Yuki eyed the system tab, full of distrust. It had only three skills, three of which she already knew about.
[Invocation](A): 2
[Shaping](A): 2
[Bite](A): 2
Yuki closed the system window. She settled back in her corner of the nest. She was too tired, and imagining things. She’d check her real skills after a nice nap.
Exp +1
Three days had passed, and Yuki was bored.
No easy way around it.
There was only so much skill grinding she could do in the burrow. She’d learned to dig, climb, jump, hide, sing, and dance. But she was, if a lousy pun could be excused, climbing the walls with boredom.
The situation was so dire that Yuki had considered eating some of the tasty orange mushrooms, even after forever swearing them off after the first trip.
Yuki needed a way to grind her essential skills: Invocation, Shaping, Bite, and Thump. She looked again at the values.
[Invocation](A): 3
[Shaping](A): 3
[Bite](A): 2
[Thump](A): 1
Yuki eyed the crystal cup on her landing page. Mana 15/20.
She did maths in her head. Lots of maths. The conclusion wasn’t great. Yuki suspected this was one of those systems that punished mindless grinding and encouraged more active use of skills. Active like, in battle. Active like: stop trying to grind your ears off.
The mana situation wasn’t great either.
If Yuki shaped any additional property to the spell, the mana cost increased to two points. Without shaping duration, a spell lasted just a few minutes. If she shaped duration, she couldn’t use any of the other more functional properties like range or number of targets.
There was this daring plan that had taken root in her nogging. Yuki sniffed the air. Not a hint of lemon anywhere.
Bunny sorceress or not, Yuki wasn’t keen on suffering yet another family death by invisible monsters. She had the means to defend the colony if only she risked herself.
Yuki eyed the experience counter.
Exp: 36/1000
The clacking maw and Bunbun’s screech echoed in Yuki’s mind.
The rabbit-reincarnated girl looked at the trap-shrubs surrounding the burrow. Her ticket to power was out there. Here, there be monsters, and Yuki had an exp counter. She was willing to bet a carrot that killing was the prime method of earning that sweet experience. Call it an educated guess.
With goals decided and her resolve set, Yuki hopped toward the clearing’s border. She sneaked under the thorny shrubs and peaked outside.
On the other side of the shrubs was a patch of earth with no trees, bushes, or vegetation. A faint smell like pepper, vinegar, and ammonia reached her nose. Her nose itched. Across the barren patch of land, she recognized a big tree she often watched from the clearing.
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Burn marks populated the space here and there. Trees had been cut, and their stumps burnt. There were no hiding places, rocks, vegetation, shrubs, or anything. Yuki’s legs trembled at the sight of that. Rabbits’ instincts warned her that a rabbit in the open would soon be a dead rabbit. That, and the smell. It was like someone got all the things Yuki didn’t even know she hated, mixed it all, then threw buckets and buckets of the stuff in the barren area.
Yuki was sure that this was human-made, but why?
Was this… to prevent the rabbits from causing trouble in human lands? Yuki knew rabbits were considered a plague in some places. Colonies would move in; and crops would die off. She already knew there were humans nearby, but how close were they?
Yuki closed her eyes and focused on her hearing.
At first, she could only hear the everyday forest noises, the ones she’d gotten used to, and almost forgot they were there. Then, it was like a switch had been flipped; Yuki’s ears twitched and moved like a satellite dish honing in on a signal.
The distant laughter of a kid. The sound of metal hitting the earth, the strident sound of metal on metal. Yuki could even, somehow, tell how far away the sounds were. Maths ran through her head again. Yuki reran the calculation, then once more. Three kilometers, give or take?
A blinking notification distracted her from the surprise.
New skill learned.
[Listen](A): 0 ? 1.
Nice! Wait, no, three kilometers? Damn, that was a lot. How hadn’t she noticed it before? Was this a case of pushing all that as background noise? Reasons aside, three kilometers, give or take to some human lands. It made sense why they would want to keep the rabbits away.
Enough procrastinating. Yuki didn’t want to cross the open space or face the smell, but future safety was on the other side.
She crouched low and donned her metaphorical sunglasses. She was the master of the body and could stealth in open space like the best of them! Yuki took a step forward, humming a theme song. “Dun dun, dun-dun, dun dun…” With each beat, she took a step. Despite the open area and horrible smell, she smirked. “Ta nan nan!” she belted and ran. “Ta nan nan!” Two small bursts and mission accomplished. Who said it was impossible? With one last leap, Yuki was past the desolation and back in the safety of the understory.
Past that horrible area, she took her time.
Yuki nibbled on new types of leaves. Smelled this purplish mushroom that sent her salivating. She didn’t eat it though. No more unknown fungi consumption, not even for recreational purposes. Yuki investigated an abandoned tunnel, probably made by some other rabbit. She crossed it, hopping outside and ready to explore. She stopped dead in her tracks.
The leaves rustled in an unfamiliar way. Not the same gentle sound when the winds moved them.
Yuki’s ears perked up, her eyes opened wide, and her heart beating a mile a minute. Then she forced a deep, slow exhalation. She was the master of her body, not the other way around.
The wind carried a pungent, musky odor that set off alarm bells in Yuki’s mind. Her eyes focused, and her legs tensed, ready to jump away. She didn’t know what scent that was, but instincts told her to stay still, hidden from the predator.
It walked from behind a log, an elongated body with four legs and a short tail. The brown fur on the upper body, the white belly, and the narrow head and small ears were enough to identify the creature. They locked eyes. Yuki’s panicky and frantic, the weasel’s keen and gleaming.
The would-be ambusher opened its mouth, displaying sharp, pointy teeth that promised pain and death. It chattered, the sound like a trilling laughter. Yuki lost control of her body. Instincts took over. She bolted, all rational thought forgotten, all ideas of leveling and becoming powerful ignored.
The weasel gave chase.
Yuki scurried under a shrub, past a tree’s roots and out the other side. She didn’t know where to go, but the leap carried her past a fallen log and across vines and rocks. Behind, the weasel tittered, weaving through the forest like it was his yard. A few things jumped to the forefront of Yuki’s thoughts. The stalker’s tail was brown, the same color as its fur; it wasn’t a stoat. Other tidbits came amid the blind run. Weasels are relentless hunters. Agile and flexible. Most important of all, avoid their bite at all costs.
Other rational parts of Yuki’s mind supplied more details. She wasn’t faster than the weasel. She could maneuver better around obstacles, but she wasn’t gaining distance, and she’d learned over the weeks that rabbits were not endurance runners. She’d need to stop and recover.
Yuki dove past a bush, then around a tree, and stopped. Her heart still beat fast, and her legs wanted to keep running, but no matter how much she thought about it, running wasn’t the solution. Yuki had left the burrow by her own will and with a purpose. She didn’t want to be prey anymore. Yuki would master her body, not the other way around.
She might not be faster. She might not be stronger. But she had something it didn’t: magic.
Yuki wasn’t an instinctual creature, she was a bunny sorceress, even if her body wanted her to flee like prey.
The tittering announced the arrival of the predator.
Yuki turned, whiskers trembling with barely suppressed anxiety. She took a deep breath.
“You can do it.” She repeated the words like a magical mantra.
She could kick and nip like the best of them. Those were skills she had to level. If all else failed, she had magic.
The weasel stopped, then stood on its hind legs, staring at Yuki. She stared back, body lowered and ready to move. The weasel tittered again. Yuki growled.
It jumped at her.
