Some distance away, in a wide-open area littered with boulders and rocks, ten adventurers who seemed to be beta players were locked in mortal combat with the two-headed horned wolf.

[Two-Headed Horned Wolf]
[Magic Points: 315/340] [Hit Points: 372/415]
[Total Combat Power: 499]

The beta players were all at around 200 combat power. The party was composed of more than just warriors. At least, I also saw a magician, plus someone holding a greatshield.

A nimble woman wielding a shortsword was holding the wolf’s attention. When it tried to approach her, a shield-holder immediately intervened and held it at bay. Any damage the shielder took was healed by a magician. Once the wolf stopped moving, the warriors swiftly attacked with axes and spears.

 

Was this what good cooperation looked like? The beta players were moving so well. Even though the horned wolf was stronger than any single one of the players, I couldn’t imagine it winning at all.

But the wolf continued to toss around the warriors, all the while just barely avoiding being wounded too severely. The two heads were acting on their own. Completely unpredictable. The party’s assault had stalled.

The left head was rampaging in beastly frenzy, while the right head calmly watched and dissected the beta players’ movements, managing their attacks.

 

The wolf wasn’t exactly the mad beast that I met that first time… I didn’t know what happened then. Perhaps it-they really was an alpha tester like me.

If this continued, I was quite sure they’d lose. But what if… what if I joined in? The wolf was still putting up a good fight. Maybe I could tip the scale?

Worst case scenario, I’d get killed alongside them… Oh, whatever, who cares. Death would just cut my magic in half anyway. I could handle being weakened for a while.

Alright, charge! But Blobsy’s fragile, so ‘lie low over there, okay?’

 

“Wha-Something’s coming!”

The first one to realize was the bow-wielding woman. As my density in humanoid form rose whenever I gained more power, in gas form, I now covered an area of several square meters.

“Somebody check for new info!”

“Shit, who’d have time for it right now…”

“I got it! It’s the white mist monster! Not a new one, some people’ve seen it before. According to the newest location update, it’s getting here really quickly!”

“Combat power… 499! An event monster, gotta be!”

 

Event? Was there an event going on? And the corporation was even exposing our locations for the beta players to hunt us?

 

“It’s intangible! We need one magician and one archer to aggro it!”

“Got it! We’ll buy some time, so deal with the wolf quickly!”

“Alright, freak, come over here!”

The archer was firing at me, all the while moving away from the main fight.

I wasn’t just making myself a bigger target with this form. As long as they could see me, they would [Fear] me, even if the effect wasn’t exactly significant. And while my defense did drop when spread out like this, damage received from piercing attacks was reduced, too.

The fight would be a lot simpler if I could kill the two trying to drag me away, but they’d probably just run around to waste my time once I made my intention clear. Plus, magicians were my natural enemies.

So obviously, I hit them right where they didn’t want me to.

 

I pretended to chase after the two. At the same time, I stretched out a part of myself from the edge of my gaseous form, aiming for a white-robed girl who was busy healing the shield-holder. My tendril of gas slithered forward and struck.

“Aaaghh!!!”

“Shit, it attacked us? Support!”

“You two, come back!”

The reckless shapeshifting played hell with my vision. It’s been a long time since I felt dizzy again, but I couldn’t afford to be distracted here.

I couldn’t stay and leisurely absorb the healer here. The whole party would just gang up on me. So I circled around to her back, turned to humanoid form, grabbed her neck and used my dagger, formerly belonging to the bandit leader, to slice it open.

 

All players, all humans, would take heavy damage if you hit them in the right spot. No matter how much hit points they had, this fact wouldn’t change.

The white-robed girl collapsed in a daze. The beta players were flabbergasted, and their shock quickly turned into an uproar. But the one most surprised was me – from the corner of my vision, I saw the calmer head of the wolf looked at me. And their eyes widened.

The girl lying on the ground turned into light particles and disappeared. The beta testers started to panic.

 

“What the fuck is this thing?! It just turned human!!”

“Calm down, guys, we can handle this! Anyone who can do healing magic, help the tank!”

“Gotta deal with this white one firs-”

“Shit, the Cerberus-aaaagh!!!”

The two-headed wolf… the Cerberus, apparently? They sent the tank flying and pinned him down.

The tank covered himself with his shield, trying to ward off the fangs. The warriors attacked the Cerberus all at once to rescue him.

“Let go of him!”

“Quick, heal, heal!”

The moment the beta players were distracted by the wolf, I returned to gas and attacked the magician who was readying a healing spell.

“Damn it, the white monster again!”

“Fuck! It’s targeting the supporters first!”

“Melee people, help!”

The magician held himself in a ready stance with his staff, even while I was enveloping him. Perhaps he still remembered my previous shapeshifting.

But I wasn’t going to do that all the time. Unlike my gaseous form, my humanoid form was actually quite vulnerable to physical damage.

I was delaying the magician’s healing. As long as the Cerberus took the opportunity to finish off the tank, we should have a much higher chance of winning this.

…but my expectations were betrayed.

 

“Whoa, what the hell is wrong with this thing?!”

As the warriors attacked the berserk head of the wolf, it changed target from the tank to them.

Damn it, why?! Just a bit more and the tank would’ve died! The calm head also looked like they wanted to finish off the tank, and suddenly, the cooperation between the heads were gone. The Cerberus started rampaging without reason or rhyme. And then, the wolf abruptly charged at me.

Wa-Wait, wait, no, why?!

I escaped in a hurry, but still got hit. The magician lost his balance and promptly found his neck between the wolf’s fangs.

“AAaaAghh!!?”

The Cerberus unceremoniously bit down and crushed his head.

 

“Fuck, what’s wrong with these monsters?!”

“We’re retreating! Use Bind-type skills to hold it!”

“Got it! [Shadow Bind]!”

The archer’s odd-looking arrow stabbed into the Cerberus’s shadow. The wolf continued to rampage, but they couldn’t leave the spot.

“What about the white one?!”

“Stop it with spells! [Combat Arts] if that doesn’t work! Drink potions if you’re out of magic!”

 

Obviously, I had no intention to face off against eight beta players by my lonesome. I looked at the Cerberus’ eyes, and I could see even the calm head returning to its former madness like when I first met them, so I decided to retreat here.

Luckily, the beta testers didn’t pursue.

According to what I’d learned here, the attacks on me were due to a game event that was going on. The alpha testers’ locations were constantly broadcasted. Nowhere was safe for me.

 

I didn’t plan on having the Cerberus as a neighbor, so I silently grabbed Blobsy and left. I followed along the mountain range, going through craggy terrain and steep cliffs. This should make it much harder for the beta players to follow me.

Hopefully I could survive through this event just by wandering around these mountains, I thought gloomily. A quick check confirmed that no one was near me. I sighed in relief.

