They're silent for a few seconds.

[...you sure?]

{Pretty sure. I just covered my right eye with my right hand, at the same time you said your body did.}

[Hm. That's pretty damn convincing.]

{Yeah.}

[Heh, well I guess we found each other.]

{Yeah, I guess so.}

…

We’re both silent for a few seconds.

[What now?]

{Well, I guess we can start focusing on surviving.}

Silence again.

[Gimme control of the body.]

{Huh? Why?}

[Just do it.]

{No! I don't even know how!}

[Then try!]

{No!}

[Fine, then I'll do it myself!]

I suddenly feel nauseous, and my body begins to feel numb.

{S-stop! It hurts!}

After a few seconds, I can't move my body anymore.

And then the front right foot moves.

{You-!}

[Hahaha! I did it!]

{Give it back!}

[Huh? Why should I?]

{Because-! Uh…}

[I think I'm better suited to be the one controlling the body anyway. You said that mossy path was inaccessible, but I'm pretty sure I could make it there.]

The body turns around and begins sprinting.

{No! Don't!}

[Lalala, not listening to you!~]

We reach the fork, and turn towards the mossy path.

{I'm serious, don't do this! If you don't make it-}

[But I will make it! Watch me]

We jump towards the wall underneath the mossy path, and latch onto a rock that juts out.

[Gwahaha! I'm the best!]

We begin slowly climbing the wall, getting us closer and closer to the small, mossy path.

{This is not a good idea! Climb back down while you still can, please!}

[No way, I'm not doing what you sa-!]

Suddenly, the rock we’re grabbing cracks, and falls off the wall. Us with it.

[Shit!]

{I told you this would happen!}

Our back slams into the rocks jutting out of the wall as we fall.

I try my hardest to regain control of the body so I can stop our fall, but it doesn't work. We continue falling, until we fall right into the sloping, bumpy path.

{No no no no! This isn't good! Quickly, grab something!}

[I can't!]

{Just try!}

[I am trying!]

{You're not trying hard enough!}

[Shut up, you wouldn't be able to either if you were in control!]

{If I were in control, we wouldn't be in the situation in the first place!}

The path suddenly slopes even further, turning into a sheer, ninety degree drop. Our body stops slamming into the sloping surface beneath us, and enters freefall.

{Oh God, we’re dead! There's no way we can survive this!}

[Just shut up already! Let me think!]

The ground slams into us. Even without being in control of the body, I can feel the air rush out of our lungs.

Urk... Everything hurts... But I'm alive, at least. I wonder if the other person is fine, since I am.

{Hello? Are you ok?}

No response.

Did they pass out or something? That's weird, I thought we’d both pass out if one of us did.

I attempt to regain control of the body, to no avail.

Urgh, this is harder than I thought.

I try again, finally regaining control.

Now, I should take this opportunity to look around before they wake up and take over the body again.

I stand up, noticing a soft, puffy patch of moss beneath my body.

This is probably what broke our fall.

It doesn't glow like the moss from before.

…I wonder how it tastes.

No no no, I shouldn't. It could be poisonous. I didn't really focus on it at the time, but the glowing moss gave me some kind of paralysis resistance, didn't it? I'm lucky it wasn't a more deadly kind of poison.

…But I really wanna try this new moss.

Argh! I shouldn't, I shouldn't! If I eat this moss, aren't I being just as reckless as that idiot who threw us down a pit?

…But I am feeling hungry…

I bend down and take a bite of the moss. Liquid floods my mouth as soon as I bite into it.

Bleh! It tastes like medicine!

It's definitely not as bad as the other moss though, so I keep eating. It has an overwhelmingly cool taste, like a really powerful mint. Unlike mint, however, I couldn't describe this as tasting good.

It's very filling though, and I'm pretty full now after only five bites.

[Hnngg…]

Uh oh, they're back.

[Ew, what the hell is this taste!]

{Moss.}

[Why were you eating moss?!]

{I was hungry, and there's not really much else to eat around here.}

[Still, moss? Look for something else!]

{At least it doesn't taste as bad as the glowing moss. Doesn't seem to be as dangerous either.}

I walk around to the side of the moss patch I haven't taken a bite into, and lay down.

{Hey, aren't you gonna try to take the body back?}

[...no.]

{Why not?}

[Because!... I'm too lazy.]

Yeah, right.

Sigh. I'm gonna regret this.

{You can have it back if you want.}

[Really?]

{Yes, but you have to listen to me. If I say not to do something, don't do it.}

[...alright.]

{Good. You can go ahead and take it now.}

I let my muscles go limp as they take over the body. Having your body taken over by another consciousness isn't nearly as bad when you're letting it happen.

