The dark forest, stretching from one end of the island to another apart from the Dragon Mountain in the center of the landmass and a few places where humans have built the cities. Countless monsters live there and only law of the jungle is relevant as long as you are inside.

This is the forest on the island I live on, commonly known simply as the Great Forest.

And the crucial part for the position of the capital, the ecosystem here and a few other things, the Dragon Mountain. For a reasons unknown it leaks a huge amount of mana, and that’s also a reason behind its name. Dragons, the strongest of monsters, occupy it. The higher mana density in the air leads to faster circulation of mana through the soul and consequently its faster growth. So, the closer to the mountain, the stronger monsters claim their territories.

The dragons in the very center and various other strong monsters reside in their places for years and don’t go out unless provoked, because they would need to drive out other monsters that took their place in the meantime and it would be only trouble for them. I have heard it is a very unstable balance where one change can pull other like an avalanche. For example, if a monster got pissed off and left its area for a while, then had a fight with the one that took its place, another might take advantage of its wounds, and from then on it is a chain reaction.

Even the area around the capital, which is one of the farthest from the mountain and consequently with comparatively extremely low concentration of mana, is dangerous enough for almost half of first-time free hunters going inside die. The very outskirts are relatively safe, but even there you can commonly find an E+ Rank monster or even stronger that end up driven out of their territories.

Oh, and as a side note, the Death Amalgamation to the west of the capital. It is said to be the most dangerous place close to the capital and there is a good reason behind it, though it’s not commonly known. Laura supposedly got to know that only from a veteran hunter by chance.

The Death Amalgamation is a large distance from the Dragon Mountain, so the amount of mana here is very low. And what keeps the mass of landmass together is mana, but it is not enough to properly maintain it, so the Amalgamation sucks mana out of everything that comes close, leading to death in worst case and mana deficiency in best case unless you are strong enough to withstand the constant drain. So there are extremely few monsters here, but if you find one by chance, it will be strong enough to wipe out a small city by itself.

I am right now standing on the edge of the forest. It is a dark place, not as bad as it gets closer to the mountain, but still with trees reaching a few tens meters high and blocking most of the sunlight. They are around two to four meters wide and their crowns have at least twenty, even thirty meters in diameter, making seeing further than two or three hundred meters practically impossible, even less than that on the ground where the trunks are thickest.

I have it better with the lack of light though since Natria has tweaked my sight and the effects are already showing. The forest gives an eerie vibe and is surprisingly quiet, though it is not the type of quiet of the night or quiet of anticipation. It’s more like quiet of abyss, where the slightest sound is a deadly unknown.

The guards let me with through with hesitation in the evening after Laura and Yana saw me off and here I am. I also told them it might take me more than five as I said before, because it Natria will be making me a Mana Core on this trip. Though I didn’t tell about the Mana Core for now.

As a side note, I had no trouble with coming through and no one raised a fuss, but one of the guards looked as if he would like to stop me but didn’t know if he should. And well, it’s not like he could stop me, because anyone with the token is permitted to pass through anytime unless there are unique circumstances. If anything, he was probably feeling bad for letting a girl like me out to my death, but that’s not my problem.

Not like I am planning to die here. In fact, just the opposite, I am here only to kill.

I walk in the dense, around half a meter tall foliage and raise my vigilance to maximum.

{Nea, just to make sure, do you want me to guide you to monsters or would you rather we did it the way we did in the sewers?}

‘Maybe later.’ – I reply in my mind. – ‘I would first prefer to try myself. Among the things I got from you there should be also some instincts and situational awareness or something in this direction. They might be incomplete and not very reliable, but I would like to at least test that out.’

{Alright. Have fun then.} – She says smilingly.

I turn to the right and slowly walk forward, more or less along the edge of the forest, but slightly inward.

‘Just remind me if I get too far, Master.’ – I add. – ‘I don’t want to meet something too high in rank. D- should be fine, but I would rather take it slower than challenge myself over and over.’

{Sure~.}

I asked Laura earlier and it seems that ranks on hunter’s tokens are in direct in direct relation with monster ranks, and upper bronze rank means that said hunter can easily deal with monsters of E+ Rank. These two increase alongside each other, so for example a lower gold is a hunter that can defeat monsters of C- rank with ease.

So I right now would probably be placed in upper bronze, same as Laura, since monsters in E+ Rank give me no trouble.