I wondered if there was somewhere to hide away… The beta players already knew where I was, but at least I wouldn’t be getting sniped. Dying that way would be terribly unfunny.

Wait… that cliff face over there. I think I saw a hole. I headed there, thinking to have a bit of a rest, and found out it was some sort of den for a rather large animal.

Perhaps I could Evolve now, after that fight. If so, I might be able to win even against that beta player party.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 433/502] 25↑
[Total Combat Power: 482/499]
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Normal)] [Skilled Packer]
[※Evolution Unavailable]

Yes, my magic finally broke 500! And my… evolution… unavailable? Unavailable?! Why? And my combat power didn’t follow my magic this time!

…okay, deep breath, calm down, let’s just identify that line…

[※Evolution Unavailable]
・As of the current game version, no further monster evolutions is implemented.
・New evolutions are planned for Beta Version 2.0.

What…? So us alpha testers couldn’t evolve any further? If I couldn’t evolve, did that mean my combat power was stuck here?

What should I do? Even if I survived past this event, how was I to hang on for half a year with JUST THIS?

 

*boing*

…ah, yeah. I’m fine, Blobsy. It felt like I almost ceased to exist for a moment there. Thanks to the little jiggly ball, I regained some measure of control.

Alright, let’s think positive. I no longer needed to sleep with this body. That meant that if I could escape to the sea, beta players wouldn’t be able to reach me, right? Well, not like I even knew where it was.

I started to climb up the mountain, thinking I might be able to see where the ocean was… hmm? What was this? I saw scratches on the rock face. There were a lot of them.

No, wait, they weren’t just scratches… they were English.

Who wrote this? Could it be… this was the Cerberus’s lair?

Even in my humanoid form, I still couldn’t write very well. I couldn’t imagine how long and how much effort it took to carve these letters. The handwriting was horrible and at the same time, desperate. I started reading.

 

My name is Hans. If anyone can read this, I have left these words behind so that you can know the truth of the corporation behind World of Yggdrasia, and the truth of this world.

I am test subject No. 01. I was granted the body of a ‘Fiend Wolf’. I was dropped into this world as a test subject for an experiment investigating the mental stress of using monster avatars.

 

I knew it. That Cerberus really was an alpha tester…

 

The monster avatars, our avatars, had been calibrated to a horrifying degree. No normal game developer would allow this.

They explained to us testers that our sensitivity would be set to the maximum. They neglected to mention that it was the hardware’s maximum, not the software’s.

Pain was several times the normal amount. Eyes so sharp I could see through darkness clear as day, and my hearing was similarly powerful. I was shuddering just from the wind touching my skin. My sensitivity was so high I couldn’t even sleep. I had expected these to an extent, but even with that, my mind was quickly pushed to its limits.

Perhaps monsters not very sensitive to pain, such as slimes or avatar types with an undefined form, would have an easier time. But they had to deal with a problem no normal avatars had to: the ludicrous sense of disconnect from their real bodies. At least, I wouldn’t be able to bear with it.

As a matter of fact, according to my own investigations, almost every testers who used amorphous avatars had logged out after a few days. I didn’t see any of them return.

If there was someone who can handle such avatars, I think it would take a person with an incredibly diminished sense of self.

 

…well, I used to have people rejecting my existence all the time…

 

The purpose of this experiment was to design a system that could make use of a monster’s power, a power wholly non-human, as much as possible. They would test the limits that a human can endure, and what the user couldn’t, they would leave to an AI’s management. But that wasn’t to implement ‘Human and Monster PVP’ into the game as was explained to us 100 testers.

It was for limited warfare. For use in invasions. Once all of us alpha testers are gone, they would begin a secret beta test with the army’s soldiers.

 

Warfare…? And they were planning to grind all of us down to dust just for data?

 

I had discovered the truth. I had talked to my allies. We planned on taking refuge in this world, the world that the government was planning to invade.

You must be wondering what world I was talking about. But you must have already realized, right? You’re here reading this, after all. Look at the incredibly realistic scenery. The people with thoughts so complex no AI could possibly be driving them. Don’t you think it feel just the same as using an avatar to visit somewhere else on Earth?

You must have realized that this world of Yggdrasia isn’t just a bundle of data on a server. It is no fiction. Yggdrasia truly exists.

 

…what?

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

Before I knew it, I had another weird skill.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 216/392] 39↑
[Total Combat Power: 255/431] 43↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Apprentice)] [Skilled Packer]

‘Skilled Packer’…? I did pick up the silver and copper coins I found in the bandit’s lair just in case. To think that resulted in a skill… wait a minute? I had around 30 of the coins. That should be quite a bit of metal. But looking at myself from the outside, I couldn’t see them anywhere. Where was I keeping my money?

I mean, I knew I had them. If I dispersed myself into looser gas, I could see them laced here and there throughout my body.

But once I raised the density back up, they disappeared… how curious!

 

So anyway, I checked out the storeroom and grabbed whatever seemed useful. These included a spare robe and cloak, the bandit leader’s magic dagger, some expensive-looking rings and necklaces, some bottles of what looked like medicine, some jerky as Blobsy’s snacks, and more.

*boing*

Eh? You want some right now? But didn’t you just eat more than ten corpses?

She looked sort of bummed out and started to clean up the blood on the ground, so I relented and gave her a slice of jerky.

After some experimentation, it turned out I could store anything that fitted a single suitcase, in both dimensions and volume. Which meant that a dagger could fit, but not spears. Also, anything too weighty would make me feel sluggish, so I limited my heavy stuff to coins and potions.

Alright, this would be our base to hunt monsters and bandits. Let’s go.

*boing*

 

I left with Blobsy, completely unaware of the disaster looming upon us. Upon all secret alpha testers.

 

***

 

“There it is! 300 meters ahead!”

“Alright, that Berserker is ours!”

“Yeah!” “Awesome!” “Let’s go!”

 

Within the northern reaches of the central continent lay the Principality of Trendeux. A country formed around the 32nd World Sapling to be found.

The Sapling had blessed the lands with its boon. Despite the latitude, the climate still stayed relatively gentle. But the moment you entered the mountains, the greenery instantly gave way to white, the field of snow stretching unbroken all the way to the summit. A spectacle of utmost grandeur.

A silver-colored troll was there, its fur blending into the snowy mountain. It was busy with its meal, a gray bear.

At first glance, the subspecies looked close to a yeti. It was over three meters tall and about two meters wide, with arms as big as tree trunks.

The troll looked at the bear it was eating and suddenly went quiet. Then, just as abruptly, it began to tear apart the carcass. It starting pounding on a nearby boulder, crushing its own arms without a care, and roared in agony.

