Catching my second wind was a lot like that first taste of coffee in the morning. Life is good, there’s caffeine in my system, and everything takes on a whole new sheen that it hadn’t had when I first woke up. I know the crash is going to come later, but that’s future me’s problem.

  “How are ya feelin’?” Sam asked as she stretched her arms above her head. The muscles tensed in her biceps, and I felt a renewed appreciation for the opposite sex.

  “Good.” I stared at the grass as I opened and closed my hand. We’d spent the entire evening keeping one another busy, and at some point between the sun rising and the fire burning out, I’d become engrossed in our conversation. “I think I finally caught my second wind.”

  Sam smiled confidently. “Awesome.” She rose to her feet and cricked her neck side to side. “Do you think you’re feelin’ well enough to catch an Encroacher and skin it? Or do you wanna play it safe and wait ‘til you’ve had some rest?”

  I mulled it over for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, let’s try it.” I stood up and batted the dirt off of my clothes. We’d remained in [Combat Mode] for the entirety of the evening. Barring the Defiled I’d recently contended with, there hadn’t been a whole lot of opportunities to fight, so the night had given me time to get a bit more comfortable with my new threads.

  I retrieved my axe from beside the campfire. Sam kicked dirt over the remaining embers, then picked up her poleaxe and draped it over her shoulder.

  “Let’s nab us some breakfast,” she said.

  Snaking between trees and taking care not to step on the occasional twig or rustle the nearby bush was something I’d become much more familiar with ever since I’d dropped into Nyarlea. I was far from the talentless hack I used to be. Back on Earth, I couldn’t be trusted to do much more than cook a hot dog over an open flame whenever I went camping with my folks. Even then, I struggled.

  The forest was just as wild and tangled as Sam had claimed. Spirals of thorns and roots sprouted from the earth, consuming heaps of boulders, climbing up cliffsides, and creating burrows for tiny woodland creatures. Most of the roots resembled claws from creatures I would’ve seen in a JRPG. I pictured some old witch with a giant wart on her nose, cackling at the sight of her magic tearing through the dirt and rocks of the land.

  “Hold up,” Sam whispered and crouched down to one knee. “Get down.” I didn’t wait to see what she was looking at. I mirrored her posture and let my eyes wander the forest. “Straight ahead. See the snout poking out of that hole?”

  I squinted, then shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “What are you looking at?”

  “It’s black, barely moving. Kinda hard to see at this hour.”

  I shrugged, opened my mouth to ask again, then stopped when I saw the creature. A long snout rose from a hole a few meters away. It sniffed at the tunnel’s rim, shot up, then craned like a periscope. The nostrils flared, and the snout retreated back into the hole.

  “That thing?” I asked. Maybe I’d feel differently after I saw what lay beneath the hole, but the idea of eating something that dug burrows on a regular basis didn’t catch my fancy. “That’s our breakfast?”

  Sam grinned at me over her shoulder. “Sure is, buddy boy. That there is a ringback snuffler. Those things can feed two people for a whole day. They’re packed with muscle and fat.”

  As soon as the words, ‘muscle’ and ‘fat’ made their pleasant return to my ears, all I could picture was a thick slice of meat on a griddle, sizzling and seasoned to perfection. I licked my lips, and suddenly I couldn’t have cared less what the creature looked like or where it made its house.

  “You have my attention,” I said.

  Sam licked her lips. “Thought I would.” She returned her gaze to the hole. “Looks like it’s sniffin’ out for prey. This should be a good opportunity to capture it.”

  “How do we stop it from going back into its burrow?” I imagined waiting at the hole, hand firmly planted against the ground, waiting to snatch it by the nose like I would a fly that had overstayed its welcome.

  “We don’t. Ya gotta be quick.”

  I was suddenly reminded of the pawm civets. Jesus, don’t make me sing. “So, then we—”

  “We set a trap.” She reached into her [Cat Pack] and procured a length of rope. My relief was immense. Quietly, she tied one end into a hoop, then on the remaining length to reduce its size. By the time she was done, the lasso was barely wide enough to fit her hand. She turned around and held up the hoop by her thumbs. “We’re gonna set this by the critter’s hole. As soon as it steps inside, you’re gonna tug on it, and then snap; breakfast.”

