Zoe wasn’t all too thrilled with the way things were going.


    The bunnies weren’t actually that hard to kill. She knew this, because she had already killed a whole lot of them. They couldn’t seem to leave her alone, which meant that Zoe was getting into near constant tussles with the bloodthirsty little bastards as she continued trudging upwards through the deep snow.


    The good thing was that she now knew how to deal with them quickly and efficiently. How could she not? She had just passed by two dozen kills, according to Lilith’s count. The annoying thing was that the first step consisted of letting them leap out of the snow and latch deep into her naked flesh. This was not actually difficult, because they were good at it.


    Phase two consisted of Zoe ripping them off and stuffing them one after the other down her throat like the world’s cutest snake. She had never even been one of those freaks who could fit their whole fist in their mouth, but here she was. Not like I ever tried to do that more than a normal number of times.


    Actually, snakes are pretty cute already. Her mom never let her have one when she was little, though. She had to settle for a cat. But that worked out fine, too. The cat had the benefit of being soft, and it was naturally much better at catching lizards and things than Zoe was. Sure, they were often missing their tails by the time Fluffers brought them to her, but that wasn’t a big deal. It would have ended up happening sooner or later either way.


    The sudden nostalgia distracted Zoe long enough for a lone bunny to quite literally get the jump on her. That was near the point where other people started treating me weirdly, Zoe remembered as she ripped the rabbit off her back. Or maybe that’s just when I started to really notice.


    “Hey Lilith, am I cute?” Was what Zoe tried to ask. It came out sounding weird through the mouthful of rabbit.


    “Yeah, I’d say so. Why?”


    Zoe swallowed. Usually she tried to chew at least a little bit first, but usually she wasn’t also trying to talk. “Cuter than a snake?”


    Lilith squinted. She didn’t seem to be hiding her sudden suspicion. “Why?”


    “Just wondering.”


    Probably not, then. Or maybe she DOES think I’m cuter, but she doesn’t want to admit it? Zoe chewed her lip. Her own blood mixed with the bunny’s as her massively overgrown canine sliced through it. Hmm, I taste weird. Because she was a Demon? That sounded like an interesting line of research to pursue later. Also, I might be going insane.


    You have leveled up! You are now level 6.


    +15 stat points.


    +6% core progression.


    “Yes! Haha!” Zoe pumped her fist in the air as the level-up notification arrived. A not-insignificant amount of energy swirled down into the spot right below her chest where her core was. It probably had something to do with the progression thing.


    “Took you long enough.”


    Zoe didn’t pay any attention to Lilith’s grumblings—tried to. She actually agreed, but she wasn’t about to openly admit it. Her fifth level had come right after she took down the very first pack of carnivorous rabbits. Including the one in her inventory, it had only taken killing—and perhaps eating—four of them for her to level up.


    She had already expected the sixth level to take more than the fifth. That just made sense, right? But she didn’t expect it to be quite as large of a difference as it was. By Lilith’s count, the very next level took her no less than five times as many. Zoe had to hope that this wouldn’t become a pattern. She didn’t think she’d get very far if the requirements were so steeply exponential.


    They can’t be, right? The first cultist I killed was already over level fifty.


    But then again, it still hadn’t been a full day yet. If Zoe continued at her current pace, she would expect to be over level—what, two thousand—in just one year. That was definitely not right, so she supposed it had to make sense.


    Reality really was consistently disappointing.


    Either way, Zoe had leveled up. She decided she should be happy about it and not turn a success into a failure with unreasonable expectations. The whole fifteen extra stat points were certainly welcome, even though she had previously decided to start saving them—at least for now. That meant she already had a stack of no less than sixty points held in reserve.


    As for the core progression—


    Zoe’s arm snapped out, snagging a leaping bunny midair with the uniquely hooked claw that used to be her thumb. She didn’t hesitate to toss the wriggling monster into her waiting jaws, no matter how surprised she was.


    Not surprised about being attacked—she was surprised that she caught it like that. She hadn’t done that before. It hadn’t worked the first few times she tried it, which was what led to the development of her later technique—the one where she let them bite her first, even though her quite high perception often alerted her just a moment before the strike.


    Does it have something to do with the new level, or did I just get lucky? Zoe shrugged. She might as well try to do it again. What was the worst that could happen? She’d miss and get bitten? That was already her backup plan. Plus, eating them usually healed her more than they ended up hurting her. Lesser vampirism was already proving to be shockingly handy.


