Stray Soul

After deciding that I needed more mana instead of mana capacity, I assigned my remaining 7 stat points into wisdom and focused back on walking and trying to think of a plan to survive the night.

Quickly scanning through my memories to find a good area to bunker down, only 1 area came to my mind.

“The tree… but would that even be a good idea?” though I don’t know why, the magical tree has some sort of… welcoming air around it. But I doubt it’d actually be a good idea to bunker down there because animals seem to find the place as pleasant as I do, and I also doubt that animals would be willing to leave such a place and even if they didn’t actively seek it or stayed there, the smell of fresh meat would definitely attract some predators.

“So, not going there…” quickly wiping the tree off of my mind for now, I started thinking of more places.

The river? I’d get swarmed by bugs.

The clearing with the thorny bush I just left? I wouldn’t be able to see anything planning to pounce on me because of the small size of the clearing.

Just wandering around and staying on the move? I don’t have enough mana to keep going forever and I’d eventually have to stop to rest because of my lack of mana which would leave me open to attacks.

Above the trees? Can’t get there.

Underground? Can’t dig.

Under the lake? How would I even get there??? And even if I could, there is no guarantee that there is no water dragon or something hiding in its depts.

“Hmm… hmm… yes, I seem to be quite fucked now, don’t I?” not being able to think of anywhere to bunker down for the night, I started giving up on finding the perfect location, and quickly started thinking of somewhere that’d give me at least some degree of safety, or options to escape, so that I may make it through the night.

And before long, I came up with an idea.

“I need a clearing, a big one or a place so congested with flora that anything coming there has a hard time traversing it.” while I didn’t think finding a super dense part of the forest that for some reason didn’t have predators adapted to that area would be feasible, finding a large clearing with ample room for me to see animals that may want to take a bite out of me was more than possible!

But there were a few problems that were showing themselves… firstly, the moon was already rising. Secondly, I won’t actually be able to see anything at night. And finally… I was pitifully slow.

While I wasn’t exactly crawling, I wasn’t that fast either, who would’ve guessed that losing most of the muscle in your legs would slow you down?

Though… I can use mana to make myself faster but…should I? That would help immensely… but… no, I can’t. I need to save all the mana I can in case something decides to jump me.

“Ahh… what to do what to do… I swear if I was back on my human body, I would’ve already lost all my hair because of worrying all the time.”

As I continued to walk while looking around the places I was passing, I saw a few animals though, thankfully, none of them seemed to be carnivorous or aggressive.

Though I swear those squirrels looked like they would take a chunk out of me if they could… but no point thinking about them now, is there?

And after a bit more of walking I realized the forest was getting darker and darker, faster and faster, and at that moment I realized, I was out of time.

“Ahh… no point in walking now, is there?” quickly finding a good spot on a tree to slump upon, because god knows I am not sitting down until I find a body with legs that actually work.

Then after I was done and had made sure I wouldn’t randomly fall to the ground; I started start gazing out of boredom.

And yes, I knew it was probably a bad idea to star gaze while you were alone in a forest, but I also wasn’t going to keep my guard up throughout the night now, was I?

I mean, I really should because there is a non-zero chance that I may die but I also need to make sure that I am not dying out of boredom now, don’t I?

As I continued to stare at the stars while occasionally glancing around myself, I realized something. I never saw the moon or the moons, if this planet had them of course.

Carefully looking around, I gave some power to my legs, and stopped slumping on the tree, and started walking a few steps in random directions to maybe see a moon.

And soon enough, I saw a beautiful full moon with a moon that looked like the one I had grown accustomed to in my previous life but was just different enough for my brain to not mistake the 2 and 2.

“Well, I can get used to this…” looking around a bit more, I tried to see other moons but to no avail, but I wasn’t complaining.

With one last glance at the full moon, I started to turn back to the tree I had previously slumped myself at… that is until I felt something weird and immediately upped my guard and started looking around.

After a few minutes of tense silence, I dropped my guard and carefully returned back to the tree and slumped myself on it.

Then I started thinking about the thing I felt because I definitely felt something, though I am not sure what.

“Hmm… wait, could it be something like the weird hands that tried to pull me when I first came here?” though that was a scary thought, I quickly became certain that whatever I felt, happened to my body, and not my soul, so even if both of them were similar in nature, nothing actually threatened my soul… at least for now.

“But then, what was it?” I started trying to come up with answers but soon enough I had my answer in the shape of something hitting my foot and nearly dropping me down to the ground.

*scree-*

With a short screech of surprise, I quickly found my footing and started looking around, but I couldn’t see whatever hit me.

“Did it hide…?” but why would something big enough to willingly take a fight with me hide?

But just as I started thinking, I felt something small dragging its claws across my left side.

Quickly turning left as fast as I could to catch the perpetrator, I was met with just a forest with nothing of interest in sight.

“Great, it’s faster than me. But smaller too?” while something faster than me attacking me would make sense, I couldn’t quite understand why an animal smaller than me attack me in the first place.

