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The forest was alive as Eve moved slowly through the shaded areas. Over the course of time before she exited her house on this excursion, winter had given way to spring. She had left her house at around noon, and after almost thirty minutes of travel the river should be coming up ahead. With every minute that passed as she moved further north, she started to slow. There was a nest somewhere in the surrounding, and Eve wasn’t keen on finding it the hard way. Paper woven in between her hairs allowed her to see a fully three hundred and sixty degrees around her. While the view was disconcerting if she focused on it, Celestial Mind allowed her to manage.

Whenever she saw something emitting mana, Eve froze until she could focus on it. Several butterflies, two wasps, one bright red bird, and three small cats later the river came into sight. Glancing around, she noted paw prints heading up and down the riverside. Since one set of prints moved in a single direction before the vast majority of that set moved into the forest, she chose the opposite.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Eve thought, repeating the same mantra her training operator used. This nest isn’t running away. Yet.

Another hour passed slowly before the same mud, grass, bone, and fur nests came into sight. As soon as Eve saw them, she began to setup a small spy network of paper sheets to watch the nest from her Inventory. It had become habit to place any Paper she created into the space reserved for it since it stacked infinitely. Once the sheets were in place, Eve retreated to the maximum range possible before going up a tree. Closing her eyes, she settled in to wait for nightfall. From what she had observed, the ferrets were daytime hunters. Night was the domain of creatures that hunted them instead.

Eve was taking a controlled risk that nothing that hunted the ferrets would be stupid enough to tangle with her. A ferret would be known prey to such a predator, she was a much bigger piece of meat, and even worse completely unknown. If the attacker was the least bit intelligent, it wouldn’t take a shot at her. Furthermore, since said animal would likely hunt ferrets it wouldn’t rat her out to them either.

It was a calculated risk, and her math skills gave it a massive percentage of working, high enough she was willing to risk it. Watching the forest as afternoon turned to evening while the water from the river flowed serenely past was calming.

She watched the nest her memory tagging different ferrets that were larger, sleeker, or colored differently than the normal green-white. The ferrets that had different colors seemed to correspond to other elements. Red was a solid bet for fire, blue water, mud brown earth, and solid green was pure wind. The larger ferrets seemed to be innate leaders, although she still didn’t see anything that indicated sentience. A highly organized hierarchal society, invasive, and xenophobic.

Just not sentient.

Even if they were, we are past the point of trading nice words while holding big sticks. Eve thought, as she watched sentinels slowly posted in the surroundings. Easing herself into a light meditative trance she waited as time passed without measure. Eventually her Celestial Mind broke the trance on a cue from her body. Eve rose form her perch, her muscles completely fine even after hours of inactivity.

Moving silently, Eve circled the nest several times quietly removing all the sentries. She expanded her circle searching for a second ring, yet found nothing. With a final deep breath, she wrapped herself in paper before launching herself directly up in the air above the nest.

This is the only mercy I can grant. Eve thought as she opened her inventory letting paper gather behind her in an ever widening tail. When she touched down, her velocity canceled by her own Domain, thousands of sheets of paper fell like the reapers blade behind her.

There was a brief fraction of a second before her will took hold and thousands of razor sharp blades moved in unison. Since the attack took the nest completely by surprise, Eve was slightly shocked at the results. Out of several hundred ferrets, three large ones managed to survive the alpha strike. The largest had a deep red coat, his blood blending into the fur. The other two both had deep blue coats, denoting the water element.

Both of the water element ferrets moved to flee, and failed. Following the alpha strike, her Six Samurai unfolded from her hair. The two sets of three each struck one of the water ferrets, their Celestial Iron ripping the water magic forms apart. With a wet splash both of the attempted escapees died.

The fire ferret hadn’t let their deaths be in vain though as his form had doubled in size. Where he had been a large dog before, now he was equal to a horse. Opening his mouth, the fire ferret blasted an enormous flamethrower directly at her.

Eve defended with her paper, and as it burned, simply created more from the surroundings. Trees fed her skill until the fire was finally countered. Before the ferret could strike again, six blurs chopped it into piece. Eve paused a moment before moving quickly to store everything into her expanded inventory. In minutes the area looked like merely another piece of the riverside with nothing denoting there had ever been a nest.

Moving quickly she departed the area heading for the next nest on her map.

Over the course of the rest of the night before dawn, Eve managed to remove all the nests in the surrounding area except for the one by the lake. She simply didn’t have enough time to reach it as well. As the final non-lake nest was removed Eve decided to approach the larger lake nest. If it was truly an impossible task to remove without any survivors she would retreat to figure something else out.

As she setup the surveillance net around the lake nest, a single irregularity raised her hackles.

A sense of danger enveloped her body causing her to freeze after the last piece of paper was in place. Glancing around Eve spotted the yellow-brown glow of earth magic being used just a short distance away.

Shit, ground tremors. That’s what I get for not learning to fly. Eve thought as she leaped to the nearest tree. Freezing in place she watched a spike of earth impale the air where she had previously been standing. Got to kill it before it warns the rest!

However, before she could strike a blur of yellow-brown moved from the surroundings ripping her opponent into pieces. Eve’s eyes narrowed as she spotted a large wolf surrounded by the remains of the earth ferret.

So natural selection is already moving ahead. Eve thought, knowing full well that with the removal of one predator species another would take its place. She had no problem with that as long as said species understood that she wasn’t part of the menu, and her clearing was off limits.

The wolf stared at the tree she was in without blinking, as several other wolves moved out from the forest behind it.