  “Wait.” I pointed at my chest. “Me?”

  Sam nodded. “Of course. I made the trap.” She tossed the rope at me. “Go get ‘em.”

  I should’ve known there’d be a catch. “And if it runs off?”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  She shrugged. “Then we go a little longer without eating and try to capture something else.”

  “But your rope could—”

  “Can be replaced,” she interrupted. She patted me on the shoulder and shifted to her side to allow me passage. I was impressed with how little noise she made. She’d clearly been doing this for a while. “Now, go on. Show me what you’re made of.”

  I slipped my axe into my belt and craned my head to have a better look. The snuffler was nowhere to be seen. I’m not the talentless hack I used to be, I repeated to myself over and over as I stepped over the large root that hid us from the Encroacher. I sidestepped the dead leaves that served as the snuffler’s tripwire, taking one long stride after the other on the balls of my feet.

  The snout reemerged from its home when I was only a few feet away. It sniffed the rim of its burrow, where the soil was soft and porous. I watched, half-curious, half-terrified that I would mess this up, as a purple insect with a large abdomen approached the snout’s den. The insect’s antennae bounced up and down with every micromovement it made.

  Then, just as it was inches away from the snout, a loud snort erupted out of the snuffler’s nostrils, and a noise like a balloon being gently released of its air echoed out of the burrow. I blinked, and the insect was gone, sucked up by the miniature Hoover vacuum.

  I licked my lips, waiting for my opportunity. The snout circled its hole one more time, then retreated back inside. I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, then quietly descended to one knee. Taking a note from Keke’s notebook, I placed the hoop a few inches away from the hole, then piled a thin layer of dirt on top. I took great care not to dig out any rocks or sweep up any leaves in my setup, and when I was done, not even I could tell where the trap began and the dirt ended.

  Perfect. Now to get back to safety. I looked over my shoulder to see Sam with her thumb up. I flashed a smile, glanced at the hole, then made my way back over to Sam. We sat side by side, shoulder to shoulder, rope in my hand, mouth watering.

  “This is the toughest part,” Sam whispered.

  “What, waiting?”

  She nodded. “No idea when it might come out. I’ve spent hours like this in the forests before. Convinced myself that my own stomach was giving me away sometimes.”

  I frowned. “They can’t actually hear our stomachs growling, can they?”

  She shook her head, and her smile widened. “Nah. Well, some can. But not the ringback snuffler. They’re a simple kind. More sensitive to touch than anything else.” She gestured to her neck. “Their hairs are super fine, so they can pick up subtle vibrations. Kinda like spiders.”

  Guess I set the trap correctly, then. I hated to think what might have happened if I had accidentally spilled dirt into the hole or brushed a few leaves.

  Sam’s breath hitched. “Look.” Two little paws came out, one on each side of the hole. The snout sniffed at the air, and as it emerged, Sam pushed me down on my shoulder. “Careful. We’re gettin’ real lucky here. Let’s not blow it.”

  I swallowed hard and gripped the rope tighter. As if that would do anything. The creature was a lot larger than I was expecting. It looked how I imagined the child of an armadillo and an anteater would appear. It had round cheeks and an armored back. Thick tufts of black and brown hair fell over the creature’s legs in waves, and each time it moved, the fat around its legs shook.

  I want to hear what that sounds like in a frying pan.

  Sam raised her hand. “Almost. Almost. Wait.”

  I licked my lips and gripped the rope even tighter. The snuffler wandered onto the section of dirt where I had laid my trap. It dug through the dirt with its snout, then threw its nose into the air. It took a step, then another, then another.

  “Now,” Sam hissed.

  I pulled the rope, and the hoop snapped over the snuffler’s body. A squeal that sounded like some mutated version of a baby’s cry and a parakeet scream filled the air. Sam shot to her feet, and I with her. She lowered her poleaxe as if she were about to charge. I had expected her to help me, and for a second I’m pretty sure she’d considered it, but instead she put a hand on her hip and looked at me sideways.

