“Alright, without further-ado, let’s test it!”

After finally acquiring the ‘Camouflage’ skill, the skill that singlehandedly made the pullumskāls a tricky threat, Kurushimi’s first thought was to try it out. Just as she would do for any other skill, Kurushimi began to conjure mana.

《Used skill: 『Camouflage Lvl. 1』!》

A thin veil of a transparent, silk-material wrapped around Kurushimi’s skin. Its surface was extremely reflective and glistened ever so slightly. A few seconds passed and the veil suddenly broke, surprising Kurushimi.

“Hm? Where’d it go?”

The veil had suddenly disappeared a short time after Kurushimi had activated it. Kurushimi was confused as to whether she had done something wrong or not.

《Could not find a target!》

《skill:『Camouflage Lvl. 1』has failed!》

“A target?”

A system message popped up, reporting ‘Camouflage’ to have supposedly failed. Seeing the first message, Kurushimi realised that the skill needs a target. Nothing about a target had been specified in the skill description for ‘Camouflage’ so Kurushimi found it a little irritating that a vague reason was restricting her from using the skill. Kurushimi sighed.

“Hmmm, target huh? The skill description mentioned that ‘Camouflage’ blends into surroundings so perhaps…?”

Kurushimi, with her arms crossed, stepped over one of the pullumskāls to get to a tree. She turned around and rested her back against the tree. Slowly, she conjured mana and the same thin veil formed around her skin.

《Used skill: 『Camouflage Lvl. 1』!》

The thin veil caressed her skin tightly and after a moment, took on a green and brown hue. Similar to the trees, leaves and foliage surrounding her. Kurushimi stood still for a little while longer and the veil continued to persist without breaking.

“So it is like that…”

Kurushimi kicked off the tree and started to separate herself from it. As her distance from the tree grew, the veil around herself got weaker until it eventually cracked. The veil disappeared in a similar fashion to before.

《skill:『Camouflage Lvl. 1』has ended!》

Another system notification popped up in Kurushimi's vision again. This one was slightly different from the last but had generally the same meaning.

“Ok, I think ‘Camouflage’ only works when I’m near something I can blend into…”

Kurushimi turned back to look at the tree she was just standing by. ‘Camouflage’ had worked just fine when she stood by it. But when she walked out into the open, the veil produced by ‘Camouflage’ slowly weakened until it broke.

-With how the pullumskāls fought, that does add up.

Kurushimi remembered back to how the pullumskāls generally attacked her. They would hide in the foliage for an unprecedented amount of time and when they attacked her, they would undo the ‘Camouflage’ skill first. Kurushimi had assumed that maybe it wore off as they attacked, but it seems that wasn’t the case. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was standing in the open area, to allow her to set up the shadow strings with ‘Shadow magic’, then they could have easily attacked her whilst in ‘Camouflage’.

Kurushimi shook a little bit at the thought. Information is key and to know your enemy is a large determining factor of the outcome for a battle. And Kurushimi could have been in a lot of trouble if she hadn’t been lucky in the fact that she had stood in an open area to set up her shadow strings.

“Ah, Speaking of ‘Shadow magic’… I have an Idea!”

《Used skill: 『Shadow magic Lvl. 3』!》

As Kurushimi conjured mana, Her shadow and shadows around herself began to writhe. Slowly, a shadowy mist surrounded the area. The mist alone wasn’t really doing much other than create a slightly spooky atmosphere. But Kurushimi then conjured mana once more, constructing a thin veil on the surface of her skin.

《Used skill: 『Camouflage Lvl. 1』!》

The transparent, silk-like veil manifested itself around her. Kurushimi waited expectantly, watching the veil for any change in colour. And much to Kurushimi’s excitement, the veil soon took on a dark hue and no system message telling her of the skill’s failure appeared.

“It worked!”

