Emily took a much needed rest in that cave. She heard the sounds of monsters fighting each other outside with her oversensitive, fluffy ears. She sat down against the wall where the water used to be, amazed that even the mud was gone. It was as if the cave was always dry. Now then...

The health still hasn't gone up much, but the mana is a great improvement. I shouldn't have to consume as many of those berries.

She looked down at the silk strand wrappings and saw that they were already coming undone in many places and had many tears throughout. She conjured a small group of nanobots in her hand. They hovered in a spherical structure while she controlled them with her mind.

With a bit of effort, they lowered to her waist and started flowing onto the strands. She imagined the silk stitching itself together, and the effect was faster than she expected. Perhaps it was the of raising her skill, or maybe it was the growing mana.

The threads bounded together in an entanglement that almost looked like modern panties. At the very least, it provided her some dignity, and there was a place for her tail to flow freely. At first, the appendage had been quite bothersome, but the less she focused on it, the more it faded into the background.

As a result of her magic, the underwear pair no longer looked like a group of bandages or gauze. It was more form-fitting and weaved together. There were dozens of imperfections, but that didn't stop Emily from smiling slightly. Nor did it stop her from continuing to do the same with the wrappings around her feet.

Another class...

Though, before she could be astounded about her class, a flash of light started shining near the cave entrance. She reached for the knife nearby her on instinct, but there were no monsters to greet her.

Instead, moss started coming out of the ground and surrounding all of the fallen insects and their trails of organs and blood. It grew at an astounding rate, until it coated the entire pile. Once the whole thing was bathed in greenery, light particles started floating into the air. The moss disappeared along with the insects.

Emily blinked several times. Does this place have its own cleaning mechanism? That explains why I couldn't see any dead animals when I came in here, but if that's the case...why did that skeleton remain?

There were so many questions she wanted the answers to, but she chose to deliberate her socks instead. At the very least, these will protect my feet a little bit.

It looked like the dungeon didn't clear all of the cocoons either. There were still dozens of them, yet the ones where the bugs had died faded from the moss. Emily grabbed her lantern and knife together in the same hand. It was an awkward grip without any holsters, but she made for the entrance nonetheless.

The outside of this hive cave was almost completely dark without stars shining in the sky, but out in the distance, she could see little orbs of light hovering. She looked towards her missing arm and back towards the distant lights with gritted teeth. Ultimately, she shook her head with a sigh.

Seeking vengeance against an animal is ridiculous. No matter how much I want to see it torn apart.

Though, her remaining hand betrayed her. It gripped the ceremonial knife tighter, her knuckles growing white. She imagined how good it would feel to stab it into one of the tree monsters. No, there is a practical reason for killing them. The experience must be pretty good, right?

A smile graced her lips, and she turned back into the cave. "But first, I have to do something else that's practical."

She walked up to a cocoon and set her lamp down. The kitsune gripped her ceremonial dagger and stabbed into it, hearing another one of those things screech, and watching it slip into a puddle of birthing fluids. One stab to its abdomen was enough to put it out of its misery.

Emily did the same for all of the other cocoons, until there was no more left. The death throes of the last bug made her grin. Each death of a monster made her feel more powerful.

"The more of these beasts I kill, the freer I feel."

It reminded her of a comic she'd once seen on Earth. It was an image of a bowman, standing across from another bowman. Each of them had their strings pulled taut, and one of them said, "the harder I pull, the safer I feel."

Was she like that bowman? No, that bowman never had to suffer torture from a mad scientist.

The mechanisms of the doctor flashed into her vision. The white walls surrounded her on all sides, and a machine readied itself to pluck out her eye. Lower and lower, the grippers got closer to her face. They gripped her eyelid and pulled it apart, and the voice of the "doctor" reverberated.

"You should consider yourself lucky, darling. You get to be one of the first samplers of this cybernetic eye. Each enhancement makes us whole. Each one stitches us together, and you...you will be perfect."

The kitsune's eyes glared at the white cocoon beneath her, and she stabbed her knife into it, even as the creature was already freed. She stabbed it again. She cut into the webbing as if it were the walls of that chamber. Each cut reminded her that she was alive, until there was a bunch of silk strands.

She took several calming breaths. She'd shredded much of the material, but in a way, that made it simpler to work with. She now had tons of strands which amounted to rows of silk yarn.

