I savor the moment I meet my enemy’s blade with one of my own, taking in the surprise in his face.
For a split second, I see the first sign of fear appear in his expression, and I rise, casually forcing the air-sword aside with my dagger. The motion is easy, and it feels like I’m back in the closet-armory, practicing my strikes against thin air and wooden closets.
My mind feels no faster than it did a moment ago, but certain aspects of it feel sharper. When he draws his blade back, his initial assault repelled, the active Knifefighting skill whispers into my thoughts, an added instinct that tells me what he’ll do next.
I used my growing knowledge of his patterns to predict what he would do next just before this, but now my awareness is crystal-clear, as if I’ve adjusted a lens and brought his movements into sharp focus.
“How?” he says.
I squint at him. “Are you… asking me why I’m better at this than you?”
My opponent snarls. “Fuck you.”
“Get a more original insult,” I taunt him. “Maybe then you’ll finally be able to hurt someone.”
He points at my gaping gut wound in disbelief. I shrug. It’ll make me bleed out eventually, but I can at least stand for now.
I’m perfectly fine with wasting time trading barbs. Time spent talking is time where venom makes its way through his veins.
Apparently, the guard recognizes this, because he charges.
He brings his blade up for another strike, and Knifefighting’s Silver upgrade warns me of the feint he’ll attempt.
My opponent stabs forward, and I don’t flinch. Flinching is a waste of my remaining energy.
Midway through the strike, he changes the direction of his attack and dashes forward, and I slip sideways, holding my gut wound with one hand, and I avoid his actual attempt.
I let his momentum carry him, sweeping my right leg out as I dodge left. He trips, overcommitting to his attack in his rage, and I deftly reverse my grip on my knife and stab him in the back.
I’m surprised by how easily the knife penetrates. Stabbing his thigh opened up a nice wound earlier, but this time, I land a devastating blow without even putting all that much force behind it.
It must be the upgrade to Knifefighting. It’s enhancing my blows even further, bypassing whatever protection he has through his tough uniform and his Body (Durability) stat.
He falls as I withdraw my blade, the combination of bloodloss and venom weakening him such that he can’t recover from the trip.
As soon as he hits the ground, I wheel on him, kneeling on his back to keep him from moving.
“Hel—“ he manages to rasp out, likely attempting to use whatever skill was keeping him in contact with the other guards.
I stab him in the back of the neck. Then I do it again. Just to be sure, of course.
Trait earned: Killer
Requirements: Kill 10 beings that possess levels.
Increases damage against living beings by 0.5%.
The paltry boost of the new trait actually manages to make me laugh. Even with the system good as confirming that he’s passed, though, I don’t stop stabbing. You can never be too sure.
By the time I’m completely satisfied that he’s dead, I’ve added an additional twenty-four knife wounds to his neck, abdomen, and chest. I keep the mess to a minimum with Shape Blood.
After a quick scan of the area to ensure that nobody’s about to make my life a lot harder, I consume him.
Devour granted +201 XP!
That is by far the most XP I’ve received from a single use of Devour. His level is also the highest of the beings I’ve taken down, so that checks out.
“Fel, was it?” I mutter, standing over the now-heartless corpse. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”
And then I fall, my wounds finally taking their toll on me.
I run the fight through my head as I collapse to the ground, glad for the cover that the tall grass and proud trees provide. I need some time to let Demonic Heritage work its magic. I can already feel my flesh starting to worm itself back together now that I’m out of combat. It’s slow, but my hopes seem to be accurate. I’ll live just fine.
I can’t get into another fight. Well, I call it a fight, but honestly, it was more of an ambush. A failed one, at that. He wasn’t ready for me to attack him until the literal last second, and I still almost messed it up! Fel is—was—level 9, and I’m pretty sure that most of the other guards are higher-leveled than that.
Also, I’m one hundred percent sure that he didn’t have any kind of swordfighting skill. I’m not so arrogant as to believe that I’m the only one in the world who’s reached the Silver tier on Knifefighting or anything similar. Fel didn’t see any of my attacks coming when we were fighting, and he was incredibly predictable.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because his class was Wind Warrior, given the greater proficiency he had with Gust Strike and the skill he used to blast blood away from him. Maybe he had something along the lines of Swordfighting or something similar but never bothered to level it up much because he was a mage at heart. Either that, or he was just lazy. That does beg the question of why he took the air-blade into combat against me, but I can pretty easily attribute that to one or more of arrogance, incompetence, laziness, and overconfidence.
