Kaltyr originally assumed that she’d killed enough of the deer and shown enough of her battle prowess for the rest of the beasts to give her space from then on…and was absolutely incorrect given her current state.

After sparing a second to spit out some grass, Kaltyr had little time to think before a snort could be heard from behind her.

I swear, that buck is sneering at me.

Having kept the mental fortitude required to maintain her Body Mana Reinforcement, the girl swiftly flipped herself over so that her face was no longer in the dirt and she faced her most dangerous opponent yet. She grunted in pain from the exertion.

The Life Level 2 buck stood with its head held high some ways away on the spot where it stabbed Kaltyr, its antlers stained by blood. The Life Level 2 doe’s corpse, which Kaltyr dropped upon being rushed and stabbed in the back, lied between the two. The girl gulped her saliva and quickly surveyed her surroundings the best she could without moving any further, not wanting to suddenly provoke her enemy before she could get a good grasp on her environment.

Okay, so, I landed at the base of a tree. That’s good news. Even if I can’t climb it I can use its trunk as a wall. Deer are only so much faster than me at sprinting, not necessarily running in circles. I got this. So, as long as it doesn’t attack me long enough for me to stand—

Then, with a look as if to say, “I’ve got you now, bitch!”, the buck lowered its head and kicked off the ground, angling its antlers so that they’d run the human through.

The world seemed to slow as the girl desperately shifted her weight and rolled herself over, positioning herself in the spot directly between her adversary’s rack of antlers. With a jarring crash, the level 2 deer rammed directly into the tree behind her.

Damn, it still scratched my arm!

Kaltyr clenched her teeth in frustration as the stinging of another wound distracted her before she fully understood how lucky she was to still be breathing. On either side of her small frame were the antlers of her opponent, fiercely shaking as the deer attempted to remove them from the tree it just bore a hole into.

FUCK THIS SHIT!

Alarm bells ringing so loud that they overshadowed the thunderous beating of her heart, Kaltyr looked to her sides once more to figure out whether the antlers were too tall to climb over or if she had to step over the beast’s head. It was when Kaltyr placed a hand onto the antlers—because she decided that her best odds lied with climbing over the side—that the deer’s struggles were rewarded. The Life Level 2 buck yanked its antlers out of the tree with so much force that Kaltyr was pulled into the air. Fortunately for the girl, her grip on the antlers refused to loosen, and instead of falling to the ground where she’d be at the mercy of her enemy’s hooves, she was pulled onto its head. Unfortunately for the girl, the deer did not appreciate stowaways.

Tangled in the buck’s antlers, Kaltyr frantically attempted to gain any kind of footing atop the beast, but failed due to the efforts the creature put into throwing her off. As though Kaltyr were a hat it despised being seen with, the deer violently bucked back and forth and waved its head side to side. Holding on for dear life, the girl turned green as her stomach churned with the intent to empty itself.

However, despite having more difficulty holding onto her breakfast than to her enemy, Kaltyr endeavored to make full use of the opportunity that Lady Luck had gifted to her. From atop the buck, though her perspective was constantly shifted, the girl obtained a decent enough look at the area. Her current environment was much denser than the small clearing she was first cornered in, with some trees separated by no more than a meter—good news for Kaltyr, because the remaining four deer after her had no chance to assist their leader lest crowd the area. The level 2 deer she was stuck on top of hadn’t chosen the most optimal location to slam into her, effectively handicapping itself by cutting off its allies.

And Kaltyr was more than happy to fight one to one.

Upon her enemy tiring of bucking, and after swallowing the bile that rose to her mouth with a grimace, Kaltyr further secured her position atop the deer so that only a single hand was necessary to hang on. When she was absolutely certain that her left hand wouldn’t slip and let go of her lifeline, the girl’s right hand released the antler it previously clung to and balled into a fist.

I’d get my knife out but I dropped it when I got tackled! Well, this is also a good time to test my newfound strength.

