After giving Koda some good head pats, Nuan laid out her freshly made clay pottery on a flat rock to dry in the hot morning sunlight.

Then she pulled another cleaned hare from her system inventory. She stripped the remaining fur, washed the meat in the river, and began slicing it into tiny, paper-thin cubes, just like cutting onions back on Earth.

Beside her, Koda was perfectly happy devouring the inner organs she tossed aside, his face getting covered in fresh blood.

By the time she finished prepping the meat, the smooth river stones had been sitting in the roaring fire for a solid hour and a half. They were glowing red-hot.

Nuan filled her crude wooden bowl with fresh, clear river water. Using two thick, scale-shaped sticks as make-shift tongs, she carefully pinched the first red stone, lifted it from the embers, and dropped it right into the water.

The second the glowing stone hit the liquid, the water exploded into a violent, instantaneous boil, steam hissing into the cold morning air.

Koda stared at the bubbling water with wide eyes, hare blood dripping from his chin.

"Witch! How did—"

Nuan raised a palm to cut him off. "No. Go wash your whole mouth first."

"Wait!" Koda grumbled, turning around. Instead of just washing his face, he leaped straight into the deep river water, splashing around and playing like a pup.

Nuan chuckled and watched the water bubble, waiting a few minutes for the stones to finish heating the liquid before she took them out.

She glanced at the sky, then at the hot water. Well, I might as well sharpen my knife while I wait. Making this wooden bowl completely dulled the edge.

She found a flat, rough slab of stone by the bank and began scraping the steel blade against it in steady, rhythmic strokes.

.

.

.

Time passed quietly until a sudden, violent splashing broke out in the river behind her. Koda let out a sharp, territorial growl that instantly turned into a high-pitched whine of pure fear.

Nuan snapped her head around, her hand automatically raising the sharpened knife, ready for a fight. She watched Koda scrambling through the water as fast as his legs could carry him, desperate to reach the dry land of the riverbank.

Because right behind him in the deep current was a massive brown bear.

Nuan stared at the giant creature cutting through the water. Oh, great. Naturally, brown bears are the ones who overlap territories with wolf packs, she thought, looking down at her neatly treated, leaf-wrapped ankle. Not that I haven’t encountered plenty of bears back on Earth... but if I mess up this ankle again, Miss Selka is literally going to chew me out alive and skin me herself.

To make matters worse, this particular brown bear was massive. It easily tripled the size of the ones back on earth, looking as large and heavy as a polar bear.

Koda quickly shifted into his wolf form the second his paws hit the mud. He stood right next to Nuan, his hackles raised as he growled aggressively at the river.

Hmm, running into the woods isn’t an option, Nuan calculated quickly. Wolves are built for speed in open areas, but bears prefer the thick cover of the trees. Koda isn’t fast enough to outrun a charging adult bear in the brush anyway.

Nuan let out a tired sigh. She grabbed a long, thick wooden branch sitting near the fire pit, wrapped a piece of leftover hare skin and dry fur tightly around the tip, and shoved it directly into the flames. The fat from the skin caught instantly, creating a bright, roaring torch.

Slowly, she stood up on her good leg and spread her arms out wide, trying to make her small human frame look as large as possible.

"Stay away, you big brown potato," Nuan said lazily, completely exhausted by the constant danger of this world.

Honestly, my survival instinct doesn’t even trigger properly against bears anymore, given how many times I’ve had to scare them off back on Earth. But that knowledge was for normal bears. This thing is built like a prehistoric monster.

The brown bear finally hauled its massive body out of the rushing river. The second its heavy paws hit the solid mud, it gave its torso a violent shake, spraying cold river water everywhere.

Koda kept growling, his teeth bared as he spoke through the telepathic link, his voice shaking. Stay behind me, Witch... I... I am fighting this bear!

Nuan looked down and couldn’t help but feel a wave of fondness.

The poor kid’s tail was tucked so tightly between his back legs that it was pressed flat against his stomach. Awww, he’s absolutely terrified, yet he’s still trying to act brave to protect me.

"Now, now, don’t go acting all tough, future Alpha," Nuan said softly, stepping right up beside him with her knife in one hand and the blazing torch in the other.

The bear suddenly reared up on its hind legs, towering over them like a structural wall, its dark eyes locking straight onto the fire in Nuan’s hand.

"Yeah, standing up tall and trying to look like a big guy while attacking a kid in the river? Have some shame, you giant potato! That scare tactic won’t work on me!" Nuan hissed.

The bear dropped heavily back onto all four legs, stomping the mud with a dull thud, and lunged forward into a fast charge.

Koda braced himself to jump, but Nuan thrust the roaring torch straight out in front of them, yelling at the top of her lungs, "Stay back, you stupid potato, or I will burn every single inch of that fur with the red evil!"

The bear hesitated, its heavy paws sliding in the mud as it screeched to a halt mid-run, startled by the sudden wall of fire and the loud, fearless human voice.

Pheww... lucky break, Nuan thought, her good leg shaking just a tiny bit from the sudden rush of adrenaline.

The bear stood up on its hind legs once more. But instead of roaring, it gave its entire body a heavy roll, spinning its thick fur in a sudden blur of motion. With a soft rustle, the massive animal morphed, its thick shoulders shifting into a solid, heavily built human form.

Nuan blinked, lowering her torch slightly as she stared at the beastman standing before them.

He was tall, muscular, and definitely strong, but he lacked the sharp, chiseled abs and massive chest of the wolves.

Instead, he had a thick, soft, chubby layer over his frame—a classic, stocky bear build.

Welp, looks like we have a cute, chubby bear man right here, Nuan thought, her eyebrow twitching as she watched him brush loose dirt off his shoulder. But seriously, what is it with this bear and that dramatic, Power Ranger kind of transformation?