The fact of the matter is that I got lucky. Lucky that I bumped into one of the lower-leveled guards. Lucky that he used suboptimal strategies to fight me. Lucky that I managed to get a skill evolution after nearly losing my life.
I should’ve gone for the throat straightaway. Sure, he had armor there, but it would’ve been more likely to get an immediate kill. I could’ve also opened with Venomous Bite, which would’ve put the entire fight on a timer from the get-go.
Lots of improvement to make. I’m aware that I’m quite literally less than a week old, but it’s still frustrating to not be at the top of my game. I have the knowledge if not the memories of people far beyond my age, and it’s enough that I know I’m not fighting as well as I could be.
It’s also enough to know I need to pick my fights. I’m pretty sure I killed him before he managed to get his communication skill off, so I shouldn’t need to worry about more guards converging on my location. Not immediately, at least—obviously, I need to get out of here before they find his half-Devoured corpse.
It looks like even Devour, a Legendary-rarity skill, has its limitations at this level. I can’t actually consume the entire body, and the skill refuses to let me take in more.
Not being able to move easily doesn’t help with that either. I stay still, eyes closed as I mess around with Shape Blood. I don’t have anything else to do, so I may as well train my skills while I heal.
Shape Blood advanced to level 6!
You can now control up to 6 gallons for up to 36 minutes per hour.
I lie there for so long that I actually end up stopping myself from using Shape Blood any further, knowing that I’ll run myself out of time if I do.
An hour passes. Then another. By the third, I’m intact enough to move without worry of jarring my wound back open. Shape Blood doesn’t level up any more while I lie there, even though I use it to hold my guts in. I’ve noticed that my skills tend to be more likely to level up in combat. This one’s probably no exception.
That attack really did a number on me. The close-range Gust Strike came a lot closer to defeating me than I thought it would. Can’t let myself get caught off guard like that again.
Standing over his dead body, I stare into Fel’s glassy green eyes. They remind me of the sea, which is a little odd when I’ve never seen a large body of water, let alone the sea.
I wasn’t lying when I said I liked the color. I still have a usage of Temporary Shape Self, so I take his eye color. For good measure, I Devour his eyes too. As it turns out, that doesn’t grant me any more XP. Maybe he’s been dead for too long.
Something to keep in mind for next time, and there will certainly be a next time.
I change my hair color once again, this time shifting it towards a smooth brown. Not quite the same shade as the dead man’s, but similar.
I don’t bother burying the body. They’ll realize something’s wrong whether or not they find the corpse, and I don’t plan on being in this area for long anyway. My gut doesn’t hurt at all, which probably means I’m safe to move.
For a moment, I consider just moving to a different place and taking shelter. A moment of indecision later, I decide not to.
While it might be safer to wait out the length of the quest by hiding in the forest, I don't actually know what the objective will grant me--which is kind of odd, given that the first one gave me explicit XP incentives. What I do know is that there's a very real threat that the guards will start combing the woods once more after they finish dealing with their new problems. I'd much rather be someplace where they won't easily find me by then, and that means I need to move forward.
Drawing on Stealth once more, I creep away from the body, stepping as lightly as I can. No point in making my trail easy to find, after all.
The other guards must’ve fanned out a lot by now. They clearly either didn’t hear Fel’s final plea for help or haven’t located him, because while I see evidence that they’ve been around—crushed bushes, somewhat fresh footsteps, and the like—I can’t see or hear any of them.
I do, however, hear the screaming klaxons far behind me fifteen minutes later. At the sound of wailing sirens, I immediately drop to the floor.
This time, if someone comes across me, I’m not going with the ditzy, clueless persona. It’s a far contrast from my real one, yes, but it pains me to put it on. I can substitute the ditziness for plain old density—if someone comes across me, I’ll claim to be a regular lost hiker. Maybe not the best idea, but it’s the best idea I’ve got for now. I’d choose to say that I’m from the city up ahead, but the map doesn’t actually tell me what the city name is.
