XelofBloom
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1.5
🕑 Added 2021-01-01 23:10:09 +0000 UTCEve stared outside the small slitted window that hung over her kitchen sink. Today was the day she moved out from her fortress of solitude into the wider world.
Actually let’s start from the roof. Eve decided chickening out. That would probably be safer.
Finishing the breakfast dishes Eve grabbed her fluffy coat, pulled on her winter gloves, and patted her cheeks. Then she tagged several metal, glass, mirror silver, and normal paper sheets with Levitate Paper V. Finally she moved to stand under the ladder to the roof’s trapdoor, taking a deep breath she steeled herself before climbing the ladder. Opening the trapdoor fully Eve peeked out looking for airborne threats, before checking the roof to ensure it was clear. Seeing nothing with her True Sight she moved out onto the roof fully. From within the left pocket of her fluffy jacket she pulled a single meal ration.
Moving down she closed the trapdoor, placed a rock on it, and left it unlocked. Hefting the meal ration while being followed by several ‘paper sheets’ Eve moved to the edge of her roof looking at the land around her.
The clearing that surrounded her house was bigger on one side than the other. What caused her breath to catch in her mouth was the entire clearing was filled with ferrets. Every ferret had a small green glow on their body that her True Sight revealed without fail.
Invisible. Or concealed? I didn’t see anything from the window. Oh, thank god I remodeled the house. If I hadn’t caught Matt’s paranoia I could have gone to sleep and never woken up. Eve thought as fear slowly turned to rage. These things. They think they are hunting me. Me.
Eve opened the meal ration packet by cutting the top off before dropping it over the side of her house. It was eerie to see hundreds of heads turn in unison to stare at the fallen food. Holding herself still, Eve waited patiently as the ferrets slowly approached the food. Her paper waited behind her floating at an angle so they were practically invisible from the ground.
When the first ferret reached the food it was the trigger for a mad rush. The green glow around them dimmed, and she instinctively knew they were no longer invisible. A brutal melee started between those who had been closest to the food, and those further back from her house. Eve waited with cold eyes until the winners of the fight started to take their spoils.
Without warning, she dropped down her paper sheets already cutting in a blur of carnage. There was a pause as the ferrets identified her as a new source of food before they flooded towards her. Some of them tried to avoid her and simply grab the fallen bodies for consumption.
Eve didn’t care as she massacred the small deadly hunters. When the first one tried to retreat she paused for merely a moment before a line from her brother’s series flashed into her mind.
Rule 3.
Do not allow your existence to become known unless you can solve whatever comes looking for you.
Because they will.
And they will bring friends.
Hardening her heart, Eve continued to murder the small furry creatures until only one remained. A small blinking light notified her that she had messages from the System. It was something she had decided on to remove the distraction in combat. Ignoring the light, Eve stepped with finality towards the final furry creature. In contrast to the surroundings there wasn’t even a smudge of blood on her except for her boots.
It was too much for the final creature, with a shriek they fled.
Pausing for a moment to pull every corpse into her Inventory. Eve pursued the small critter without delay. The only reason she had allowed the ferret to live was to lead her to the nest. Everything from her mind to her body screamed that these were social animals. The way they approached food. The way they had fought for hierarchy. The way they had attempted to flee, most likely to warn the nest.
Do not allow your existence to become known unless you can solve whatever comes looking for you.
Eve shivered before putting her game face back on, these creatures had overhunted the surrounding area, and now they looked to her as a source of food. Her garden likely lured them in at first, and it was only a matter of time before they figured out a way to reach her. Except, she wouldn’t give them that time. This wasn’t the sandpit, and she wasn’t prey here at the mercy of others.
Ignorance of a threat is one thing. Allowing a threat to grow when I know it exists is quite another. Eve thought grimly as she pursued the creature inexorably. This ends, now.
Her boots crunched through the snow as she followed the panicked trail of the last ferret. If this had been summer, or spring, or really any other season except for winter her meager tracking skills would have failed miserably. Matt was always the hunter with that sixth sense that allowed him to track prey with uncanny skills. Her dad had to in a lesser degree, but Eve and her mom were more effective hunting in a shopping mall than the great outdoors.
When another clearing came into view after roughly fifteen minutes of following the creature Eve knew the time for mercy was over.
Shitty magic murder creatures with their invisible ninja cat wolf powers. Eve thought as she approached what looked like a hill made of twigs, mud, bones, and shed fur. The creature had started screeching loudly before turning to attack her once more. Eve shrugged as the reason she had pushed Levitate Paper so much was for a time like this. Eve flashed back to one of the passages in the Transport to Another World Vol. 3 that applied here without question.
To be truly Invincible against all, you must reach several truths:
First, numbers cannot matter. Against you, numbers do one of two things. They feed your power, or they simply do not matter.
Eve marched on without stopping as a veritable horde of furry creatures flowed towards her like an unending wave.
That broke into pieces. Small meaty minced pieces.
Like a reef weathering the storm Eve was the silent eye of death within a hurricane of fur. Within five meters, nothing living existed, only the dismembered corpses of her foes. As they piled up, even those corpses were slowly minced into meat paste. A pink layer of mud formed slowly in the five meters around her as she moved towards the first ‘house’ in the nest.
Wafer thin sheets of modified truck steel ripped through the house chopping it into so much mulch. Eve took care to ensure the young were executed as well to ensure that nothing came back to hunt her later.
Pushing her body she boosted her speed moving through the snow surrounding the clearing like a shadowy ghost. Where she passed houses were obliterated, and the ferret species ceased to exist as living creatures. Eventually the clearing was finished, every house cleared, almost every ferret dead.
