The next day, Serena was awake at the same time as usual. Knowing she wasn't going to get more sleep, she quietly peeked out of her tent to see that the sun was beginning to rise. She was about to head out when a voice called out to her.
"Where are you going?" Kiro asked grogily, stirring from his sleep and rubbing his right eye.
Serena glanced back at him and smiled, "Just need to step out for a moment. You go back to sleep."
Kiro blinked at her before nodding his head and settling back down to sleep. Once he was sleeping soundly again, Serena quietly stepped out of her tent.
The camp around her was peaceful with sounds of birds chirping in the distance and guards lazying around everywhere. Since they were taking a short break to reenergize, few were up so early, wanting to catch up on sleep.
It was a perfect chance for her to do some things without any prying eyes on her.
After letting the guards know she needed to take care of some business so they wouldn't get suspicious of her, Serena headed into the forest. She was careful to not go too deep into the forest, marking her way as she moved.
She didn't want to get lost or cause any unnecessary trouble by going too deep into the forest. There were still wild animals and other dangerous things within the forest. Things her current strength was unable to deal with.
Once she was far away from prying eyes, but still close enough to not be in too much danger, Serena prepared herself to shift.
She'd been meaning to practice shifting, but with so many around her she'd delayed it for some time. At most she'd practice shifting parts of her body on nights she couldn't sleep, using the original owner's vague memories as a guide.
But now she wanted to test out doing a full shift and moving around in her snow leopard form. Serena removed her halter top and skirt to not ruin them while shifting before closing her eyes.
She tried to recall the original owner's memories, looking for her memories of shifting. There were few since most beastwomen didn't shift into their beast form as adults unless they were in danger and needed it to move around better.
After a few minutes, Serena found one from the original owner's youth and used it as her reference. She took a deep breath, imagining her beast form like the original owner had, calling upon the form mentally.
At first nothing happened, but then her body suddenly tensed up. A second later, something wiggled out of her skin and the sound of bones cracking entered her ears. Serena soon found herself crouching on the ground on all fours.
It was a quick and painless shift into her beast form, almost as if muscle memory was kicking in. Of course, it being painless despite how her bone structure changed still surprised Serena.
But then again, this world has strange things going on that can't be explained by science. Serena mused to herself, lifting her front paw to look at it. Like how I'm even in this body…
While her focus had mainly been on surviving and getting back home for revenge, there was a small part of Serena that wondered about how she was even in this world. Why did she have this system?
She was clearly here for some purpose, but what exactly was it? Was it perhaps linked to the missions the system would give her? Well, it probably was no doubt.
Serena sighed, shaking her head. Now wasn't the time to think about those questions. Right now, she wanted to use this chance to test out this form's abilities.
***
When Serena returned back to the campsite the sun had fully risen in the sky. More people were awake by then and moving around. Serena went straight to her tent to get her water skin.
Running around in her beast form, even for a few minutes had left her quite drained. She didn't even want to think about the amount of times she tripped over her tail.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the original owner's muscle memory Serena probably would've been falling over that long tail all the time. Still, while she wasn't completely hunter ready, Serena was still happy.
Her beast form wasn't completely useless and with some training she could probably become great at hunting with it. Then she could attempt hunting monsters with both her human and beast form.
Though it would probably need to involve traps since monsters were hard to take on alone.
"You're back!" Kiro suddenly exclaimed when entered the tent. "Why did you take so long? Do you have a stomach ache?"
Serena felt her eye twitch at the question. It seemed her little excuse had backfired a little on her. Thank goodness she hadn't been gone too long or who knows what may have happened.
"No…" Serena murmured, grabbing her water skin and gulping down some water. She then said, "I just got distracted by some pretty flowers on my way back. Anyway, I'm going to see what they're making for breakfast. Want to come with me?"
The last part was both to distract Kiro from her lame excuse and actually have a chance to see how cooking was done. She hadn't managed to get much of a chance yesterday since everything was just roasted meat.
But today, they planned on using the brown and orange roots which Serena was keen to see. The original owner did have some vague memories about the food when Serena looked into it.
However, it seemed the original owner was useless when it came to cooking, so her mate did most of it. It made a part of Serena hope that she was not the same as the original owner when it came to cooking though.
"Okay!" Kiro nodded his head, not finding anything wrong with her excuse. "Let's go then."
Serena patted his head and the two of them headed off to the campfire to see what was being prepared for breakfast.