Kurushimi glanced over her resource bars and frowned, “I’m low on mana, I need to end this soon.” Excessive usage of sword aura along with her other abilities had led to a depleted mana bar. She still had some fuel in the tank but if this battle were to drag on, it wouldn’t end well.

“Well, I have an idea on how to end this anyway!” She exclaimed, brandishing her blade.

Kurushimi ran in again, continuing her clash with the vengeful spirit. Regularly switching between her glaive and katana, she traded blows with it. As she avoided and evaded the attacks of the vengeful spirit, it was never able to land any major hits but neither was she. Just as before, she was always thwarted by the threat of the lightning.

“When exactly are you going to enact this ‘plan’…?” Voice-san asked, seeing no major developments in the fight despite Kurushimi’s insistence of having a plan. She had previously been nervous about what it could be but the lack of anything happening was beginning to make her even more anxious. Did she even have a plan?

“You’ll see! I just need a proper opportunity to do it!” Kurushimi shouted as she once again swung for the vengeful spirit’s neck. As if reading her movement before she even made it, the lightning dissented from the sky upon her location. ‘No, it won’t work this time…’ Weighing her chances, she gave up this shot as well and chose to blink away the blast zone.

Immediately after reappearing she made use of a rope she had created with shadow magic to pull herself up and avoid the incoming fist of the vengeful spirit. With nimble feet, she didn’t miss the opportunity to instantly deliver a kick to the vengeful spirit’s face.

The vengeful spirit staggered back and Kurushimi thrusted her katana forward in an attempt to pierce its neck. But to no avail, she was forced to return her hand again to avoid the lightning above her. Enough was shown to tell anyone that the vengeful spirit had incredible battle-smarts as it predicted every moment it was vulnerable and countered that.

“I need a better opportunity-!” Kurushimi shouted with frustration. There was the possibility that simply tanking the lightning in order to get a hit in could work. But, she could tell, the lightning would hit her before she could get a lethal wound in. It would be a bad trade for her. And, if she could find the right moment, she could easily end this fight in one move.

Unable to blink away as of this moment, she was unfortunately caught this time by the vengeful spirit’s counter. As its shoulder slammed into her body, she was knocked away once again. Even if their stats were similar, in head-on confrontations like this, the huge difference in body size was a big detriment.

Kurushimi flew away but just before hitting the ground, opened a portal below her to avoid impact. Springing back up onto her feet at the end of her other portal, she was able to cut out around half of the damage she would have taken there. “Dammit-!” She shouted, summoning her glaive and charging at the vengeful spirit another time.

“Kurushimi, don’t lose your cool! You will only get yourself killed that way!” As she sprinted, the tip of her glaive pointing towards the vengeful spirit, she heard Atelier shout at her. She hesitated for a moment. But then, in the top-left corner of her eye, she noticed something. A small and faint spark. At the same time, the vengeful spirit prepared to receive her.

“I’ve got it!” Kurushimi shouted excitedly. The lightning was stronger than any before, clearly with the intent to kill her this time. She instantly lost all hesitation as she charged even harder than before.

It looked suicidal to anyone spectating.

The lightning barrelled down above her, set to land right on her attacking-point. She would definitely get struck if she were to commit. Regardless, she thrusted her glaive forward and stabbed into its chest. Sparkling purple dust, reminiscent of blood, spilled out from the stab wound as the lightning got closer.

“HAAAA-!!!” With all her might she shouted and bent the pole, lifting the vengeful spirit off its feet. She turned around. Her muscles swelled. Her feet caved into the ground. And she swung it into the air above her. At the same time, the lightning exploded and crackled as it crashed down.

“I’ve got you now!” The glaive faded away as her katana fell into her hands. Air was exhaled out through gritted teeth. She calmed her breathing, closed her eyes and strengthened her grip. Crimson aura ignited her blade with a controlled but rage-filled flame.

[You have achieved a new mastery of sword aura!]

With a steady focus in her eyes, she swung her katana repeatedly with precise and powerful cuts.

The sliced and diced body of the vengeful spirit exploded above her like fireworks, causing sparkly purple dust to rain down upon her. Standing around in the dust, she dropped her katana and stuck her tongue out as if she were trying to catch falling snowflakes on a snowy day.

“What are you doing?” The sudden transition from an intense fight to watching her jump around as she tried to collect as much of the sparkly dust she possibly could on the end of her tongue gave Voice-san mixed feelings.

“I neeth to stheal ith thtasts or it won’t be worth it!” Her reply was muffled due to her tongue still being extended outwards but she was able to communicate(?) the intent of her actions. As proven before with the aberrations, she didn’t necessarily need to drink ‘blood’ to get the effect. She just needed to drink whatever was substituting for ‘blood’ in their body.

“One day you are going to get killed consuming some dangerous bodily substance…” Voice-san responded, unable to keep up with her care-free antics.

“Welp, let’s see the results-!” Hearing the familiar ping of system messages, she disregarded Voice-san’s warning and went to view her spoils. However, she found herself meeting head-on with an inconceivably large wall of text.

“Oh that’s a lot.” With a blank smile, she slowly gave the wall of text one look up and down before exclaiming, “Let’s head back first, then we’ll go over it!” She was still right in the middle of the electrical field set up by the vengeful spirit which had yet to dissipate; hence she felt it would be better to go back first, officially ending the first hunt and allowing her to go over the spoils in peace.

“Oh, but before I leave – Let me just pick up the spectre first.” Kurushimi looked up at the remnants of the vengeful spirit, which were beginning to fade away. Before it did so, she began to cast spectral magic - which caused the dust to temporarily lock in place. Due to its limited capacity, she hadn’t used this skill in particular since using it on the last living armour.

