The Simius Swarm
A mountain stream ran clear and bright, singing a cool, crystalline song as it flowed.
Whether the water was actually clean, I had no way of knowing — but it wasn't muddy, and that was enough to be grateful for. I'd been using it for a week now, both as drinking water and for bathing. Once I'd figured out how to make fire, I started boiling it first.
Gulping it down raw on that first day had been a mistake. The fish I'd eaten came back out the next morning in a form I would rather not describe. My first bathroom experience in a woman's body. Not that there was an actual bathroom — just a patch of undergrowth...
Living in a forest like this, even the slightest movement left you filthy. No matter how I wrapped myself in roughly stitched hides or bound my feet for protection, by the end of each day I was caked in dirt and dust from head to toe. Which was why I was in the stream now, washing it all off.
I'd just spent two hours fighting to reassemble a pistol I'd failed to field-strip properly, then test-fired it to confirm it actually worked. That put me in a good mood. I'd bought a few other pieces of gear besides. Spending money and getting something in return always came with a brief but intense little rush of pleasure, and that joy made the clean feeling of a bath even better.
A week of scrambling around had gotten me used to moving this body. Looking at it, touching it in a quiet moment like this — that was still another matter entirely.
This long hair that had appeared out of nowhere. A chest that was, frankly, on the large side...
I'd learned, with perfect clarity, what it meant when you looked down and couldn't see your own feet.
I ran a hand down over my chest, letting the water soak in. Being able to touch something this soft whenever I wanted would have been a nice thought — if the situation had been even remotely appropriate for it. Hunting animals in the woods, eating them, sleeping on a bed of grass on the bare ground. I was living like a complete primitive. There was no leisure to savor this body yet. I didn't even feel like it.
Pleasant as this was, I couldn't linger. A monster could burst out of the trees at any moment.
"Guess I should head back... The sun's starting to dip. Time for dinner."
I waded out of the water and shook out my hair. No hair dryer, so shaking it as dry as I could and letting nature do the rest was the only option. I wiped as much water off my body as I could with my hands, threw on the crude hide scrap I used as a loincloth, grabbed my pistol and ammo pouch, and headed back to camp.
"Huh? What the... Where's all my meat??"
The deer meat I'd stored in a basket woven from grass was gone. Basket and all.
Then a sound came from a little ways off.
Kik!
Kigik!
Something like a white-furred monkey was scrambling up a tree with my meat, making a run for it.
"Hey!!! Get back here!! You get caught, you're dead!"
I took off after it immediately.
"You little—! ...I can't even shoot the damn thing!"
That tiny creature was flying through the trees. Trying to aim a pistol at it while I was running myself? No chance I'd hit it.
I chased it for a good ten minutes. My physical abilities really had improved — it was exhausting, but I wasn't gasping for air the way I should have been. The pain of my chest bouncing with every stride, however, was a separate issue entirely.
"Hah... shit... I lost it... Where'd it go?"
The light was fading fast. I had to find it and get back before it got any later.
I scanned the area, and there it was — just beyond a boulder, examining the meat inside my basket.
Quietly... Don't let it hear me. Make the shot count...
I crept closer, closing the distance. About ten meters. Close enough. A clean headshot and it wouldn't be going anywhere.
"Hoo..."
I exhaled, waited until I was sure my body had gone completely still, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Kiek!
One shot. Dead center in the skull. The creature let out a short cry and collapsed, dead on the spot.
Target: Simius
Points Gained: 25P
"Hoo... I think I'm actually getting pretty good at this. The points are a bit stingy, though. Is this just a regular animal, not a monster?"
Pride and disappointment hit me at the same time as I collected the basket of stolen meat. The light was twilight now — the sun was a breath away from vanishing. I had to get back to camp before it got any later.
I was just about to move when I heard myself laugh.
"Haha..."
I had noticed the countless eyes surrounding me.
Reika pushed deeper into the forest, following the two booming roars she had heard during the day.
She had heard the cries of great beasts before, but a noise like this was something she had never encountered in her life. She was certain this was the roar at the heart of the rumors.
"Where've you gotten to, you little... If you're a monster, I'll mince you to bits..."
She moved forward with a look of utter confidence.
Bang!