    And with all my other healing, plus the stupidly high vitality? It was almost starting to seem like the only thing Zoe had to worry about was getting one-shot. Well, that—or getting hurt faster than I can heal. Or running too low on my own blood while also not being able to take a bite out of anything. Or getting captured. Or if something can negate my abilities. There were a lot of ways things could still go badly. Also, getting eaten still hurt. A lot. Zoe didn’t think it would be long before she got a skill for pain resistance.


    Wait. Zoe stopped walking. Trudging, really. She was both soaking wet and frozen stiff at the same time, and it was only getting worse. I feel like I’ve started thinking about this like I’m going to become some sort of constantly regenerating unkillable berserker. What if there isn’t a skill for pain resistance?


    That was going to suck. Really suck. It would suck even more than exhausting herself by practically swimming uphill through deep, slushy snow. For several hours. While now being attacked by violently hungry killer rabbits every other minute. While also completely naked.


    “Yeah. Wow. Okay, fuck this.” Zoe waded over to a sturdy looking tree. It looked dead—in a bleak sort of way—and quite sinister, and also really uncomfortable. So basically, it wasn’t very different from any of the others she had seen. Identify said they were alive, though, so Zoe didn’t question that part.


    “What are you doing?”


    Zoe didn’t bother answering the inane question from her intangible companion. She didn’t say anything at all until she had climbed as high up as she thought she could go, and then she still didn’t say anything. Not before she had gotten comfortable.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    It didn’t seem like it was at all possible to get comfortable in her current situation, though. Zoe would have better appreciated her Demonic body’s ability to simply not die from hypothermia—which probably should have happened like an hour ago at best—if her improved constitution didn’t come with the side effect of simply not getting numb. It felt like she had long been chilled far below what was healthy even for a Demon—because she had been—while also feeling it as sharply as if she had only just stepped out.


    “Worst of both worlds,” she grumbled through clenched teeth as Lilith swung up beside her. The other Demon seemed full of energy and completely unbothered. Probably because she doesn’t actually have a body to get tortured with like I do. Zoe glared at her.


    “What?”


    Zoe quickly swapped from a glare to her best totally-innocent-scheming-bitch face—it wasn’t very hard—and inclined her head. “What?”


    “You know what. Erh—I mean, you know what I mean by what. I can tell because you’re absolutely doing our ‘haha I’m a petty bitch but I definitely don’t know what you’re talking about’ face. So come on—oh, seriously? Cut that out. Don’t you dare sulk at me.”


    “I’m not sulking at you, but sorry if you got that idea somehow… I mean I guess I’m just pretty overwhelmed with everything that’s happened. It hasn’t actually gotten much easier since you suggested we leave the caverns.”


    Zoe barely had to try for her to successfully reflect things with her poor-traumatized-victim mode. It came entirely naturally by this point. Specifically, this point as in this point in her life, not as in this point in her terrible misadventures as a pathetic wet Demon. Though it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to say it was both.


    Lilith, on the other hand, didn’t seem particularly impressed. “I know exactly what you’re doing, and you’re not even doing a very good job of it right now.”


    Zoe sulked even harder. “Okay but I’m not sulking at you.”


    “You’re sulking in my direction.”


    Zoe groaned, throwing her head back. She meant for it to be a theatrical display of over-exaggerated exasperation, but what she actually accomplished was cracking the back of her head fairly hard against the tree trunk. Lilith probably laughed, but Zoe couldn’t hear it over the pitiful keening noise she was making. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. There was no way that Lilith was going to start taking Zoe more seriously after this.


    Nevertheless, she rounded on the sadistic apparition with her haughtiest glare. “See? Even the trees are trying to kill me. This is not how it’s supposed to go. I’m not supposed to be wondering if there’s a skill for tree resistance.”


    Lilith cut off her own cackling to stare at Zoe like she was completely stupid. “Are you completely stupid? What?”


    “You know what. This whole thing has been nothing but bullshit. I feel like I should get in touch with a god or something and ask for a refund.”


    Lilith, unfortunately, was still unimpressed. “Did I make your skull too thick when I reinforced it? Are you seriously saying that—no—wait. You can’t be stupid. That would mean that I’m stupid too, but I’m not.” She cleared her throat, despite the fact that she was completely intangible and shouldn’t have any actual airways to clear. “What else did you expect to happen? Like, early on, after figuring out the system and stuff.”


    Zoe actually thought about it this time. What had she been expecting? It was surprisingly difficult to think back to her mindset earlier in the day, around the time when she tried to get back into the area where she had first woken up. The truth was—she didn’t actually know. “I don’t know, actually. But—I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be cowering, completely naked, in a thorn covered tree because apparently even the literal rabbits are more dangerous than me.”


