Mind screaming, I stomp my wooden feet into the myriad of insects below me, successfully bisecting limbs and impaling an ant on my foot. The sensation of body fluids and still-living flesh around my foot makes my mossy skin crawl and I shake my foot fiercely until the ant flies off and crashes a few paces down.

2 Exp gained Normal skill Stab Lv.1 gained

S-, stab?

I barely have time to understand the skill I just got before another ant rears on me. In a fit of pure fear and wrath, I bear the full strength of my tiny, tiny body upon it, stabbing it twice in the back before finally accepting that it’s dead.

1 Exp gained

Level up!

You have reached Level 2

Right. Good.

But the second my attention is drawn to the pop-up, I can feel something else touch my leg. My mind turns blank again and I instinctively stab with my foot, even though I know my balance is so bad that it almost makes me topple. When it isn’t enough, I start just stomping on the various insects now crowding around me.

Die die die die die die die die die.

3 Exp gained 2 Exp gained Normal skill Stab has reached Level 2

1 Exp gained 3 Exp gained

Level up!

You have reached Level 3

2 Exp gained Normal skill Stomp Lv.1 gained 1 Exp gained

When I come back to the present, I find that my feet and the ground itself is covered in a myriad of insect carcasses, some ground into mush and others hollowed out. A few twitching limbs lie stretched out. But they’re dead. I hate the sensation on my feet, but at least they’re dead.

And my hypothesis was proven correct. Hooray.

Now, before I do anything else, I’m just going to move away from this place where I killed all the insects. If I’m unlucky, it’ll just summon even more of the little cuckolds. Wouldn’t want that, would I?

Even if it was for the sake of grinding, I can’t imagine killing insects to do it. God, I hate them so much.

But at least it made me stronger. I think.

What I do know is that, somehow, I feel a little bigger. Just a little. It’s like I went from a ping-pong ball to a golf ball. It’s so unnoticeable it’s silly, but it feels like more than that. I wonder if it could have something to do with the leve-,

Mossling(F-) Lv 3/10 Stage: Juvenile Health: 4/5

State: Mycorrhiza(Lesser), Upset

Strength: 1 Dexterity: 2(+1) Grit: 1 Racial Skills: Absorb, Photosynthesize Normal Skills: Stab Lv.2, Stomp Lv.1 Titles: Oknytt

-Right, thank you, of course.

Looks like the two new skills got added, as would be expected. Since you’re so excited about everything, how about you explain those two things to me?

-Normal Skill Stab: Increases the damage caused by stab-type attacks. Using Normal Skill Stab on an opponent grants higher chances of hitting a vital area.-

-Normal Skill Stomp: Increases the damage caused by stomp-type attacks. Causes a wide area of damage on a single target or multiple small ones. Effective for rupturing organs.-

...A bit morbid there at the end, but I get the general gist of it. Furthermore, it seems there’s a pretty basic formula here. Use an attack repetitively, get the corresponding skill. If I was interested in getting as strong as possible, it would probably be surprisingly easy to gain all the possible skills of this nature.

Except that I don’t have arms. Or hands. Or a mouth.

Now that I think about it, I sorely lack methods of attacking creatures. If Stab hadn’t included attacks made by feet, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place.

As for Stomp… It’s really just another foot-skill. I imagine I’ll be getting quite a few of them if I keep this up.

Other than that, I’m a bit sad that none of my stats increased, but it might just be that they’re static. Maybe. I really can’t tell.

More importantly, however…

Stage: Juvenile.

It seems I passed over some sort of line to go from Mossling: Kid to Mossling: Juvenile. That would explain my increase in size. Going by the many animals I’ve seen whose Stage was Adult, it isn’t too far-off to assume that that will be my next stage. If Mosslings even have all stages. For the moment, I’ll just assume they do.

The only other detail that bears mention is that it seems my health doesn’t recover when I level up.

All that leaves me with is… Well.

I sit down again.

I think, if I am to try to do anything rigorous, I’d better do it during the day. Killing those insects took everything I had and a little more, which sure as Hell wasn’t much. This body requires sleep, and although I’m no stranger to insomnia and chronic lack of sleep, it would be rational to assume that lacking energy could easily lead to my death.

Shifting my entire upper body, I look around the clearing. It’s not big, but I don’t think I can find any better place, not that I have the energy to attempt to.

Rising to my feet again, I stumble over to the large rock in the middle of the clearing. A small sprout is trying desperately to grow beside it. If I’m lucky, there might be a small hole or crevice to sleep in. Or I should be able to scootch close to the rock. The most important thing is that I place myself in such a way where I am not only safe, but also in a place where the sun will hit me in the morning. Otherwise, I might not actually wake up.

After circling around the back of the rock, I actually find a small hole, large enough to fit maybe a cat or a dog. Since I’m barely the size of a mouse, I can get in just fine.

If I was a bit braver, I’d just go to sleep in the middle of the clearing among all the other moss. However, I do not make it a habit to court death by practically inviting forest critters to step on me. If being thrown by a deer can get me halfway across the river Styx, I don’t even want to imagine what a raccoon crushing me would do.

And that’s why I’m lying halfway inside this hole, looking like a piece of moss. That way, even creatures who might have business inside the hole will ignore me.

Now to lie awake and worry about things that don’t actually…

...

…Snore...