{Now, since it seems we’re going to be stuck together for a while, we should get to know each other. My name is Fir, what's yours?}

[Gloria.]

{Huh? You're a woman?}

[Yeah. You couldn't tell?]

{No, I couldn't.}

[Rude.]

{O-oh, sorry…}

[It's fine. So, what's the plan now?]

{Hm… well, all we can really do for now is try our best to survive.}

[Easy!]

{Is it? Because I seem to recall you falling off a wall and almost getting us killed.}

[Shut up! That’s in the past...]

Only about five minutes in the past…

{Whatever. You just focus on exploring and finding food for us to eat.}

[And what are you gonna do?]

{I'm going to make us stronger.}

[How are you gonna do that?]

{I'm glad you asked! From eating that glowing moss earlier, I learned that this world seems to work how I thought it would, and we can gain ‘skills’ pretty easily by-}

[Hold up, what are skills?]

{Hm… they're kinda like… man, this is hard to explain. Did you play video games before you died.}

[Nope.]

{That makes this hard… well, I'll use the one skill I know we have as an example, paralysis resistance.}

Or at least, it was something like that.

{Having paralysis resistance means that things that would cause paralysis, like certain kinds of poisons, are less effective on us.}

[Woah! That seems strong!]

{It will be one day, but for now it's only level one, so the effectiveness is probably not that great just yet.}

[Darn…]

{Yeah. So I'll work on trying to get some useful skills while you look for food.}

[Got it!]

We get up, and begin walking down the dark tunnel in front of us.

{Oh yeah, one more thing. While you're looking around, try looking for things in the darkness. It may give us a skill that makes our eyesight better.}

[Will do.]

With that, I can hopefully leave the food to her. Now, time to do some experimentation! I've been looking forward to this since I realized what was happening… But what should I do first? Obviously I can only work on getting mental skills for now, since Gloria is in control of the body.

But which ones should I try to get?

No, I shouldn't think about it like that. I don't really know what skills exist, so I shouldn't try to get any skills that I merely assume exist. Rather, I should simply use my brain normally. If I do that, I'll get skills that are helpful for the situation we’re in. Probably.

So, how do I do that?

Wow, this is harder than expected. Hmmm…

Oh, I have an idea! I'll try to think about ways to use our body in battle, that’ll probably give us some useful skills.

Ahem, let's see.

Our small body seems like it would be good for focusing on evasion, but… how can I say this… we’re a bit… chubby. So that might not be the best idea for now. Besides that… we seem to have good hearing, so using that to avoid fights altogether is feasible. Our claws seem pretty sharp, so that's probably our best bet for attacking if we get into an unavoidable fight, but they're probably more so meant for digging rather than fighting. That could be another way to stay out of fights, if we dig traps and set up a little place to live somewhere, we could be pretty safe.

…

<Acquired planning level 1>

Oh, it worked! It took longer than expected, but we got a skill!

[What was that?]

{That was us getting a skill.}

[Weird. It feels like I was thinking those words unintentionally. I don't know if I like that…]

She's kind of right. I thought getting skills would be more like hearing someone else, but instead it feels like there's a thought being put into my head… creepy.

Anyway! While I was working on getting the planning skill, I decided on a strategy that would probably work pretty well for us. I think we’re probably a herbivore, but if leveling up exists, then killing things is probably the best, or maybe even only, way to do that. So, if we need to hunt, the best way is traps! If we dig a small hole and fill it with sharp rocks and then cover the top, we could easily kill a few smaller opponents. The only problem is, I don't know what we’ll cover the top of the hole with.

[I found something?]

{Hm?}

[Look. A tree.]

A tree? No way, we’re in a cave rig-

She's right.

There's a tree right in front of us.

It looks like it's nearly dead, but it's a tree nonetheless.

How'd it get here? Trees need light to grow, right? How could one grow in a cave?

[I think I see light a bit further ahead.]

Oh? Maybe we won't be stuck in a cave for as long as I thought!

{Run! I wanna see what it is fast!}

[Yes sir!]

Gloria begins to run, our claws creating a clacking noise against the dark gray rock.

Suddenly, light floods our vision.

[Woah! That's crazy!]

{Amazing…}

Well, we’re not getting out of the cave just yet. But, I don't think I mind, because this is close enough.

In front of us is a large cavern, lit up by glowing yellow stones, filled with bright green foliage. Waterfalls cover the walls of the cavern, and there are herds of deer-like monsters grazing on the thick grass.

[Well, I definitely don't have any doubts about this being another world anymore.]