Glaring at the dawn’s light, Yuriko scrubbed at her eyes, then blinked at the sand.

“Ow...” she groaned, shaking her head. Her hands were covered in sand, so she shook them off. Thankfully, they were dry and the sand didn’t stick.

Her campfire had burnt down to embers, though it had done its job of boiling the seawater and distilling fresh water into her bowl. The problem was that the breeze had blown sand into her container. She carefully sipped the water off then tossed the remnants with the sand at the bottom.

This couldn’t continue, she thought.

Her need for water was too much and she didn’t have a large enough container to reliably distil it from the sea. She supposed she could subsist on the water from the fruit but who knew how long they would last? No, she needed to find a source of fresh water, preferably today.

She fished out her ration bars and ate one. She only had one left and by the way her tummy gurgled, it wouldn’t even last until lunch. Frowning, she reached for the other green fruit, tore off the husk and once she got to the shelled core, used her finger to poke a hole in it. She guzzled down the juice and once it was empty, she broke the thing in half and ate the white mass inside. Shortly after she was sated, her tummy gurgled again though this time, it wasn’t in hunger.

She took her folded shovel and did her business discreetly beside a different tree. After managing to clean herself, she wore her backpack and her remaining gear. She’d return to this copse later if she didn’t find better shelter.

“So, where to?” Yuriko muttered.

She was in the northern half of the cove so she figured she’d try going south along the coast. Rivers emptied into the sea, didn’t they? If she followed the coast, she’d eventually find one such river that she could then follow upstream.

A longstride was an easy walk and soon enough, she reached the edge of the cove. With a sigh, she crossed the small ridge, hoping to see more beaches and hopefully, a river. The coastline was more crumbled rocks than fine sandy beach though, but it was easy enough for her to continue hiking.

Perhaps a couple of longstrides later, and a couple of hours hike, she caught a glimpse of a shimmer. She pushed past the bushes, leaves, and thorns and found herself looking at an inlet.

“Thank the Ancestors!” she breathed.

Where it met the sea probably had brackish water so she started going upstream. Clumps of grass grew on sandbars in the middle of the river, and there was even the odd willow in the middle of a tiny rise.

The banks were narrow and steep and she had to push past bushes, vines, and other vegetation. The thorny branches scratched at her exposed skin but didn’t leave more than a white mark when she pushed past them. After a few hundred paces, she found a natural slope that easily let her get to the water.

She knelt and dipped her finger in the water. It was slightly murky with the current churning up the mud. It might not be the best place to gather drinking water but she could just boil it to make it safe. Yuriko thought about carving a big enough pot from either stone or wood since her camp pot was far too small. She tasted the water and found that it wasn’t salty in the slightest.

She looked further upstream. The jungle pressed up against the banks, though she could see a pebbly beach just before the river bent. Since she was further inland, the birds, beasts, and insects’ sounds were a cacophony. The frightening howls she heard last night were absent.

“Now that I have a fresh water source, what now?” she asked herself.

It was a thought she’d been ignoring the entire time she was trying to get herself to safety. Now, she had fresh water and food was abundant in the cove with nearly a hundred palm trees with green fruits. She figured she could even try her hand at fishing.

No, the bigger question was how she could find her way back to Rumiga. The planar barrier was somewhere to the east, beyond the sea. She didn’t have the presence of mind to check while she had been stuck on the sandbar and she couldn’t see it from the cove. So logically, it was so far beyond the shore that she’d need a vessel of some kind…a boat, to reach the Veil. There was probably a Tidelands there or a Chaos Channel. Another complication she didn’t know how to bridge.

“Oh, yeah, I don’t need a Tidelands to exit...”

Except she had no idea how to traverse the Chaos Sea. She was still an Apprentice. Perhaps a combination of the Chaos Storm and Fri’Avgi saw her safely through her ordeal but she had no idea what it would take to travel safely. Or rather, she did know. She had to strengthen her Anima to Knight level. As she was now, she could wander safely into the Mid-Marches of the Tidelands but no deeper. Becoming a Journeyman would allow her to go to the Depths.

“Burning Moon!”

It could take years or decades for her to reach Knight! Not with her unorthodox path. Someone with a decent Heritage would be a Knight in their thirties to forties while someone with a great Heritage could do it in their early twenties. Her Heritage was probably just a shade above poor with regards to its ability to guide her to power. But of course, she wasn’t using the Empire’s methods now.

She’d have to ask Damien how long it would take for her to strengthen her Anima to the necessary level, but she worried that it would take years anyway. So what were her options?

One was to stay put. Create a shelter and slowly strengthen herself until she could cross the Veil and make her way back to Rumiga. And the second was to look for civilization and pay for a ride to the Imperial Territories.

So which should she do? She didn’t want to wait around. So that obviously meant she had to explore. She winced when a muscle in her calf twinged.

