Stray Soul

“Aaand… that’s a fit!” I said after placing a hybrid’s eye in a small hole behind my head, which I was able to see because I was actually holding another eye with one of my smaller vines! Then I took the eye that the small vine was holding and placed it into another hole I’d made for it in front of my head.

Getting up and shaking my head in random directions to make sure the eyes wouldn’t fly off randomly, I started appreciating my new eyes and sight.

Just a bit beneath my natural eyes—deer’s natural eyes, I had made 2 holes, just big enough to fit an eye each, and after placing the hybrids’ eyes in them, and connecting the said eyes to my soul, my view immediately expanded!

Though, I was still colourblind… which was made worse by the fact that deer and hybrids were blind to different colours, so my vision was just… weird.

But my soul somehow managed to decrypt all my sight into a single picture, so even though I was colour blind in both sets of eyes, I could still understand whatever I saw, and not like my goal was to see more, no, my goal in putting the hybrid’s eyes beneath my normal eyes was to gain night vision, which… hopefully works, because it would really, really suck for the night vision to come from the hybrids’ body, and not their eyes.

But I can’t exactly say something like that is impossible because I don’t know a lot about… magical evolution, so I’ll just hope the night vision comes from the eyes and move on!

But, before I can properly move on, and focus on something else other than my vision, I need to talk about the eye on the back of my head.

Now, you may ask ‘William, how did you managed to put a hole large enough to fit an eye behind your head, and presumably, into the deer’s skull? Did you destroy the deer’s brain? Is the deer just… fat. Or is this a plot hole I am sensing?’, and to that I will say… I lied.

The hole isn’t actually at the back of the deer’s head, but more on the back side of its throat.

And now you may ask ‘Okay, Willy Billy, but how did you manage to make a hole big enough to fit an eye into something’s throat without damaging its spine? And by proxy, destroying your connection to the rest of the deer?’ First of all, how would damaging the spine remove my connection to the rest of the deer??? Okay, the head may become a bit… limp. But nothing will happen other than that… hopefully.

And to how I managed to make a hole large enough to fit an eye without damaging the deer’s spine…well… that’s a story for another time… what? Blasphemy! How dare ye accuse me of not having an actual answer to that question?! Heresy I say, HERESY!

Anyways, with the hybrid eye behind my head, I will now be able to see anything moving behind me, at day and night! Allowing me to see ambushes, and ambushers, before they attack me!

But it comes with a slight problem… it just… doesn’t fit.

Not the eye, it fits in its hole no problem but… for some reason the vision I get from the eyes just seems… wrong.

I am able to see anything and everything behind me, but having 2 different images appear in my head, or the soul, just doesn’t fit right… even though I had 3 different pictures in my soul at one point due to having 2 lesser souls and 1 main body.

I—I am not quite sure how that works… but I should be able to manage it… somewhat.

…Wait a second, hmm… can—can I have 2 souls in a single body? With that I mean, can I make a lesser soul to just control the eye at the back of my head?

That… could work, and honestly, I don’t see any negative in trying to do so, so…

Quickly, I moved a bit of my soul into the eye at the back of my head, and after making sure it was in the right place, I cut my connection to it, but made sure it was still in my mana cloud so it could get enough mana to not be destroyed because I still didn’t want to experiment with getting a part of my soul destroyed, just sounds like a really, really bad idea.

Then, I felt the weird sensation that came from having 2 different images be projected into my mind leave me, but I still had 2 images being projected into my soul… Both connected to different souls, but still ended up in the same place.

“Interesting…” I said to myself, not quite sure why souls acted the way they did… or why my full soul couldn’t handle the… strain of having 2 images sent to it, while multiple smaller souls could.

“I’ll have to check this further.” I noted, then turned my attention to the corpses next to my hooves and wondered if I could use them further.

I mean, yes, technically I could skin them, and use their hide for… extra protection, I guess? But anything that could penetrate my hide, could probably penetrate a small layer of protection like that too…

Then I started wondering if I even needed anything from them, then I settled on intelligence and wisdom but, the question was, could I get it from their bodies?

I mean, yes, their bodies themselves have the stats in them, but was it worth bringing the whole hybrid body with me just for a few measly stats?

“Hmm… wait, would the intelligence and wisdom stats be spread around their body… somehow, or would it only be in the brain? I mean, intelligence gives more mana point capacity, and wisdom gives regeneration. It wouldn’t quite make sense for those to be only located in the brain now, would it?” I asked to myself, and while it indeed seemed as if the brain wouldn’t, or just couldn’t, have both the intelligence and wisdom stats of the hybrids… it was worth a try.