It gets a bit funky if you ask about dealing with higher ranks, because the differences between each rank tend to increase along with it. It is said though that a hunter can deal with an enemy one rank higher and a group of hunters can deal with an enemy two ranks higher. A team of five hunters ranked upper bronze should be able to deal with anything up to D Rank.

As I walk forward and get to a small clearing a few meters wide, I suddenly notice a slight sound to my left. I turn in the direction cautiously, then duck down as fast as I can when a vaguely humanoid shadow flies over my head.

‘That’s fast! Even faster than Laura or Yana!’

I turn around and jump back to see my opponent properly.

It is just turning around, and I immediately recognize it as a Forest Assassin, a border E+ Rank. They are a derivative of goblins, loners that are very good with assassination, so they have a pretty good chance to kill stronger enemies if they play things well. I am surprised to run into one so fast, since I have heard they are quite rare and are the bane of low-level teams, but I guess it’s just my luck.

The monster standing before me is a bit below one meter tall with hunched stature, with grayish-green wrinkled skin. It is very thin, with ribs and pelvis visible under its skin, but despite that it has distinct muscles outlined. It’s build greatly differs from human’s despite similar posture, with spine bent forward, large chest, long arms and crooked fingers ending with sharp nails. Its face is twisted, with large, bloodshot eyes, long, pointed ears and large jaw with fangs along with saliva sticking out of thin lips.

It looks at me with aggressiveness within its eyes and charges forward after a while, likely judging my threat level to be low enough to be able to win without relying on a stealthy kill.

It is very fast, probably thanks to its small and thin stature, but I am prepared for the attack having seen its speed before.

I step aside just as it gets close and swings its long arm at my calf while jumping practically along the ground. Looks like it knows some tactics and doesn’t just charge at its enemy. It stops practically in place and turns around quickly, then jumps and swings its arm at my waist.

I step forward, grab its arm near the shoulder, and swing the goblin around using its momentum, smashing it into the ground with enough strength for a cracking sound to be heard, most likely coming from its bones.

I keep its arm in my grip and check its soul quickly. It’s a bit similar to rat’s, meaning it is largely black, but it has much more streaks, mostly in red, violet or yellow color, but it is too large for me to just pull it out.

I raise the goblin’s arm up and abruptly pull it down while kneeing the head of the goblin with all my strength while hardening it with my ability. A thought passes my head it might be a bit of an overkill as I hear a distinct cracking sound, muscles on its neck rip slightly and a small spray of blood comes out of the deformed skull, but I take it only as a note for the future. Not like I mind the state my enemy ends up in.

I approach now surely lifeless body and reach my hand to it, then pull out a soul one and a half times larger than mine and put it in my mouth with expectant expression. It is the first time I am eating a soul distinctly larger than mine, after all.

Delicious.

I soon find myself melting in pleasure as the Origin gets disassembled inside my soul. I try to control myself and barely remain standing with wobbly legs and ecstatic expression as I clench my arms around my chest tightly.

I have tried to control myself each time I was eating a soul, and was successful to a large degree, considering mainly the fact I was able to look at Yana’s soul merely being attracted by it, unlike what happened at my first few tries. I became able to eat small souls with practically unchanged expression and not lose myself while eating one of same size as me, but what I felt just now was a completely different experience.

I take a good look at my soul and notice with mild surprise that it has gotten significantly larger than before, with merely the Forest Assassin’s soul increasing its size by over ten percent, close to fifteen even, much more than when I was eating soul the same size as mine.

I get back to proper stance and look around with caution, realizing I shouldn’t eat this soul so quickly without checking the surroundings, then turn to the goblin and check its heart for a mana stone, finding one over five times larger in volume than zombies’. And colorless.

‘Master? Is it worth killing these guys?’ – I ask in my mind.

{It is, very much so~.} – She immediately answers enthusiastically. – {I will be able to make your muscles and tendons much stronger and bones lighter with this thing. It’s actually the most useful monster you have killed up to now, maybe apart from slimes.}

‘Hm? What’s so special about slimes?’

{Hm, you weren’t hurt at all up to now, were you?} – She says. – {Try piercing your skin with your nail.}

‘Ha?’ – I exclaim, but look at my forearm and bring my nail close to it. My nails have also gotten stronger and sharper thanks to Natria, and they are beginning to form a slightly pointed end. I carefully press my nail to my skin, slowly increasing the strength behind my finger. I feel almost no pain for a moment, then it starts to intensify slowly, but even after a few seconds when I feel stinging pain on my forearm there is no trace of blood despite the fact I can tell my skin was pierced slightly. I take back my finger in wonder and turn to my mind, awaiting an explanation.

