The horned rabbit scurried through a marsh jungle of curious vegetation and gluttonous mushrooms. It finally paused, seeking the illusory safety of a colossal fungal tree—a single rotting pillar among the hundred billion that comprised the ecosystem. The creature's ribs heaved. Sweat matted its fur as it gasped for air, its body pushed to the absolute precipice of physical limitation.
Adventurer Guild Database
Sapients: The Common Human
A bipedal species capable of thought; descendant of the Human God.
Traits: Class E Vitality; Class E Strength; Class F Defense; Class C Intelligence; Class E Agility; Class E Endurance.
Class E Monsters: The Horned Rabbit
A warm-blooded quadruped monster measuring 25 centimeters tall, 20 wide, and 40 long. Bears white fur and travels in packs of twenty or more.
Traits: Class F Vitality; Class E Strength; Class E Defense; Class D Intelligence; Class D Agility; Class C Endurance.
The Adventurer Guild—standing alongside the Mage Association and the Confederation of Divine Churches—was one of the three non-governmental, continental organizations dominating the world. Despite their decentralized name, their methodology was highly organized, rooted strictly in empirical study. In the professional world, they were the undisputed authority on Monstrology.
Their records were absolute. Therefore, if the Guild stated a horned rabbit possessed white fur, it must be white. If they recorded that it traveled in groups of twenty or more, it must travel in a group.
Yet, the trembling creature beneath the fungal tree was entirely alone. Its fur was not white, but stained a deep, matted crimson with the blood of its slaughtered kin.
By the Guild's exact metrics, a common human with Class E Endurance could advance two hundred kilometers in a single day before succumbing to fatal exhaustion. The horned rabbit possessed Class C Endurance. To reach this state of total biological failure, it must have sprinted over a thousand kilometers.
It had not merely been running; it had been herded.
The rabbit's heart violently seized. It dropped dead to the marsh soil, its physiological engine finally burning out.
But the corpse did not remain.
From the shadows of the gluttonous vegetation, something unseen claimed the kill instantly. It was not the flora that took the rabbit, but the very predator that had annihilated the pack and stalked the sole survivor across a thousand kilometers of marshland. It had calculated the chase perfectly, waiting for the exact moment the prey's endurance would snap. It was an exhibition of malice and calculation that far surpassed the Class C Intelligence of a common human.
Such was the nature of the Sporelands. Yet, no one could have witnessed the scene unfold. For ten kilometers, an impenetrable sea of toxic spore clouds blanketed the troposphere, obscuring the jungle in eternal obscurity and ensuring no eyes from the heavens could ever look down.