I end up not needing it. The combination of using Stealth and being low to the ground means that when people come stomping by, they just rush past me without bothering to check the bushes. I’m closer to the main road than I was earlier—fifty feet or so—so I can actually hear voices as somewhere between four and seven sets of footsteps come by in unison. Not a single one of them even slows to check the side of the road.
“—the others?” someone asks. Not a voice I recognize. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Fel or Lisa.”
I raise an eyebrow. Is there another dead security guard out there somewhere? I wonder who was responsible for that one if so.
“Just focus on getting to the breach,” another voice replies. I do recognize that one as Jarreth.
They trade another couple of lines before they’re too far for me to hear them over the sound of boots on packed dirt, but the important part is that they’re gone.
The sirens haven’t stopped. From what Jarreth said, I think it’s reasonable to assume that something or someone has broken out of containment at the wall. Given that the sirens didn’t go off when I escaped, this is probably a bit of a bigger deal than a single demonic woman.
Not my problem until it becomes my problem. For now, I’ll focus on getting to the city.
There’s still the outside possibility that this “Lisa” that they haven’t been in contact with is alive and on the main road. For that reason, I stay off the road as I continue walking.
There are a few animals in the trees here, and probably more than a couple of less-threatening monsters, but I don’t actively seek them out. I could stay here and grind for a while, but the difference between a snake, which gave me something like 5 XP, and someone who could actually fight back, who gave over 200, is astronomical. Going to a city means more opportunities to find enemies that will grant me loads of XP.
Still, three separate giant spiders and one somewhat-injured wolf make an attempt on my life as I walk. They all seem to be opportunists—they’re definitely not strong enough to take any competent person down, so they hide in the woods rather than attacking things on the main road.
Devour granted +3 XP!
Devour granted +2 XP!
Devour granted +5 XP!
Devour granted +9 XP!
It’s not terrible, but the aftertaste of spider isn’t pleasant at all. I’d rather be done with this sooner than later.
After another half hour of walking, the woods start to thin. Since I still haven’t bumped into the security guards—in fact, I’m so far out from the wall that I can’t even hear the sirens anymore—I think I can assume that I’m safe.
I make my way from the woods out onto the main road, looking myself over as I do.
I’m not in great shape. I’m missing a hand, I don’t have shoes, my shirt and pants are both soaked through with blood…
Physically, I’m fine. But there’s no way I can pass myself off as a simple lost hiker. I was almost able to do it with Fel earlier, probably because he’s spent enough time away from regular human contact that he couldn’t tell the difference, but I highly doubt that even my Acting skill will fool the people in a proper town.
It’s not a huge town, I can see that much. It can’t be more than half a mile width-wise, though it might be a bit longer from the rows of wooden buildings.
The town gates, wide open and leading to the end of the main road, are less than two hundred feet from me when I decide on the act I’ll put on for these people.
I affect a limp and use Shape Blood to reduce the amount that’s dyed my shirt. Now, I’ll just look wounded rather than almost-dead thrice over. I slow my steps, and I affect a visibly pained expression.
There’s not that many people in this town, I don’t think. From here, I can see a couple people chatting on the street, but they’re not looking my way and they disappear from sight soon enough, gone into some alleyway or another.
Then a door opens. The building it’s attached to is one of the few brick establishments here, and it seems to be better built than the others—it’s a little out of place, really. Smoke fumes out of a chimney at the peak of its slanted roof, and there’s a plaque out front stating the purpose of the building. Distance and the glare of the late-morning sun keep me from reading it.
A man and a woman walk out of it, both of them striding forth with the unmistakable poise of people that know what they want to do. Unlike the other two people I spotted, they wear armor—hard leather for the man and chain for the woman.
They scan the area around them as they leave, not unlike how I checked the woods for security guards. These two probably aren’t from here, if they’re so insecure about their own surroundings.
Fortunately, their caution leads them to spotting me. Keeping up the act isn’t tiring, per se, but I appreciate them seeing me before I have to limp another hundred feet to get to the building.
“WOUNDED ON THE ROAD!” the man bellows, directing his voice into the building.
Less than a minute later, four people wearing identical red-and-purple uniforms come jogging out from the building. They close the distance to me in about the same time.
“You’re going to be okay,” one of them says, and I have to keep myself from grinning.
The act worked.
I’m free.
Now to see what civilization is like.