 

Such madness unnerved the beta players, being so real they even forgot they were in a game for a moment. Their faces paled. Some gasped for a breath.

To the south of the Principality of Trendeux was a large country, the Trestan Kingdom, which was the chosen base for these players. They were Rank 3, or in other words, players who had reached level 3 in their combat skill. Native adventurers in World of Yggdrasia used the same ranking system.

There was a rather popular thread on the game’s VR boards, in which two parties of Rank 2 players from Trendeux reported their defeats at the hand of this berserk monster. And so, this group of players had come here after a few train rides overnight to challenge the troll.

“Total combat power is 499. No wonder. That’s quite tough for Rank 2.”

“Hey everyone, gather up! I’m casting defensive buffs!”

“Alright, Iet’s go. Remember to pull the boss with arrows.”

“Can I use poisons?”

“Did somebody say ‘poison’? Here, try this neurotoxin I made. It’s going to stick around for a long time.”

“Holy shit woman, that’s vicious.”

 

The poisoned arrow found its target. Overwhelming pain drove the berserk troll into a rampage.

In a one-on-one fight, the troll would almost certainly win. So the group of five leveraged their teamwork. Magic corralled the monster while blades sliced into flesh. Almost thirty minutes later, the leader, a swordsman wielding a greatsword, decapitated it.

“Hell yes!”

“Man, regeneration and high power. That’s a boss alright.”

“And still no match for us! What’s the reward?”

“Eh? Did the corpse just disappear?”

“Maybe because it’s an event monster? Hey, it dropped something. A yellow gem?”

“Is that the reward? Can’t be, right?”

“Oh hey, there’s the system message.”

“Whoahoh?! A year pass for the airship!”

 

Equivalent to 10 large gold coins, this yearly pass allowed you free rides on the airship, with which you can reach any country in Yggdrasia in just half a day. All members of the party received one. Once this info was posted on the forum, the race began. The race to hunt for the twenty remaining berserk monsters scattered all over the world.

 

***

 

“Secret alpha tester No.17. Confirmed mental collapse and subsequent cessation of neural activity. As per procedure, requesting dispatch of disposal team.”

 

“Oh boy. No. 17 was pretty stable, considering. Now even that one’s gone.”

“Will it be a problem, sir? No. 17 was a rather special one. This event has been resulting in quite a few permanent losses in subjects.”

Brian, in the monitoring center of the 7th facility, was in high spirits. His secretary voiced her concern, and he flippantly replied with a shrug.

“Analysis of their powers and genome’s already done. The government has been pressuring our bosses for faster results, too. The six months deadline’s still a long way away, but with how enthusiastic our testers have been, we’re already done with the basic data gathering. The event is just to finish up early.”

 

The 100 secret alpha testers weren’t just random orphans.

The existence of ESP – strange and mysterious special powers – was confirmed all over the world, and these testers were believed to be people possessing such powers. Over half of them only had trivial powers, such as vague precognition or slightly higher physical abilities than the norm, but the first 23 chosen were a step above in power. Or in the case of a few among them, several steps. The powers of those few had helped bring about revolutionary technologies for mankind, many with applications in warfare. It was the beginning of a new era.

Power and genetic analysis had already finished. The experiment was only continuing to see if the special abilities could be improved, or if new applications could be discovered, by putting the orphans into extreme stress conditions. That, and also to dispose of the testers, since they were no longer useful.

 

The number of deaths and mental collapses climbed rapidly due to the event, even though only one month had passed since the experiment started. Already, there were 32 deaths from cessation of neural activities, with another 48 logged out from mental collapses.

Only 20 alpha testers left.

 

“And just as expected, No. 01 and No. 08 are still hanging on. Man, aren’t they stubborn… oh, right. Wasn’t there another one quite stable?”

“Yes, sir, that would be No. 13. Considering how all the other spiritual-avatar testers had suffered mental collapses in just the first stage, she has an amazingly durable mind.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. The ‘Demon Child’. Not a very nice power though, that one.”

 

The albino girl who caused misfortune to everyone around her. Called a ‘demon’ by her own parents. Abused and neglected.

 

“A pity her power wasn’t actually probability manipulation like we wanted. According to the 3rd research facility’s report, ‘the power could only nudge the results. Implementations of it technically worked, but the results varied so much it just isn’t practical, plus maintaining control over it would literally take the mind of a demon’,” the secretary said.

Brian laughed. “So even our little demon’s a lost cause. I suppose it’s impossible, then. Well, might as well have our alpha testers keep with the mana gathering until the end.”

 

***

 

Hold up-whoa-hold up a minute, what in the world was going on here?!

 

“There it is! The white one!”

“Don’t let it get away! This one’s gotta be ours!”

 

Just a few days after I took over the bandit lair, some beta testers came out of nowhere to attack my base.

They were about as powerful as the ones chasing me before, so I still managed to repel them. Then a different party came by the next day. In the end, after finally gaining a base, I was forced to abandon it.

I had planned on hiding out in the forest depths until the heat died down, yet every single one of them found me with ease.

I tried to hide with my [Humanoid Form] several times, but a single kid wandering around in the forest proved to be too suspicious. Plus, I had to change back into gas form if I wanted to move quickly, which only helped them discover me faster and give chase.

And I couldn’t even choke them, since they were playe-ouch!

 

“What’s with this one? Poison didn’t work!”

“My turn! [Thunder Bolt]!”

 

That hurt, dammit! What if you hit Blobsy?! She’s in my pocket!

[Magic Swordsman-ish Young Man] [Race: Human ♂] [Adventurer]
[Magic Points (MP): 45/82] [Hit Points (HP): 88/90]
[Total Combat Power: 150]

[Archer-ish Young Man [Race: Human ♂] [Adventurer]
[Magic Points (MP): 52/60] [Hit Points (HP): 110/110]
[Total Combat Power: 187]

Unforgivable. They seemed to prefer projectiles, so I mingled in the trees and hid my cloak on the canopy of one. The magic swordsman gave chase without much care. I ambushed him from above.

“Aaaah!? What the fuck?!”

“Calm down! Use your magic!”

Too late. My combat power was thrice theirs, so absorption worked quickly.

“Shit, my HP and MP’s going down!”

“W-Wait, stay there, don’t move!”

They were afraid. Afraid of me.

The archer tensed. He took out an expensive-looking silver-colored arrow from his bag and aimed. Just before the arrow was loosed, he suddenly seemed distracted by something.

 

[Reroll]

 

“Aaagk…”

“What?!”

The arrow pierced through the magic swordsman’s knee… even without needing my skill.

Oh, I see. Blobsy was waving the cloak on top of the tree.

I sort of pitied the magic swordsman a bit, so I decided to leave him for last. Meanwhile, I dealt with the archer while he was still stunned. The battle ended without much fanfare.