Fueling her attack with the rage garnered from being shanked by a deer—and a quarter of her mana—Kaltyr savagely pounded her fist into one of her enemy’s antlers. When the first strike didn’t break it, and the mana she’d used wasn’t exhausted, she struck again, then again, and again, even as her arm began to hurt. Realizing that it was suffering attacks, the deer returned to its bucking in a panic. The movement threw Kaltyr’s aim off a bit, but did little to affect her in total. At most, the girl feared that the beast would be so rash as to slam its antlers into a tree, but it did not.

After several of Kaltyr’s strikes, the bone finally broke, ultimately costing a third of the girl’s mana rather than the quarter she first anticipated the task to require… Not a bad deal considering that she now better understood the Body Mana Reinforcement skill—while she could maintain a strengthened state for a long while by flooding her body with the bare minimum amount of mana, she could then after pour even more energy into a single extremity for far more powerful attacks that expended mana at a much faster rate.

A notification suddenly appeared in the corner of her vision. Kaltyr ignored it, but what she just did was likely considered its own skill.

“AH HA!”

With a triumphant shout, Kaltyr’s hand wrapped around the now-ownerless weapon, claiming it as her own. She could have directed her fist of fury toward her enemy’s head rather than its antlers and gone for the source of her problem, yet…the same mysterious sense of barbarism that the girl experienced when fighting the pack of dogs influenced her decision-making skills. Why that urge to be barbaric didn’t come into play when it came time to end the cat and squirrel the day before, Kaltyr had no idea and was a bit miffed.

Having acquired a new weapon, Kaltyr’s teeth showed with another wicked grin, and she flooded the antler with mana, giving it an indescribably beautiful sparkle under her Magic Sense. However, before she could sink the weapon into her enemy’s neck, the beast finally relented. Its bucking, swinging, and waving about had done nothing to shake off the pest that clung to its head, so it acquiesced, letting go of its pride to fall to the ground hard on the side its antler was broken off, bringing the human with it.

The world shook and swayed as Kaltyr’s head collided with the ground. The fall had hurt a ton, and even blanked her mind for a second, but the damage was reduced by her Body Mana Reinforcement enough so that when another deer found the opportunity to strike, the girl lifted her antler sword and allowed momentum to backfire on her enemy. Like that, a third foe had been felled while her main enemy was still having trouble rising to its hooves.

“Just die already!”

After a few tugs, Kaltyr removed the antler from the dying doe with a morbid squelch and swung it around, stabbing it into the Life Level 2 buck’s side before it fully rose. Having dealt a fatal blow to her most dangerous enemy, relief flooded the girl as she quickly stood and lifted the doe’s body, putting it between herself and the remaining healthy level 1 deer. Just as it did twice before, the meat shield worked as a deterrent from any more rush attacks, giving the girl time to position herself below a tree before dumping the body and climbing upward.

A maniacal laugh resounded throughout the forest as Kaltyr seated herself on a branch way too high for her enemies to reach and began recovering her mana—a whirlpool of magical essence beginning to form around her.

“Game over!”

……

“Begin from the top priorities, and hurry. I’m a busy man.”

“Yes, sir. To start, the world itself is showing no problems with generation, cycles, the plotting, memory, or anything else. Everything is running smoothly without so much as a single error. The System is working its magic beyond all expectations in that regard and there seem to be no signs of Manic’s collapse.”

“Is that to say that it’s not so perfect in other regards?”

“No, sir. In every other field, The System has built, taken control of, and manipulated everything perfectly.”

“Hmmm, that’s good, of course. We’re lucky to have been blessed with the most ideal outcome of all predicted possibilities. Yet, your face still gives away that something went wrong.”

“Uhh, sorry, sir. You see—”

“No need to apologize. Continue.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, you see, the fans and human specimens—”

“Calling them specimens is a bit rude, you know.”

“Uh, sorr—I mean, yes, sir. The subjects are performing as well as we suspected, and their suppressed memories are leaking as designed. Additionally, as planned, the most important ones show no signs of surfacing and thus won’t interfere. But, um, their progress through Manic, although following what was foreseen, will definitely lose the interest of the audience if we continue as scheduled...”