I savor the moment I meet my enemy’s blade with one of my own, taking in the surprise in his face.
For a split second, I see the first sign of fear appear in his expression, and I rise, casually forcing the air-sword aside with my dagger. The motion is easy, and it feels like I’m back in the closet-armory, practicing my strikes against thin air and wooden closets.
My mind feels no faster than it did a moment ago, but certain aspects of it feel sharper. When he draws his blade back, his initial assault repelled, the active Knifefighting skill whispers into my thoughts, an added instinct that tells me what he’ll do next.
I used my growing knowledge of his patterns to predict what he would do next just before this, but now my awareness is crystal-clear, as if I’ve adjusted a lens and brought his movements into sharp focus.
“How?” he says.
I squint at him. “Are you… asking me why I’m better at this than you?”
My opponent snarls. “Fuck you.”
“Get a more original insult,” I taunt him. “Maybe then you’ll finally be able to hurt someone.”
He points at my gaping gut wound in disbelief. I shrug. It’ll make me bleed out eventually, but I can at least stand for now.
I’m perfectly fine with wasting time trading barbs. Time spent talking is time where venom makes its way through his veins.
Apparently, the guard recognizes this, because he charges.
He brings his blade up for another strike, and Knifefighting’s Silver upgrade warns me of the feint he’ll attempt.
My opponent stabs forward, and I don’t flinch. Flinching is a waste of my remaining energy.
Midway through the strike, he changes the direction of his attack and dashes forward, and I slip sideways, holding my gut wound with one hand, and I avoid his actual attempt.
I let his momentum carry him, sweeping my right leg out as I dodge left. He trips, overcommitting to his attack in his rage, and I deftly reverse my grip on my knife and stab him in the back.
I’m surprised by how easily the knife penetrates. Stabbing his thigh opened up a nice wound earlier, but this time, I land a devastating blow without even putting all that much force behind it.
It must be the upgrade to Knifefighting. It’s enhancing my blows even further, bypassing whatever protection he has through his tough uniform and his Body (Durability) stat.
He falls as I withdraw my blade, the combination of bloodloss and venom weakening him such that he can’t recover from the trip.
As soon as he hits the ground, I wheel on him, kneeling on his back to keep him from moving.
“Hel—“ he manages to rasp out, likely attempting to use whatever skill was keeping him in contact with the other guards.
I stab him in the back of the neck. Then I do it again. Just to be sure, of course.
Trait earned: Killer
Requirements: Kill 10 beings that possess levels.
Increases damage against living beings by 0.5%.
The paltry boost of the new trait actually manages to make me laugh. Even with the system good as confirming that he’s passed, though, I don’t stop stabbing. You can never be too sure.
By the time I’m completely satisfied that he’s dead, I’ve added an additional twenty-four knife wounds to his neck, abdomen, and chest. I keep the mess to a minimum with Shape Blood.
After a quick scan of the area to ensure that nobody’s about to make my life a lot harder, I consume him.
Devour granted +201 XP!
That is by far the most XP I’ve received from a single use of Devour. His level is also the highest of the beings I’ve taken down, so that checks out.
“Fel, was it?” I mutter, standing over the now-heartless corpse. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”
And then I fall, my wounds finally taking their toll on me.
I run the fight through my head as I collapse to the ground, glad for the cover that the tall grass and proud trees provide. I need some time to let Demonic Heritage work its magic. I can already feel my flesh starting to worm itself back together now that I’m out of combat. It’s slow, but my hopes seem to be accurate. I’ll live just fine.
I can’t get into another fight. Well, I call it a fight, but honestly, it was more of an ambush. A failed one, at that. He wasn’t ready for me to attack him until the literal last second, and I still almost messed it up! Fel is—was—level 9, and I’m pretty sure that most of the other guards are higher-leveled than that.
Also, I’m one hundred percent sure that he didn’t have any kind of swordfighting skill. I’m not so arrogant as to believe that I’m the only one in the world who’s reached the Silver tier on Knifefighting or anything similar. Fel didn’t see any of my attacks coming when we were fighting, and he was incredibly predictable.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s because his class was Wind Warrior, given the greater proficiency he had with Gust Strike and the skill he used to blast blood away from him. Maybe he had something along the lines of Swordfighting or something similar but never bothered to level it up much because he was a mage at heart. Either that, or he was just lazy. That does beg the question of why he took the air-blade into combat against me, but I can pretty easily attribute that to one or more of arrogance, incompetence, laziness, and overconfidence.