I sighed in relief. Perhaps just [Fear]ing me was enough to lower my opponent’s success rate?

 

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 355/477] 85↑
[Total Combat Power: 255/499] 68↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Normal)] [Skilled Packer]

 

I defeated 6 beta players in nearly as many days. A bit more power for me.

I had a feeling I could evolve after breaking 500 magic. Strangely enough, the increase in my combat power wasn’t as good as my magic.

Also, after using humanoid form 24/7 to disguise myself, the skill leveled up again. To continue my cooking analogy, at (Normal), I was a cook in an eatery in the countryside. You know the type. The only place to eat in town, had tons of choices on the menu, yet all the dishes were about the same: not bad, but nothing to write home about either.

With how quickly the skill was improving, I had to wonder, how many levels did it have left? I didn’t look much different. Mostly, it was just my surface looking more like a doll’s, plus my body getting thicker.

Whoops, I forgot. We should move. Staying still might invite another attack. Let’s go, Blobsy.

*boing*

 

I was about as fast as a person running, so if I kept circling around the wilderness, the beta players shouldn’t be able to catch up that easily.

Right, how was I getting detected so quickly? The carriage driver I left alive might have seen me, but he shouldn’t be able to pinpoint where I was going to.

Was there a spell to detect my location? Such a pain… If that was a spell, outrunning its range might do me some good.

It looked like going this way would return me to that mountain range again.

 

I continued forward to the mountains. A while later, I detected magic signals that felt similar to the horned wolves’. We were actually in sight range of each other. They didn’t attack me, though, since I was stronger than before.

I felt like there were less of them than there used to be.

I expanded my detection range, just in case, and moved forward. Then I found several signals, probably beta testers, and a large signal near them. They were deep in the mountains.

Normally I would have left there and then, but if the large signal was a secret alpha tester, then cooperation might be on the table. Holding onto faint hope, I peeked at them from afar.

I saw the mad two-headed horned wolf.

[Two-Headed Horned Wolf]
[Magic Points: 315/340] [Hit Points: 372/415]
[Total Combat Power: 499]

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

I watched Blobsy hop off after the bandits.

…my request was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. Would she be fine? Too late for takebacks now, anyway. I floated off after the merchant’s carriage.

I didn’t think I could lose track of them, considering we were all on the same road, but I had to wonder how fast a human running – my top speed – could be comparing to a horse carriage. With the existence of railway technology, I feared carriages might have gotten some measure of improvements, too.

If they could manage to get inside a village – it didn’t even need to be a town – before I caught up, I’d lose. The strange barrier would hold me off. There was likely no way for me to get in.

I wasn’t so delusional as to believe that I was doing this for justice, that this was fitting judgement for the kind of person who treated their slaves’ lives as a game and then vented his anger on the deceased after he lost.

I just wanted to avenge them. To at least lessen their regrets.

 

Luck was with me. A few minutes later, I found the carriage parked by the wayside. The irritated merchant and his driver was checking their losses.

“Come on, boss, it’s good enough we got out of it safe and sound. It’s just some food and slaves we bought from the village, isn’t it?”

“And the horse and carriage! Those weren’t just slaves, fool, they’re expensive ones! Damn demihumans got a lot sneakier these days, you can’t legally buy any new ones on the official markets! Scamming bastard fucking lied to me. They weren’t ‘combat-capable’, they were wastes of air, that’s what!”

I was… pretty sure the merchant was an exception, not the rule to this world’s humanity… right?

The inspection seemed to be over. The merchant urged the driver to hurry, and the two set off. The trader was sitting next to his driver, instead of his usual spot inside the carriage.

“Boss, you should get back in. It’s dangerous here.”

“Shut your trap. It’s your fault you didn’t notice the bandits early enough. I can’t trust your eyes.”

The driver didn’t bother hiding his distaste at the insult.

 

Right. How do I want to do this?

Originally, my plan of only aiming for the outlaws was to avoid having soldiers and beta testers sent after me. In that case… would an accident work?

 

I took off the cloak, released my humanoid form, dispersed just enough to blend into the scenery, then moved in front of the wagon.

The two still hadn’t noticed anything wrong. But the horse did sense my attention, and fear began to permeate into its steps. The wagon started to swerve left and right.

“H-Hey, what’s wrong? Calm down!” The driver was nearly panicking.

“Do something already!” The merchant screamed, desperately holding onto his seat.

 

Walking and playing with Blobsy weren’t the only things I did these last few days. I’d been experimenting with [Reroll] too, and I now had confirmation of the skill’s success rate when used on others.

It had a high possibility of failing if the target was focused. Which also meant that if they were surprised or agitated, it’d work most of the time.

That first time with the beta tester, I could chalk it up to chance. The second time I succeeded against the slave hunters, even I started to think it was too convenient.

And after a few tests, I’d determined that my chances would go up if the target saw me. My supposition was that using the skill was easier on targets under the effect of the [Fear] demon racial skill.

Well, those tests were with weak monsters, though. This would be the first time I tried it on humans.

[Reroll]

Despite the horse’s fear and the swerving, the carriage was still somehow avoiding the rocks littering the road, but the horse didn’t notice the Identification Crystal I dropped. The wagon lurched.

The nearly obese trader lost his balance. He scrabbled, trying to grab onto the edge of his seat. I used the skill while throwing my presence at him.

[Reroll]

Terror flashed on his face for a moment, and his hand grasped only air. He fell gracelessly on his head.

“Boss!?” The driver noticed, but too late. The moment his scream rang out, the merchant’s neck was already broken.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 256/335] 5↑
[Total Combat Power: 289/368] 5↑

My, that was a very unlucky fall. Also, apparently the more difficult the check, the lower the consumed magic cost.

And it turned out I still receive experience from an accidental death… I was a bit too far away, though. I got his lifeforce, but couldn’t recover any magic. I’d have to write the crystal off as a loss, too. Well, it only had three uses left anyway.

I felt Blobsy stop moving. She must have found the bandits’ lair. I hurried to her, the merchant and his driver no longer in my thoughts.

 

My mind was whirring with thoughts even as I flew.

That scene back then, when I used [Reroll]… I’d seen something like it before.

Ever since I was a little kid, the people who bullied me, with deeds or with words, had always met with constant misfortune. Mysteriously.

One had a broken arm just from tripping. One slipped on the stairs. One cut her fingers multiple times with the kitchen knife. Were those all my fault?

Strangely, [Reroll] always felt like the most natural thing in the world to me, even from the very first time I used it. Was it because I had always had it, ever since I was born?