“No need to look at me like that. I expected as much. The subjects are, after all, alone in the wilderness without their key memories.”

“Then, uh, okay. I took a poll of whether we should bring the schedule forward from my colleagues—”

“Stop. I don’t care about the poll’s results. The schedule will move as it was originally laid out. If we move up Phase Two, then we’ll be forced to move everything up, and I want the subjects to show the audience what they’re made of. Without the subjects accomplishing great things—even if half of them die in the process—the spectators won’t fully understand just how much potential Manic contains and exactly how much distance there is between themselves and the professionals. If we were to provide assistance only three days into—

“B-but, sir! Unfortunately, as the contracts demand, we have to do something right now because one of the subjects is showing signs of depression and suicidal thoug—”

“WHAT?! Why didn’t you say that FIRST?! That’s top-priority information!”

“Um…I didn’t think—”

“NOW is the time to apologize!”

“Y-yes, sir! I’m sorry!”

“Ugghhh! Move Phase Two forward. Implement it as soon as possible! Get out of my sight!”

……

Sitting on a stone ledge, allowing her sopping clothes to dry under the sunlight, and splashing water around with her feet, Kaltyr processed all of that morning’s events.

The encounter with the family of deer had been an essential experience for the girl, who knew nothing of spells before being chased up that tree and had an epiphany regarding the capabilities of the group that likely posed the most danger to her life in Manic: beasts. Both learning experiences, as far as Kaltyr could tell, were priceless to someone like her who was dropped into that world with barely any knowledge. The first of the two vital lessons she learned—that the beasts functioned on what seemed to be the same rules that she did—allowed her a lot of peace of mind.

“If beasts use mana in the same way I do, then there’s less to worry about because it’s unlikely that they’ll pull out completely random abilities that I had no way to predict existed. So far, I know that Internal and External Mana Manipulation play huge parts in how magic and skills operate because they’re the only two stats available that I can change with stat points. Thus, all abilities likely branch off of those two ideas.”

Kaltyr recalled how Body Mana Reinforcement, which fell under Internal Mana Manipulation, appeared to be a universal skill. She could use it, beasts could use it…probably everything that could use mana could use it. And if that was the case, she’d have to watch out for if her enemies—beasts or otherwise—made use of the new skill she learned that she’d used to break the level 2 deer’s antler. If an opponent of hers were to land a hit powered by the majority of their mana…it was safe to say that wherever that attack landed, nothing would remain unharmed. Upon having that thought, the girl pulled up one of the notifications she’d gained and ignored in the heat of battle.

You have obtained the skill: Body Mana Reinforcement Amplification

“That’s a long-ass name.” Kaltyr mused over the thirteen syllables used in describing the simple technique she’d used, wondering why a long name had to be made pointlessly longer…

Then covered her face with her palms.

“Why did I randomly add ‘ass’ to the end of a word like that?”

Her face burned with a smidge of shame for a few moments before a mana signature near her feet brought her serious self back.

In one fluid motion, Kaltyr wrapped her fingers around the improvised sword she’d left beside her, lifted her feet out of the water, and leaned forward so that she saw the enemy that almost took one of her toes. A yellow streak could be seen aggressively swimming in circles beneath her, leaping its body length in distance above the water in random intervals, but unable to reach her. When the yellow streak made its fourth attempt to get at her feet, Kaltyr’s arm became a blur before reappearing in the same spot, but with a fish skewered on the end of the antler she held.

Then, she tossed the dying fish behind her and continued thinking over what she’d learned.

“It’s too bad that I probably won’t be able to specialize in External Mana Manipulation…”

Kaltyr fantasized about the countless wonderous and whimsical effects that might be possible to produce by manipulating mana outside of her body. She pictured herself wiping out entire armies of enemies through the conjuring of natural disasters or constructing a colossal castle from bedrock in a day by shifting and morphing mountains… Yet, if everything proceeded as she speculated, then she’d be stuck fighting as a warrior-type combatant. Yes, she might very well one day be able to slaughter those capable of doing what she just imagined, but destroying didn’t appeal to her nearly as much as creating did.

