The forest ended abruptly, like a mountain cliff that left only a plunging abyss where a solid ground should’ve been. Instead of the abyss, though, seemingly endless rectangles of black and green spanned as far as I could see. They were separated by the river, the endless water channels coming from it, and many roads, wide and narrow. Ant-sized from my altitude figures were busy in the dark soil, working the ground and tending the plans. No one raised their head to the skies as I flew by, and even if they did, I imagine I’d be just a black dot in the sky for them. Especially with the sun shining from behind my back.

It wasn’t only fields I saw as I flew farther. Light green meadows spotted with pinpricks of colour from flowers hosted herds of peacefully grazing animals. Small villages, barely bigger than the kobolds’ one, stood there and there, in walking distance from each other. An idyllic place for living and for hunting. ​​

And just a little farther away, I saw the city. It stood right on top of the river. Tall stone walls encircled it, and several buildings peeked from behind them. More ants, but in shining on the sun armour plates, stood on the walls and at the gates, and I spotted machines that looked like giant bows standing on small towers. I didn’t dare to fly up to take a closer look at the place.

Instead, I turned back and landed in a small grove at a safe distance from a curious stare and began to spit webbing for my nest. Day’s rest and a scouting expedition at night, that was my current plan, and I had to make signal traps just in case someone wandered in.

‘I hate that you just had to go there,’ Pest grumbled. He seemed to be as tired from arguing with me as I was from listening to him. ‘You are fucking killing me there.’

“It’s always about you.” I snorted. “If you don’t want some human to kill me, you can tell me something useful about this place, because as soon as I will evolve into a human, I will try to get into the city. Say, is prostitution legal around here?”

I had vague memories that somehow it shouldn’t have been, but if they related to my old world, then it didn’t matter. I felt like it didn’t matter one way or another. Humans did illegal things all the time. Many souls in Hell thought this what brought them there. Ha, if only.

‘Prostitution? Ah, you mean whores. How’s that fucking useful to your survival?’

I grinned. “Fucking is very useful to my survival. I will need some stress relief to deal with your annoying voice in my head without snapping.”

‘Then go and fuck yourself, Hell-boy!’

I wish I could. Damn these kobolds with their lizard genitalia. I had no idea what to do with it. But at least Pest had shut up, and it gave me enough calm to settle in my soft web hammock and sleep.

When I woke up, the sun had set and the only light I could orient myself in came from the moon and the stars. Thankfully, kobolds had a good enough night vision for me to orient myself. I ate all my webbing to leave no space, as well as a rabbit who had caught itself in it, and walked towards the nearest human village.

There were no lights in it at this time, but contrary to kobolds, humans left no sentries. At first I scoffed at their lack of security, before I noticed the first dog sleeping on a porch of a house (a proper house, not a straw hut like the kobolds’). It flicked its ear in its sleep and I backed away before it could notice me.

Watchdogs, noted. If they were anything like the wolves I’ve seen in the forest, they had ‘Enhanced Smelling’ ability and loud, loud voices. I didn’t want to risk waking the entire village just yet. Still, that left me with little options. The farm animals all went inside their closed pens for the night, also guarded by dogs.

Either I had to risk waking the dogs, or attack at day when humans and animals would spread out. The first option will let me sneak up on and surprise my prey, while the second option meant that humans would need more time to gather their defence against me.

I swished my tail left and right absentmindedly as I thought. My best bet would be luring single humans or animals away from their kin and into secluded places, like my grove. Animals were easily lured by food, but for humans that won’t be enough and I had little idea what would make a good bait.

I checked on my EXP. Pest, as the pest he was, kept draining it thousand by thousand, but I still had over thirty thousand left. I noticed that his draining speed became faster with time, but if he didn’t speed up drastically in near future, that would safely last me for a week.

At least he wasn’t draining my abilities now.

I thought for a while longer before a coherent plan of the hunt formed in my head. I would have to wait the night out, though I intended to spend it on exploring more of the village without coming too close, and in the morning I will strike.

These stupid and docile farm animals won’t know what hit them, and hopefully, neither will the humans who guard them.