Suddenly, the silhouette of a creature leaped towards us from behind. Blizzard responded quickly, like she had anticipated the attack, and dodged the creature's deadly pounce.

When I took a closer look, it was a tiger. A Siberian tiger… or at least similar since it was bigger — almost the size of Blizzard.

“Our first prey. Let me handle this.” I released the arrow, and it launched at the tiger with remarkable momentum but was unfortunately avoided easily — using this bow was harder than expected.

The tiger became more vigilant at us as it circled us as if waiting for a moment where we had our guard down. Now mad, a trace of savageness and bloodlust pervaded its eyes and never faded.

Blizzard went for the initiative, bared her teeth, and pounced at the tiger’s neck. Being a hybrid as she was, she had the advantage in speed and strength, easily biting a large chunk of meat from the tiger's neck. But because it was so sudden, I almost fell down to the ground thanks to the resultant force.

The tiger was about to bite Blizzard in retaliation, but I quickly cast {Flame Arrow} at its mouth and cooked it from within. Seizing the chance, Blizzard finished the tiger without it being able to roar in pain by tearing off another large chunk of meat from its neck, blood oozing out ceaselessly from its two large wounds.

“Nice job! Next time though, please tell me when you’re doing something like that.”

“Woof!”

I was a bit skeptical whether the tiger was truly dead or not since it was still standing. However, the [Developer Interface] told me otherwise. Tiger legs were so strong that even when they died, they could still be standing, I heard.

“Question is, how should we bring the corpse back to the dungeon?” I scratched my head, but almost immediately an idea came to mind. “Right, that can work. Let’s go back to the dungeon, Blizzard.”

We swiftly headed back, purchased several [Strong Rope (10 CP)], and returned to the tiger’s place. I tied one end of the rope to the tiger’s leg and the other to Blizzard’s neck and had her drag it to the dungeon along with me.

Once we reached the dungeon, I gave her a head pat. “All done. Let’s rinse and repeat.”

“Woof! Woof!” she barked, full of energy.

Nevertheless, I recalled one crucial issue and purchased a certain item from the menu and wore it.

An arrow was shot loose from a crimson bow, it cut through the air in high momentum and was about to hit a hybrid dear with long, thin legs and crystal-like antlers, but it missed at the last moment as it jumped into the air. Yet, the arrow suddenly bounced unnaturally when it hit a tree and stabbed its nape, killing it in a single shot.

“Heh! Do you think you can escape my new code-imbued arrow? Fat chance.” I smirked. “Anyway, this should be enough.”

I didn’t know exactly how long I’d been hunting, but the sun had risen for quite some time. Hunting all sorts of creatures in the forest was a rather unique experience in and of itself, even while avoiding dangerous hybrids that I wasn’t sure we could win easily. And not surprisingly, there were lots of bears roaming this forest.

As we were close to the location where the assessment was conducted, we accidentally passed by several adventurers along the way. But thanks to the weird, magic mask I was wearing, which cost me 1,000 CP, I was able to leave without leaving any impression whatsoever — garnering me zero unneeded attention.

Mask of Anonymous

A magic mask of a certain conspirator that will make the wearer leave no impression on the beholder.

I removed my mask, which had a shape of a smiling face with red cheeks, a wide mustache upturned at both ends, and a thin vertical pointed beard, then put it aside. Prolonged use of such a mask wasn’t the most comfortable thing to do.

Speaking of which, chasing the hybrid deer brought us to the other side of the forest, and looking around… Huh? Isn’t this place…

A small meadow with grasses abounded all around, along with an old wooden house. To think that I would chance upon this place within a large, unending forest. What luck.

Slowly, I descended from Blizzard and strode toward the house. There were actually noticeable footprints of my sneakers imprinted on the ground, not yet gone from time… Although, being such an out-of-place area, why hadn’t anyone come here?

I reached for the old door and pushed it open; the door creaked and gave me a chill. Dusty air gushed out from within, and smells of decaying wood filled my nostrils. Barely anything could be seen inside since only the light coming from my direction managed to get through here.

The interior was as antiquated and old as I could imagine. Cobwebs and dust overlaid the ceiling to the point that they could be made into a basketball-size yarn if they were to be collected. I wouldn’t be surprised if the house were to collapse tomorrow. How long had this place been abandoned? Centuries?

“Ugh… I don’t think that even rats would want to live here.”

Lots of rubble and broken furniture littered the floor, making it harder to proceed inside. The door unexpectedly let out another creaking sound like something was forcing its way inside.

“Huh, Blizzard? Stop! You’ll break the door…”

The door cracked and collapsed soon as Blizzard forced her way into the house.

“Well, it’s too late now.” I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly.

Despite her comical act, her eyes looked crystal clear, voicing her concern.

“No, I’m fine. Just that this place—”

I felt a tingle on my back like someone or something was eyeing me from the dark deepest reaches of the room. It was sudden, but the tall furniture beside me was slammed down and almost got me. The brittle wood that made it up was broken into pieces and scattered on the floor like a broken glass vase.

