Chapter 4: Bear With Me
Julius felt a heaviness in his chest and his grip tightened on the handle of the dagger. He was no stranger to using one but he was years out of practice. Being a software engineer with peace of mind would do that to you.
The noises became intense and louder. There was no doubt about it. This was the breathing he had heard earlier. Only this time it was mixed with growls.
His thought process was interrupted by the rustling of bushes in front of him and out from the bushes jumped a figure. A wildcat? At least that’s what it looked like initially under the glow of moonlight. Then it landed. It was on all fours, furry, but had the outline of a person. And a tail.
He didn’t have enough time to process what he was seeing before that inhuman growl resounded again, this time it was closer. The forest gave way as a red bear three times his size skidded to a halt.
The bear growled and bared its teeth as it looked between Julius and the wildcat person. There was a pause between all three as the bear decided.
It chose Julius.
Of course, it did.
A digital banner appeared above it.
[Fire Bear — Corrupted.]
The bear lunged, faster than it should have been able to. Julius dived sideways as the paws raked where he had been standing a moment ago. His wooden tent buckled under the force.
He hit the ground and steadied himself on one knee.
He wasted no time and took cover behind a tree that was between him and the bear. A notification popped up; one of Iris’s notes he didn’t have time to read.
The bear turned around.
Julius had its full attention now as the other person was nowhere to be found.
His heart beat loud enough to reach his ears, his breathing grew irregular as his entire body went into overdrive. He briefly recalled his gym membership he had only used for the first week before putting it off. Dodging a bear wasn’t part of the workouts his instructor suggested.
Run or fight, he thought as he recalled those bear videos he’d seen on his socials.
The bear moved.
He ran.
Not away but sideways in a zig zag manner weaving through the trees and using them as obstacles to keep distance between him and the bear.
Iris flashed another notification. This time short enough for Julius to read.
[Architect’s Eye Skill Available]
"Activate Architect’s Eye."
His vision ignited as the world dissolved into a wireframe blueprint. Trees became cylindrical-like shapes, the air rendered into a 3D Cartesian coordinate system and the ground glowed like an x-ray grid.
Julius had never understood blueprints but his brain didn’t have that issue now. He was no longer looking at the forest but the geometry of the terrain as the world filled with spatial data. He could see the volume of the trees and the trajectory of his hands as they moved through the grid lines.
Darkness was no longer an issue as every tree and leaf became a sharp, glowing outline against the floor.
He took a glance at the bear. Its fur and features had reformed into a glowing red bear-shaped form moving against his geometrical world.
The whole process took seconds but long enough that the eye also revealed a slope up ahead. He adjusted his path to it, his feet hitting the ground with mathematical precision, he intended on pulling one of those last moment dodges he’d seen in movies.
However the eye showed him the facts. The bear was gaining too fast for a movie stunt, unrelenting for reasons he didn’t know. Reality was often disappointing, but at least it was mapped.
He was near the edge when the bear lunged again. This time those claws would connect.
[Wardstone: Barrier will absorb one impact at current mana levels.]
He activated it without slowing down. The blue barrier flickered into existence as the bear’s paw connected with his back.
The barrier absorbed most of the damage before fading.
Most.
The force still sent him tumbling forward, off his feet and into the slope the eye had revealed. He hit the decline hard and fast. The world spun as his body tangled with dirt, rocks and trees among other things. He came to a stop at a boulder at the bottom of the slope with his shoulder taking the impact.
He lay still for a moment. The blueprint world his eyes saw faded back to normal and was replaced with a burning sensation similar to an onion-pepper mix.
[Wardstone depleted. Recharging]
[Architect’s eye deactivated. You have no mana]
[Damage taken: bruises, scratches, shoulder dislocated. No broken bones.]
Julius could hear the bear above him, moving along the slope’s edge, looking for a way down. It hadn’t found one yet. He adjusted himself to lean against the boulder, in case the bear managed to find a way down. His grip on the dagger was less steady than he wanted as he blinked his teary eyes.
The wildcat person from before was crouched on a tree that grew against the slope above him. They had been there watching him, the bear and his fall.
They didn’t help.
They still watched him now.
Julius looked at them.
Animal ears. Two of them pointed with faint stripe markings covered with short black or grey hair. Yellow eyes that glowed against the moonlight and a tail that didn’t stay still. They wore clothes but were barefooted.
The moon’s glow provided their outline enough for him to see their slender shape.
She watched him like a cat does with interest, without approaching.
Above them, The bear gave up and left, its growl fading into the forest.
He turned his attention back to her.
"Great," he said to no one in particular.
The cat girl said nothing.
He closed his eyes for a moment hoping to let the pain in his shoulder lessen. If cat girl was his next problem, he needed to be ready to deal with her. However the wave of exhaustion from running and the drain from using the eye made his body take this action as a command to relax.
He slept.
---
It was a new day when he woke up. His hand instinctively moved to pick up his alarm clock only to come into contact with dirt.
I guess that settles it.
He sat upright as he took his surroundings in.
The forest was alive as the first rays of the sun came through the canopy. The fire bear was gone. The slope was still. The only sound was something small moving in the undergrowth far away.
His body was rested but the injuries and pain from last night still persisted.
It was clearly morning but Julius wanted to check the time. He reached into his pockets, shocked to find out his phone and coin pouch were missing.
He got up to look for it only to come face to face with a yellow-eyed woman crouched on the boulder he was leaning on with his phone in her hand.
"Morning," she greeted.