{This is a thing I should have told you a bit earlier, but slimes have a membrane that keeps the insides in their place. I have realized a long time ago that it can be incorporated into skin, eyes, hair and even scales and such things, and that’s exactly what I did to your skin and a few other places. It is not good enough yet and will be complete in around twenty days, but it can already stop most sharp objects not designed for inflicting wounds from harming you.

‘Um, alright… That sound really good. But what if I want to draw my blood?’

{Oh, it’s simple, you should be able to control it with a conscious thought. It might take some time to get accustomed to tuning it off only on certain parts of your body though.}

‘I see…’

I try it out and manage to pierce my skin easily just a second later, then use this ability and the bleeding, although very small, stops immediately as the sides of the cut are pressed together.

It turned out to be a very useful thing that could not only stop a moderately powerful attack after it gets strong enough, but is also capable of stopping my bleeding, keeping my insides in place in extreme cases, and additionally keeping most of dust and grim away from my skin. I also just now noticed that I practically don’t feel the temperature despite it being a cold evening.

‘How strong is it though?’

{Right now it’s very weak, it could only stop your nail because there was no impact behind it. But it will get more and more powerful along with your overall strength and in twenty days it should be able to stop a weak knife attack without making your skin hard and rough. If it’s a sword from a good hunter, then forget about stopping it, but it will repel things like stones without even a bruise, and additionally it boosts your resistance to temperatures, acids and poisons greatly. It’s also quite good with your ability, because if by chance your skin cracks while you use that reinforcement, it will keep it all in place even after you turn your skin back.}

‘I see.’ – I nod my head, then turn back to the goblin. – ‘By the way, are there any materials I can get from that?’

{Not really. I mean, there are quite a few material to use, but they are all of very low quality.} – Natria says, even emphasizing the word ‘very’, then suddenly shouts excitedly. – {Oh, and how could I forget! It’s also fantastic for your boobs and butt! It makes them more bouncy and firm, and keeps your boobs up, not drooping, so they will feel great and you won’t have to worry about them as much. And also cheeks, and thighs, at second thought, but it’s a bit less noticeable, and then hair as I said, making it firmer, eyes, nails and many other things.}

My cheeks get pink at the beginning her speech and start burning halfway when I unconsciously touch my boobs to see if her words are true. Though I don’t really have much there as of now, so I couldn’t really tell a difference if there was any. I say nothing in reply, walking away with a strained smile and beet red face being my comment, trying to ignore her amused giggle.

I have got accustomed enough to this girly body to be unfazed when I change clothes and when I bathe, or actually scrub myself in a tub of water since we have no luxury of bathing, but it still makes me embarrassed when she is speaking like that so shamelessly, especially considering it’s my body she is talking about.

Thus I continue walking through the forest with even higher vigilance. I might have defeated the Forest Assassin, an E+ ranked monster, effortlessly, but it was only because it wasn’t a monster relying on strength or agility directly, but it was a stealth killer, not to mention it was completely alone. And, well, stealth attacks won’t exactly work on me, because, even if that goblin managed to take me off guard, I should have more than enough time to harden my skin and make its attack bounce off, not to mention I have Natria with me, who I trust will at least heal me if I get injured seriously.

But if it was a monster with high enough strength and resilience for my attacks to be hardly doing any harm, which I know from Laura is possible at D Rank and somewhat less effective in lower ranks, then I would be in a tough fight since almost every monster here has too large soul to yank it out right away.

…

Barely five minutes later I encounter the next enemy, which is another monster Laura has told me about. Or actually, warned me I might be in great danger if I meet them.

A pack of wolves, eight of them.

They are weak individually, classified as E Rank, but quite fast and work together, making them a difficult enemy.

By the way, they are around eighty centimeters tall and twice that in length, covered in thick, gray fur that masks them in the dim light of the forest. Their eyes have a sign of intelligence and their fangs and claws are incomparable to the stray dog I have killed before. They don’t exactly look like monsters, but are classified as monsters and have proper mana cores.

I and the wolf at the front, presumably the alpha, stare at each other for a long while after it noticed me, since I was the quieter one and the wind was blowing in my direction at this time, so they didn’t catch my scent.

