Things like "I closed my eyes and wait for the pain to come, but after a few seconds, I didn't feel anything." are absolutely miracles, but they can be found in any novels out there, you know? Therefore, I decided to change things a bit...

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"Look out!"

Alice shouted to get the cat's attention, but he was too slow to move on the spot, while the wolf was going to bite him at any second now. Pushed her own wolf aside with her staff, she scraped up the last mana drops she had been saving for emergency situations and aim her hand between the two animals.

"Ice Bolts!"

Immediately, two small shards made of ice had left her right hand, and flew straight to the other wolf, pierced through its heart out. However, with the kinetic motion was already in effect, the wolf didn't stop dead on the track but managed to land on the curled up cat.

Not gave her a chance to think about her little companion, the wolf bite her on her left arm which was extending out just after she finished casting. Endured the agony, she took a hold on the wolf's teeth firmly, while flung the staff into the wolf's eyes using the momentum to generate the force. Howling in pain, the wolf released her hand and took a few steps back. Immediately close her distance to the wolf, Alice gave the wolf a few good bashes until it completely gave out. Ignored her pain for now, she ran to the cat's last known location to get a check on him.

"Kitty, are you okay?!"

No answer for some seconds, she had readied to lift the wolf up to dig the cat out, using her normal arm with the staff. Luckily, the wolf body began to move, and a small black cat crawled out slowly under it (more like wiggled wiggled). Gave out an unhappily face, he pulled up his board with some strange symbols on it, as she could decipher it as:

/^#[email protected]&%*!?

Though Alice didn't know what the cat was trying to say, he looked okay, mostly. Felt like she just unburdened a large weight on her mind, she sat down and tended for the wounds. There were various cuts and scratches on her small body. most of them already healed up during the fight, but one of her arm now was completely unusable. That wasn't a big matter though, since it wasn't her dominant arm anyway.

The cat dusted himself up from the ground, slowly hobbled towards Alice. Without the strength of his right forefeet, it was such a hassle to move around. However, since they already finished the wolf horde, he no longer need to worry about fighting anymore and just pretended to be hurt to have a reason to be lazy.

After a while it took them to bandage themselves up and rested, the duo finally started to explore deeper into the inner of the cave. Despite being a deep cave, there weren't any insects or animals inside beside the carcasses of the wolves at the front. The moisture sure was a nice touch though, that and the fresh air helped the cat partially forgot about the smell of blood and sweats he just endured not a long time ago. That wasn't the only surprise, after about half an hour they ventured and explored around (no treasure chests were found that day), they found an exit to the other side.

Exposed to the bright sunlight once again, he squinted his eyes up as an ineffective way of protection. There was another circular piece of forest on this side of the mountain, not large as the one outside, but the size still large enough to cover a small park for children back at his old world.

"Hey, isn't this like a box inside a box inside another box? Then is inside this forest here should be another smaller forest?"

Alice asked no one in particular, or maybe to ask herself. She had received this kind of gift once before, and got only disappointment in the end after all.

Tilted his head to the right, the cat was deep in thinking again. The forest ahead of him was quite, different from the one outside, the trees in this place were all tangled up with each other, created a ring barrier surrounding with a main trail in, which seemed to be the only way, then the grasses they need should be in the center of the forest.

However, there was a chance to encounter ambush as well, consider it was the only way to enter the tree barrier.

Pulled out the piece of charcoal, he drew a small mouse trap to indicate his thoughts to the girl, who looked like she was ready to walk in right away.

"Hmm, there is actually that risk, however, didn't we clear all the wolves outside already? What kind of monster can be hiding inside after these dogs blocking the way here?"

Shaking his head, he also didn't know anything more than the girl. If there was anything inside, it would be stronger than the wolves outside quite a bit, or the amount of them were outnumbered. Either case, it wouldn't end well if they rush in rashly without any preparation.

Erased everything he had on the board, he replaced them with the wings-like and the question mark and presented to to the girl.

"Naw, I can't fly. What do you think, an ice specialized mage can fly around and bombard the enemy from the sky? Nope, my level isn't that high yet."

She said that blankly with a shrug, shut down one of the choices he could make. Blasting through the forest wouldn't be a good idea either, since they would announce the presences to the party inside anyway. Digging a tunnel would take weeks, and there was nothing warranted where they would end up underground without any sightline. Maybe, if he sat on one of the icicle and flew into the forest....

"How about you go scouting ahead and I follow after a safe distance? That way, we can have some leeway before encounter something dangerous." Alice crouched down and poked her finger at the cat. "You know, since you are small and all, I think you won't be spot that easily."

Well, that was an option too.

Brushed the finger that kept poking his cheek aside, (Alice replied to this with an "Eh~") he signaled the girl to stay wherever she was, and slowly strolled (read as crawled) into the heart of the forest. Just to make sure, he also hid into a green bush to camouflage himself to any unknown threats could be around. Step by step, he walked close enough to the trail, but tried not to be too obvious. Still, even when he tried to stop and observed ahead of him, there isn't any movements whatsoever, or suspicious sounds, only the sound of leaves vibrates together through the summer wind...

This is so weird. Not mentioned to something big as monster, where have all the small animals inside the forest gone off to?

Maybe this forest is safe, he thought so. He was ready to went back to where the blue hair girl was, but when he turned around, he was surprised to see a row of green bushes laid behind him. Turn on his caution mode, he moved a few steps ahead to check, and glanced back only to saw the distance between his and the other bushes hadn't increase at all.

Now that he knew, there were several unidentified creatures tailed him since a while ago. It was suspicious, but since they hadn't attacked him yet, maybe they weren't any dangerous creatures. Thinking like that, he swiftly turned around. Couldn't caught up with his sudden movement, the bushes bumped into each other while the first one behind him flew out the two white rabbits. As to replied to his stare, they just made smile-like faces, and then jumped back to their bush. Feeling annoyed, he went back personally to check all the bushes in the row. The result was, besides the first two rabbits, there were squirrels, wild cats, a family of birds, racoons and several small animals he didn't see anywhere before. As he went to the last two bushes, he had completely put down his guard and only curious to see which creatures were left in the bushes.

The one which he stood front of right now, was an anomaly bush right there. This one was visually larger than the others, the size of it should be bigger than an adult back in his former world. Maybe a deer, or a bunch of animals inside this one, he guessed. Climbed up on top of the bush, he used his paws to sweep the leaves aside, revealed a patch of brown skin under. The creature pop his head up out of the bush, locked its eyes to the small cat's eyes, and smiled.

"Boo!" It said so.

The creature was the bear he had met not a long time ago.

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AN: Finally I can touch the pc :p. Was gone back the countryside for the whole summer, now I'm back for business. Unedited version, I will proofread it later probably.