Then, I quickly gazed around me and saw a decent sized rock, then I sent one of my 2 really long vines to it, and grabbed it while looking at how the vine moved.

Now I should probably clarify this before I move on, but I have a lot, and I mean it, a lot of vines on my body. But not all of them are… of adequate size to be useful.

Don’t get me wrong, it feels like I have dozens of whips that I can swing around any time I want! But more realistically, I only have 2 vines that are actually long enough to use as hands and to grab things or use as whips, and then a lot of of shorter ones that get progressively shorter and shorter.

I don’t know how much weight they can carry… but they’ve been able to carry small things for now, so if I use a lot of them, they could probably carry a makeshift bag or something that is pretty heavy.

Pretty heavy how? Well, not a fucking anvil or something similar to that, but I should be able to, maybe, make a few makeshift spears and use them without much problem. Though I doubt I’ll actually be accurate with spears while using vines to hold them rather than hands… but I’ll find out how accurate my vines are at carrying things in the future!

Hell, it actually might be so bad, or ineffective, that I might just carry stone spear heads or stone knives with my vines and use them to attack instead of a spear or something like that.

Though I’ll still have to make the said spear heads and knives… from nothing… with zero experience in stone tool making or any tool making at all…

…Well… I know that flint is used to make stone tools. And flint is found in riverbeds, so I just have to go to the river and just… pick some off of the ground, I guess?

Though what does flint look like? Black or grey and… a bit crystalline looking, I think? I am not sure, the last time I saw flint was in Minecraft.

Anyways, let me try to get this hybrid’s brain and then I can think about moving onto the stone age.

Starting to hit the head of one of the hybrid corpses beneath me, I penetrated its skin and fur, then started cracking its skull and… totally didn’t damage it at all!

Not giving up, I continued to smash its skull until I could put one of my vines into it, and then pick the brain up.

Quickly moving a bit of my soul into the brain from the vine that was holding the… totally not misshapen brain, I waited until I felt the connection between me and it.

Then I opened my system window and saw that my intelligence and wisdom had increased! And the increase was the same as when I was in the body of a hybrid!

“But how does the brain contain all that mana inside itself, or how does the brain increase mana regeneration all by itself?!

…Or does it?” I asked myself then started thinking.

It was just… not possible for the brain to be able to affect mana to such a degree that it could increase the mana capacity and regeneration speed of something all by itself… but it didn’t necessarily have to do it all alone.

Think about it, the system said that most of the stats a creature has comes from their soul, something ethereal and magical in nature, and I am sure as hell that this brain was not attracting mana to itself while it lay inside the head of the hybrid, so, maybe instead of doing all the hard work by itself, the brain just aids a soul in increasing their mana capacity and mana regeneration?

How does a brain do that exactly you may ask? I have no goddamn clue! But that’s the only way it makes sense… at least to me. Unless this is a case of every creature having a mana stone inside of them and unlike what normal fantasy has led you to believe, mana stones are inside something’s brain instead of near the heart…

Thinking a bit about if I really wanted to waste such a good brain to just try out a theory of mine, I quickly remembered that the amount of intelligence and wisdom provided by this brain was absolutely pathetic compared to what this deer had! So, I wouldn’t be losing a lot even if I destroyed it!

On the contrary, I would actually gain new knowledge in the shape of learning if mana stones were real or not, and learning if brains provided stats after they became… mush.

Unceremoniously uncoiling my vine from the brain and pulling my soul out, I hovered a hoof above the brain, and then smashed it, turning it into mush.

And, to my dismay, there were no mana cores or such inside the brain, and after I moved a bit of my soul into the splashed brain matter, I was also sure that a brain mush is basically useless.

“So, the brain’s stats must become activated after it is in contact with a soul, no?” I asked myself, not completely sure why brains retained all the mana related stats, not that I was sad about it though.

Then, I quickly started getting the brain of the other hybrid, and totally didn’t chicken out and took the head as a whole.

Then I started to wonder about how I would go on to carry a head with me at all times.

While I could just make one of my smaller vines hold onto it… I don’t want to constantly bother with that. So… should I just cut open my stomach, remove the organs, and put the brain there?

Hell, I could even use that place as storage for other things too!