The fact of the matter is that I got lucky. Lucky that I bumped into one of the lower-leveled guards. Lucky that he used suboptimal strategies to fight me. Lucky that I managed to get a skill evolution after nearly losing my life.
I should’ve gone for the throat straightaway. Sure, he had armor there, but it would’ve been more likely to get an immediate kill. I could’ve also opened with Venomous Bite, which would’ve put the entire fight on a timer from the get-go.
Lots of improvement to make. I’m aware that I’m quite literally less than a week old, but it’s still frustrating to not be at the top of my game. I have the knowledge if not the memories of people far beyond my age, and it’s enough that I know I’m not fighting as well as I could be.
It’s also enough to know I need to pick my fights. I’m pretty sure I killed him before he managed to get his communication skill off, so I shouldn’t need to worry about more guards converging on my location. Not immediately, at least—obviously, I need to get out of here before they find his half-Devoured corpse.
It looks like even Devour, a Legendary-rarity skill, has its limitations at this level. I can’t actually consume the entire body, and the skill refuses to let me take in more.
Not being able to move easily doesn’t help with that either. I stay still, eyes closed as I mess around with Shape Blood. I don’t have anything else to do, so I may as well train my skills while I heal.
Shape Blood advanced to level 6!
You can now control up to 6 gallons for up to 36 minutes per hour.
I lie there for so long that I actually end up stopping myself from using Shape Blood any further, knowing that I’ll run myself out of time if I do.
An hour passes. Then another. By the third, I’m intact enough to move without worry of jarring my wound back open. Shape Blood doesn’t level up any more while I lie there, even though I use it to hold my guts in. I’ve noticed that my skills tend to be more likely to level up in combat. This one’s probably no exception.
That attack really did a number on me. The close-range Gust Strike came a lot closer to defeating me than I thought it would. Can’t let myself get caught off guard like that again.
Standing over his dead body, I stare into Fel’s glassy green eyes. They remind me of the sea, which is a little odd when I’ve never seen a large body of water, let alone the sea.
I wasn’t lying when I said I liked the color. I still have a usage of Temporary Shape Self, so I take his eye color. For good measure, I Devour his eyes too. As it turns out, that doesn’t grant me any more XP. Maybe he’s been dead for too long.
Something to keep in mind for next time, and there will certainly be a next time.
I change my hair color once again, this time shifting it towards a smooth brown. Not quite the same shade as the dead man’s, but similar.
I don’t bother burying the body. They’ll realize something’s wrong whether or not they find the corpse, and I don’t plan on being in this area for long anyway. My gut doesn’t hurt at all, which probably means I’m safe to move.
For a moment, I consider just moving to a different place and taking shelter. A moment of indecision later, I decide not to.
While it might be safer to wait out the length of the quest by hiding in the forest, I don't actually know what the objective will grant me--which is kind of odd, given that the first one gave me explicit XP incentives. What I do know is that there's a very real threat that the guards will start combing the woods once more after they finish dealing with their new problems. I'd much rather be someplace where they won't easily find me by then, and that means I need to move forward.
Drawing on Stealth once more, I creep away from the body, stepping as lightly as I can. No point in making my trail easy to find, after all.
The other guards must’ve fanned out a lot by now. They clearly either didn’t hear Fel’s final plea for help or haven’t located him, because while I see evidence that they’ve been around—crushed bushes, somewhat fresh footsteps, and the like—I can’t see or hear any of them.
I do, however, hear the screaming klaxons far behind me fifteen minutes later. At the sound of wailing sirens, I immediately drop to the floor.
This time, if someone comes across me, I’m not going with the ditzy, clueless persona. It’s a far contrast from my real one, yes, but it pains me to put it on. I can substitute the ditziness for plain old density—if someone comes across me, I’ll claim to be a regular lost hiker. Maybe not the best idea, but it’s the best idea I’ve got for now. I’d choose to say that I’m from the city up ahead, but the map doesn’t actually tell me what the city name is.
