I survived.
I savored the joy of that fact.
I'm alive. How wonderful that is.
But even as I thought so, despair crept into my heart, seeping in inch by inch.
What do I do now?
The nest was destroyed.
Completely and utterly destroyed.
I glanced at what appeared to be the site of the attack.
There, carved into the wall, was a massive crater.
Haha.
Funny, isn't it?
How does a crater form in a wall?
Craters are what you get when a meteorite or something crashes into the ground, right?
How can one appear on a vertical wall?
And this one punched clean through a massive boulder, too?
Ridiculous.
Even though I stood there defenseless and dazed, the bees didn't attack.
Maybe they were scared of the earth dragon too.
Can't blame them. That thing is on a whole other level.
It's only natural to be afraid. I'm scared too.
Really, what am I going to do now?
Breaking through the bees and returning to the original passage — that's doable.
As long as I ignore the earth dragon situation, that is.
This time I got lucky and survived.
But if the same thing happened again, I don't think I'd make it out alive.
The earth dragon clearly recognized the nest as a nuisance.
Otherwise, there's no way it would have unleashed an attack like that.
Which means that building a nest in the future is highly likely to draw the earth dragon's ire.
If that's the case, I can't build a nest.
No — more than that, I'm too terrified to even try.
My spirit is thoroughly, irrevocably broken.
I don't want to do anything that might触 the earth dragon's wrath.
Even if it was all a misunderstanding — even if the earth dragon thought nothing of it and just destroyed my nest on a whim.
Given the kind of being it is, it might very well have attacked with exactly that level of consideration.
But from my perspective, feeble as I am, the outcome is the same either way.
If I encounter the earth dragon, I die.
That's all there is to it.
I've managed to avoid that twice now.
Twice blessed with fortune.
But I don't think it was luck alone.
The earth dragon — as overwhelming as it is — might not have noticed me while I was hiding.
That's what I want to think.
No — I need to think that.
Because if not, I have nothing left to cling to.
My one and only path to survival.
Hide relentlessly, and somehow escape the earth dragon's territory.
There is nothing else.
The only thing I can rely on is the Stealth Skill.
When I first acquired it, I didn't think it would be that useful, but now it's the only lifeline I have.
Skill Level 5.
Honestly, that's a little reassuring.
But I have no choice but to push forward.
I steeled my resolve.
First, I need to figure out which direction the earth dragon went.
I examined the ground.
There, bold as you please, were the earth dragon's footprints.
I looked in the direction they led.
There was one large passage stretching out ahead.
The earth dragon is somewhere beyond there.
Just knowing that was enough to make my whole body tense.
I headed in the opposite direction from the passage the earth dragon had taken.
Obviously.
Who in their right mind would willingly walk the same way as an earth dragon?
I don't even know where this path leads.
Honestly, part of me thinks I should just grit my teeth and climb back up the vertical shaft, logic be damned.
But no. I just can't do it.
It's not about logic — my heart refuses.
I moved forward slowly and carefully, concealing myself as I went.
I really wished I had the Cardboard Box — the ultimate Stealth weapon.
Huh.
Maybe my mood has settled a bit?
Come to think of it, when I fell, my HP dropped quite a bit, but now it's fully recovered.
Thanks to HP auto-recovery.
I really should have spent Skill Points on that instead of Detection.
Well, it worked out since I learned it on my own, so no complaints.
I didn't have the composure to check earlier, but I wonder how fast the recovery rate is?
Given my low Skill Level, it's probably not all that rapid, but for minor injuries, it seems like I could just leave them alone and heal up.
Oh, and another thing that caught my attention — my total red SP, the one for Stamina, hasn't decreased at all.
Why is that?
Nothing like this has ever happened before, so there must be some condition that stopped it from going down, but I have no idea what it is.
Don't tell me it actually is decreasing but the display is bugged and just looks like it isn't.
I'd die — well, literally — if I suddenly hit zero Stamina and couldn't move.
No, no, I trust Appraisal.
I believe in it as a capable girl who can get the job done.
I do believe that, but considering its track record of causing trouble…
I really do believe that.
Appraisal might be close to leveling up too.
It's been a fair amount of time since the last level-up, and I've been using it constantly.
Given the huge leap it made after reaching Level 6, I have high hopes for the next one.
It would be incredibly helpful if it started displaying Skill information soon.
Not knowing what a Skill does is ridiculously inconvenient.
And among those Skills with unknown effects, there might be one that could turn this situation around.
Okay, that's probably expecting too much, but maybe at least something to improve things even a little.
To escape this desperate situation, I need every positive edge I can get.
Is there maybe a Skill that shows enemy positions?
If I had that, I could keep track of the earth dragon's location as I moved.
Detection would have been nice for that, but it's useless.
I'd want a map too.
I don't even know if this passage actually leads somewhere safe.
For all I know, it might lead straight into an even more dangerous area.
If that's the case, I'm probably dead.
For now, all I can do is trust in my own terrible luck.
Please — just let this path lead somewhere safer than where I am now.