Emily started placing each one of the threads in parallel rows right next to each other. She grabbed one of them and placed it next to her hip. It goes a little past my foot.

She nodded and cut off a few inches, and she did it with several of the strands. She lined several of them up and placed her leg on top of it. Then she placed even more on top of her leg.

Emily summoned the nanobots and had them stitch together half of a pair of pants before doing the same to the other half. It took her at least a few hours, but she eventually made an entire pair of silk pants.

The kitsune held them up towards the light of her lantern with awe. They were not the optimal color, but livability mattered more than fashionable. In warfare with bugs, any clothing was better than none. She could still hear the distant sounds of the monsters, but amazingly none of them tried to come up to this cave in particular. After seeing what the glow worms had done to a turtle, she wasn't really surprised.

It was easiest to make a simple vest that went over the top of her body, and it took the least amount of time. She had no zippers or buttons for now, but it would have to do.

She had no idea how long it would be until the sun went out, and her stamina reserves were already almost at their lowest point. Exhaustion was starting to set in again, and her breathing was becoming more haggard. As she slumped against the cave wall, she realized just how tired her body was.

///

When the sunlight came, she napped. Though, she didn't do so inside of the cave. She waited for the coast outside to be clear and slept near the water source. When she woke up, her stamina reserves had not yet topped up again, but the light was still hanging high in the sky.

Another sleep, and I didn't wake up in a lab again. Can it really be? Did I really escape that place?

She tried to recall the experiment that brought her here in the first place, but the last thing she remember was climbing into a chamber. She'd closed her eyes and blinked them open in another place. At first she thought it might be another game, but now, she wasn't so sure.

This place certainly resembled a game and had those kinds of mechanics, yet it was all too real. Could they have really made such an elegant simulation?

Emily's intuition told her no. After all, if they could do something like this, why would they need to experiment on her in the first place? If she was a test dummy for a simulation that could make sense, but then there was the corpse of a person. There was a goddess called Kurayami. Would they give her a devotion? If they did give her a devotion, wouldn't they try to make her more subservient?

She shook her head and reached for a familiar yellow flower, pulling the weeds out of the ground and exposing the roots. The yellow potatoes dripped with wetness from the soil onto the ground, glowing with their slight hue. A small grin showed on her face as a familiar scene played out.

Only this time, she had a knife. She peeled away their outer shells, cut them into squares, and set them on top of a piece of bark.

Though, this time, she had a different idea in mind. She grabbed a large rock, one that was a bit too hard for her to carry with one hand, so she rolled it next to the river and her potato stash.

She hovered her hand above it and channeled magic into her fingertips. Swarms of nanobots swam out of her fingers and into the air. They hovered above the rock, until she lowered them with her mind.

The thousands of little bots covered the top and started slicing away at pieces of rock. This could work, but it's definitely more draining on my magic power.

Maybe it was because it was a task she wasn't used to, or maybe it was because silk was simpler for the bots. Either way, it took more out of her for the microscopic magic bots to eat away at the stone. They eventually turned it into a large stone pot. She hoisted it into the air with effort from her one hand.

It had tons of imperfections inside of it like jagged bits of rock sticking out here and there, and the bottom wasn't entirely smooth. Yet, Emily couldn't help a small smile playing out on her lips again.

She placed it beneath the water's current, allowing debris and dirt to flow away from her. Then, she used it to collect water.

The kitsune dragged the heavy water basin towards her cut potatoes. She placed each of them inside and hovered the nanobots above it. They started heating once again, and eventually the water started boiling.

Emily kept it boiling by occasionally adding heat to her little furnace, and she pulled them out when they were starting to soften. Once they were soft, she placed them on her piece of bark and kept heating them while stirring them with another group of nanobots.

Eventually, she had a mountain of unseasoned mashed potatoes. She grabbed a little piece of wood and spooned it into her mouth. A sigh of content escaped her lips, and she felt her energy gradually returning to her. One mouthful after another brought with it more of her stamina, until she was topped off altogether.

Thanks to using some of her silk, she'd had enough room to store the rest of the potato mountain inside of her pendant. Though, there was unfortunately not enough for her pot, so she had to leave it behind.

She spent the rest of the day conserving her energy and mana, waiting for the sun to dip a third time. A devilish grin painted her gorgeous face.

Her heart thumped in her chest imagining that wooden creature, and as the night finally descended, a lantern shone through the trees.

Kurayami