There was a pregnant pause before Eve floated down from the tree. When she appeared she made sure paper surrounded her like falling sakura petals moving in constant motion. She was gambling on her trust in Celestial Mind that practically screamed this was a heaven sent opportunity.

The yellow-brown wolf moved until it was an arm’s length away from here before it started making small noises. Eve stood perfectly still until Polyglot triggered after a few minutes.

“…One-Who-Cuts-With-Flimsy-Teeth. Respond by raising your right front paw if you understand. I will continue for another ten cycles of sunlight until our attack cannot be delayed any further.” said the yellow-brown wolf.

Eve slowly raised her right hand making no other movements.

There was a pause as the largest female behind the yellow-brown male spoke smugly, “Proven right again. Good work, Sister.”

Eve paused a moment unable to understand how to reply before Celestial Mind and Body kicked into high gear. Suddenly the method of speaking fell naturally from her tongue as if she had always known how to speak alien planet wolf talk.

“This one is sorry to have interrupted the hunt with her mistake. Forgiveness?” Eve spoke, the sound of quiet wolf chatter flowing smoothly from her mouth. At the same time her body moved in an exquisite use of body language to convey meaning as well.

Eve could see the alpha female’s smirk widen to epic proportions. A glance at the alpha male informed her that his expression looked absolutely forlorn. She surmised that it was likely difficult ruling the Pack with a mate that was consistently right. Like any good leader though he shrugged off the faux pass before speaking.

“This one is Mud-That-Kills-Without-Warning.” said the alpha yellow-brown male wolf. “Two legs have named me Mudslide in honor of my power.”

Eve managed to keep her body language from betraying laughter with a supreme effort of will. Celestial Mind told her the wolves would tolerate many things, but disrespect of a name was not one of them.

The pack Alpha male cast a glance backward, causing the Alpha female to move to his side before he said, “This one is All-Right, my beloved mate. She is always right, a joy for any strong pack leader.” Somehow the Alpha male managed to convey sarcasm in a language consisting of yips, barks, ear twitches, tail movements, and fur rippling. It was a very impressive use of limited language to say the least.

“This one greets the Leaders of the Pack. May the hunts be bountiful, and the pups many. I am named Paper-That-Slices-Quietly by my people, although I would be honored if you called me Papercut.” Eve said.

The Alpha male looked at her for a long moment before nodding, “Understood. We have seen you hunt the long-cats, you have removed many nests, and slain powerful foes. It has allowed our Pack to expand quickly into the gap.”

“The long-cats attempted to eat me and my Pack. I am simply repaying them in return. If they had not threatened my Den, I would not have moved.” Eve said, her voice firm.

There was a long silence before the Alpha female responded, “The young must be protected.”

“The young must be protected.” Eve said in the same manner.

Small mice and a sparrow count as young, technically, right? Eve thought. There’s the Kudzu too, so I suppose as long as I don’t mention my Pack is filled with prey it will be fine.

After a small silence where both sides weighed the words, the Alpha male finally spoke, “One clearing is nothing to this one. I am willing to grant you the clearing, as long as you do not hunt my Pack, or reduce the surrounding prey to numbers too low to support us all. Is this agreeable, Papercut?”

“This one is honored such a wise leader is in charge of the surroundings. I welcome the great generosity of such a powerful one.” Eve responded without missing a beat. She watched the Alpha male look at his mate as if to say, ‘See, this is how I should be treated!’ the ear twitch he received in response plainly said, ‘Not in this lifetime, or any other!’ once the two were done communicating Eve waiting patiently. Until the Alpha gave his agreement in return, it was nothing but words between paws.

Turning his full attention back to her, Mudslide said, “This one agrees, so it is done.”

Eve’s body relaxed from tension she didn’t even know she was holding. Her understanding of the language allowed her to know without a shadow of a doubt that she was safer in the Pack’s lands than anywhere else on this world. The words of a Pack Leader were better than a treaty backed by mutually assured destruction. For wolves, only honor, loyalty, Pack, and mates mattered in the great stream of existence.

With the blessing of the Alpha male she would be able to hunt dangerous predators in the surroundings, as well as prey animals. With this agreement in place, there was no need to exit this part of the forest in a hurry.

Eve glanced at her Status as the two mates conversed in a voice too low for her to hear.

Name: Eve Smith

Race: Human

Class: Celestial Scholar

Level: 14

Health: 700/700 (7 hps regen)

Mana: 1,280/1,280 (3,760 mps regen)

Stats: Str 70, Dex 70, Con 70, Wis 120, Int 128

Free Stats: 34

Skills:

Mana Map

Celestial’s Five Senses

Spells:

Domain of Celestial Paper I

Mental Talents:

Celestial Mind

Physical Talents:

Celestial Body

Her attention snapped back to Mudslide when he spoke, “Are you willing to strike first like in your previous hunts?”

Eve immediately agreed, knowing that while the first strike was the most dangerous, it also gave the highest amount of honor. By ceding the first strike to her, he was killing two birds with one stone. It raised her status in the Pack, and it kept his Kin from taking the brunt of the initial attack.

“Would the honored Pack Leader be willing to remove Those-That-Watch before I attack?” Eve asked, with extreme politeness.

All-Right responded with a lupine grin, “It is already done Sister. The long-cats are blind now.”

Eve grinned in return careful not to show her teeth before wrapping paper around her body. As she rose in the air Eve said, “Good hunting to the Pack.” As she cleared the canopy line, her body curved flying towards the nest in the distance. Below her shadows moved in the forest as a plethora of lupine attackers followed her flying form.