she could sense the entire tree and its roots.

  She took her hand off the tree and noticed that she could still faintly sense it. That’s when it finally clicked.

  “This is mana!”

  Akari excimed excitedly.

  Ever since she read a book on magic, she’s been wanting to try it out. However, she hadn't been able to sense mana until now.

  She hurriedly sat down in a meditative position, wanting to quickly follow the rest of the steps in the book. Breathing calmly, she sat there, waiting. Eventually, she could feel something stirring inside of her.

  It felt like a bottle, one that was cracked. It was leaking a small amount of energy continuously.

  She began trying to open the bottle figuratively, eventually doing so. At that moment, Akari’s body exploded with energy. Her temperature shot up and she began sweating. However, her body was so hot that the sweat evaporated right when formed.

  Akari, however, couldn’t feel it. She just noticed that she was steaming now.

  She stood up and looked around, noticing how she could sense all the tree’s around her.

  Being able to feel her environment gave her a bit of a headache.

  ‘That book wasn’t lying when it said everything has mana..’

  Although she was brimming with energy, Akari felt extremely tired. The information constantly flowing into her mind was too much for her, so she sat back down and decided to start sorting through it.

  Right back in the meditative position from earlier, she quietly absorbed the information from her environment.

  Eventually, her body stopped steaming and her mind was more clear. Her body had finally stabilized.

  Once she thought everything was fine now, she got up and began walking towards the gates of The Cyan Kingdom, her body rejuvenated, yet still in need of medical treatment.