So I'm a Snake, So What? (Kumodesu x OC)

25 - A Village In Peril?

Moving along the path with renewed vigor, I had a clear goal in mind, as well as a fairly good idea of how to get it done.

The end goal itself: Head back to the Middle Stratum, and take down the now-not-seahorse. Considering its new set of stats and skills, it would definitely be a lot more useful now than it was back then; not exactly something I can just pass up when the only pawn I have right now is Ryoshi. On top of that, it's a chance to get even with the Middle Stratum.

As for the plan: I remembered Hiiro teleporting those giant spiders around, so I looked through my skill shop to see if that was some sort of 'Teleportation' skill or something, but I instead found out that it was a part of this thing called『Spatial Magic』. As the name implies, it's magic that manipulates space. That's the main facet of the plan.

However, the problem comes with the fact that, apparently, teleportation isn't something that comes with it at LV1, so I'll have to level it up over time, if not with a couple level-ups; which was another thing I was looking into for the sake of figuring out what I'm capable of with this body.

But, until the opportunity to go through with that option presented itself, I came up with a Plan B and a Plan C, Plan C being a last-ditch effort, and something I really don't wanna have to go through.

Plan B: Find Hiiro, and get her to teleport me to the Labyrinth. How I'm going to find her is... in the works, but considering how things have been going so far, I figure that moving towards the direction of either giant spiders or general destruction would yield a pretty good chance of finding her.

And Plan C: Scour the entire surface for another entrance; if not fight off whatever reinforcements may or may not have showed up around the one we came out of in the first place. Considering that that's likely an extremely time-consuming process no matter how I choose to go about it; even though I'm not exactly strapped for time; that's my last ditch effort.

In any case, while I went along, keeping my eyes and ears open for any signs of Hiiro, I went about trying to level up Spatial Magic, hoping that repeated use would get it where I need it, slowly but surely, though, the only thing it did then at its base level was create a cube made of green lines that I can move around.

'Probably something I could find use for if I thought far enough out of the box; after all, there's always a way to make use of even the most useless of things; but for now, completely worthless...'

And so, with not much else to do besides make green space boxes, I went along the way doing that for who-knows-how-long, all the while listening out for something to murder in the background. In fact, I wound up getting it up by one level! So, hey, progress.

However, apparently, I wasn't paying close enough attention to what I was hearing, as the next moment when I broke away from my box-spawning, I found myself surrounded by trees. A lot of trees...

"Uhm... Ryoshi, where are we?"

A pointless question, obviously, considering that he had been following behind me since I started moving, but, hey, a guy can hope, right?

Unsurprisingly, he had no clue either.

'Ugh... It's times like these I miss having Parallel Minds, I get way too focused on one thing and completely lose track of everything else... Wait, what the heck is that?'

Lamenting over my lack of alternate me's in my head aside, it was then, when I was finally focused on the world around me, that I noticed the sound of screams and clashing metal off in the distance.

And it wasn't the same screams and clashing that I had heard before. Somehow I could tell it was different, which led me to the conclusion that people in this world really loved starting wars...