“Wha?!” Before I was able to react, through my peripheral vision, a shadowy figure leaped at me at an unbelievable speed.

“Grr!” Blizzard pounced at the monstrosity by walloping at it with her claws.

“Shrarrgh!!” A creature’s shrieking cry defeated my ears along with a hard tumbling sound.

What the fuck was that?!

In quick succession, I turned on my phone’s flashlight and aimed at the evil creature that had attacked me. My body froze, my mouth couldn’t even swallow down saliva; an extremely ugly bug-eyed creature in a mix of brown and red that seemed to come straight out from a horror movie and smaller than a yoga ball with a disproportionately huge mouth that could easily swallow a watermelon was writhing on the ground. It had a pair of strong jumping legs similar to grasshoppers but thicker, probably the whole cause of its incredible bursting speed.

“Die!” I brandished my sword and let the blade fragment extend by twice its normal length before swinging it at the monstrosity, splitting it into two — the rest of the blade fragments also cut the ground along with them.

That was insane…

It would have been bad if Blizzard didn’t come to help me. Even now, my hands were trembling… What would happen if I went alone without a weapon? Just the thought of getting close to it sent chills down my spine. Was this perhaps what made me reluctant to go in at that time?

A small nudge came from my side and made my body tense up again. But thankfully, it was just Blizzard.

“I’m fine. Thanks for helping me.” I stroked her head.

“Woof!”

While my heart was still thumping hard and almost exploded, I checked the creature’s status.

Name: D-02132

Unit name: Devourer (basic)

Species: Artificial creature

Age: 38 years old

Height: 50 cm

Stats:

STR: F (13) AGI: F+ (19) VIT: F (11) MAG: F- (7) SPR: F- (1)

Accumulation Points: 8 (F)

Artificial creature? Does that mean someone made this thing? I had so many questions inside my little head, but I didn’t think that the answer would just come up by itself.

Having calmed down a bit, I operated my flashlights to all corners of the house that appeared to have only one large room inside. Except for a large oak table with a rusty candlestick at the end of the room, there wasn’t much else worth mentioning.

Then, I spotted a trapdoor that was partially destroyed as if being smashed by something multiple times. The culprit was obvious.

I tried to force open the trapdoor by tearing the lock with my sword with little difficulty before succeeding. Inside was a long staircase that led to a murky area without a single hint of illumination.

“The unknown is worse than monsters…” I gulped but quickly regained my confidence and courage.

Holding my phone in one hand, I held my sword with the other before going in. Fortunately, the staircase was barely large enough for Blizzard to squeeze in, which she did because she refused to be left behind. It wasn’t that I was scared of going alone or anything…

At the end of the staircase was a room… a laboratory with all sorts of strange apparatuses. Near the wall were even large glass cylinder containers or pods that seemed to be powered up by magiclum stones with mangled flesh of strange creatures inside. Creepy and unnerving. Truly felt like coming into an evil genius scientist’s laboratory, only that it was magical.

Still, it was hard to inspect around without spending some time and moving closer to each of the strange magical devices around, a matter that I was quite reluctant to carry out.

“If only I’d learned more magic spells for casting light…”

Seemingly granting my wish, Blizzard’s body shone like a bright lamp, brightening the whole room without leaving a shade of darkness behind.

“Eh, I didn’t know that you could do that. I’ll be sure to reward you later.” I patted the shining Blizzard. “Anyway, this will work perfectly.”

Now lit up, I began rummaging around. There wasn’t much to go about though, as the room itself wasn’t that big. And instead of inspecting the large glass pods, I went to the innermost part of the room with a strange desk and a book on top.

Glancing at the weirdly clean book, I realized that it didn’t use Common — the most widespread language in this world — but that of another unknown language. Recently, I discovered that if I were to concentrate and will it, the automatic translator wouldn’t translate, keeping its original characters. It didn’t matter, however.

Tome of the Dark Sage? Interesting.

Intrigued by the title, I tried to open the book, but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I pulled, even with the support given by my set. It felt like the book was bonded with superglue between all the pages individually.

“The heck. Did someone put this thing here as some sort of a prank? Was it that masked man?” I didn’t bother with forcing it open anymore and went for its information through [Developer Interface].

Tome of the Dark Sage (???)

A journal written by #### (???)

“What…?” I stared dumbfounded at the content on the blue screen. There was only one instance where a question mark appeared (being Lorelei’s gender), but this… just different.

I collected my thoughts before putting the book inside my backpack in the end. Since the masked man told me to go here, then this book ought to be the key that would lead me forward — maybe even the only clue for me to go back to my world.

After that, we got out of the unnerving laboratory and exited the old wooden house. Of course, I didn’t want more creatures like the previous one to sneak out, hence I moved a piece of nearby heavy furniture to cover the hole and seal the place for good.

“Let’s head back to the dungeon. Full speed ahead, let’s go!” I said, riding on Blizzard.

“Woof!”

Blizzard quickly picked up her pace and carried me into the wind, not the slightest bit bothered with the weight she carried.