The 100th sigil - that was just two sigils away from the Lattice allowing me to form my second array. Or, well, give me three choices: scrap the old array and start fresh, advance the one I had, or slap a new array right alongside it. At least that's how the old human librarian explained it to me.

  Of course, to advance my array was out of the question - never. Not in this lifetime. I hadn’t asked to be a slave, and I sure as hell wasn’t one, no matter what the Lattice claimed. I had no master.

  ‘Or did I?’

  Lying there, an odd hunch creeped up on my mind like the moss over my battered body, making me look at Big Rune Sky.

  ─◇────────────────────────────────────────

  Race: Human

  Gender: Female

  Age: 27

  1st Array: Slave

  Master: Esu

  Sigils: 98 → 100 - ○○○○○○

  ─◇────────────────────────────────────────

  Weaves: 1st Array (6/6)

  Eleaden Standard Language (General):.....23 glyphs - ??

  Indomitable Will (Slave):............................115 glyphs - ?????

  Spatial Domain (General):...........................22 glyphs - ??

  Equilibrium (General):..................................10 glyphs - ?

  [NEW] Pounce (General):...................... 1 → 2 glyphs - ?

  Tail of Poison Empress (General):..............11 glyphs - ?

  ─◇────────────────────────────────────────

  'Master: Esu. How? Why? When?' The questions swarmed my mind. What path to take after reaching 102 sigils, however, was the last thing I wondered.

  Somehow, I had a master again.

  Oddly enough, the fact didn't sicken me like it had before. 'Did I accept the harsh truth?' No, no matter how hard I thought about it, I still hated having that damn array. 'What I seemed to do was truly accept Esu as... someone worth listening to.'

  Thinking about it - about him - like that… well, was something I could stomach.

  In fact - a strange warmth settled in my heart. And no, it was NOT his mana guiding the moss to mend my wounds, but something deeper. To have someone you could rely on, to put your fate in their hands… well, it wasn't a bad feeling at all. Of course, my instincts played a part - Esu was the alpha, the pack leader - but...

  'Maybe, just maybe - the Slave array wasn't originally as bad of an array as humans made it out to be.' An absurd idea, I know. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time people turned something meant for good into something horrible.

  ?Eat ... cub,? Esu's deep growl yanked me from my drifting thoughts.

  ‘Huh? That was it?’

  Before the nice warm feeling under the moss had the chance to turn into a really annoying tickle, all my injuries seemed to be healed. That it was fast was an understatement. The healing of mother mossbears was fast. This, on the other hand, was comparable to my own regeneration buffed with a ton of mana.

  ?Eat!? Esu rumbled again, forcing me to pay attention to my own hunger. I wasn’t as famished as the first time I stumbled through these woods, but I had skipped dinner and...

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Growl!” I wasn’t fooling anyone - least of all myself. I was starving. So hungry that it woke up the beast in my stomach. 'Did the fight take that much out of me?' Not the most intense fight I had ever had, but it was... well, challenging. 'Was it the blood loss? Nonsense.' That would just make me dizzy and make me want to throw up, not hungry. Besides, I imagined my regeneration and Esu's healing replenished my blood - among fixing everything else.

  'Shit! My regeneration!'

  ?Great Esu, may I... may I ask how you were healing me?? The question slipped out before I thought it through while testing my back legs, wings, and tail now free of the moss. ?I-I mean - were you helping my regeneration or... or healing me with mana??

  Of course, I did my best to use as simple an explanation as possible and put as much intent into my growl as I could. For all I knew, the beasts might not have known about the two concepts at all, or their healing worked on entirely different rules.

  ?Your ... regeneration ... strong, cub. A little ... push, all ... it needed,? he grunted in reply.

  'Oh!' His straight response caught me off guard, leaving me without words for a moment. But at least I understood now - he was boosting my regeneration, which meant the building blocks for repair were coming from my body. In other words, I might have been glad he only had to treat my broken bones and not another missing limb.

  That said, a mother mossbear did so before Esu came.

  And I healed my wounds during the fight.

  No wonder I felt so ravenous now.

  "Moss provides... nutrients too," Esu added, like he had plucked the thought straight from my head. He hadn’t, of course. Surely Esu would hate himself for something like that. No, my overly obvious body language was to blame. To a beast, I must have been easy to read; to someone as ancient as him, I must have been an open book.

  ?Not enough... though. Eat.?

  'I see.' The moss supplemented nutrients during the treatment to some extent. A thought that brought many questions; did it mean that my hind leg was made of moss? It didn't feel like it and honestly didn't make much sense. On the other hand, Esu wasn’t exactly bound by common sense.

  Not that I had much of that myself. If I had, I would have listened to Esu and started eating a long time ago.

  ?EAT ...cub! Need ... nutrients,? Esu’s growl came again, heavier, more demanding.

  'Eat - yeah I'd love to, but...' It wasn't that I was ignoring him on purpose. It was just that the metal communication human tool was all I had - no food to eat. As such, with the moss around me being all I could see, my eyes traveled to Esu's antlers and the squirrels running atop them.

  Not a single nut to be seen, though.

  'Did he expect me to go into the woods and hunt something?'

  Honestly, the thought of eating raw meat made my stomach twist, yet something about it also made my mouth water. 'It wouldn't be the worst thing I've ever done.' However, on the verge of swallowing my pride and asking to be sure, my gaze traveled to my opponent. The young mossbear lay nearby, chomping down on a... moss.

  Not just any moss, though. This one was fluffy. And what's more, a few more of those fluffy mossballs sprouted around me, too.

  'Were mossbears herbivores? What are the sharp teeth for then? And more importantly, did Esu expect mine to eat it too?'

  "Nutrients," he answered again without me having to ask.

  To tell the truth, eyeing the fluffy moss, the raw meat didn't sound so awful to me right now. I loved sushi, and even steak tatare - basically raw meat with seasoning. I even tried roasted insects and fried worms. Not great, but not bad either. Salads? Not really my thing. Never mind tasting moss.

  This one, though, looked less like moss and more like lettuce. A strange, fluffy kind of lettuce.

  Not that the image helped with my appetite. However, when my stomach growled with hunger once more, I understood that I couldn't put off the inevitable any longer and lowered my head to the moss. There, after taking a deep breath, I bitten off a mouthful.

  'Best treat it as a band-aid, right?'

  ?Not bad? I muttered, chewing. It was surprisingly juicy, a little tough, and tickled the roof of my mouth. Sour taste, a bit salty? All in all, it was edible.

  As such, I let the hungry beast in my stomach have its way, lay down by the lettuce moss bush, and dug into my green meal. Unfortunately, it wasn't the quiet, moonlit dinner I would have liked. The fierce sounds of ongoing battles continued to echo through the forest - not as much as before my fight, but there were still some survivors. Who they were, or if my human and the fire-wielder were among them, I couldn't tell. Either way, the noise didn’t do much for my appetite.

  Neither did the thought of those who had already lost their lives - out there in the woods, but mostly dead here in the clearing, eaten by moss to become fertilizer for the forest, the moss I was now eating.

  It begged the question, 'What was I actually chewing on?'