(Haru POV)

"This is bad." (Haru)

I don't like this at all. Why is a fight to the death the first thing I must experience in my new life!?

It was sad that complaining was useless against the earth's spirit. Contrary to popular belief, in this battle, there was no art or beauty in my movements. All you could see was a man avoiding everything like a madman to save his life.

Still, there was hope even in this situation. The spirit's attacks were straight and simple-minded. It was a shame that my lack of combat experience forced me to focus everything I had on evasion. Luckily, the earth spirit couldn't maintain this barrage for long periods.

I didn't miss this opportunity and fired a light ball at the earth's spirit. I hoped to defeat it as fast as possible, but the damage seemed negligible, and he soon restarted his attacks.

I wasn't expecting the earth spirit to recover so fast and even less to be able to attack so soon. This made me unable to react and rewarded me with another good hit. It seriously hurt, and I didn't know if I could take more hits. Not wanting to end with more injuries, I took refuge behind the tree where I had crashed before.

There was this fear that the tree wouldn't be able to endure the attacks. So I felt so relieved to see the lack of damage done to the tree when one of the earth's spirit's rocks landed on it.

I thought this would only buy me a bit of time before the earth spirit surrounded the tree and forced me to face it again. But it appeared that I overestimated its intelligence, as earth's spirit kept hurling rocks in my direction.

"So this is why it didn't answer me..." (Haru)

I know this is not the time to get distracted, but it seems this spirit lacked any semblance of intelligence, only moving by instinct. Now that I knew I was safe, I tried to create a sword made of light while waiting for the earth's spirit to get exhausted.

When the attacks stopped, I got out of my cover and fired the blade at earth spirit. My attack quickly landed on the earth's spirit and shattered its body. With its body shattered, all that remained was some multicolored sparks.

"I did it! Wait a second... Don't tell me... sparks?... Wait, don't tell me that--!" (Haru)

As I feared, the multicolored sparks again entered my body. Dreading the worst, I embraced myself to endure the incoming pain. To my fortune and disappointment, the pain I was expecting didn't show up.

Don't get me wrong, I was relieved by the lack of pain. However, what disappointed me was the anticlimactic conclusion and my overreaction. Regardless of my antics, I slightly improved my overall strength, so I should consider this a win.

From the previous fight, I learned that low-rank spirits up to a certain rank lack any semblance of intelligence. Where do they gain intelligence? I don't know. As the administrator said, many ways exist to strengthen and rank up. As far as I know, one way is by defeating other spirits, and the other is by absorbing Nova stones. There could be different ways that I'm not aware of, but I should be left to my future self.

With that in mind and my newfound knowledge, I explored the astral forest. Whenever I found a low-rank spirit, I took him down like the one I defeated the first.

After hunting and exploring for an extended period, it was time to rest. The reason wasn't because I felt physically tired or something like that. Instead, it was mental fatigue. Knowing it would be dangerous and stupid to rest in an open area, I tried to find a good place to hide and sleep. Luckily, it didn't take too long before I could see my new base of operations.

Why lucky? Because I stumbled on it by accident. The place was inside a tree entirely covered by fire-like leaves. It was unnoticeable from the outside and only had one entrance, making it the perfect hiding spot. Feeling safe, I made myself comfortable and took a well-deserved sleep.

(Haru POV)

“Zzz...zz...z...”(Haru)

“Kiiiiiiiiii!”(?????)

What happened!? What was that!? Whatever it is, I don't like it in the slightest.

If you are wondering what is happening, I don't know. This loud cry just woke me up from my beauty sleep. To make this worse, the cry is closer than I would like it to be.

It is said that curiosity killed the cat, and that is true in most cases. But I don't have any other option except to check what happened. The unknown may be fatal for me.

I lifted the leaves little by little to see what happened. I looked outside while trying to be as sneaky as possible. When I saw what happened, it triggered the alarms in my head. It was a spirit with the shape of a snake chewing a brown-colored core.

Up to this moment, all the spirits I found were simple-minded with the shape of a wisp. There was one exception that I spotted in the distance with something like a core in the middle of its body.

But now, the spirit in front of me was completely different. Everything about it was bad news on top of bad news.

To begin with, its aura made me instinctively realize that it had a higher rank than me. To add salt to injury, the fact it had an animal form didn't help at all.

Right now, the snake was chewing a brownish core. One look at its expression showed how much it enjoyed chewing that core. I needed to move and escape; otherwise, I would be its next meal.

I took advantage of it eating the core and tried to slip out as far as possible while trying not to attract its attention. Every movement I made felt like moving in the water.

The premonition of just doing one wrong move was so nerve-wracking that I had to use all my willpower to calm down. Otherwise, I'm screwed.

I was doing a perfect job of slowly moving away, and after some time, I felt that I was almost out of danger... I said almost, but Lady Luck was in a bad mood again.

Just as I thought I had escaped without being noticed, a rock came flying at me out of nowhere. The culprit was an earth spirit I overlooked, thanks to being too focused on the snake.

Remember when I said that the low-rank spirits are all idiots? Well, here is why. That idiot, without being able to recognize the threat of that snake, decided to launch an all-out attack on me. Dodging its attack was easy. The problem was that I knew I was screwed because the snake immediately spotted us.

"What a coincidence... luckily, I still have room for a snack." (????)

To my surprise, and while being completely different from its aggressive appearance, the snake's voice... well, her voice was beautiful. Do the spirits have a gender?

This was undoubtedly not the moment to think stupid questions as my instincts told me to dodge. Trusting them, I quickly moved backward without hesitation. The next instant, the sight of a rock spear barely grazing my body told me I had made the correct move.

Shivering from the near-death experience, I tried to take a look at the idiot who put me in this predicament. But instead of the spirit, there was only a crater with multicolored sparks floating in the air.

Fuck... so one hit, and it is over? It hasn't even been a week, so what is this difficulty spike?

My priority was to escape while trying not to get killed. Thankfully, I knew one or two possible escape routes in this area. But before I could move, I noticed that the snake had a surprised expression with a tinge of excitement. She looked like a child who found an exciting toy to play with.

"How fascinating... At first, I thought you were just a lost light spirit. Who would have guessed that it was something far more intriguing? To think there is a lesser spirit with intelligence, what a wonderful development." (?????)

"....." (Haru)

"There is no use in hiding it. I know you can understand my words." (????)

"How did you know?" (Haru)

"Only an idiot would miss this abnormality. You are the only light spirit in the astral forest, the home of the earth spirits. Did you know spirits below the fourth rank cannot leave their elemental area? Only those with intelligence and power can make that choice. And, of course, is the fact that you dodged my attack, a thing that only spirits with intelligence can do." (?????)

Okay... if you think about that briefly, it would be obvious, right? Only an idiot wouldn't notice it, right? Well, sorry for being an idiot!

The snake presented the crude reality to me without sugarcoating it. I could not help but curse my low intelligence, or should I say... Was I fortunate to avoid other intelligent spirits along the way? At least, it was a relief that my dual attributes were still unknown.

They could be my trump card in case I fell into a dire situation, but I needed to consider the backlash. If I used my devil attribute and failed to finish the snake, I would be in danger of being tagged as an anomaly to erase.

"Well, now that the greetings are over, it is time to have some fun... don't worry, I'll take my sweet time tasting you." (?????)

Like signaling the start of a hunt, the surroundings were enveloped with a dense dust cloud while the snake's body blended into it. Here was the worst-case scenario: a fight against an overpowered foe to the death.

"Now... it's time to hunt". (????)