Another roar. Reika's fur bristled, her ears pricking as she turned toward the sound. She picked up speed — and then it came.
Bang! Bang-bang! Ba-bang! Bang! Bang! Ba-ba-bang!
A barrage of roaring noise, one blast after another. The location snapped into focus, and Reika broke into a full run. She wove between the trees, racing toward the sound even as the sun sank behind her. And then another sense caught something.
"Snf... What's this smell?"
On the heels of a sound she'd never heard came a smell she'd never encountered either. Tracking by scent was a fox beastkin's specialty. She locked in the location and poured on even more speed.
At last she arrived, close enough to the source of both the roaring and the smell that she could almost touch it...
Kieeek!!
"Ghk! What the hell is this beast?!"
A white-furred monkey lunged straight at her face. She didn't even bother drawing her sword. She snatched the thing out of the air with her fist and slammed it into the ground like she was driving a stake.
Then she looked around. It wasn't just one. Two, three... no. There were dozens. And the direction of their gazes was toward the other side.
Standing there was a strange, perverted-looking elf dressed in nothing but a tattered scrap of hide that was falling to pieces.
And then the elf raised whatever it was she held in her hand.
Bang!!
Reika understood where the roaring noise had been coming from.
There's way too many of them!!!
I'd walked right into a minefield. I'd thought it was just a fast monkey. The whole area was a troop's den.
There were so many of them that I'd already burned through both spare magazines I'd prepared, and now I was on the run, spending the points I earned from the ones I killed to buy more mags as I went. I had to keep moving, thinning their numbers as I fled — but I'd hit a dead end. A cliff at my back, dozens of monsters in front.
"Ah, hell..."
That was when she appeared.
"Hey, pointy-ears. That's a troubled look you've got. Seems you're the girl making that ear-splitting racket, but I reckon we can talk better than those beasts, eh?"
A human had shown up out of nowhere... no. Not a human. Something else. A woman with red-furred beast ears, dressed in Eastern-style garb, a sword in her hand.
"Hey! I'm offering to help, and you haven't got a word to say? Are you mute?"
"Ah... no, that's—!"
Several of the monsters charged. I opened fire immediately, dumping the rest of the magazine and dropping three of the five.
Damn it — I don't have time to reload for the last two!
That was when the woman stepped in front of me, dropped her stance, and settled her grip on the sword in a Battōjutsu draw.
Then she cut down the two that had closed in, so fast my eyes could barely follow the blade.
"That's some damn noisy magic you've got! It is magic, right? Well, no matter!"
"Huh? Ah... yes..."
My head was spinning. The first person I'd met since falling into another world wasn't even human — she was a beastkin, she used Battōjutsu, and we could understand each other. But there was no time to dwell on any of that. The horde of monsters in front of us showed no interest in getting any smaller.
"L-Let's deal with them first! That sword... you are good with it, right? I'll thin out the ones over there as much as I can — you handle anything that gets close!"
"That's my specialty! Leave it to me!"
Whether I was actually safe... I had no idea. But at least I'd bought time to purchase new magazines and reload.
I opened the Gun Shop, hands moving fast, and converted some of the points I'd earned killing them into magazines. I bought six in total, stuffed five into the pouch, and loaded one into the gun.
The magazines vanished back into light the moment the last round was gone. That meant the mag well emptied immediately, so I slapped a fresh one in and racked the slide.
I poured fire into the swarm. They were packed so densely that even spraying wildly, the bullets found targets on their own.
"Their numbers aren't going down at all..."
"Quit thinking and use more of that magic already!"
The woman cleaved another one in half as she barked at me.
"I know that! But—"
Click...
Click...
The gun wouldn't fire.
Malfunction.
Now? Of all times??? I cleaned it this afternoon and it's been running fine — why now!!
No time to complain. We were in a fight for our lives, so I used my head. If the gun was broken, I didn't need to fix it. I just needed to buy a nice new one.
I opened the Gun Shop and went to purchase the exact same firearm.
🛡 Equipment Slots — Sub-Weapon 1/1
⛔ No slots available
❌ Purchase denied
"...What? I have the money, though?"
It wouldn't go through. Purchase unavailable? And what the hell were slots supposed to mean?
My head went blank, and I sank into despair.