It had been a little more than two months since I left for Tes together with Ishina, my teacher. A lot has changed in my life since then.

Tyche had stopped talking to me since the shapeshifting incident, so at least at the end of each day, I tried to send her a few messages about what happened each day.

Since I started my journey, I had only meditated to tame my emotion and my magic, because I had already lost control of them often enough. The training was hard, but it wasn’t there to kill my feelings. Actually, it was very different. My emotions and my magic were like two forces inside my body, and I couldn’t control both. Both influenced each other, and I trained to separate them.

The meditation exercises ended just five days ago, which was a whole month from which Ishina initially expected. She didn’t even call me “genius” or “talented” once, but instead ordered me not to be overbearing and always stay focused.

And now? Now my job is to put what I have learned into practice for two whole weeks. Before my departure, Ishina set me additional conditions that I should meet.

“Ok, Eris. We go through everything at once. For the next two weeks, you need to keep these things in mind, remember, it’s your workout. So I will not oversee you if you break the rule. There will be no punishment, but you would betray yourself.

Let’s start... The first point is the most important one! You can only use magic to fight other creatures!

Point two, you have to stay in your true shape for the full two weeks! If you are thinking, “Why?” That is easy, you have been in your human-like form all the time, you may like it, but the mana flow is different from race to race, and now you have to use everything you learned into practice as a rabbit!

Let’s get to the last point, point three. Point three is not a rule, it’s instead a request, and I recommend to fulfill it. There is a bounty to kill a particular creature. This creature is called Behemer and is an inferior version of the rank S+ monster, Behemoth. Don’t worry. The Behemer is merely a ranked C+ monster.”

With these rules and words, Ishina said goodbye and sent me into the wilderness of Tes. She gave me an information sheet from the guild about a possible position of the creature.

After an analysis, I found that the trip to its location would take about eight days. It meant that of the remaining four days for me to search and defeat and the remaining eight days for the way home.

I had a clue but never worried about it before, but the timing in Tareh was different from how it was on earth. Days had 22 hours, and a week consisted of ten days. Each of the ten months had precisely 40 days, i.e., four weeks, which meant that a year consisted of 400 days. I had calculated that this said that although the days are shorter, a year had 40 hours more than one year on earth.

The seasons were also of different lengths, while spring and autumn were two months long, and the other two were three months long. And right now, we were in the tenth month of the year and the last month of winter.

It is still early, but I should go now... a three-day march lays still ahead of me until the expected location.

I hopped out of my hiding place, a hollow stump. I looked at the surroundings and checked the surroundings for presences.

All right, let’s go!

 

===

 

Half the day passed quickly, and the only monsters I met were rank D or lower. Creatures like the Flashbird were a minority in this area, but I always had to be on the lookout for stronger monsters because they hide their presence until the last moment.

Huh!?

A friendly presence was captured by (Presence sense).

How can a friendly presence be in the middle of the forest?

My ears started to go up and down out of curiosity. I didn't want to ignore such a presence and approached the origin. A pond appeared in front of me behind a small hill.

A source of water! And then…!

A rabbit with a horn sat on the water's edge and drank from the pond.

A horned rabbit!?

When I approached the rabbit, he noticed me and turned to me with a defense stands.

"Quek eeq Qek?" (Who are you?)

He looked nervous.

"Queik quek." (A friend?)

My answer didn't calm him down.

I noticed something. Its horn had a strange shape.

"Eeq qek que Queek Ueq?" (Are you a horned rabbit?)

I didn't want to wait any longer and asked him directly. When I asked, his slightly nervous tremor calmed down, and he answered me with a quiet squeak.

"Quik." (No.)

I was surprised by his answer. Out of curiosity, I use (appraisal) on him.

<Appraisal>

 

Name: Bor

Title: Veteran Graves

Race: Mole rabbit

Sex: ♂️

Age: 9 years

Rank: E+

 

HP: 86/86

MP: 33/38

 

<=====>

System... What is a Mole rabbit?

The system answers instantly.

(Mole rabbit: Also known as the earth hare or pit hare. They live underground and rarely come to the surface. Many laypeople make a mistake and mistake the drill on their head to be a horn, thereby confusing the breed with the distant relative, the Horned Rabbit.)

HEY! The layperson was directed against me or not!? Is this your revenge for the past!?

(I... have no information about it.)

This break! This break!? YOU!

I started to feel ridiculous and turned back to the mole rabbit.

"Quik" (Sorry)

I was about to leave him alone when he answered again.

"Eeeq Qeek." (Good luck!)

I felt that he meant the words sincerely. I ran and let the pond and the mole rabbit, named Bor, behind me.

 

===

 

Time passed very quickly, and today was the eighth day. The forest ended on the seventh day and was replaced with a mountain range consisting only of ash and stone. There were hardly any living plants between these rocks. Tes was a continent that had a mountain range in the center, which consisted of a handful of volcanoes.

Now I have four days... let's go!

 

===

 

The tenth day dawned, and I still had no trace. My plan for the day was to expand the search radius.

I'll try it back there.

I climbed a rock face because I thought I saw a cave entrance, but without a thumb, it was difficult to packstones, and so I looked for one ledge after another that I could fit on. The problem was that my body had grown over the past two months. My body's size was on a similar level to my father's body. He was the same size as the giant rabbits on earth, if not a little bigger. I gave up in the end and used the easy way.

And off!

I pushed myself off the ground and started swinging my wings up and down. I flew up to the cliff and landed. It all happened at a slow pace because I had only trained flying in my human form, and flying in my origin form felt heavy and hard.

HA! I was right!

There was a cave on the cliff. I approached her entrance and stopped.

I scratched my left ear and sat up. With (Presence sense), I couldn't feel any creature, so I tried to listen to the cave with my ears.

*krch* *krch* *krch*

Are... are these snoring sounds? Well, it's no use, I need to explore the cave.

I sneaked into the cave, still trying to distinguish and identify different sounds.

...

The cave in front of me split into two passages. The first thing I listened to was the tunnel on the left.

*Tsch* *Tsch* *Tsch*

...OK, that's the wind.

Next was the right path.

* ZZZ * * ZZZ * * ZZZ *

This! Right, this way.

I jumped off and followed the right path. It didn't take long for the path to end in a huge dome-shaped cavern. In the center of the room was a huge black ball.

The Behemer?

I used (Appraisal).

<Appraisal>

 

Name: Fonar

Title: Vampire butcher

Race: Behemos

Sex: ♂️

Age: 57 years

Rank: B

 

HP: 780/1104

MP: 415/755

 

<=====>

Behemos!? It is rank B and not C+!? HP and MP are significantly reduced. It looks like it evolved after the last fight!

"Gwaah!"

It noticed my presence and woke up. The creature's head turned towards me, and the shimmering yellow eyes focused on me.

Damn master!?

I turned and started running towards the exit.