As I progress towards the only spot left that I haven’t explored on the map, I find fewer and fewer moss balls along the way. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad sign. I carefully stuff the mana stones into my storage. These things are actually quite sturdy, even for the small ones. As a test, I hurled one as hard as I could towards the floor and it expected it to shatter given its glass-like appearance, but it didn’t even crack.

I’ve been thinking about these mana stones and how I don’t seem affected by them. Perhaps it’s connected to the fact that I have no mana at all. Maybe the absence of mana in my body is why I can’t accept any from the mana stones.

As I’m etching these newly found areas into my stone tablet, I notice a serious absence of moss balls at some point. How odd, this is a first.

I sense an ominous premonition from the desolate scenery. If the moss balls aren’t here, then it either means they’re avoiding this area or that something is causing them to “vanish”.

As if on cue, my sensitive rat ears pick up the sound of a rustle in the air. I instantly toss the sewing needle and stone into my inventory, proceeding to dodge whatever it is near me. When I catch a glimpse of it, I notice that it isn’t a moss ball. As expected, this new opponent must be formidable if the moss balls are absent.

It’s floating in the air, seemingly levitating. It looks like some grayish cloud of particles, slightly translucent. It came in the form of a fluffy lump. It’s not anything I’ve ever seen before, but if I were to liken it to something, then I would say that it’s like a see-through dust bunny. I could see a mana stone within its body, quite small but still larger than the ones inside the moss balls.

Seeing this new threat, I charge straight away towards the dust bunny before it has a chance to think. After closing the distance, I claw away at its body. However, that proves ineffective. Its body feels like a gel-like, stretchy rubber, and while my clawing seems to be shaving away at it, it doesn’t seem to actually penetrate deep into its body.

The dust bunny attempts to leap towards me again, but with a tail whip, I smack it away. After rolling on the ground for a brief moment, it picks itself back up and stares at me for a few seconds. It then attempts to charge at me once more, but is again stopped by my tail.

Seeming to come to a realization that it’s outranged, the dust bunny backs away and makes a series of bizarre echoes, coming from who knows what orifice. Waves of wind appear out of nowhere before coming together and taking the shape of a solid object. After finishing, a translucent, thin spike emerges. The spike floats in the air, levitating next to the dust bunny. The dust bunny takes a distance before thrusting that floating spike towards me.

I was about to charge towards the dust bunny, but the movement of that spike makes me rethink as I dodge the weapon. Though, if I had to say, that swing was rather slow.

If I were to take a guess, I’d say that this thing holds the air attribute...if that’s a thing. Or perhaps it’s called the wind attribute? How many attributes are there anyways? I wish I had gotten more information about this kind of stuff.

Those questions would probably have to remain unanswered for now though, as there are more pressing matters to take care of, namely the dust bunny and it’s spike seemingly made of wind.

It once again attempts to thrust the spike, leaving me no choice but to jump away from it. I quickly try to take a distance in order to be outside of its range. However, to my surprise, and true to its name as a dust bunny, it’s able to keep up with me and put me within range of its weapon once more. It looks like I won’t be able to run away from this fight.

Since it has come to this, I suppose the only way I can fight it is by depending on the mysterious phenomenon of mana overload. I retrieve a few of the miniscule moss ball mana stones from my storage and toss one towards the dust bunny. As expected, it nimbly dodged the projectile, but it at least confirmed that it senses a danger in making contact with mana stones.

Though I’m still attempting to run out of its range, I slowed down since I was concentrating on my aim. The dust bunny quickly enters my personal bubble and thrusts its spike again, still slowly. It’s a little jarring actually, kind of like watching a nimble child rush at you while dragging a heavy stick, but struggling to actually swing it once the rugrat gets to you. However, I also notice one other thing. The dust bunny has to stop moving in order to swing its spike, giving a chance to close the distance and go for an attack.

I take the small window of opportunity while its remains frozen and thrust the mana stones I’m holding towards the dust bunny. I made sure to use many mana stones at once since it had likely spent some mana already from casting the spike, so I wanted to make sure that it would intake more mana than its limit. Once the mana stones make contact, the dust bunny jerks around, as if electrocuted. Its concentration seemingly interrupted, the wind spike wobbles around in the air. However, it didn’t die. In fact, it quickly swerves away after recovering, though noticeably hampered.