After this while the wolf growls and rushes towards me and the others follow the leader with one running behind, three to the left and three to the right.

Seeing that a fight is inevitable, I adjust my stance and wait in place with eyes focused on the alpha until the wolves are around five meters from me, then suddenly jump forward exactly towards the wolf following the alpha who slows down in the meanwhile.

I didn’t forget about my other senses though, dashing just as a wolf flies behind me. The wolf in front braces itself and slashes with its front paw, but I jump upwards and reach my arms to the wolf’s shoulders. I grab them firmly, making us both spin in the air, land on the ground and take a large swing, smashing the wolf exactly into the alpha that attacked me as soon as it realized what was happening.

It was unable to avoid being hit though in the unexpected way and both wolves got smashed into the ground with a loud sound. I then get up an harden my feet, kicking behind me strongly and making the wolf jumping at me from behind spew blood and fly aside as it gets hit straight in the skull, dying instantly.

Continuing my rotation I twist my upper body and kick the alpha in the skull, similarly killing it. Then I tilt my body strongly to the back with my feet already firmly on the ground and swing my fist upwards, smashing it into another wolf, jumping at me from the side, and crushing its lower jaw.

The wolf flies a bit farther away and crashes into the ground, and just then the wolf I previously smashed into the ground regains enough awareness to pounce at my leg, trying to bite it.

I allow it to close its jaws, but not before hardening my legs to extreme degree, effectively practically disabling my movement. But instead of getting knocked over I swing my fist in another direction, into another wolf jumping at me from another side, though my legs prevented me from landing an accurate hit and hitting its neck instead of skull.

I immediately jump upward, since my upper legs and feet are in natural state and not restricted, allowing the wolf to tackle me and putting my hand into its open jaws, hardening it already inside when I have it in my grasp, and also hardening my chest, with a fleeting thought passing my head about how it might be wrong to do that, remembering Natria’s earlier words.

As I am in the air I feel the jaws on my leg loosening with the wolf backing away, having its fangs hurt after biting into me and getting its neck twisted and fangs strained, a few cracking even, when I fall over. I turn around in midair and feel claws scratch my front, pulling my vest, then I take a bit of a gamble. I undo the hardening on my chest, feeling light pain on my chest, and twist my body strongly, then I smash the wolf that bit my arm into the ground, breaking off its jaw in the process and most likely killing the monster.

I land on top of the wolf, unlike what it looked at the beginning, and immediately take back the strengthening on my legs and jump away just in time as another wolf tries to bite me.

After backflipping a few times I stand in place firmly and look at the wolves.

Three unharmed standing some distance from me and growling, one standing and looking at me with a grudge as a bit of blood drips down its mouth, one lying on the ground limply and whimpering with crushed lower jaw, and three, including the alpha, lying dead.

Before the wolves decide if they should retreat of try to kill me still I rush forward towards the leftmost wolf, coincidentally being the closest to me. It tries to jump aside, giving in to fear I caused by practically killing half of the pack within ten seconds, because the fight was no longer than that.

I kick the ground strongly and change direction, then take a powerful swing with my hardened foot. The wolf barely dodges the attack by ducking down, but its relief doesn’t last long as I continue my move, placing my foot on the ground, twisting my upper body and doing almost identical kick with other leg, this time hitting the wolf exactly in the forehead with my heel and caving it in.

Another wolf pounces at me in the meantime, trying take advantage of the fact I am preoccupied, but I swing my fist in the same move and the wolf gets his jaw smashed in the same manner as the fourth wolf, merely with larger force, landing limply on the ground while spewing blood.

With the corner of my eye I notice bloodshot last wolf, probably having abandoned thoughts of escape, with only remaining goal to kill me, charges forward.

Still continuing the same move I place my right foot on the ground and kick the wolf with all my strength, caving in its skull on the side just like the third wolf got killed and crashing it to the side while spraying more blood.

I quickly turn around to the only remaining enemy, being the wolf limping on the ground with its jaw crushed, but I relax a bit seeing it’s not doing anything. Merely looking at me with intelligent looking eyes with pain along with calmness and acceptance inside.

I slowly approach it and raise my foot as the wolf’s eyes follow it. I smash it into the wolf’s skull without hesitation while looking into the wolf’s eyes with a faint, appreciating smile.