“Hah… hah…” Ragged breathing could be heard as Kurushimi was bent over, her hands resting on her knees. Looking over towards her non-existent SP bar, she sighed and exclaimed, “Finally… It’s over.”

Even though her stamina now was incomparable to herself from before, she had done a lot in the process of finding the hidden requirement for fleet footwork. Side stepping, jumping in place, running, jogging and even finding a canisfang to practice her footwork with. It was safe to say that the canisfang was very confused as to why she was just repeatedly dodging it and not attacking back.

Eventually, what seemed to harbor results was amateurishly copying a boxer’s footwork technique that she had seen online and attempting to shadow box. Naturally, she wasn’t very good at it. However, the hidden requirement vanished after doing so.

“If that was the requirement, how is anyone supposed to learn this skill? No one here has information from another world and knows what shadow boxing is!” Kurushimi complained. She was mostly annoyed at the fact she had tried so much before finding out this was the solution. She hadn’t thought about using something from her past world as that didn’t make sense!

“I don’t think the requirement was shadow boxing specifically.” Voice-san interjected. “It’s likely that the requirement was to show actual technique in footwork rather than random movements. So shadow boxing would work, however it isn’t the only way to do it.” What split apart what she had done so far from shadow boxing was that everything was random movement, so that would explain why shadow boxing was a solution even though it wasn’t a thing in this world.

“Oh, okay. Welp, now that I’ve got the hidden requirement, time to learn the skill!” Kurushimi said, opening the menu and hovering over fleet footwork. Unlike sword aura, she didn’t get to learn the skill for free after fulfilling the requirement and unfortunately still had to spend skill points. But Kurushimi knew it was a good investment, so she wasn’t too bothered.

With the consumption of 300 skill points, she learnt fleet footwork. Being a passive skill, the second she started moving, she was able to feel the effects of it. She moved faster than before. But contrary to how a sudden change in tempo would normally be, her movements went through easier and flowed better than before. The skill was only Lvl. 1 but it was already quite good.

“My SP bar is doing better now… so by the time I get there, I should be full on SP~” As long as she wasn’t running about or making any complicated movements, walking about didn’t consume SP and it would regenerate naturally. Once she got to her destination, the large crystal area, she would be ready to take on the canisfangs that were situated there.

“About now’s a good time to activate this…” Kurushimi said, as a thin veil slowly conjured around her skin. She wanted to activate camouflage now, a decent bit before having reached the area. Hence, she wouldn’t immediately be noticed upon getting there. If there were any other enemies, like the living armour on the left path, she wanted to know about them before they knew about her. The veil took the colours of her surroundings as she moved into the trees.

. . .

At a certain point down the path, the surroundings began to visibly change. The once small and insignificant crystals that littered the forest grew bigger and bigger as Kurushimi went on. As their size increased, so did the intensity of the glow they emanated. “I’m here.” Kurushimi said, observing the new area.

The aura was truly hallowing. If she had not been in a rush to escape the canisfangs, the second run her would have never approached such a place. She found it to be beautiful… but off putting at the same time. Although, even though she didn’t have much information, she had some knowledge of what was to come.

“I can handle a few canisfangs~” Kurushimi said, halting any hesitation and continuing forth. Of what she knew, there was a large pack of canisfangs living here. She didn’t know their levels but judging by the location of this area in the forest, it would be appropriate to compare the levels with the scorched land. Which would be about Lvl. 30 on average. Not counting wild cards such as the rock golems that was.

Suddenly, Kurushimi noticed her skin begin to look strange. She was confused at first but after a second, she realised it was her veil of camouflage beginning to waver. Generally, this happened when she didn’t have anything to blend into. However, this only confused her more! She was very much in the surroundings. There was no reason to lose her camouflage here?

“Ay, what the hell is going on-!” Kurushimi complained as the veil finally broke and her visage was revealed. She had no clue as to whether this was a bug or something strange she didn’t know about. With her camouflage gone now, the only thing she could really do was attempt re-applying it. Her mana condensed around her body and slowly formulated into a veil once again…

“Aaaaaaaaaand…” Kurushimi anticipated the veils forming as she waited for it to take the colour of her surroundings and finalize. She was hopeful as she saw it begin to change colour after fully forming until, “Nope!” She shouted in frustration as it broke immediately just when the colour had fully changed.

“This is so weird… How about a shadow veil?” Kurushimi gave in, seeing that camouflage was harboring no results. Luckily for her, she still had one more rendition of camouflage that was a separate skill. It was annoying she would have to use it, as any monster that saw the black mist would immediately become alert. However, it was better than nothing.

As her shadow wavered, it broke apart and dissipated. As it spread about, it became a thick dark mist that surrounded her. A black veil encased her skin and hid her within the mist, making her invisible to anyone but herself… And possibly Voice-san too, but she didn’t know exactly how Voice-san’s vision worked and thinking about it made her head hurt so she quickly stopped.