Kurushimi laughed as she held up her hand, observing the black tinted veil surrounding her. She wasn’t sure if it would work but seemingly, a construct of your own magic counted as a surrounding for ‘Camouflage’ to blend in to. With this, Kurushimi could use ‘Camouflage' in an open area.

“Well, others can still see my general location due to the conspicuous black mist… But as for my specific location, no one would know!”

Kurushimi laughed and allowed the black mist to disperse, which slowly made ‘Camouflage’ break shortly afterwards. Kurushimi could see that the combining of these two skills, ‘Camouflage’ and ‘Shadow magic’ could create a deadly combo.

-I’ll call it ‘Shadow veil’!

《Would you like to create the new skill ‘Shadow veil’?》

As Kurushimi had half-jokingly named her new move, a system notification popped up.

“You can create skills?”

Kurushimi was a little surprised. She had no idea that there was the possibility to actually create skills. And she definitely hadn’t expected to be creating her own skill anytime soon.

“Eto~ I guess I should...?”

Kurushimi stared at the system notification. She didn’t really see a downside to making it a skill. With no reason to disagree, Kurushimi agreed.

《Skill:『Shadow veil Lvl. 1』has been created!》

. . .

Kurushimi stepped through the natural path created by the forest. Now she had successfully acquired the ‘Camouflage’ skill and created the new ‘Shadow veil’ skill she had decided to head back to her original starting point.

The thought of using ‘Shadow veil’ and ‘Camouflage’ to sneak around Karshak and escape the forest had come up in Kurushimi’s head but she ultimately decided against it. In the off-chance Karshak had a detection skill, she didn’t want to risk it.

The description for ‘Camouflage’ had stated that a higher-level detection skill could see through it. And naturally the same would go for ‘Shadow veil’. Since Karshak is Lvl. 120, Not only would there be a good chance of him having a detection skill, the chance of it being a higher-level than her Lvl. 1 ‘Camouflage’ and ‘Shadow veil skills would be certain.

So if she went there, she would essentially be running to her death. Kurushimi wasn’t suicidal and wasn’t looking to increase her death count again already. With that in mind, Kurushimi decided to head over to the original point where she had come into this world.

There, she would enact her plan to head down the path that had previously led to her death in the first and second runs. With her new-found strength, Kurushimi was confident that the result wouldn’t be the same as the first and second run.

KREEE EEE EE! KREEE EE EEE EE!

Kurushimi came to a sudden stop. At the sound of shrieking, Kurushimi slowed down her pace and watched ahead more carefully.

-Those are canisfang shrieks. Regular ones, luckily…

Although Kurushimi wasn’t scared of canisfangs anymore, she still shivered when she first heard the shriek. Their shrieks were daunting and intimidating but the main reason was because Karshak had a similar shriek. The paranoia of meeting Karshak again was deep ingrained into Kurushimi’s heart.

《Used skill: 『Farsight Lvl. 1』!》

Kurushimi looked into the distance to find out where the canisfangs were located and how many of them there were. Eventually, she spotted them through the foliage. Around 100-200 metres away were a group of them. Kurushimi counted 7 of them from what she could see.

《Used skill: 『Appraisal Lvl. 1』!》

《Canisfang Lvl. 9》

《Canisfang Lvl. 8》

《Canisfang Lvl. 15》

《Canisfang Lvl. 10》

《Canisfang Lvl. 9》

《Canisfang Lvl. 7》

《Canisfang Lvl. 8》

Kurushimi observed one canisfang to be a considerably higher level than the rest. But the main difference was its aura.

-I think… That one may be the leader.

It felt strange to Kurushimi but she could somehow tell that one had to be the leader of the group.

“Wait, wait, wait… I’m getting deja vu here. I’ve seen this aura before haven’t I? In chapter 7 I believe~ I forgot this was a thing!”

《Used skill: 『Shadow veil Lvl. 1』!》

The shadowy mist spread around herself. Slowly, her figure blended into it until she disappeared from sight.

“Let’s test out the new skill then!”