 

When I arrived, it was already dark. Blobsy bounced out of the field of tall grass and cuddled up to me. Cuuuute…

Oh, whoops, I forgot the cloak…ah well. I commanded her to lie down – since she no longer has the safehouse that was my cloak’s pocket – and she splatted into a disc, completely hiding herself inside the grass… whoa. She’s a very skillful blob.

I didn’t need her to show me where they were. Some distance away was a hole leading into what looked like an exploratory mine. A man wearing grungy clothes was on watch, looking bored.

 

I was going to attack their base. That thought sent shivers through me.

Not the kind of shivers associated with that Disconnect with reality. If anything, it felt like excitement. As if I only just came to myself, my true self, in that moment. I moved, my body feeling more natural than ever.

 

I approached as mist. For a moment, the watchman frowned at seeing a white mist under the moonlit, cloudless night. His expression quickly turned to [Fear] at the sight of me.

He was about to scream. I immediately rushed into his mouth before he could, then apply a bit of [Humanoid Form] to fill up his lungs and stifle his voice.

…it actually worked. I thought it might, yet I still surprised myself.

He went blue in scant seconds, his face set in a rictus. Once his lifeforce was drained, I wafted through the cracks in the worn-out, rickety-looking door.

I saw light leaking out from my side just after entering the abandoned mine. I peeked through the hole and saw two men, looking like the quintessential bandits, gambling over a card game. Probably the other lookout personnel waiting for their shift.

[Bandit x2]
[Magic Points: 20/20] [Hit Points: 60/60]
[Total Combat Power: 48]

Weaksauce. But, well, if they had the strength of mind to train themselves, they wouldn’t be serving as bandit underlings like this.

The only light source I could see was a single candle-looking thing. I shot out two copper coins I’d been storing inside me.

[Reroll] [Reroll]

One coin missed even with the skill, but the other hit. It snuffed out only the fire, leaving the candle perfectly intact.

“Huh, what happened to the light?”

“Did you drop a coin? I heard something like it.”

The men were startled, but not alarmed. They started to fumble around in the dark for matches. I snuck up to them and choke them out the same way. Their lifeforce was taken without trouble.

This was so much easier than doing combat absorption. Well, the idea might seem ingenious – even I almost thought so, at first – but in hindsight, if I could invade their mouths like this, I might as well stab them in the neck. Simpler that way.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 245/353] 18↑
[Total Combat Power: 280/388] 20↑

A quick magical ping revealed around twenty other signals inside the mine. Some of them must be the slaves. I wonder how many were bandits? Around six of of the signals were immobile, so I headed there first.

In the darkness, I saw a large wooden cage. The bars were logs, around as big as a human adult arm. Inside were beastman slaves, lifelessly sitting on the ground. Two of them were kids.

I felt my heart harden upon seeing the bruise marks on those two.

 

I couldn’t release them right this moment. They still had their chokers. I couldn’t be sure what they’d do.

The other ten signals, most likely the bandits, were all in one room. I was considering how to take them down when two of them started to move this way.

I rose to the ceiling. The two of them, red-faced and stinking of alcohol, entered a side path and headed towards a barred, dilapidated-looking room. Seemed like a storeroom this time, not a prison. They opened the padlock and brought out a wooden crate, full of bottles of some kind of alcohol.

They were about as strong as the underlings before, so I ambushed them from behind. And just like before, I choked them before they could scream. They started to thrash around upon realizing they were being attacked. Their faces gradually turned blue from the lack of oxygen.

The crate of bottles met the hard ground. Surprisingly loud.

I hurried to absorb their lifeforce as fast as I could. Another bandit showed up, probably due to the noise.

“You two, what were you…”

The middle-aged bandit looked at the two with exasperation, perhaps thinking they were only up to some drunken hijinks. Then he saw their discolored faces, and he shouted.

“Enemy atta-agh!”

I rushed forward to mute him, but too late. A group of bandits arrived, and the first thing they saw was a white mist desiccating their comrade.

“It’s a monster!”

 

One versus seven. Balance would be subjected to further changes depending on who had how much magic and enchanted weapons.

“Damn, a wraith! Rabid thing!”

The bandit leader unsheathed a fancy-looking dagger that was hanging from his waist. The blade shone with a faint magical light.

[Bandit Leader]
[Magic Points: 40/40] [Hit Points: 90/90]
[Total Combat Power: 116]

[Middle-Aged Bandit x3]
[Magic Points: 30/30] [Hit Points: 75/75]
[Total Combat Power: 65]

[Underling Bandit x3]
[Magic Points: 20/20] [Hit Points: 60/60]
[Total Combat Power: 50]

The only ones with enchanted weapons were the leader and the three middle-aged men wielding daggers as old as they were.

My honest opinion? Those slave hunters were way more powerful. Just the lack of a magician already cut down a lot of danger for me. And now I was even stronger than back then.

I immediately charged towards the three underlings and envelop them. But they weren’t to be killed, not just yet.

 

“Waaagh!” “It’s on my head! Help!”

“Stay still, you fuckers!”

One of the middle-aged bandit swung his dagger. I maneuver to hide behind an underling, and the blade bit deep into his shoulder. He screamed.

“Fuck!”

“It’s just a wraith! Stop pussying around and kill it!”

Another middle-aged bandit charged in and slashed. I didn’t try to dodge this time, instead pouring myself into his mouth and suck dry his lifeforce from the inside.

“Poison?!” The leader exclaimed.

Nope. He just drew the wrong conclusion from seeing the man’s rapidly paling face. I rushed towards my next target, the leader, and he lost his calm. He started to swing his dagger with wild abandon.

“S-Stay away! You lot, do something already!”

A few of his swings hit. I endured, holding on and draining his life bit by bit. One of the old bandits seemed to have run out of patience – he charged with a powerful thrust.

[Reroll] [Reroll]

“Wha…”

“Aaargh! Damn you…”

I failed at making the stab miss me, but it also cut deeply into the leader’s stomach. He held his wound and dropped to his knees.

I see. Even if the [Fear] was affecting them, forcibly failing a focused attack was still difficult.

But, well, the most dangerous threat had been disabled. I gently rose into the air. Their faces contorted in terror.

Right. Time to clean house.

***

A key clattered inside the cage. The beastman prisoners exclaimed in surprise, swiveling their eyes between me – wearing a baggy robe I ‘borrowed’ from the storeroom – and the key in incomprehension.

Some distance away, I gestured for them to come to me. A man, perhaps the leader of this group of beastmen, seemed to have realized it was the key to the cage. Yet his suspicions hadn’t abated.

“…who are you? What’s a kid doing here?”

I shook my head, then beckoned them one more time.

He came to a conclusion some moments later and nodded to his comrades. They unlocked the cage door and got out.

I repeated the gesture. They were tense, but still nodded and followed me. On the way, they saw the dried-out bandits. Some of the women and children gasped and squeaked.

And we arrived.

