Regina startled awake, pulled from a dark dream by a nearby sound. The dream didn’t linger, and she felt wide-awake instantly, quickly sitting up.

The night was almost silent, except for a few scattered insects and the rustling of leaves. Her fire had burned low in the night, though it still gave off enough light that she saw her surroundings clearly. Piles of rocks, cut vines and wood sat beside her campsite. After a moment of looking around, she spotted what had woken her. From the edge of the forest, she saw a shadow creeping closer. Two eyes glowed softly in the darkness.

She grabbed two of the best rocks she’d found, which she’d put next to where she’d slept on a heap of leaves she’d gathered. Then Regina took a step to the side and carefully picked up a burning stick in her right hand, waving it from side to side for a moment.

Her potential opponent was a big cat with a black coat. It looked a bit bigger than a normal panther to her. She watched as it stalked carefully closer, its reflective eyes fixed on her. After a moment, another blue box popped up on the edge of her vision, where it didn’t obstruct her view.

Black Panther — Level ?

She hissed at it, a drawn out, chilling sound she hadn’t known she was capable of. The big cat stopped.

Regina took a few steps forward slowly and waved her improvised torch. “Get away from here, kitty,” she called out, trying to sound confident and intimidating. “There’s no food for you here.”

The panther had paused. As far as Regina could tell, it seemed hesitant, perhaps wondering if the potential meal was worth it. At least it wasn’t mindlessly aggressive like the monster duck had been.

Regina took a deep breath, then focused on the feeling of the energy in her. She fixed her gaze on a bushel of grass just in front of the cat, then let the magic go. It felt harder than in any of her practice, as if she had to push through an obstruction that was actively fighting her, but after a moment of struggle, she managed it.

Mana: 70/100

The grass caught fire. The panther wasn’t close enough to be burnt by it, but it still drew back, hissing.

She should have had about ninety mana. This had taken more than her earlier experiments, probably because of the distance involved. But she’d managed it, and the cat seemed to get the message. She stared hard at it, unblinking, clutching her torch. After a moment, it disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

Regina put two new branches into her fire and sat back down, sighing. She should have enough firewood to last the night. And she definitely had better low-light vision than a human. She kept sitting there for a while, listening to the sounds of the night and watching the edge of the forest and the hills.

After some time during which everything was quiet, she gave in to her sleepiness and lay back down, closing her eyes. It still took her a while to fall asleep.

The rest of the night was quiet, with no more disturbances. When Regina blinked the sleep out of her eyes the following morning and got up, she saw she had slept through most of the dawn. She yawned and stretched, still feeling tired. Hopefully, she’d be able to get a good night’s sleep one day soon. But she shook herself awake and started her day. She had a lot to do.

The egg appeared to have grown overnight, at least a little. She found it hard to estimate how big the creature inside would be. It was probably still a little smaller than her egg had been. I should have paid more attention at the time, but in my defense, being hatched is a little traumatic.

Not that a comparison would help much. She didn’t know what was inside, but she seriously doubted that it was someone else just like her. That just didn’t feel right. Still, Regina couldn’t help but feel a little anxious at the increased size. If it did house a monster that turned out to be hostile, a bigger one would give her more trouble. Still, her instincts didn’t want her to leave the egg. And they definitely knew more about this than the human side of her mind.

She shook her head and left, heading back into the forest to get started with the plans she’d made when she was trying to sleep. It took Regina a while to find another berry bush, and while she was hungry, she didn’t take all of the berries she could reach. They might have to last her a while. She’d really like to get some more meat, but she’d have to be careful. After that, she went to the river, which was again empty except for a few birds, then returned to her camp.

She spent a few frustrating hours trying to make simple tools and things she could use. It was harder than it seemed to lay traps. She had wooden sticks and the vines she used as ropes, but no knowledge of how to use them. Still, after a while she managed a few simple slings that were hopefully well enough hidden, and one more complicated trap involving a young sapling she’d bent back and tied with a vine. They were all targeted at the small wildlife of the forest. Regina knew she didn’t have much hope of her work holding up to bigger animals.

She also managed to make herself a crude spear, little more than a sharp rock tied onto the straightest stick she’d been able to find. She was a little dubious that it would actually work better than her claws, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Well, it could, but it’s still worth trying.

