Stray Soul

Staring at the ginormous bug, I quickly noticed a few things with it that were different from its smaller counterparts, who were scattering below our feet.

Notably, its chitin seemed as if it was separated into hundreds of smaller hexagonal parts, making the bug seem like a knight of some sorts instead of… well, the bug that it very clearly was.

The other notable with the bug was… well, its ginormous size. Its main body was nearly half my height, so maybe 50 centimetres or so? But the main thing that caught my attention was the horn on its forehead that was only a bit smaller than it, though I couldn’t really make out how large the horn was because it was night, and it was also raining.

“Those Hybrids’ eyes are already paying for themselves.” I thought to myself, because if I didn’t have these eyes, I wouldn’t’ve been able to see jack shit in this weather.

But as I stared at and sized up the bug, I noticed it was also doing the same to me. Though I didn’t think it was able to see in the dark as well as I, because its smaller counterparts clearly couldn’t, I also couldn’t entirely say that it couldn’t because—well, it was the one that sensed me and came out of the ground, so who’s to say that it can’t see in the dark?

…Or it could’ve just sensed the vibrations I was making while walking around and turned towards me because of that…

But before I could contemplate on my thoughts further, I saw the bug clearly gearing up to charge at me and lowering its head.

“Oh well, if you want to play like th—” but before I could finish my line of thought, I saw a weird shimmer in the legs of the bug from my bottom most set of eyes, and the bug charged at me with an unfathomable speed.

“What the—” then, after totally not being surprized, I quickly jumped to right, remembering my previous encounter with these bugs and their clear lack of control while charging.

But, to my dismay, this bigger bug was able to change its direction while charging so I had only one thing I could do… run until it stopped, or I found something I could do about it!

… Look, I got this body just today, and I am not having it damaged by a fucking oversized bug because running would be dishonourable against it or something stupid like that!

And it’s a bug! I don’t have to give it any chances or something similar to that, I just have to find an opportunity to cave its—well, body inwards because its head is covered in a lot of spikes, but you get my point!

As I, honourably if I might add, ran from the bug, I tilted my head downwards to allow my eye at the back of my head to see the bug, and saw that it was still charging at me… and it was pretty fast too!

Now, I was only using a small amount of mana to enhance my speed, but this thing was still catching up to me! And I wasn’t sure which one of us had more mana… so, I couldn’t just increase my mana usage and get away with it!

And I didn’t exactly want to run forever either, I was really close to levelling up, for which I only needed 2 measly experience points! So, I wanted to kill—or defeat this thing as the system would say it, without running around for half an hour, hoping for it to just tire itself out.

But what to do… tilting my head back, and focusing on where I was going, and the things around me, I couldn’t really see much that seemed useful…

I mean, yes, there was the raging river that was overflowing because of the torrential rain, but these bugs were living near the river for some unholy reason, and this one particularly didn’t seem to be bothered by the rain and water as it only unearthed itself after it sensed me.

And I wasn’t too bothered by the rain myself either, the occasional wet rock wasn’t enough for me to trip over because even if I couldn’t grab solid ground with one hoof, I had another 3 to balance myself out!

And I also didn’t want to just turn around and let the bug’s horn hit me because… well, even though I don’t know if a hell or heaven exists, and if it does I’ve already missed it once, but if, if either hell or heaven exists, I don’t want ‘Death by Penetration’ to be on my heavenly resume and for a demon or an angel to read it, and then look up at me with a weird look!

But like what I said before, I can’t and don’t want to keep up this… honestly pretty boring chase going forever!

And with forever I mean at max an hour, because after that being hit by the bug’s horn will be the least of my concerns.

Because I will run out of mana by then and my soul will be destroyed by the ambient mana… probably… I am assuming it will because I am pretty sure the smaller bugs, the hatchlings if you will, will probably swarm over me and eat me before I have the chance to recover any mana.

Tilting my head once more to take a look at the bug, I had the sudden urge to face slap myself but couldn’t do due to my lack of hands… wait, I had vines.

“I am a dumbass!” I screamed, hitting myself in the face with a vine, because I had just forgotten something that was really important, and pretty hard to miss.