…But, no, I can’t do that. At least for the brain that is, using it as a storage for inorganic material sounds like a good idea… if I keep count of how many things are there, of course. Because, if I just fill myself up with… I don’t know, a few dozen rocks or such, my centre of gravity will move wildly whenever I run, because there will be a lot of empty space in my stomach where the small things I put there can slosh around, after I remove all of my organs of course.

Hmm… but then how do I carry this hea—I mean brain! Yes, how do I carry this brain with me then? It just seems like I’ll have to carry it around with a vine like a noob…

… I mean… the hybrids’ corpses still have a good amount of hide on them… so, I could just repurpose all that and use the hides as primitive bags…

Then, I just did that. I found a small and pointy rock and used one of my longer vines to cut the hide—fur, whatever you call it from the hybrids, and I did a great job and didn’t ruin most of the hide! Yep, totally!

I should get a skinning or dismantling skill by now I reckon. I mean, I earned it didn’t I?

…Don’t mind the fact that I actually need to use mana to get a skill… that’s communist propaganda!

Shaking my thoughts off, I put the hea—brain into the bag and… held it with one of my vines…

Look, bags are good for when you have multiple things to put into them, okay? This is a great investment! I promise!

Ugh…none of you get my genius! I’ll show you on—

*boom~~*

Then suddenly I heard the distant booming noise of something, a lightning strike perhaps?

“Wait—I haven’t actually seen it rain before in this world now, have I?” I said to myself, turning my head to the direction of the noise, and saw grey clouds gathering in the distance.

“Well… that sucks.” I said to myself but then remembered, rain wasn’t a problem for me anymore! I could neither get hot, or cold! The most that’s gonna happen in this rain is that it will make some mud, which might make it a bit bothersome to travel… but not by much.

And, as I was looking at the clouds, I realized it was getting late, and the sun was setting, and it was going to be a great chance to test my new eyes!

Deciding to start walking towards the river because there was nothing else for me to do here, I took one last look at the desecrated remains of the hybrids, which would probably be eaten by something soon, or tomorrow at the latest.

Then, I started walking towards where I thought the river was. One of my vines carrying the brain bagtm , which was connected to the rest of me with a little bit of soul.

Then, as I walked and walked, the sky got darker and darker and the clouds encompassed the skies above the forest, stretching as far as my 5 eyes could see.

Then it started to slowly rain. Starting from small drops to a torrential rain in a matter of a couple minutes.

I was glad I didn’t wear socks anymore, because if I did, it would abso-fucking-lutely suck. And I was also glad to know that this wasn’t acid rain! It was just normal rain, none of that industrial waste or anything like that! And my decaying body would probably not decay even faster than it already was!

…Okay, maybe a bit. But, probably not by that much, right?

Then after… god knows how long of walking, I finally arrived at the river. Which was absolutely raging!

The normally pretty calm river now flowed with rage and made it basically a suicide to try and cross it or look for pretty stones like I had planned.

“Well… I can wait a few hours.” I said to myself, but stood there for a few seconds, watching the river. And I also realized something, remember the bugs? The big black ones?

Yeah, they were absolutely swarming the place! Probably because they normally nest underground and the sudden rain pushed them out, like worms.

But none of them were approaching me, probably because they understood that a deer could absolutely smash them into paste, which I definitely would given the chance to do so.

But as they weren’t doing anything to me… there was no reason for me to kill them either.

Then I started hearing rocks hitting rocks, which was a familiar sound from a few days ago.

Wondering what made one of the bugs stay underground for this long, under this harsh of a rain, I decided to turn around and look at it.

…And I regretted it the moment I turned around. Instead of seeing a small bug the size of a rabbit that I could probably kill at any moment, an even more gigantic and oversized bug peeked above the rocks and dirt that it had been laying under previously. Looking directly at me with its many, many eyes.

And unwillingly I gave off a heavy sigh, knowing what was awaiting me and… what would occupy me for the next couple of hours.

“Ahh… and I was planning on just chilling and experimenting with mana tonight…” I said, remembering how exhausting and lucky my last encounter with these bugs had been, but lucky me! This bug didn’t seem to have a counterpart, it was all alone, so I didn’t have to worry about being charged from behind… not that I wouldn’t know if that was happening.

“So… we are doing a full circle, eh?” I said, once more looking at the bug, that was leaving the ground, and shaking off the dirt and rock on itself with an unnatural swiftness.