There was a subdued weight in the blade—not just physical, but suggestive. A whisper of violence. A hum of something still coiled inside it.
She tapped the flat with her finger, watching the red veins flicker in response.
"Hah."
A short, breathy chuckle escaped her lips.
If she wasn't covered in light bruises and dried sweat, she might've grinned.
Instead, she tilted her head, trying not to look too excited as she squinted at the blade. "So… how do I actually know what you are, huh?"
If this was really a world with stats and skills, then there had to be an appraisal function. Some kind of Inspect, Analyze, Check Equipment button.
She focused hard on the sword. Whispered things under her breath.
"Appraise. Examine. Show Info. Inspect Object... Uh… Analyze…?"
Nothing happened.
She narrowed her eyes.
"...Lore Scan?"
Still nothing.
Not a flicker. Not even a laughable denial message.
"Well, that's disappointing," she grumbled.
She tapped the blade again and opened her Well of the Soul.
Still the same display. No change to Attack Power, no added stats, no fancy class upgrade. No skill improvements. No new windows popped up. Her Total Level remained a glorious, infuriating zero.
All that screaming, running, and almost dying… and the universe didn't even toss her a numerical pat on the back.
Does equipment even affect the stats?
Or maybe she thought about this whole stats screen with the wrong mindset…
Kivas sighed and leaned her head back against the tree.
"Applying gaming logic into this doesn't seem to work."
Then again, the fact that Kivas still remembered her gaming youth after all the thing she been through was quite the achievement in its own.
"Just what kind of world that I fallen into?"
Despite her fatigue, her wings ruffled faintly behind her—half in irritation, half in awareness.
And then, it hit her.
A sensation she hadn't felt in… how long?
Her stomach growled.
Hard.
A sharp, twisting pang pulled through her gut like a blade.
She blinked and put a hand to her belly.
"...I'm hungry."
She stared at her palm like it had betrayed her.
Of course, it made sense. She was alive. She had a body. But somewhere along the line—between dying, spiraling through eternity, getting pulled apart by eldritch forces and put back together again as something divine—she'd forgotten what hunger actually felt like.
Sharp. Weakening. The world felt slightly heavier than before. Her limbs slower.
"Ugh, I'm not just hungry," she muttered, "I'm hangry."
And, thinking about it more logically, her glowing halo and those massive wings probably didn't come free. If anything, they were like running a dozen furnaces without enough fuel.
"Faster metabolism, more aesthetic suffering," she chuckled.
She stood slowly, testing her balance. The dizziness didn't help.
Exploring deeper into this hell-kind of forest was terrifying, especially after the chest-trap nearly split her soul in two. That was barely ten meters from her shelter. Who knew what fifty meters would bring?
So she did the next worst thing.
She grabbed a few thick leaves, some rubbery dark-green stems, and peeled up a few wild root-like growths poking from the moss. The stuff looked vaguely edible. No obvious thorns. No bugs fleeing from it—since there were no bugs in this periphery. Some were bitter. Others were slimy.
She pulled a leaf off her wing—one that had gotten stuck there earlier—and used it to wipe grime off the roots.
Then she stared up at the faintly glowing ring above her head.
"Alright. Don't set my hair on fire."
She leaned forward and concentrated.
The halo pulsed—and a line of heat extended forward, a gentle tongue of flame. She hovered her leafy loot near it, and began a sad, shaky roasting.
It worked.
Sort of.
The root wrinkled, darkened. The leaf crinkled and gave off a slightly sweet smell.
Kivas cringed as she took a bite.
"Bluh."
It tasted like bitter kelp and tree bark had a baby. But she chewed and swallowed.
Then another. And another.
Even the leaves and grass.
She sat down again, chewing like a wild animal who'd forgotten etiquette. Eventually, the burning gnaw in her stomach eased. The ache in her limbs retreated a little. Her head felt less like it was filled with fog.
"...I hate that it actually worked."
She leaned back again, letting the sword rest across her lap, eyelids heavy.
Maybe she'd just sit like this for a while.
Think. Plan. Process everything.
"I need to plan for my next move, hmm."
Her body agreed.
Her instinct, however, suddenly did not.
Almost immediately, every hair on her body stood on end.
Her halo flared once—violently. Her wings stiffened, feathers shrinking toward her back like they'd been hit with a sudden gust of fear.
She bolted upright.
Pressure spread through the air. Thick. Heavy. Like drowning in silence.
Then the gradient of the forest shifted.
The trees around her bled into shadows. The colors of the earth dulled into tones of ash. Her shelter behind her faded into the background like a distant, unreachable memory.
Ahead, in the clearing—
It emerged.
A beast. Massive. Four-legged. Muscular like a lion made from tension and malice.
But for one, it wasn't the massive body that chilled her blood and sweat.
It was the head of that beast.
A human-like face—grotesquely enlarged than the body. Wrinkled, ancient, yet grinning with a mouth too wide for logic. Its eyes glowed violet, and its expression seemed fixed in amusement. A caricature of joy.
It was laughing.
Kivas rose to her feet slowly, her cinquedea in hand.
She didn't scream.
She didn't bolt.
Her instincts were in overdrive, and they didn't say run this time.
She felt that trying to stay away from this beast would just consume her into the surrounding darkness, cursing her, torturing her even.
Fight.
That was what her soul was flaring, kindling to push her will to survive.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt. Her breath slowed, narrowed. Her feet slid into a readied stance without conscious thought.
For once, she had something to fight with, or maybe forced to.
She had a weapon now. And more importantly, she had the will.
The beast lowered its body, claws digging into the soil, its grotesque head still grinning.
The beast then growled a language, warm and foul in its intent.
"What a weird, and delicious-looking chicken~"