Your party defeated Luminescent Burrower.

Exp: +50.

Your party defeated Luminescent Burrower.

Exp: +50.

Your party defeated Luminescent Burrower.

Exp: +50.

Your party defeated Luminescent Spike Thrower.

Exp: +100.

Yuki ran away from the incoming monster following Jenny into the passage. Right now, she could only hear one of the things shrieking, but she guessed it wouldn’t be much longer until more of them appeared. She dismissed the kill notifications, noting one of the monsters was a different race. Maybe a different evolution? It also gave more exp.

How much exp did she have? Yuki remembered some other notifications while she tried to neutralize the magic door, but she hadn’t paid attention then.

“Status,” she called out.

The landing page with the rabbit, thankfully still entirely white and pretty, showed up. The goblet was one-third full, which was enough for now. Yuki had wanted to eat a few berries to restore more magic points, but Jenny had been right. With monsters roaming the place, exploring there would have been a mistake. Even more, now that Yuki suspected these things ate magic, the berries were the prime target if that was the case.

Yuki willed the system to display the personal info tab. She hadn’t looked at that since her fight with the weasel an eternity ago.

Personal info.

Name: Biscuit.

Age: 56 days.

Gender: Female.

Race: Mutant Dwarf Horned Rabbit.

Evolution tier: F.

Exp: 767/3000.

Oh, nice. That was a lot of exp. Has it been almost two months already? Somehow, it felt a lot longer. And the name made Yuki hungry. She missed cookies from the before. Yuki dismissed the page, a faint feeling of something wrong that she couldn’t place her paw on. She willed advanced skills to show up next and checked on the magic-related skills.

[Invocation] was fifty, while [Shaping] was fifty-one. That was good progress. Getting trapped inside the dream at least served for something. It was also nice that her efforts there weren’t in vain. Even if that was a magic simulation, practicing there helped increase her skills in the real world. Yuki opened her personal info tab again, the nagging feeling of something wrong too strong to ignore. She reread it.

Personal info.

Name: Biscuit.

Age: 56 days.

Gender: Female.

Race: Mutant Dwarf Horned Rabbit.

Evolution tier: F.

Exp: 767/3000.

Wait, name? When did that happen? Biscuit? Was that what Jenny had been calling her all this time? Yuki felt cheated and fuzzy inside. Biscuit was a cute name for a pet rabbit, but she wasn’t the pet! Jenny was the pet!

Yuki had often wondered what Jenny had named her meant. To Yuki, it was just a strange string of sounds that had meant nothing until now. Learning she’d been named Cookie was weird. Even more, knowing the damned system accepted the name. What bullshit was this? Just because she responded to the name didn’t mean she agreed. That was it. Yuki would clear the air between them as soon as they were out of this place. It had taken long enough, but one casting of shapechange should be enough to let them talk face-to-face.

Distracted from her thoughts and following on autopilot, Yuki didn’t stop in time to avoid hitting Jenny’s legs. The blonde stopped just past at the end of the passage. Unlike the other chambers, torches didn’t light up when they entered. Tall, charred wooden shelves, now mostly empty or holding remnants of scorched scrolls and books, greeted the duo. The air here was thick with the smell of burnt parchment even after god knows how many years.

Jenny didn’t go further. She looked at the partially illuminated room, then at the tunnel they just came from. “You think the exit would go through the library?”

Yuki didn’t understand all the words, but she thought she got the gist of it. They were looking for an exit. This looked like a library. Yuki shook her head. “No.”

Jenny looked down, eyes wide. She blinked a few times, maybe surprised. Why was that? They hadn’t talked about libraries before, but figuring out the word by context wasn’t that hard.

“Yes, you’re right.” Jenny looked one last time at the burnt chamber before returning to the forge hall.

Yuki followed. That left only two more paths to explore. Yuki got traumatic flashbacks from her time playing JRPGs in the before. She always, always, picked the wrong routes when going through a dungeon. When she wanted to explore and find new things, the first path always led to the boss room and dungeon exit, but whenever she was tired and just wanted to finish the place, every path she chose ended up being the wrong one. It was annoying as hell, even more so in those old-school RPG games where you had to fight a random battle every two steps.

Surprisingly, the forge hall was empty of enemies. The corpse of the spike thrower was still there.

Jenny inspected the surroundings before setting off toward the nearest passage to their left. Given the circular shape of the forge, this one was opposite to the path that led to the orchard. They were halfway there when things changed.

It started with a faint sensation. Yuki stopped, ears perked. It felt like someone had just thumped a gigantic drum. Yuki felt it in her bones, even from far away. It was like a giant rabbit thumping the ground.

Jenny had noticed the rabbit stopping and stopped as well. “What is it, Biscuit?”

Yuki wanted to ignore the woman, a silent protest at the name, but that was dumb and childish; Jenny hadn’t known Yuki already had a name before, and now really wasn’t the time to do that. But Yuki couldn’t articulate her feelings; they hadn’t discussed thumping or drums. She didn’t know the words. Instead, she mimicked it.

“Listen,” Yuki said, then she thumped the ground.

“What?” Jenny looked at the rabbit, at her surroundings, a hand scratching the sides of her head. “I don’t understand.”

Yuki felt the thump again. “Listen,” she said and thumped once more.

Jenny stopped looking around, sat down, and placed both hands on the ground. She closed her eyes and waited. It didn’t take long until whatever that was thumped again. The blonde shot up to her feet, eyes frantic.

“What was that?”

That one was easy to understand, but Yuki didn’t answer. Before she could, her ears swirled toward the pillar’s room passage. The same high-pitched shriek came from there and the wet slapping noises of the burrowers’ movement.

“Uh, I think we are in trouble,” Yuki said, looking in the sound’s direction. The thump sounded again, and this time, the ground trembled. Even Jenny felt it.

Rabbit and woman looked at each other, and without a word, they turned and ran toward the next passage. A horde of worms spilled forth from the tunnel with the holes, big and small. The ground burst open near the forge, and the largest burrower yet crawled out. This one, the eyes weren’t malformed, instead, black and red orbs zeroed in on the fleeing duo. Its body glowed with intense blue light, and tentacle-like feelers covered the exposed body. The creature opened a gigantic maw full of slimy, sharp teeth.

A new smell spread in the room, overpowering the constant scent of burnt wood and blood. It smelled of hunger and starvation.

“Dodge!” Yuki yelled before jumping to the side. Jenny might have understood, or maybe she was just aware of the situation and threw herself away and to the side. Soon after, a glistening blue glob of something flew toward the path they were on and splashed on the far wall.

The thump resonated again in the room, closer than before.

FatElf

Thank you for reading. Next chapter tomorrow.