“It’s him…!”

The bandit leader was lying in a pool of his own blood, a hole in his stomach. Still alive, if barely. Surprise and hatred colored the prisoners’ gazes.

I pointed towards the weapons gathered in a corner of the room. The beastmen smiled savagely. The dying man’s face warped in despair.

 

“We give our thanks.”

Once they had achieved their vengeance, I showed them the way to the storeroom full of clothing and food. They bowed deeply, then headed off on their own journey.

Apparently this group was a tribe that used to live in the northern forest and grasslands. Human slave hunters found them a few months earlier, and almost the whole tribe was caught. They said most of the humans living in cities only ever saw beastmen as slaves, captured for free labor.

…what the hell was this world’s humanity?

Couldn’t get more information from them, though, considering my muteness. And I didn’t want to stay in contact for too long, lest my true nature got revealed.

Well, I didn’t quite mind. I’d know, sooner or later.

That aside, I think I could use this mine as a hidden base for a while. The beastmen didn’t actually take that much from the storeroom, saying it was supposed to be mine since I was the one who dealt with the bandits, so I think I’d be spending some time auditing.

There were a lot of corpses… but not anymore. Blobsy had a feast. I thought she liked doing laundry, but maybe she was actually aiming for the blood splatter…?

Also, I gained another curious skill out of nowhere.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 216/392] 39↑
[Total Combat Power: 255/431] 43↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Apprentice)] [Skilled Packer]

What is it now…?

***

<<The Guidedog>>

Hello, everyone. Thank you for continuing to support World of Yggdrasia. We have wonderful news for all the beta testers who’ve been with us all the way until now.

A new event is coming: <Subdue the Berserkers>

During the event, fast travelling between Temples within a single country will be free. Locations of the berserk monsters will be updated every 10 minutes. And finally, there will be a special item reward for the entire party for successful subjugations!

Let us all fight for the prizes!

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

I had a new comrade on my journey of pain. It’s a jelly slime. Her name’s Blobsy… wait, was it a her or a him? Pretty sure slimes didn’t have that sort of distinction anyway, so I say she’s female from now on.

Hey, Blobsy. Say hi.

*boing!*

[Blobsy] [Race: Jelly Slime] [Kin of Shedy, the Demon]
[Magic Points: 10/10] [Hit Points: 10/10]
[Total Combat Power: 10]
[Special Skill: Laundry]

She could handle a squirrel at most.

Her special skill was to disintegrate any stubborn stains she touched. A terribly tiny blob. I couldn’t even imagine how she’d fight.

…what should I do? Apparently she’s my kin now, but it seemed next to impossible for her to do anything besides being a cute mascot and washing clothes. Well, the cuteness already made her indispensable to me, though.

Like right now. While I was resting a bit to recover from the stress, Blobsy started to bounce after some grasshoppers, probably for food. Then she returned, giving up after catching nothing, and began munching on some wild grass.

Cuuuute…

I started walking again. She jerked in shock, then panic-bounced after me. Once she caught up, she circled around me in excitement, tired herself out, then desperately climbed me. Now she was blobbing out on my shoulder, resting.

Cuuuute…

I might not know what she was thinking, but she seemed to understand what I wanted. Plus somehow, I always had a sense for her location.

 

And so I continued my journey to search for a human country, with the salve for my bruised soul sitting on my shoulder.

Once we left the horned wolves’ territory, the forest turned out to be surprisingly peaceful. Nothing was jumping out at us every few steps. There were only squirrels, rabbits, deers, and other such animals.

No wonder Blobsy could survive.

But even in such a peaceful forest, there still existed that weakest of monsters: the red caterpillars. Surprisingly ubiquitous, these bugs. They weren’t worth anything to me at this point, and even Blobsy could probably outrun them. It’d be troublesome if they picked a fight, though, so I took off my hood and scared them off with my natural face.

My head was just a blank oval. If I didn’t have the rabbit ears, it’s be just an egg.

Two days since Blobsy came with me, my [Humanoid Form (Amateur)] skill leveled up again.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 330/330] 5↑
[Total Combat Power: 363/363] 6↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Apprentice)]

The amateur was an apprentice, now.

I knew it. Once I acquired the foundation for shapeshifting, it’s a lot easier to improve the skill.

The dishwasher had graduated into the potato-peeler. My food’s good enough for me to eat, but not enough to serve any customers.

I didn’t need to build my sandcastle barehanded anymore – the rise in skill rank gave me a ‘trowel’, so to speak. My hands, once mittens, could do rock-paper-scissors now.

 

I hadn’t been idle with my hunting, either. There weren’t any strong monsters, but I did get attacked by a bear. Not a huge one, just around 120 centimeters. It had some weird white markings around its neck.

It had around 150 combat power, but in the end, it was just a normal animal. Pitiful, both in terms of the damage it could deal to me – which was none – and the experience I got from drinking it dry.

Out of everything, it was Blobsy processing the bear that was most surprising.

She squished herself, spreading out on the carcass. I left her alone for a while, thinking she was just nibbling. 30 minutes later, the whole bear was gone.

Wait a minute… why was she still tiny? Where did all the meat go? She still looked like a 20 centimeters ball of jelly.

I identified her again, but nothing had changed. I suppose it wouldn’t, considering that I was the one who killed it. She only ate the corpse. If you could raise your level just by eating, then all the people of royal and noble families would get crazily muscular the older they get.

 

I walked, inane musings in my mind, and stepped past the forest border before I knew it.

Trees were still there, but sparse. Most of the land was grass. I scouted the area for human presence, thinking I might have finally gotten close to civilization. No signals I found resembled them.

There were a few herbivores dotting the grasslands. They looked like plesiosaurs. Seemed quite docile, and they had slightly higher combat power than me anyway, so I elected to stay away.

I kept along the boundary between the forest and and grassland. It didn’t take long for me to find a well-trodden road. Finally! About 5 meters wide, so it was probably a highway between towns.

Humans recognizing me would be bad, so I put up my hood and detoured away from the road, wading into tall grass and copses of trees. Then I heard sounds of fighting from somewhere far off. I put Blobsy on my head and hurried.

 

A while after, I saw two horse carriages being attacked by a small group of people. A perfectly clichéd scene.

Horses? So this world had trains, but not cars? A closer look revealed a group of spear-wielding men surrounding the carriages, wearing crude armor, numbering ten-odd, and looking much like the typical bandits. The defenders were dog and cat-eared beastpeople wearing ratty clothes.

 

“Don’t let those damn bandits get any closer!” A chubby human shouted from the back of the carriage. Three beastpeople readied their handaxes, faces close to tears, their necks bound by the same kind of choker that I once saw in the hand of the magician who attacked the elves.