Feeling a larger sense of danger now, the dust bunny makes another series of noises, seeming to cast another magic spell. I ready myself for whatever it could summon, but find that nothing is appearing out of thin air this time. Instead, a noticeable green glow surrounds both the dust bunny and its spike. While I’m confused about what that could mean, the dust bunny suddenly jolts towards me with an unprecedented speed. I attempt to flee from it, but rather than simply catching up to me, it now attempts to outpace my movements and act aggressively. It’s obvious that the dust bunny’s movements have quickened, perhaps a result of that green glow. Its spike thrusts are a bit faster as well, but still dodgeable. However, the problematic part about its quickened movements is the fact that it regains its movement after each spike thrust in a much quicker time. The window of opportunity to attack it has severely shortened.

I retrieve more mana stones and try to shove them towards the dust bunny’s body. However, the dust bunny quickly takes a distance, seeming to learn from its past mistake.

Damn it, my claws can’t penetrate deep enough and tossing mana stones is too slow. Do I have another means of attack?

I frantically sorted through my inventory, looking for anything that I could use.

Did the storage badge Angeline gave me come with a knife? A dagger? Maybe even a sword or spear?

Wait a minute...a spear...

With a sudden idea coming to mind, I pull out the sewing needle from my inventory. However, instead of it pointing it downwards like I usually would to carve into the stone tablet, I point the sharp tip towards the dust bunny.

Alright, I’ve got a “spear” right here.

Steeling my resolve, I prepare myself for another attack from the dust bunny’s conjured spike. As the translucent spike plummeted downwards, I quickly took a leap to the side and countered with a quick thrust of my sewing needle. Thereupon, the results were instant. The dust bunny spasms for a brief moment, as if feeling pain, before picking up its spike. It seems that the real fight begins now.

The dust bunny, sensing the danger of my new “weapon”, renews its vigor and attempts to put more power into the thrust of its spike. However, its focus on power causes the speed of its attack to lower. As a result, I’m able to nimbly dodge the attack and sneak in a quick poke of my needle.

Like that, I continued this pattern of dodging and making light attacks. Since the dust bunny won’t give me the opportunity to make a fatal wound by thrusting my needle deeply into it, I’ll have to settle for accumulating damage over time. Each time I poke at it, the dust bunny seems noticeably more panicked, swinging its spike more frantically and erratically. I start to think that I might be able to win this.

However, that changed in the next moment.

The dust bunny prepares another swing of its spike. However, as I’m about to dodge it, I realize that the green glow coating the spike shines much brighter than it did before. As it swings the spike, it comes at me with a speed I haven’t seen before.

Caught by surprise, my response was delayed. I leaped away by instinct, but the spike manages to jam itself into my shin before retracting back to its owner. Yelping out tiny squeaks of agony, I attempt to endure the pain while forcing myself not to drop the sewing needle. I take a passing glance at my leg to find a laceration dripping with fresh blood. It’s only a flesh wound, so it shouldn’t be anything lethal, but it would be best to avoid any further injury.

Perhaps realizing that focusing on strength wouldn’t work, it seems that the dust bunny changed tactics. Upon taking a closer look as it readied its spike once more, I find that the green glow around its body had dimmed, as if it had transferred it over to the spike it was brandishing. I suppose that green glow is responsible for speeding up whatever it encompasses, and the dust bunny had just focused on concentrating that green glow into the spike.

Though that meant the dust bunny’s body itself had slowed down, I’m in no state to jump around. The bleeding cut on my leg is going to affect my speed, and I suspect that I won’t be able to move myself in time to avoid another spike attack. With that in mind, I have only one option left, to confront the spike with my sewing needle. There is a bit of a gamble to this tactic, but if my prediction is correct, then hopefully it won’t go too badly.

I stare intently at the dust bunny and its floating weapon. I focus on my sight, ignoring all other senses. Within my focused vision, I then hone in on the spike and nothing else, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. A few milliseconds pass until...I spot movement coming from the spike. In response, I thrust my needle to match the path of that movement. With a sharp metallic clang, the sewing needle clashes with the spike, stopping it from reaching me. Following that, the dust bunny and I began to put strength into our weapons in an attempt to break the deadlock of this clash and thrust our weapon towards the other party.

This is where my gamble comes in. After seeing how nimble how the dust bunny is yet how slow it swings its spike, I can only assume that this opponent specializes in speed, but not in strength. Hoping that’s the case, I deliberately created this deadlock, attempting to outperform the dust bunny in muscle power.

Eventually, I notice a shift in the clash of our weapons. My sewing needle is gradually getting closer to the dust bunny. Thankful that my intuition was correct, I renewed the strength I put into the needle. With one final push, I overcome the dust bunny’s force and jam it through its body. That’s right, not into the body, but through it. It seems that not only is the dust bunny weak in strength, but it’s also weak in constitution. With the hefty attack stunning it, I pull out my sewing needle and jam it through the dust bunny once more. And then again, and again, and again…

I keep stabbing the dust bunny until it stops moving.