The bug chasing me? It was small as fuck!

Well, not really… but it was small enough that I could comfortably jump over it, or on it without putting myself in danger!

Giving myself another slap with a vine, I started diverting a few more points of mana to my legs, strengthening them with the help of the sprint function which was making itself seem more and more useful by the day…

Realizing that I was speeding up, probably from the increase in the vibrations, the bug seemed to speed up, but it was all for nought as I quickly stopped and jumped, letting the bug sprint under me!

After it went under me, I saw the bug raising its head and looking around, but before it could realize where I was, I goomba stomped his ass!

But, as I was quickly dropping down, I saw another weird shimmer on its entire carapace this time, and instead of my weight totally crushing it and turning it into fine paste, I was only able to dent it a bit.

*SCREE—*

With a… honestly quite scary screech, the bug made its pain known and basically threw its head back at me, causing me to make a short jump back.

Then, the bug started to turn around with a new hatred and rage in its eyes, but while it did that, I had ample time to retreat a bit, and prepare for its next charge.

But the small time I had made me think about what I saw of the bug up-close, and my first thought of it appearing as some sort of knight held true… in some sense at least.

With that I mean, the bug clearly had chitinous hexagonal plates covering its entire body akin to the plate armour of a knight, but also like a knight, it couldn’t just cover its entire body with plates of chitin, because if it did that, it would loose all its mobility so it had these openings where the chitinous plates were replaced with normal carapace, akin to what I saw on the hatchlings and their bigger counterparts which I used to control 2 days ago.

And seeing that weak point gave me an idea… what if, what if instead of repeating this charade for a few more times, what would happen if I just took some rocks and cut off its head?

Now, cutting its head will not be an easy task because… well, any rock I will find here will be just normal, blunt, rocks, so I’ll need time to cut off its head… wait... what if I just… let it hit me?

Now, this might sound a bit crazy… because any living being would find this kind of plan crazy! But, my friends, I happen to be a stray soul! So, even if I had mortal injuries, as long as this body had muscles, I’d be able to control it!

And while any injury would cause me to lose most if not all of my blood, and while I also find the presence of blood in my veins to be quite useful frankly, I also kinda… don’t care.

At most I’ll use this body for a few more days, and while I’ll miss the feeling of having limbs after I abandon this body, its not like vine deer are impossible to find!

Hell, while I was coming to the river, I saw a few that were hanging together with normal deer, so if I just kill one nothing should happen to their total population! And I can always just wander around the forest and find new areas with new vine deer!

And it’s not like vine deer are the only animals with control over vines or things that act as limbs… I hope.

*shimmer~~*

My attention was quickly taken away from my thoughts to the bug in front of me as I once again saw its legs shimmering, which I by now understood was it just using a skill.

How does a bug or any animal for that matter use skills or interact with the system? No goddamn idea! And while I am curious about it, I also don’t think I will be able to answer without… you know, giving sapience to an animal.

Then the bug once again started charging at me but this time its head was slightly tilted upwards, and I knew for a fact that jumping over it wouldn’t work this time, it wouldn’t let it happen twice.

Moving my vines as fast as I could, I moved them to pick up any rock that was even slightly pointy, and made my longest vines hand the rocks to the other vines, so I had as many rocks as possible to use to destroy the bug’s neck.

Then as the bug neared me, I saw a glimpse of emotion in its eyes, it was happy that it was going to be the victor and pay back at me for injuring it.

Oh, the poor sod…

Then, the bug started slowing down, and raising its horn towards my chest, and a few moments later, its horn hit true with surprizing accuracy and stale blood started gushing out of my chest but sadly for it as I said before, I was an undead, so instead of me falling down, and it being able to remove its horn from my chest, it just stayed there, stuck.

Then, without much fanfare, I put both my front hooves on its head and started pushing down, giving all my weight to my front, causing the bug’s face to meet the ground, and stay there.

Then, I started chopping away! The bug’s legs and body moving wildly while its head and horn were stuck.

And by the time my blood flow started to stop, I was done.

“Well… this was anti-climactic…” I said to myself before hearing the familiar ding of the system.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated Ginormous Chitinous Bug (H) Level 10!