  Ah, right. This is my bounty. My kill. I snapped the rope taut around the snuffler’s body, and the little bastard tugged me forward. I dug my heels into the dirt, suddenly aware that it didn’t only resemble some of the anteater’s appearance, but its size as well. It came up to my knee when it stood on its hindlegs, and for a moment I was distracted enough that it yanked me forward with its attempted escape.

  “Damn it, no!” I yelled. “You’re all that separates me from a day of misery!” I carefully placed one hand ahead of the other, making sure that I always had the rope in my grip. The snuffler kicked and screamed and snarled, pelting everything around it—including me—with dirt, small rocks, and leaves. “Where do I strike it?” The beast was no more than a couple of feet away now. I had to make my attack count.

  “The head is fine!” Sam yelled back. “Back of the neck if you can! We don’t need anything above the neck!”

  “Heard that!” Keeping the rope gripped in my left hand, I slipped the axe out of my belt and pulled it closer. The snuffler was back on its feet, and lunged for my left leg. I’d grown accustomed to having my legs attacked whenever an Encroacher was involved, so I’d anticipated it and quickly lifted my limb out of harm’s way, swiftly dropping it on the creature’s back and pinning it. “Sorry, buddy.”

  I had a clear shot. I raised my axe, then poured all of my [Strength] into the blow. The axe met with the creature’s neck, severing head from body. Quick and humane. What a relief. The last thing I wanted was to chase a wounded Encroacher. Maybe that part of me was still a bit too soft, but I didn’t like the idea of the snuffler suffering more than it had to.

  The limbs twitched for a few seconds. Blood poured out of the snuffler’s body, soaking the soil. I hefted my axe, then used my foot to push the body away from its decapitated head.

  “Nice job, Matt,” Sam complimented. She patted me on the shoulder and crouched down on the balls of her feet. “Clean strike, too. You’re pretty good at this!”

  “Thanks.” I used the back of my hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead. “So, what now?”

  Sam smirked. “Feelin’ up to butchering it?”

  I thought about it for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah. Teach me.”

  Volume One is out now on eBook, Kindle Unlimited, Paperback, and Audible! , , , and are available on eBook, Kindle Unlimited, and Paperback.

  Thanks for reading!

  Be sure to check out our for early access chapters, full-size artwork, acrylic pins, and more. Subscribe to the monthly for exclusive updates and coupons!

  Many thanks to our Patrons!

  Berserker Tier: SkySom, [William Martin]

  Scholar: Jack Sparrow, Flaming Moose, DiscountDan, Alex Bagster-Collins, Zachary C

  Curator: PhantomKnight, nick0, Runecaster, Lazarus G, LT_Ashpole, 0hawkclaw0, Sir Joe, Janna Shi Island’s Fury, Lord Taxus, Miles, Aycee, Tim W., Gavin D, Zarkis, Carlos M, Neko1967, Pyromaniac, Kat S, Rieka Hunt

  Powerhalf, Mitchell Aberson, Matt[hew] D Christensen, Travis, JC Quinn, HariboHeadHunter, King Jerkera, waymogunz, Phil, Centhi, Khii, Matt[hew] Johnson, Jason Walker, Belkorin, Rodney the Paladin, ICE.Paragon, Kyle McCoy, Cameron Garfalk, blackmambauk, NekoPix, Zerum Sparklez, Joshua williams, Michelle Hundt, Dave, Emily, Skade, Rosalee, SyloSpectre, Tonk, Twelve, hanani, Shags, Ranger Frank, Zak Stromquist, Spencer decoteau, Jacob Moore, Alex H Cowley, Zeklor, Neko1967, KH, Bilman, VKandis, ProfessorComputerMan, Victor Bugg, Vir Honestus, Steve Tatum, Brooke Grace, Hock, kenneth york, Kat L, WarptheSynth, Aaron A, Queen Toast, GreatFireLegend, Ryan E, Draxx127, Wesley F, Bakenecro, BeanSauce, StarTin, Myrmarked, Bryan O, Mister Drake, Hahn Feder, Elissia, Lumberjack0716, stupidhand, Zaq, Aaron C, MrMcmuffin, Wesley Jace, Marisa Eldridge, tobias merz, Michael KochKetola, danjiro

  Please remember to follow, favorite, and rate!

  Patreon | |