I supposed that proved my slave-choker hypothesis, then. And that was some seriously impossible orders. Three slaves with handaxes and knives, wearing nothing but rags, couldn’t possibly hope to win against ten-plus decently equipped bandits.

As I got closer to the scene, Blobsy hid inside the cloak’s pocket. She seemed scared.

 

“With just those few chumps?!” A huge bandit, probably their boss, laughed uproariously. “Leave a carriage for us, and we’ll spare your life! Come on, you lot, deal with them!”

He gave the order to his smirking underlings, yet the men didn’t move. Instead, four well-armed beastman slaves came forward, their neck bound by the same kind of chokers.

…both sides were fighting with slaves? Just giving orders?

Once the bandits’ slaves found out they were about to fight their own people, their faces stiffened in anguish, and they feverishly shook their heads.

 

…was this another game event? I only ever saw demihuman slaves. If this wasn’t an event, then what the hell was this world’s ‘humanity’?

I was dumbfounded, my eyes glued to the scene. Apparently the chokers could compel the slaves – they began fighting with tears in their eyes.

 

“D-Damn animals, protect the goods! If you lose, I’ll send your kids to the mines!”

“Come on, fight harder! What, do you not care for your precious friends and family?”

 

Both the carriage owner and the bandit leader didn’t spare a second thought before using intimidation as their first choice of motivation.

I didn’t even have the chance to interfere before all the trader’s slaves were stabbed to death. None of the bandits’ died, and only one had a rather serious wound on his arm. The battle was over in a blink of an eye.

 

“Damn useless vermins! Waste of money!” The trader swore obscenities at his dead slaves while kicking their corpses.

The bandit leader looked satisfied. He ordered his men to appropriate one of the carriages.

“Bwahaha! Alright, I’ll take that one. Better get some better slaves next time, merchant, or hire adventurers…” He glanced over the wounded slave and nonchalantly mutter, ”Oh, right, you. Can’t use you now, can I?”

 

He stabbed a spear right through the bleeding slave.

 

“Hey, merchant! Compensate for that one too!”

The trader reluctantly acquiesced, his mouth twitching. He handed over several gold coins.

 

…an unspoken agreement, perhaps, between the merchants and the bandits. To turn banditry into a proxy battle, with slaves the only one getting hurt.

The group of bandits leisurely walked off with one carriage. The merchant, unharmed, kept on cursing his slaves for quite a while. His driver had had to calm him down, and they left the area with their single carriage. The four dead slaves were thrown to the roadside and ignored.

 

…was this really a game event?

My original plan was to aim for the bandits preying on travelers. But now, I couldn’t pick a side. I didn’t want to pick a side.

The merchants were pissing me off more, but if I let the bandits go, there was no guarantee I could find them again. At least I remembered all their faces.

‘Hey, Blobsy. Which side should I go for?’

She crawled out of my pocket and bounced in the directions of the bandits.

I see. The more the merrier, right?

‘Hey, can you track the bandits without letting them know?’

She bounced her reply.

 

‘I’ll be dealing with the trader, first.’

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

One day had passed since the encounter with the probable alpha tester. Leaving the territory of the mad wolf seemed prudent, so I turned my back on the mountain range and walked.

Yes, I walked.

I’d been constantly using and practicing my [Humanoid Form (Crude)] since encountering the wolves. Reason? I just realized, perhaps all too late, that encountering strong monsters out of nowhere was a very real possibility when you live in the mountains, forests, basically anywhere without human presence. So I thought that if I made my living just barely near the border of a human country, I wouldn’t be meeting any monster too terrible.

And I could start hunting humans, too, not just monsters… What, attacking travelers? No way. I’d just get adventurers and beta players after me. I was actually aiming for the bandits attacking those travelers.

…there are bandits, right?

So I wanted to look close enough to humans to fool them. It was why I was cutting up my own mind just for the practice.

…wait a minute, wasn’t this exactly how camouflage predators evolved?

That insane wolf… if they really were an alpha tester like me, then there wasn’t much I could do. I wasn’t remotely mentally healthy enough to try to save someone stronger than me, without even knowing how.

That time with the elven village was different. I had an actual chance of victory back then, the solution was simple, I was sort of fired-up after meeting a little kid – they were all reasons, but perhaps the most important one was that in a way, I felt… excited at the prospect of attacking humans.

Crap, was I turning into a deviant?! My mind didn’t seem to be heading down the insanity route, nor any other route too terrible, but I had a feeling the path it was currently on would lead to some serious trouble down the line.

Well, whatever.

So yeah, I’d been mentally processing the [Humanoid Form] skill while walking for a whole day and then some. My latest check showed a change.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 325/325] 17↑
[Total Combat Power: 357/357] 19↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Amateur)]

Surprise! The [Humanoid Form] skill got better… that’s better, right?

So I think that by ranking-up, the quantity and quality of my magic got better, which afforded me the foundations of [Humanoid Form]. ‘Crude’ became ‘Amateur’. To use a cooking analogy, it’d be like I had finally graduated from making charcoals into making something barely edible.

I checked for hostiles nearby. With my privacy confirmed, I dropped the cloak and took a closer look at myself.

I looked better, I think. My skin wasn’t melted wax anymore. Much smoother. No drifting or flowing either, even if behind the skin layer my gaseous body was still circulating.

My body composition finally got good enough so that I could handle it like sculpting clay now, but for some stupid reason, that pair of rabbit ears was impossible to mess with.

…why?

I tried to force the ears to shrink, and my eyes jumped out of their sockets. Then, while I was reeling from the sight, the eyes slowly returned to normal, and the ears popped out again.

…why!?

Being called ‘a rabbit’ due to the albinism was, to me, nothing but an insult, no more. At least, that’s what I thought. I never expected it had actually gotten to me so much…

On the bright side, they weren’t the pointy kind of rabbit ears. They were droopy – lop ears, in other words – which meant that the cloak should hide them just fine.

If I ever managed to fully humanize myself, I’d have to pose as a rabbit girl. And I didn’t even know if that particular beastman race existed.

With the improvement in [Humanoid Form], I could make fingers now. Oh, I’d missed actually picking things up. Wearing the cloak came a lot easier… hey, didn’t it look kinda dirty?

Not surprising, I supposed. It had looked old even when worn by that weird beta player. After the many times it was  dropped on the ground from my practice, exposed to the rain and wind for over a week straight, and dragged on the dirt and rocks due to my lack of height when shapeshifted, now the undyed garment was no better than a rag.

I mean, I used to have one like it in real life, but this was a game. No need to keep it dirty. Actually, this was pretty amazing technology. The game was realistic enough to simulate the damage and dirt when you abuse it. I’d known this was cutting-edge technology, but the realism was still astonishing.