In the center of the clearing, a much larger ferret watched her with livid eyes. It hadn’t attacked because she suspected it had been searching for weaknesses. Eve approached the creature her True Sight revealing a deeper emerald green color surrounding the creature.
Strike first, victory washes away all sins.
Taking her brother’s advice to heart, Eve leaped forward in a burst of speed to close distance with the St. Bernard sized ferret. Claw met paper, and won without contest. Eve’s eyes flickered as she immediately folded the few remaining pieces of normal paper together. A dizzying array of origami unfolded in the blink of an eye before a thick card formed.
When she sent the normal paper back to the creature, it was no longer able to slice it in a single blow. Eve calculated the power of the claws before sending her glass sheets in next. Like a fox hounded to the earth by dogs, her paper sheets worked in perfect unison. The normal paper moved in a blur blocking claw strikes that flowed like the wind. When a successful block interrupted the momentum of the enemy, Eve capitalized spinning her glass sheets like mechanical sawblade. The larger ferret’s two front legs collapsed to the ground.
Eve didn’t rush in for the kill though. She watched carefully noting how the green emerald light covered the same location as the two missing front legs. Her eyes betrayed nothing as she sent the normal paper in to deal a crushing blow to the ferret’s head.
Perhaps I might have fallen for the gambit if I couldn’t see. Eve thought her mind cold and focused. When the ferret dodged the normal paper piece, flowing towards her invisible front legs, she moved to the side.
In her place, the iron sheets that had done almost nothing except obliterate houses and execute the young flowed smoothly into motion. Eve noted how the metal sliced the emerald green energy as if it was a living limb. Within a second the large ferret lost his invisible front legs, as well as the back ones.
Do not focus on one battle so much you lose a war!
Constant vigilance or death are the only paths.
Double check. Eve stepped back letting her focus relax as she took a quick look around the clearing. There it is. Thank the lord for paranoid brothers.
Carefully out of range of the five meter zone that the ferret scout had clearly seen in action, Eve saw a thick emerald blob of light. Sparing a glance only to the barely alive big brother on the ground, Eve executed it without delay turning the body in to mini-cubed chunks of meat.
With another leap she jumped directly to where the hidden observer waited at the base of a tree. Ironically enough, if it wasn’t for True Sight making the creature light up, she might not have seen the hidden danger. There was no scent, sound, or anything that could have led her to know the spy existed. Without the upgrade from Celestial Body she had no doubt this creature would have returned with friends. Eve approached the scout as her paper sheets cut off every angle of escape. For a brief moment she thought of letting the creature live. Perhaps they were sentient and could be reasoned with, perhaps she could learn the language. Take a prisoner, get information, maybe blend in?
Looking at the clearing around her as she kept the creature in sight of her peripheral vision Eve shrugged.
Perhaps not.
Moving with lightning grace, the last living specimen that her True Sight showed was eliminated. Quickly she moved storing everything into her Inventory. While she only had five slots in the Inventory, she had managed to discover that they could contain an unlimited amount of similar material.
Apparently dead ferret qualifies as a substance of similar nature. Eve thought as she moved collecting all the evidence. Her paper sheet moved behind her cleaning footprints to remove the traces of her presence. When she stored the larger ferret’s body, she also used Create Paper V to remove the scraps of evidence that existed.
Taking one final look around, Eve exited the clearing from where she entered carefully cleaning all traces of her prints as she moved. With a brisk walk, she was back to her house in half the time. Picking up the meal ration packet she had dropped to bait the ones around her house Eve glanced around to ensure there was nothing visible watching. Bending her legs she leaped upwards landing on the edge of the roof before quickly stepping down. Her paper carefully cleaned the scene once more, before she moved the rock on the trap door, opened it, and moved below with careful haste.
It was only after she had locked the trapdoor and descended the ladder that the shakes began to hit her. With shaking hands Eve moved throughout her house examining every nook and cranny for vicious cat wolves that might desire revenge.
It was only after she had checked the entire house more than three times before she managed to drop most of her paper sheets. Eve couldn’t manage to release all of them though, as her mind refused to let the iron sheets fall. Even with deep breaths and several attempts to calm herself, her mind refused to let the iron go, maintaining the spell without conscious thought.
Fuck it, I want a shower. If the mind can’t let the metal go, whatever. Eve thought, giving up. Her shower included six pieces of iron floating above her head, which wasn’t the strangest thing she’d ever seen.
After the ritual towel wrapping was complete, Eve sat down in her bedside lazy chair before letting the footrest up. Lying back in the chair her peaceful pose was disturbed only by the floating iron sheets of paper hovering above her. Shrugging, she gave a mental click in her mind letting the blinking light that she had kept minimized show the System messages.
....
You have killed a Lv. 17 Wind Ferret, experience gained.
You have killed a Lv. 17 Wind Ferret, experience gained.
You have killed a Lv. 17 Wind Ferret, experience gained.
You have killed a Lv. 17 Wind Ferret, experience gained.
….
At the end of the kill messages was another string of texts.
….
You are now a Lv. 1 Scholar.
You are now a Lv. 2 Scholar.
You are now a Lv. 3 Scholar.
You are now a Lv. 4 Scholar.
….
The string of leveling went up before changing.
….
You are now a Lv. 10 Scholar, the Path forwards has opened!
You have the following Class Evolution options:
Scholar of the Forest
Scholar of Slaughter
Scholar of Stationary
Scholar of Death
….
The list continued but Eve was too exhausted to look at the evolution options any further. Quietly she asked, "Is there a penalty to letting the choice be made at a later date?"
No. Choices of finality have no time limit.
Nodding at the System's answer, Eve dropped the chair’s footrest, shed her towels, and tucked into bed. Her final moments of consciousness noted how the floating sheets of iron kept watch over her like guardian angels