“Alright vengeful spirit, I will be taking your spectre!” Kurushimi declared, casting spectral magic. After a short interval, she felt the vengeful spirit’s spectre pass into her body. Unlike the cold chill she had felt from the living armour, she felt a burning hatred burdening her heart for a brief moment. It was as if she could feel all the piled-up resentment.

“Uwah…” Kurushimi coiled up.

On her way back, she met the living armour which miraculously was still barely alive. It was crippled beyond belief but seemingly had managed to wear out the vengeful spirit’s patience and won the battle of attrition. Too bad Kurushimi ended up running into it, otherwise it would have gotten away rather than becoming free stats for collection.

“Woo~ We’re back.” Kurushimi wiped the sweat off her forehead, finally reaching her previously chosen settlement area. On the way she had met a few canisfangs, which she quickly disposed of but otherwise no other large events occured.

She made her way into the clearing and noticed the sun had risen. Seeing the sky become bright, yet feeling tired as if it were night made her reminisce about the times she pulled all-nighters while playing video games.

Kurushimi yawned but vigilantly kept her eyes open. “I’m feeling tired but I’m looking at what I got first-!” She exclaimed with stubbornness despite her body yelling at her to sleep. Promptly climbing up a tree, she rested on a reasonably thick branch and pulled up the system messages she had put aside.

First, she began by going over her levels and stats gained. She had gotten a fair amount of stats from the vengeful spirit, the living armour, and the canisfangs. Kurushimi felt her unique skill was really beginning to show fruition! Along with those stats, she also had the bonus stat points which she allocated accordingly. “In total, I gained seven levels, 134 HP, 138 strength, 130 endurance, 128 stamina, 124 agility, and 134 MP!”

Other than levels and stats, there were the many skill-related acquisitions. “Skills that have leveled up are evade, fangs, nightwalker, shadow magic, storage magic, tenacity… those are cool, but these…”

[Skill updated: ‘What’s yours is mine’]

[You have gained the skill ‘Resentful Storm Lvl. 6’!] Two messages, interesting in their own rights. For the second time, ‘What’s yours is mine’ received an update. However, Kurushimi had an idea on what it was likely to be upon seeing the next message. Her face froze in excitement; if it was what she was thinking of, she had every reason to be hyped.

[Skill updated: ‘What’s yours is mine’]

Skill steal: After successfully stealing a skill for the first time with the unique skill ‘What's yours is mine’, you have gained proficiency in skill stealing! There is now a considerably higher chance of stealing skills, with superior skills being slightly rarer. You can now also refuse to take a skill, receiving skill points instead. The description all but confirmed it. She had successfully stolen a skill for the first time. From the very beginning she had the availability of stealing a skill along with stats. Yet she had never gotten one. But now, her luck had finally turned around. “A skill-! I got it a skill-!” As she joyfully shouted it out, all the tiredness in her body rapidly rushed out for that moment.

Voice-san, not sounding very concerned nor nearly as excited, still congratulated her, “Good for you.”

Atelier also commented, “Quite lucky getting a superior skill on your first steal.”

“Oh, it’s a superior skill? Lemme check-” Kurushimi had yet to see anything beyond the name of the skill, hence not knowing until now that she had managed to snag a superior skill at that. She quickly opened up the description for ‘Resentful Storm Lvl. 6’.

Resentful storm: Grants the user the ability to control a powerful storm, allowing them to freely manipulate it as well as being able to absorb the energy from living creatures, temporarily stealing their stats. These stats will be returned upon the user dying or exiting the designated area of effect. Bonus effectiveness is granted when the target is a focus of strong resentment. Kurushimi: “This is what the vengeful spirit had been using, isn’t it?”

Voice-san: “Mhm.”

Atelier: “It would seem to be.”

The most glaringly obvious observation to be made was that this skill was one in the same as the signature ability of the vengeful spirit, which had given Kurushimi so much trouble. A few other details she had come to notice were:

The skill had been received at Lvl. 6 rather than the standard Lvl. 1.

The stats absorbed sadly were not permanent.

And, “It scales on resentment?” Kurushimi asked, noticing the strange element the skill had. Although, it didn’t seem too weird when considering it was a skill from the ‘vengeful spirit’ and was named ‘Resentful Storm’. Thinking in that sense, it was very fitting.

Although Kurushimi had asked the question rhetorically, Voice-san was still quick to reply, “Those poor canisfangs, they’ve already gone through enough and she just happened to get a skill that scales on resentment.” As she spoke, she made a look of sincere pity. If you didn’t know her, you’d actually think she was concerned about them.

“They don’t deserve pity.” Kurushimi snapped back.

“Sure sure. Anyway, you have more messages to get through so get back to reading.” Voice-san said, not wanting to start the discussion on why the canisfangs didn’t deserve pity for the hundredth time. Not bothering to carry on with that topic either, Kurushimi quickly got back to reading again. There wasn’t much left, luckily. Her tired brain couldn’t handle much more information. Vengeful spirit spectre: Grants Immunity to electricity and reduces damage received from lightning.

“Hm…” Kurushimi finally read the last of her spoils. However, by this point her eyes had grown too heavy. Through her half-shut eyes, she managed to see the materialised Atelier and Voice-san. With the last of her energy, she made out a single, “Night.” Before drifting off.

While Atelier simply smiled, Voice-san uttered out, “This is the second time she has slept since arriving in this world… Hopefully this will be the first time she can sleep in peace.”

Atelier briefly turned over to look at Voice-san, who had a solemn look on her face. “You care about her a lot don’t you?”

Sensing a bit of smugness had developed in Atelier’s smile, Voice-san quickly dropped the solemn look and crossed her eyebrows, “It’s not like that.”

“Haha.” Atelier laughed.