    Zoe looked down as she kicked her legs below the branch in an effort to relieve tension and warm up slightly. She spotted a couple of rabbits looking up at her. I guess they can’t jump quite this high.


    Lilith had been oddly quiet. She looked confused, actually. It was an unexpected change from her previous incredulous look. “That’s… okay, ignoring the fact that you already have like a twenty-four kill-death ratio on the bunnies—this is literally how it’s supposed to go.” She cut Zoe off with a raised finger. “I know we’re thinking about the exact same stuff here because—as I’ve said—I am you and you are me and—“


    Zoe flicked her Demonic twin on the nose to snap her out of it. I hope this doesn’t become a long-term problem.


    “Anyway, isn’t this exactly the sort of thing that happens? Look. First, we released ourselves from a tomb in the sanctum of a massive elder temple. A good start. Then, our first real encounter is interrupting a blighted infernal cult ritual. But no, it doesn’t even stop there, obviously, because we decided to fight both the cultists and the paladin at basically the same time.”


    Zoe raised an eyebrow. She was feeling a little better now, for some reason—but she wasn’t about to admit it. “I think I take issue with your characterization of—what did you say? Decided to fight both of them?”


    Lilith just waved her away. “Whatever. But we survived, and now you’re already running around as a higher Demon with a Rank A core and a stolen storage ring that’s probably full of rare and expensive shit. So yes. This is exactly how it goes.”


    Hmm. She kind of has a point when you put it that way. Zoe didn’t respond right away, instead taking a moment to study the ring again. She had a new idea for how to deal with it—but not just yet. At the very least, she owed her body-snatching evil twin the satisfaction of knowing that she had been right.


    “Okay, fine. Point taken.” Zoe considered her next words carefully. More for herself, really. “I guess it feels different when you’re actually the one experiencing it. Like—it’s really not fun, is it? Kind of terrifying. Yeah. Also boring, probably.” Zoe groaned upon making that particular realization. “Shit. There’s going to be so much boring stuff I have to go through, isn’t there.”


    “Ha!” Lilith leapt to her feet, a wicked grin crawling across her cute face. My cute face.


    “If that’s what you’re worried about now, then I consider my pep-talk successful. Anyway, I guess we can finally start doing the actually interesting and useful things.”


    Zoe’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”


    The too-large, too-sharp, and not quite white enough canines of Zoe’s newly-upgraded smile loomed back at her. She didn’t like just how much enthusiasm was dripping from Lilith’s grin. “Right. So first, you finish manning up. Second, we find something that’s plentiful, predictable, and not too challenging for you to start grinding. I’m pretty sure that the common thread between all Demons is nearly constant gratuitous violence.”


    Zoe couldn’t help but raise another eyebrow in response to that one. “Well that doesn’t sound very nice.”


    Unfortunately, Lilith’s grin only grew wider. “Exactly. Now since I’m pretty we’re not a masochist, I think it’s safe to say you’d prefer to be the one doing the violence, not the one being violented against.”


    Huh? Something Lilith said there didn’t make sense. “Violented against? What?” Snickering, Zoe didn’t let Lilith brush it off so quickly. “Honey, I don’t think that’s a normal phrase to say. Are you sure you aren’t stupid? I mean I know we’ve been over this, but…”


    “I’m trying to help here, don’t make fun of me.”


    The snickers turned into a gleeful cackle. “Or what? You’ll violent me to death?”


    Unfortunately, Lilith still looked unimpressed. She was way too good at looking that way, Zoe decided. “Well, I can’t say I’m not tempted. However! I’m being serious. As a Demon, the best way to not get yourself killed is to get into the habit of going around killing things.”


    Right… Something told Zoe that in this particular area, following the advice of the disembodied Demon that had tried to steal her body and override her own consciousness wasn’t the best idea.


    But then again, it wouldn’t hurt to start leveling up.


    It would also be a really great way to really test all of my different skills. Zoe had obviously meant to do that already. She just got distracted by the killer rabbits. Hmm…


    Looking down again, she observed that at least two of them were still at the base of the tree. There was also no doubt that there were plenty of others nearby. The whole area was practically crawling with them.


    “So,” Zoe drawled, channeling a bit of Lilith’s coy attitude for herself, “We need to find something for me to grind, right? Where would we find it though? I’m not quite sure I remember encountering any nasty, vile little critters swarming the whole area.”


    Looking down as well, Lilith raised her own eyebrow. “It certainly is a shame,” she lamented. “If only we could find something like that.”