“Dumping my stat points into External Mana Manipulation would definitely have threatened my odds of long-term survival. Yes, I would probably have had no trouble filling those deer with holes from up in that tree if I just cast a full-powered mana bolt, recovered the mana, and repeated until they were all either dead or fled…but, would that always work out for me?”

Images from her past three days in Manic flitted by as Kaltyr remembered how her instincts had quickly taken over when it came down to fight—all evidence pointing toward close-quarters combat being the form of combat she was most proficient in. Even the only times her gut had instructed her to use her mana were for Body Mana Reinforcement rather than anything else. Was it the case that what she felt was simply…natural? Everything capable of refining and using mana quickly learned how to reinforce their bodies? Or was it more likely that her past self—her past life—was already quite familiar with fighting in such a manner?

Kaltyr lifted her feet out of the river again and moved them in front of her so that she could hug her knees.

“I’m not sure, and I don’t know if it’s possible to be sure. However, even if I used to be the best goddamned spellcaster before my mind was wiped, that wouldn’t change the fact that investing in my ability to cast spells would be stupid, or even suicidal, when I know that my safest choice lies in punching, kicking, hacking, and slashing my enemies to death.”

A depressingly long sigh escaped the girl’s lips as she shooed away the daunting thought that she’d never live the fantasy life she dreamed for.

“Anyway, my clothes have dried enough.”

Kaltyr stood up, lightly slapped her hands against her face to fully rid herself of negative thoughts, and inspected what she wore.

“That’s good. There are barely any signs that I used to be covered in dirt and blood. My hair is strangely fine, too…”

The amateur survivalist noted the orange color of the sky, then picked up her antler sword and the corpse of the yellow fish beast—stuffing that in her pocket—before turning to face the ghastly pile of seven deer corpses she had left by the river while she washed her clothing.

“Ah, shit. Did I wash my clothes for nothing? I’m so dumb…”

The twelfth facepalm.

“It’s gonna take me a while to bring all of these back to the clearing, and if I carry them, I’ll probably get blood on me again! Plus, the stench of blood will attract tons of beasts, so some of the corpses will probably disappear by the time I get back… UUGGGHGHHH!”

Kaltyr whined for only a few seconds before returning to her senses.

“What am I complaining about? These are the corpses of my enemies! I have no reason to complain when I just got away from a brawl against SEVEN beasts! I’ll take these back to my territory with a smile!!!”

Hands on her hips, the girl laughed into the sky, her confidence flaring, before she came to a realization.

“Oh, wait… I don’t even have to carry them! I can just drag two a few meters forward, drag two more to the same spot, and repeat that until I get back! Gosh, I’m so smart! But, I carried the corpses to the river here individually, so…I’m not that smart.”

She closed her eyes and stood still for a minute, allowing a familiar coldness to wash over her soul until she entered Stealth Mode.

“Now, let’s just…”

The girl grabbed two legs from the pile as best she could while holding her sword, made sure the legs belonged to different deer, and pulled… And fell on her butt.

“Gaahh… I forgot that I could only move them so easily thanks to magic!”

The thirteenth facepalm.

“I’m really not smart…”

The girl sighed once again, when suddenly…

[Incorrect, Kaltyr. You washed your clothes, after all! Had you not done so, your attire would have become uncomfortably itchy.]

Kaltyr instantly left Stealth Mode as mana filled her every meridian before her body even turned around and her blood pressure spiked. The girl’s aura blazed blindingly bright, giving off her Life Level of 2, but even that didn’t seem to be enough to hide her fear.

[There is no need to be frightened, Kaltyr. I am no enemy.]

Slowly, as Kaltyr watched, a glob of water the size of her head rose from the center of the river. It floated midair for a few seconds before its surface rippled and its shape changed, growing five tentacle-like appendages.

“What the hell…”

The girl gulped as the glob of clear water grew a pair of legs, a set of arms, and a head. It was completely featureless, sporting no toes, fingers, eyes, or anything. Just the form of a human made of water. And most unnerving of all…

I sense nothing from it all.