I end up not needing it. The combination of using Stealth and being low to the ground means that when people come stomping by, they just rush past me without bothering to check the bushes. I’m closer to the main road than I was earlier—fifty feet or so—so I can actually hear voices as somewhere between four and seven sets of footsteps come by in unison. Not a single one of them even slows to check the side of the road.
“—the others?” someone asks. Not a voice I recognize. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Fel or Lisa.”
I raise an eyebrow. Is there another dead security guard out there somewhere? I wonder who was responsible for that one if so.
“Just focus on getting to the breach,” another voice replies. I do recognize that one as Jarreth.
They trade another couple of lines before they’re too far for me to hear them over the sound of boots on packed dirt, but the important part is that they’re gone.
The sirens haven’t stopped. From what Jarreth said, I think it’s reasonable to assume that something or someone has broken out of containment at the wall. Given that the sirens didn’t go off when I escaped, this is probably a bit of a bigger deal than a single demonic woman.
Not my problem until it becomes my problem. For now, I’ll focus on getting to the city.
There’s still the outside possibility that this “Lisa” that they haven’t been in contact with is alive and on the main road. For that reason, I stay off the road as I continue walking.
There are a few animals in the trees here, and probably more than a couple of less-threatening monsters, but I don’t actively seek them out. I could stay here and grind for a while, but the difference between a snake, which gave me something like 5 XP, and someone who could actually fight back, who gave over 200, is astronomical. Going to a city means more opportunities to find enemies that will grant me loads of XP.
Still, three separate giant spiders and one somewhat-injured wolf make an attempt on my life as I walk. They all seem to be opportunists—they’re definitely not strong enough to take any competent person down, so they hide in the woods rather than attacking things on the main road.
Devour granted +3 XP!
Devour granted +2 XP!
Devour granted +5 XP!
Devour granted +9 XP!
It’s not terrible, but the aftertaste of spider isn’t pleasant at all. I’d rather be done with this sooner than later.
After another half hour of walking, the woods start to thin. Since I still haven’t bumped into the security guards—in fact, I’m so far out from the wall that I can’t even hear the sirens anymore—I think I can assume that I’m safe.
I make my way from the woods out onto the main road, looking myself over as I do.
I’m not in great shape. I’m missing a hand, I don’t have shoes, my shirt and pants are both soaked through with blood…
Physically, I’m fine. But there’s no way I can pass myself off as a simple lost hiker. I was almost able to do it with Fel earlier, probably because he’s spent enough time away from regular human contact that he couldn’t tell the difference, but I highly doubt that even my Acting skill will fool the people in a proper town.
It’s not a huge town, I can see that much. It can’t be more than half a mile width-wise, though it might be a bit longer from the rows of wooden buildings.
The town gates, wide open and leading to the end of the main road, are less than two hundred feet from me when I decide on the act I’ll put on for these people.
I affect a limp and use Shape Blood to reduce the amount that’s dyed my shirt. Now, I’ll just look wounded rather than almost-dead thrice over. I slow my steps, and I affect a visibly pained expression.
There’s not that many people in this town, I don’t think. From here, I can see a couple people chatting on the street, but they’re not looking my way and they disappear from sight soon enough, gone into some alleyway or another.
Then a door opens. The building it’s attached to is one of the few brick establishments here, and it seems to be better built than the others—it’s a little out of place, really. Smoke fumes out of a chimney at the peak of its slanted roof, and there’s a plaque out front stating the purpose of the building. Distance and the glare of the late-morning sun keep me from reading it.
A man and a woman walk out of it, both of them striding forth with the unmistakable poise of people that know what they want to do. Unlike the other two people I spotted, they wear armor—hard leather for the man and chain for the woman.
They scan the area around them as they leave, not unlike how I checked the woods for security guards. These two probably aren’t from here, if they’re so insecure about their own surroundings.
Fortunately, their caution leads them to spotting me. Keeping up the act isn’t tiring, per se, but I appreciate them seeing me before I have to limp another hundred feet to get to the building.
“WOUNDED ON THE ROAD!” the man bellows, directing his voice into the building.
Less than a minute later, four people wearing identical red-and-purple uniforms come jogging out from the building. They close the distance to me in about the same time.
“You’re going to be okay,” one of them says, and I have to keep myself from grinning.
The act worked.
I’m free.
Now to see what civilization is like.