Thus armed, Regina set off for a bit of exploration, to get to know her surrounding territory better. She didn’t want to go too far from the egg, but there were still a few spots she hadn’t explored yet reasonably close by.

It took her a few hours, since she went slowly and took the time to examine any points of interest closely, as well as returning to check on her campsite periodically. She saw a few more predators or monsters, but only from a distance, and avoided them as well as she could.

The most interesting thing she found were another few plants that the strange system gave her blue boxes for. None of them seemed as useful as the vines to her. Maybe they had health-related effects, but the blue boxes didn’t say and Regina wasn’t keen on experimenting on herself. She still carefully memorized their locations and appearance, in case it ever turned out to be relevant. Maybe they’d be useful for some experiments later. They smelled just like any other forest plants, and she wasn’t sure if their scent would be enough for her to recognize them.

She hoped her inhuman sense of smell would help her protect herself against monsters, but the panther last night had appeared downwind of her. Other hunters would probably be smart enough to do the same.

In the end, Regina got reasonably familiar with the surrounding area. When she returned to her campsite, she drew a crude map in the dirt with a stick, although she didn’t really need it to remember what she’d seen. It appeared like the surrounding area was largely forest, with the river cutting through it in a slightly meandering path. The best landmark aside from that was her own location. Further to the west, she’d found other clusters of hills, which slowly grew more frequent until they transitioned into a largely forested low mountain range. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought there might be a larger mountain chain in the distance. She’d need a day with clear skies, no dust in the air and a good vantage point to check. Hopefully she’d see the tops of those mountains more clearly then, if that was what she’d seen.

She hadn’t found any signs of civilization so far, but she also hadn’t been able to look very far into the forest to the east. There could have been a village in a clearing just a few kilometers from here and she wouldn’t know. You might even reach the end of the forest and several towns or cities not much farther than that. I can hope, at least.

Of course, there didn’t appear to be any air pollution that she could detect, and she’d seen a marvelously clear sky with innumerable stars at night. Far more than Regina thought she would have seen before, not that she could remember specific instances. That indicated she was either far in the wilderness, a long way from any cities, or that the local civilization was at a low tech level. She wasn’t sure which she’d prefer.

However things turned out, if she felt she absolutely needed to leave, she could always throw a few tree trunks in the water and try to ride them down the river. It shouldn’t be that hard to make a canoe, right? She hadn’t seen any rapids or waterfalls, either.

But for now, she had access to water, at least some food, and hadn’t been eaten by monsters yet. This place wasn’t so bad, if she had to be stranded alone in the wilderness.

Regina stayed out until the daylight started to fade again. Then she took a quick break, gathered a bit more firewood, and decided to check on her traps quickly before she went to the river again.

To her surprise, one of her traps had actually caught something. It was a loop made of vine which now held a small furry animal dangling from a tree. She carefully poked it with a stick before she started to take it down.

Her catch looked like a rabbit, or maybe a hare? Regina wasn’t clear on the difference. She thought its ears were a little short and its teeth a little too sharp, but for all she knew, that was actually perfectly normal. She reset the trap as well as she could, since it had been her most successful one so far, before she carried her prey back to her campsite.

Once there, she used the sharpest rock she’d been able to find to try to skin it. Her claws would probably have been better, but she didn’t like the idea of using her fingers for something this gory. Her instincts were eagerly pushing her to eat it, and she had to swallow her saliva regularly. But she wanted to preserve its hide, if she could.

Unfortunately, the stone wasn’t up to the task, and she made a bit of a mess of it. At least she managed to avoid puncturing its intestines. She pulled those out and threw them aside, grimacing at the smell. She should bury them later. This work was bloodier than she’d like. But, as Regina discovered when she absently licked a claw clean, blood didn’t taste so bad.

She paused at that thought, then shook her head and carried on. She carefully took out the hare’s teeth and a few sinews. Then she finally gave in to temptation and cut off a piece of meat to try.

It tasted delicious. She’d been afraid it was something about the monster that had made it taste that good, but maybe her species just liked meat. Raw meat. Regina grimaced and quickly put a larger piece onto a stick to get it over the fire.

She waited impatiently, wedging the stick between a few rocks and using another to dig a hole for the garbage. Then she took her meal from the fire, even if it was still a bit undercooked, and ate.

Still good. It seemed like her species could eat cooked food, at least.

Now if only she had something to drink, it would be an even nicer evening.