I pull my foretalon away from the strange stone. What?! Why? The instinct provides no explanation, just more of the intense urge to eat the stone. It hasn’t steered me wrong so far, so… down the hatch it goes, I guess. I bend down and pick up the stone in my jaws before swallowing it. It goes down pretty easily. Well it’s done now. Happy? The instinct recedes and stops projecting the urge.

  That was strange. Hopefully nothing bad comes of it. I shake my head then examine the clearing around me, searching for somewhere to maybe go to sleep. My stomach grumbles suddenly, making itself known. Didn’t realize I was getting hungry. I suppose I can go on a quick hunt. A quick glance at the sky tells me that I still have plenty of time. No reason not to. And maybe some food will even help the instincts with whatever it wants the stone for. Food’s always helpful, after all! I can go to sleep after that.

  I turn around and leisurely stroll past the edge of the clearing. I’ll probably have to go decently far to find something, since the spider was definitely too protective of this place to let anything get close. My feet pad through the patches of moss and dirt while I begin to search for tracks.

  …

  I push aside another bunch of weeds and am met with another empty parcel of mud. There are so many patches of dirt here! So much more than those other parts of the forest. I sigh. I just wish I had an easy way to check if they had footprints. Something suddenly comes to mind. Oh, what am I doing? I could’ve been using Plant Control the whole time!

  I shake my head slightly in disappointment before beginning to utilize the skill to push aside bits of plants before I get to areas that look like they may have tracks, to help identify that quicker. The incremental amounts of time I save each time I do this quickly builds up and, after only a few minutes, I find success in a small piece of moss with two side-by-side hoofprints imprinted on it.

  Finally! I’ve found something to follow! And, huh. These footprints look familiar. I look the way the tracks are facing and spot a few more extending in that general direction, with the help of a bit of plant manipulation, of course. Hopefully this doesn’t take too long.

  After an indeterminable, but relatively short-feeling amount of time, I start hearing the sound of slow plodding in the distance somewhere ahead of me. The very light smell that has been permeating the air grows more intense the closer I get to the source of the sound. This smells familiar. Wait, is that…?

  My movement speed increases significantly as my excitement starts to build. Even in my haste, however, I run as lightly as I can, trying to make as little noise as possible. Oh… Not too far in front of me is a decently large quadrupedal creature about as big as I am. It’s long, with kind of stubby legs and matted, brown fur. Its most distinguishing features, however, are its two massive tusks. Their tips look incredibly sharp. I guess it isn’t a deer then. Well, it still smells good.

  It also looks really tasty. I just hope it’ll go down without too much resistance. While those tusks do look dangerous, nothing else about it seems particularly noteworthy. I’ll probably be fine as long as I stay away from those. That would be pretty easy if I had a good spot to ambush it from. Maybe somewhere high up would do? I look up, searching for something like a particularly thick branch. The low layer of the canopy in this part of the forest is quite sparse, however, and none look thick enough to support my weight. Guess I’ll just have to do with the good old attack from behind.

  I move through the bushes, passing by the slow creature while searching for a spot where the foliage is especially thick, but not so much that I can’t see through it. Surprisingly, it takes very little time to spot a suitable location. Perfect! I’m definitely close enough that I can jump on the thing once it gets close. I move as quietly as I can into the bush and prepare a Slash. I don’t think I can do any more than one. This’ll have to hit, or this hunt will probably get significantly harder. Waiting in the bush, I let the creature pass by before I attack.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  A slash leaves my claws the moment its back is towards me, with the waves of light slicing through the air. The creature lets out a loud squeal as its haunches are torn apart. I leap out of the bush with my claws extended, aiming for the creature’s back. Disoriented by the pain, it doesn’t even try to dodge, letting me hook my claws in its flesh and start tearing through. Its matted fur and tough looking muscle provide surprisingly little resistance.

  The creature finally starts trying to defend itself, but by this point, it’s already too late. A good portion of its back has already been torn up, and as I continue to cut through it, an errant scratch strikes something important and the creature drops to the ground, paralyzed. Right before it dies, it lets out an abnormally loud squeal. I cut it off with a slash of my talons, leaving the creature dead. I probably hit the spine, then? Shouldn’t make it taste any less good… It still smells great!

  Defeated [Wild Boar - lvl. 5]. Less experience is awarded for defeating an enemy one evolution below you.

  I’m about to jump in and start eating the creature, apparently a boar, when I pause. Wait, less experience because it’s a creature of a lower evolution? That means it would take longer to level up killing my normal prey. That means I probably have to start hunting things as powerful as that spider. There probably aren’t many of those in this forest, right? And that was a dangerous fight… I don’t want to have to take those kinds of risks regularly!

  My stomach lets out a grumble, reminding me of the meal laying right in front of me. Right, well, I guess I can think about this later. It’s not important enough to have me drop everything right now. I pounce on the remains of the boar and begin devouring it, slicing through its flesh like a scythe through a field of wheat. It tastes similar to the deer, but it does to seem be lacking some… depth? Yeah, that sounds like the right way to describe it. Some depth of flavor.

  I’m most of the way through the boar, with all that’s left being a few ribs and the majority of the abdomen, before I stop, feeling something off. What’s that? The ground is trembling ever-so-slightly. Is something happening to the mountain? A quick glance is all it takes to confirm that the hastily made conjecture is false. What is it then? The slight rumbling in the ground grows steadily more intense and, somewhere to my right, I start hearing faint squealing.

  Squeals? Didn’t the boar squeal? It did let out a really loud one when it died. Maybe it was summoning reinforcements? A chill runs down my spine. It must be something really powerful to shake the ground like this… I turn away from the remains of the carcass and begin to run. Even if it’s nothing, I’d rather not take the risk. I was mostly done anyway.

  I accelerate pretty quickly and am running at full tilt in just a few seconds. Or at least as fast as I can when dodging all kinds of bushes and other plants. However, even as I get farther away from the corpse of the boar, the rumbling in the ground doesn’t get less intense and the squeals only get louder. What's even happening back there? Am I being chased? I slow down a little bit and shoot a glance behind me.

  I guess I am! A veritable horde of massive brown-furred boars is charging straight towards me. Each one has two massive tusks that look as long as I. Behind the front row of massive creatures, I’m able to catch a glimpse of what look to be dozens of smaller versions, similar to the one I killed. These things must be that boar’s family. Maybe those smaller ones were its siblings? Wait, what am I doing?! I don’t have time to stand and ponder, I have to get them off my tail!

  I turn back around and start to run again. How the heck do I even get rid of them? I look to my right, searching for a specific tree to confirm my guess. There! A tree marks the approximate halfway point between where the boar died and the edge of the clearing. I move past it quickly. I’m almost at the clearing already. If I don’t shake them before I get there, I’ll be cornered!