“Is it… working?” Kurushimi hesitantly asked, seeing the veil not break as fast as camouflage had. But, seemingly as soon as she asked, something strange started happening to the black mist.

“Aah… Why did I have to ask? I just jinxed myself!” Of course, it wouldn’t go her way. Especially after clichédly asking whether or not it worked. Kurushimi watched the black mist be penetrated by some kind of light and slowly begin disappearing. She didn’t understand what was doing it, but this was her best chance of finding out. She hurriedly scanned around to find the source of the light.

After having looked around, she found one thing in common with the rays of light that were causing her black mist to disappear and her veil to waver. “Ah, so it’s a regional thing huh?” Kurushimi said understandingly. It seemed she wouldn’t be able to use camouflage or similar abilities in this area.

The large crystals that illuminated the area also seemed to be cutting through her veil and causing it to break. If she was right, it looked like invis didn’t work for this area. Kurushimi sighed, but it wasn’t too big of a problem. Although, there was something she needed to check immediately.

Thrusting her katana outwards, it bathed in the light emitted from the large crystals. In the worst-case scenario, she would have to give up her plan of taking on this area. “Please let it work properly-!” Kurushimi shouted, as she let her katana blaze with a crimson aura. The aura ran down the blade and overpowered the light from the crystals. Seeing it work fine, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“I was worried it would affect mana usage… Or even worse, block it all together.” Kurushimi said, as she quickly de-activated the sword aura to stop herself from wasting any more mana. In the end, it looked like the light from the large crystals only revealed camouflage and the like. But there was always the possibility that it affected one’s usage of mana all together. If she couldn’t use mana… she’d be as good as dead. Even if they were just canisfangs.

“It’s good that I can use mana but I still need to be careful. Without camouflage, I’m pretty exposed.” Her method of sneaking up on enemies simply wouldn’t work here. It was vital for her to spot the enemies before they spot her. Appraisal and farsight should help with that, but it truly was a pain she couldn’t scout with camouflage first.

‘KREEE-!’ However, an easily recognizable screech quickly threw that plan away. Already, it looked like she had been noticed. Kurushimi didn’t know if they had found her randomly or if they had seen the crimson sword aura she let off a second ago, but regardless, the first fight with canisfangs local to the large crystal area was about to commence.

Turning towards the screechings location, she looked through the trees at the approaching canisfangs. From what she saw, they were the same old canisfangs she had encountered again and again. And a quick appraisal revealed their levels to be… [Canisfang Lvl. 31], [Canisfang Lvl. 33], [Canisfang Lvl. 29], [Canisfang Lvl. 34], [Canisfang Lvl. 33], [Canisfang Lvl. 30], [Canisfang Lvl. 31] As the various messages came in response to rapid appraisal, the canisfangs separated from the trees and encircled Kurushimi. Their bloodthirsty eyes watched her as they stood on the opposite end of the clearing.

“Did you all come after seeing my sword aura? If you want to see it that bad, I’ll put on a show for you!” Her katana re-ignited with the crimson sword aura, flaring violently in front of the canisfangs. “For free, of course.”

The seven canisfangs all sprinted for Kurushimi at once. They were noticeably more savage and aggressive than the average canisfang, despite not seeming any different at first glance. As a canisfang leaped at her, she skillfully stepped out of the way. Then, after doing the same for the next canisfang to leap at her, she lunged forward and slashed vertically upwards.

The sword aura followed her blade, drawing a crimson line across the face of a canisfang. With a muffled whimper, the canisfang was sliced in half. Blood shot out and mixed with her crimson sword aura, flying through the area. Although it was a stunning sight of blood and guts, there were still a large amount of canisfangs around her.

With the living armour spectre’s battle instinct alerting her of a canisfang lunging towards her backside, time slowed down as she spun around and lifted her leg up. Her foot made contact with the side of the canisfangs face, time quickly going back to normal as it was kicked away by Kurushimi’s powerful kick.

However, despite jumping into the middle of them fearlessly and killing one before briefly incapacitating another, the canisfangs didn’t show fear or hesitation like they usually did. There was no delay in the next two canisfangs running at her from either side. And the other three weren’t far behind them.

“You really want to die, don’t you!” Kurushimi shouted, turning towards one of the two closer canisfangs and cutting it down with sword aura. The other canisfang behind her was suddenly stopped mid lung as the blood from her first kill shot up and impaled it. With two more canisfangs dead, she kicked off the ground and blinked away with short-distance teleportation to make some distance.

Looking back, the other three canisfangs were already where she previously was and gnawed away ruthlessly at the air. “How did they get like this…” Kurushimi furrowed her brows as she disbelievingly looked at them. Their behaviour simply was too different! How does a slight change in geographical location make them become this way?

The canisfangs turned her way shortly after figuring out her new location. Meanwhile, Kurushimi let go of her katana and allowed a dim golden light to take it. In her hand, her glaive sat where the katana was.