She’d need to recover first. Well, she’d spent enough time mooning about. She should see if she could find shelter nearby. As she was about to get up, her eyes were drawn to a log drifting down the river.

Oh. No, no. It was drifting closer to her, actually.

She paused.

A log. Drifting across the current?

She blinked, and at that moment when her eyes were closed, her Anima screamed.

Every instinct told her to jump, to flee, and she followed. The log disappeared under the water and in the next instant, humongous brown jaws lunged at her from beneath muddy water. She had just gotten out of the way when the creature’s jaws snapped with a thunderous boom.

“Swarm fodder!” she growled as she landed a few paces back.

The thing didn’t let up and crawled out of the water. Its head was longer than she was tall, six black eyes blinked menacingly at her, two at the front, two at the sides, and the last pair pointed at the back.

Roar!

Three pairs of legs sticking out from its side propelled it out of the river and towards her. She could see a long, thick tail beating against the water. It was covered in thick, brown hide, with bumpy lumps on the back.

Midair, Yuriko’s hand darted to her belt and drew her Plasma Lancet. The cartridge didn’t have a charge so she fed it her own Animus. A line of fire seared her veins from her core to her fingers. It almost made her drop the weapon but her hand convulsively tightened on the handgrip.

Her Anima was still wounded.

Clenching her jaw, she pushed past the pain and pulled on the trigger. A bolt of golden superheated plasma shot from the muzzle and collided on the monster’s snout. It chuffed and shook its head, flinging the plasma off. A darkened spot was the only result.

She ran back, shooting more bolts but to no avail. She tried to aim at the eyes but the raised ridges around them blocked her shots.

It rushed at her, moving faster than she expected from a lumbering hulk. But she was far too agile for it. She circled to its left, holding her fire. It was a waste of Animus, she realized. With no technique to empower the weapon, it was worse than useless.

Twack!

With her distraction, the monster’s tail smashed into her side and she was sent flying. Her back smashed against a tree, breaking it in the process and depositing her on the ground. She shook her head, looking up just in time to see its jaws wide open less than a pace away from her foot.

She rolled away and it swung its head in her direction. Desperately, she thrust her palm against its snout. Futilely hoping to fend it off.

Thwack!

The moment her palm hit it, the creature’s head snapped back and its feet collapsed under it. It groaned and twitched, taking several moments to get its bearings while Yuriko looked at it with her mouth agape.

The black eyes, so fierce when they first stared at her, swam. Yuriko regained her senses before it did and she launched herself at it, fist cocked back. She punched it on the side of its head, knocking it back a couple of paces. The monster was longer than five of her put together, but it was unexpectedly…weak.

Yuriko planted her feet on the ground and threw another punch, rocking the creature off its collective feet.

“Try to eat me, would you?” she growled, fury coursing through her veins.

She punched and kicked, slapped and smashed the eight and a half pace long monster. It tried to strike her with its tail, but she kicked it out of the way. Her golden Animus coated her limbs, creating jagged spikes that left holes along its hide.

“Chaos take you, foul beast!” she screamed as she continued her barrage.

Once, the monster managed to catch her arm with a jagged tooth. It pierced her skin, drawing blood, but served only to fuel her rage. She hammered at its face until its snout and jaws deformed. Blood seeped out of its hide were shattered bones pierced through. The monster shuddered and twitched nervelessly, but she didn’t let up. Not until her hands were caked in blood and gore. Her throat was hoarse from all the screaming as she let every emotion she’d bottled inside loose.

Blat!

Yuriko’s fist sunk into the head. The creature hadn’t moved for the past few minutes while she mindlessly battered its head.

“Fallen Sun.” She collapsed to her knees and started to sob. “Ancestors, why am I here?”

Flecks of monster blood were on her cheek, on her lips, and across her nose. Her hair was as pristine as ever.

“Hic…hahh, Chaos…” Yuriko hiccupped.

Nearly an hour after the creature attempted to bite her, she finally came to her senses. She wiped away her tears only for the gore on her arms smeared across her face anyway.

“Rotting…blood…!”

Yuriko grumped as she stomped to the river and plunged her hands into the water. The drop from the slope into the water came up to her hips and she wondered how such a huge creature managed to sneak up on her. It was at least as tall as she was.

She glared out into the water, half daring for another one of those things to come up and have a go at her. But no, the creature’s pained roars and her own yelling must have scared off whatever was out there.

Once she was relatively clean, she got out of the water and stared at the carcass. The tail was at least half of the creature’s length, with a quarter of the remaining length belonging to the head. The body was short and squat, and its six legs were tipped with dull claws. Other than the head, everything else was in relatively good condition.

That was a lot of meat.

Her mouth suddenly watered and Yuriko recoiled in disgust. But her hand crept to her combat knife and she knew she wouldn’t waste all of that food. Ugh.