[color=ed1c24][center][h2]Akeno[/h2][/center][/color]

By the time she made it back to the forest, Akeno had managed to work up a bit of a sweat. The distance between here and the cave wasn’t too far, but it wasn’t close either and the shorter legs of her new body made that distance feel all the further; even so, that she was feeling this worn down from just that amount of exertion was another reminder that this was not her old body and her level of fitness was a lot lower than what she was accustomed to.

The point she had put into stamina helped, she could tell. Any future levels she gained would probably go to either that or making her tougher; magic was nice and had endless potential, but getting rid of the alien feeling of piloting this stubby limbed, underdeveloped body and increasing her own chances of survival at the same time was going to be a priority for her.

She stayed at the edge of the trees for long enough to catch her breath, then turned her attention back her task. Or her quest, she supposed. The forest was still mostly quiet, at least in the sense that there wasn’t much visible wildlife, but from her elevated position she did manage to spot a creature in the branches above her that she probably would have missed had she been standing at the base of those trees. Some kind of snake-like creature was curled around one of the tree’s limbs, eyes closed and facing away from her. The front of its body looked vaguely cattish, and despite the serpentine lower half it had forearms and claws.

Akeno considered it for a few moments, wondering how or even if she should try and fight something like that. The chickens were one thing, those at least had been stood upright and a posture she could imagine fighting against, but how was she going to use her karate against something that looked like it was going to try and coil around her like a python before clawing her face off like a mountain lion? More to the point, how was she going to get it down from the branch without inviting it to pounce down on her?

Maybe she could grab a rock and just throw it at it? Piss it off enough to come down? One of the other Orcs had been carrying a spear but she had no idea how to make one of those or even throw it accurately if she had one. So how could she…?

Oh, right. Magic.

The ball of fire appeared in Akeno’s upturned palm with a thought, drawing forth the skill she had gotten from the KFC earlier now feeling more familiar. She’d thrown it like a baseball when trying to hit the slime and that had worked well enough, so Akeno did it again now, pulling her arm back and pitch the fireball up into the tree above her to try and hit the cat-snake-thing  on the part of its body wrapped around the underside of the branch.

[@Zeroth]