I mean, animals back on earth don’t do stupid stuff like that, and neither the animals I’ve seen here do things like that, so shouldn’t my preconceptions hold true?

Not letting me think, the creature, whatever it was, attacked me once again but this time in my legs, and I felt another set of claws dragging themselves into my flesh.

Then I quickly kicked back with one of my legs, trying to hit whatever was attacking me, and as I looked back after kicking back, I was able to see a silhouette of something small on the ground before it disappeared.

“Great! My second encounter with magical creatures and I am already fighting against shadow melding fucks! What’s next? A fire breathing frog?” quickly shaking off my thoughts, I started paying closer attention to the shadows near me, which was made easier by the full moon.

Then I spotted something weird, it was as if the darkness in one area was darker than its surroundings. Trusting my gut, I quickly dashed to there while using mana to strengthen my legs and swung my leg at the spot as hard as I could and to my surprise, the darkness coalesced into a small animal that looked like a mix of a fish and a cat.

Its skin was grey, and it had something weird connecting its legs to each other, its tail, devoid of fur of any kind, looked slippery, its head, while being that of a predatory animal with forward facing eyes, looked unearthly with its lack of ears, nose, and weird mouth. The thing was also covered in wet looking black fur on most of its body, except its tail, head, small parts of its legs, and the membrane connecting its legs.

But while I was admiring its otherworldly appearance, the creature quickly melded into the shadows, disappearing once again, but I could still somewhat fallow it with my eyes due to the places it was at seeming darker than their surroundings.

But just as I was preparing to charge at it once more, this time with the intent of killing it, I once again felt something dragging its claws at my left side, but this time I turned my head quicker and saw its shadowy form moving through the dark forest with immense speed.

Quickly remembering what happened the last time these things attacked my left side, I tried to seem confused, while also preparing to kick back at full force.

And, soon enough, I felt them, whatever they were, once again clawing at my legs, but this time, as soon as the sensation began, I kicked as hard as I could, and felt my clawed feet touching something.

Quickly turning around, I saw one of the creatures being dazed and on the ground. Not wanting it to get up or for its friend to once again distract me, I quickly dashed to its side and stomped my feet on it and used the claws of my other feet to tear it to shreds.

And after a few moments, it was dead… and I had made a gigantic mess in the middle of the forest.

Quickly remembering one was left, I started looking around, readying my guard in case one of the shadows seemed darker than the others.

Then I waited…

..

.

And waited…

…

..

.

And—you get the point.

But the other—whatever it was seemed to have disappeared.

“That was… not as hard as I thought I’d be… that was actually kind of disappointing… not that I am complaining though…” after a bit more of looking around, I decided to stop keeping my guard up and started walking away from the mess I had made because it might attract something that ate these things.

Then I started thinking about the magical things I had seen in this forest.

Other than me, there was the vine deer, the fish cat hybrids, the tree, and… maybe the bugs? I mean, they were gigantic for a bug, yes, but they didn’t seem to be all that magical to me…

But my main problem was, how did these things become magical.

For me, I am a literal soul. A sentient soul if I may add. While my existence, and the existence of souls in general, is a significant development in… well, I don’t actually know but the existence of souls is pretty important. And because I don’t know what souls can do in my world, I am just going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and move on.

For the vine deer… I am honestly not sure how it became magical, nor do I know how magical it is because, while these weird shadow melding hybrids seem more magical than the vine deer, they also seem as if they’ve evolved to meld into shadows, and the deer seems as if it just… got the power to wield vines one day.

But did it? Or did it just evolve like the hybrids? I can’t give a definitive answer to that but… it doesn’t feel like it has evolved like the hybrids have. It feels as if it just… learned to control magic, or it was infused with magic… somehow.

Like what I said, I cannot give a definitive answer.

Now, onto the magical tree, it is just… weird. I can understand how beings would evolve to use mana and magic, but wouldn’t there be other trees similar to it in the surrounding areas if it really evolved like them? And it doesn’t feel like it gained the magical power it has like the deer either, it feels as if it was… grown by something there for a purpose… but there is always the change that there is tons of these trees up stream and this one just came to the lake side thanks to the river, but I won’t know until the future when I eventually go up stream to search for it.

Then onto the bugs… they are just bugs, or at least they seem to be. I mean, I don’t know how much oxygen is in the air, so they might actually be somewhat normal for all I know. I need to learn more to talk about them.

Stopping for a moment and looking at the full moon once more, I started to think about the world at large, and what I will find in it in the future.

“Well… reality is stranger than fiction after all, I just have to… go with the flow I guess.” and as I was just about to continue, I realized that the forest around me was getting darker.

And as I looked around more carefully, I realized the whole forest wasn’t getting darker, only small spots on the ground and the branches of the trees were.

Looking around with my guard up, before long I realized what was going on.

“Of fucking course, the fucking hybrids have the capacity to wish for vengeance for their kin for some unholy reason… I am really starting to think over my decision to not commit genocide.”