Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I awoke to the sound of nervous yipping. Something running back and forth around me.

There was one loud bark that silenced the yips.

I was lying on my back, and I forced my eyes open. At first everything was foggy, but I could see them. My brothers and sisters all gathered around me, looking down as I let out a weak cough.

Lily's tail wagged as she yelped happily.

My head felt fuzzy as I tried to piece things together.

I had been hunting, prowling through the grass, with Lily right on my tail. Then I got attacked by a snake. We defeated it, but I was poisoned, and I watched my HP tick down to nothing just as Dad arrived and picked me up.

After that, I had a very strange dream about another world.

Yes, my last world. The one I lived in before waking up as a puppy in this world.

Something about snow and being very cold, and then there was some kind of explosion.

Mom gave a bark, which made my siblings, who were crowded around me, back off a step. She then lowered herself, sniffing heavily, hovering her nose all around me. She sniffed my belly directly and licked me, which tickled and made me squirm, so I rolled to get my feet under me and get away.

Mom grabbed me by my scruff and pulled me back between her paws, then laid down so she could hold me in place with her arms as she continued sniffing and occasionally licking my face with a tongue that was like a cow's tongue over my comparatively small head.

Come on, Mom! Aren't you being a little overprotective here? I'm okay, see? It was just a snake bi—

I wiggled my nose.

It didn't hurt at all. That snake had sunk its fangs deep into my muzzle, and the pain had been so intense; I had never felt anything like it before. Then it just got worse and worse as its venom spread through my body.

But all of that was gone now. In fact, I felt better than ever, and as I sniffed the air, I was picking up scents with a new level of clarity.

Mom, finally deciding she was convinced I was in one piece, let me go and looked up to Dad.

He stood there stoically as ever, his middle head staring at me as the other two diligently looked around.

He gave a chuff, nodded his middle head, and then his muscles tensed just before he took off in one of his powerful jumps. Within seconds he was scaling the mountainside with leap after leap that knocked small rocks loose until he eventually found a perch he was happy with to stand sentry from.

Mom gave my crowding siblings a bark that told them to get back to hunting. As I broke free from her paws to try to follow, she put a paw back down on my tail to stop me.

I looked back, giving a disgruntled tip. “What, Mom? I'm fine! See?”

She lowered her head and gave her serious mama growl that I knew better than to argue with.

Okay, fine, I guess I'll just sit with you for the rest of the day. Not like you're going to give me a choice.

I sighed and lay down, making it clear I didn't plan to go anywhere, so she'd take her paw off my tail, which she eventually did.

I rested my muzzle over my own arms, watching from a low angle as my siblings got to have all the fun.

I also worried about more snakes possibly hurting them, but then thought maybe it was rare to find one here and I just got unlucky.

I went ahead and used {Pulse Sense} to attempt to check. I spotted several faster-paced heartbeats I expected to be bunnies, but none of those slow, steady drum heartbeats like the snake, so I figured it must have been safe.

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I suppose even if something bad happened, Dad could jump to the rescue like he did with me.

I thought back to that achievement. Apparently I actually had died but was brought back to life with a god-tier spell?

That was Dad that has done that… right?

Then I remembered how I had gained a level and new skills not only from killing the snake but also from that back from the brink achievement and felt quite excited to see just how much I've risen.

Name: ???

Race: Hell Hound

Path: Veinseer Pup

Stage: 2

Level: 3

Body Development: 40%

Vitals

Health: 60 / 60

Mana: 50/ 50

Stamina: 85 / 85

Attributes

Strength: 14 (+8)

Dexterity: 17 (+8)

Vigor: 12 (+6)

Sense: 23 (+7)

Attunement: 17 (+7)

Active Skills

Pulse Sense LV 2

Passive Skills

Enhanced Smell LV 1

Basic Fighting LV 2

Poison Resist LVL 1

Traits

Predator’s Focus lvl 2

Bonus damage when attacking from stealth or targeting unaware enemies.

Camouflage lvl 2

Bonus to stealth when not moving.

Pack Bond lvl 1

You now gain experience from anything killed by a member of your pack during a hunt in which you are involved.

Apparently a near-death experience wasn’t enough to level up Pack Bond, but I did level up some of my other skills, and those increases to my stats were pretty incredible. I’m guessing the major stat increase from the achievement was mostly to thank for this.

There was also the poison resist skill, which apparently did me absolutely no good at the time, but maybe if anything like this happens again, I’ll be less likely to get infected again. How are you even supposed to level up a skill like that? Just go around purposely getting poisoned? That seemed risky.

In any case, I guess I should just be glad to be alive, even if I’m a little upset it seems Mom won’t let me hunt any more today. I can entertain myself just watching my siblings do their thing.

Iris was the most interesting to watch. She flew up to a tree branch to perch over a patch of grass and just watched. When she saw a bit of movement, she’d sprout her wings, silently hover down, and then suddenly dive in. Soon after, she’d come skipping out of the grass with a dead rabbit in her mouth and drop it by Mom, then fly back up to her tree branch and start the process again. She accomplished this three times before Ben and Jerry came bounding back, each holding two rabbits in their mouth.

Our little pile had always grown to eight, including the one me and Lily got before I was bitten by the snake. Thinking of Lily, I checked her progress, and she seemed to be struggling to find rabbits on her own. She’d disappear into some grass, then come out again empty-handed with her tail between her legs. Once I saw a rabbit escape the grass shortly after she entered only to disappear into another patch, with Lily clearly having no idea where it had gone.

Finally, Luke showed himself, the rascal struggling to carry all the rabbits he killed. He tripped over them, dropped some, readjusted his mouth around as many as he could, and then finally came up with a plan. He got one ear from each into his mouth and then walked backwards, dragging them, until he was able to add them to the pile. He had caught five!

Unfortunately, my pack bond trait didn’t seem to give me any benefit from my siblings’ kills if I was not directly involved in the hunt myself.

I exhaled in annoyance, knowing that he was gaining experience from every one of those kills. I wonder what level he was at now? I bet he probably surpassed me in level already because of it. Hopefully my extra stats and rare class would be enough to make up for it.

Some more time went by. I tried to sneak away once, but Mom promptly snatched me back and gave me another of those warning growls. So I lay there and ended up nodding off for a little while.

Eventually Mom howled for everyone to come back and then led us back up the mountain pass. By the time we made it back to the den, the sun was beginning to set over the jagged mountain peaks, casting a red glow over the forest and neon blue lake far down below.