20 exp gained!

Congratulations! You have levelled up and become level 9!

Noting that I probably needed to come up with a better name for these bugs, I quickly opened my system window and assigned all my 8 stat points into intelligence, bringing up to 17 from 9.

Name: William Race: Stray Soul (Vine Deer)

Level: 9 Exp: 7/17 Rank: H

Health Points: 0/103 Mana Points: 134/362

Strength: 0 (13)

Vitality: 0 (10)

Agility: 0 (15)

Intelligence: 17 (19)

Wisdom: 15 (14)

Charisma: 0 (16)

Free Stat Points: 0 (4)

Skills: Ethereal Body (S), Mana Sense (Z), Bind (Z), Soul Sense (Z), Soul Manipulation (Z), Mana Control (Z), Mana Strengthening (Z) +

Titles: Reincarnator (S), Otherworlder (A)

Quests: Meddling with the Unknown (S)

And yes, for all those wondering, Brain Bagtm is safe and sound, I wouldn’t let my Gucci bag get damaged now, would I?

Looking down and seeing the… not so bloody mess, because most of the blood was swept away by the rain, I gave a good push against the ground and removed the horn from my chest and saw a few hatchlings slowly inching towards the body.

“Are they going to eat it?” I asked myself, slightly surprized but after a few moments of thinking I found that it made a lot of sense.

I mean they were bugs, so basically nature’s clean-up crew, eating the dead was basically their only job, and they were also recycling while they were at that too!

Hmm… I wonder, do these bugs appear anywhere inside the forest? I haven’t seen any but… its possible a sub-species of them or something like that lives inside of the forest rather than near the river.

Anyways, that’s not really important right now, the important thing is… do I change bodies, again?

I mean… I don’t really need the body of this bug, because my current body is just better and still new, but I can always just put a lesser soul into it…

Nah, bringing this bug with me would only cause trouble for me and slow me down significantly because, while the bug was as fast as me while charging, it also needed to use a lot of mana to keep up with me.

And mana is something I always lack, not to mention a lesser soul doesn’t benefit from my stats and only has the mana capacity of the creature its possessing.

“So, was this fight just useless for me other than the exp?” I asked my self and for a moment, it really seemed like it!

But then I took another good look at the bug laying in front of me, seeing all its horns and the hundreds of hexagonal plates covering it.

“Hmm… you may prove to be even more useful than you already have been…” I noted, thinking that instead of having to make flint tools, and find flint to make them in the first place, I could just… take these horns! They seemed to be strong enough to pierce my hide and a bit of bone so… why not?

And the hexagonal plates covering it… I could use them as armour, couldn’t I?

I mean… yeah, I don’t exactly have a way to strap them to myself but… I could always just slide them under my skin, or spend the night trying to make some sort of harness… maybe not, maybe sliding under the skin method will be better?

Looking at the bug beneath me one more time, I walked away and sat down beneath the branches of a tree after making sure there wasn’t anything nearby that would be interested in taking a bite out of me, and turned towards the ginormous bug for a moment, seeing all the bugs swarming over its body, entering it from any crevice they could find and promptly turned my head around, and started focusing on more useful things like my skills.

As the night progressed, the rain stopped, and as the sun started to rise and another dawn broke, I got up and walked to the newly emptied remains of the ginormous bug.

It looked like nothing more than a hallow shell, which it was, and then I moved my vines and started trying to remove its horns and the hexagonal plates covering it and while the hexagonal plates basically peeled off of the bug’s remains…the same couldn’t be said for the horns, which were strongly attached to the head of the bug.

Not wanting to lose my loot, I took a random rock from the ground, and started hitting the bottom of the horns, breaking them and separating them from the head of the bug.

After… god knows how long, I had hundreds of hexagonal plates and dozens of big and small horns in front of me.

“Now… what to do with these…” I said looking over my loot from this fight, bug once again, the bug’s head caught my attention.

Then I turned towards my Brain Bagtm and slapped my face with all the vines that could reach my face.

“FUCK! I FORGOT TO TAKE ITS BRAIN!”