I focused all my attention on my hearing. Hmm, nothing here… I moved away, checking from time to time, until I finally found what I’d been looking for.

The splashing of a river.

Yes, I’d been planning on washing the cloak.

It was a rivulet of spring water, trickling through rocks and pebbles, just about 30 centimeters wide.

I made my bipedal body squat down near the stream, which took a surprising amount of effort. Remember when I described the similarities of moving myself to puppetry? Well, I wasn’t sure if it’s because my skill level went up or if I simply got used to it, but it felt like I had more strings to control, now.

‘You couldn’t do this kind of stuff in normal video games! I was just enjoying the true VR experience!’ I thought, trying my best to convince myself that the scene of a demon doing laundry wasn’t the stupidest thing in the world.

I sighed. I’d been sidestepping the stress and irritation by latching onto new thoughts as soon as they came. Apparently, that had the side effect of loosening my personality into something a lot more inane.

I kept on trying – and failing – to wash the stains off. After a while, I saw something in the corner of my vision (well, I had 360 degrees vision, so it wasn’t like there were corners; more like the part of my vision that I didn’t actively pay attention to) moved.

*boing*

…what was this? It looked like a translucent mass of light-green, about 20 centimeters. It was camouflaged pretty well with the amount of green around me. When I saw it, it was bouncing around about 2 meters downstream from where I was, looking like it was trying to scoop some water.

…a ball of jelly? I think it was a slime, but not drippy and gooey like I used to be. This one looked far jigglier and bouncier.

Was this rivulet where the local docile monsters came to drink?

It didn’t show any sign of fear, so perhaps it hadn’t noticed me yet. Let’s keep it that way.

I continued *boing* scrubbing *boing* the cloth… why was the (possible) slime bouncing? Why did it look like it was having fun?

Well, whatever. I had to admit, the cloak just didn’t want to get clean. Maybe some detergent would’ve helped, but it’s not like I could get any.

I held up the soaked cloak and checked my work. Fine. This was good enough. Too much scrubbing would just damage the fabric, and I cleaned off most of the dirt anyway. There were still a few tough black stains…

*boing*

The (possible) slime was bouncing right below the garment, drinking up the dripping droplets.

Since when?! And it wasn’t afraid of me? Was it actually super powerful?

[Slime?]
[Magic Points: 5/5] [Hit Points: 5/5]
[Total Combat Power: 5]

That’s… weak. Even weaker than I was when I started. Perhaps it wasn’t even smart enough to know fear.

Other possibilities included… alpha testers? Nah, no way. I didn’t want to entertain the pitiful idea that there was a human being inside of a monster so stupid as to be happy just from drinking laundry water.

So a real monster, then… such a weird one.

…wait a minute? Maybe it wasn’t playing with the droplets. Maybe it liked the grime in the water?

I moved the soaked cloak closer to it. The (possible) slime hopped in excitement and latched onto the hem of the garment.

I see, so it’s really the grime, then… hey, no! Stop that! Don’t melt my cloth!

I hastily pulled the cloak up. It boing’ed in protest.

…at least, I thought it was protesting. All the bouncing looked the same to me.

I didn’t mind it cleaning the dirt, but this was the only thing I had to wear. It wasn’t allowed to eat it.

I patted the wet cloak a few times while shaking my head, and then I pointed to the dirty part and nodded once. Hopefully it understood my miming. It probably did, since it replied with a few more bounces.

…again, I was just guessing here. I didn’t speak Bouncese.

Once more, I slowly lowered the cloak. This time the (probable) slime latched onto the correct part of the garment. It dissolved only the dirt, while leaving the fabric unharmed. Wow, that is amazing.

I signaled it to stop, pulling the cloak away. It did, jiggling and quivering, somehow looking like an obedient dog. I firmly nodded, then pushed the garment back. It merrily crawled all over the cloth, wiping out the black stains in mere seconds. The cloak now looked just like new if you ignore the tears.

The ball hopped, in what I was assuming to be a moment of pride in its work. I petted it as praise-oh wow this is totally jelly. Super jiggly.

After some struggling, I got back into the half-dried cloak – did it absorb the water too? It saw me dressing, and again it bounced in excitement.

Well, my limbed form only had the height of a five-years old. The cloak was going to get filthy again soon, considering I was dragging it everywhere, but this wasn’t a problem I could solve.

Right, clothes cleaned, plus a cute mascot to relax to. I was feeling good.

Let’s get going. I wanted to bring it along too, but I didn’t think a wild monster would be tamed so easily just by feeding it (if I counted ‘dripping dirty water’ as ‘feeding’). And it was weak as heck. I’d be worried if it tagged along.

I waved goodbye to the jiggly ball and began another session of intense puppetry. It didn’t take long for me to realize, from the corner of my eyes, that the bouncing ball was still following me.

I stopped, questions popping up in my mind. You’re a slime, you’re supposed to be crawling… no, wait, that wasn’t what I should be thinking about. Why was it following me?

‘Hey, I didn’t have any more food for you, you hear me?’

It took the chance to approach my feet and start jiggling, waiting for me.

…god that’s cute.

What was going on with this creature? This (probable) slime… okay, that’s just too verbose of a name.

Alright. I was in a good mood – a rare happening these days – so you’ll be Friend Number Two (Number One being the elven kid). Let’s name you.

It’s a slime, so… hmm… Slimer? Nah, that thing’s ugly, and I didn’t have a proton pack. It’ll be my friend-slash-pet, so Fido… rejected. It wasn’t even a dog. Oh, whatever, it’s a blob, it’s “Blobsy” from now on.

The very moment I made the decision in my thoughts, Blobsy suddenly started to wiggle and hopped in a circle around me, looking overjoyed.

What…? Did something happen to it? I identified Blobsy once more.

[Blobsy] [Race: Jelly Slime] [Kin of Shedy, the Demon]
[Magic Points: 10/10] [Hit Points: 10/10]
[Total Combat Power: 10]
[Special Skill: Laundry]

…more lines in the description. And it was my [Kin] now.

At least I was sure it was no alpha tester, but what?!

---

AN: She’s got a friendpet now… this novel’s getting a lot more Animal Planet, isn’t it?

It’d lose a lot of a slime’s cuteness if it turns human or talks, so it’s not going to do either even after growing up. Maybe. Who knows? :D

First arc’s about to enter the climax soon.

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

“Secret alpha tester No. 44. Time elapsed: 317 hours, 18 minutes. Cessation of neural activity confirmed. As per procedure, requesting dispatch of disposal team.”

“Secret alpha tester No. 62 and No. 71. Time elapsed: 317 hours, 20 minutes. Confirmed logout from mental collapse. As per procedure, requesting transport to the collection facility.”

“Secret alpha tester No. 99. Signs of mental collapse confirmed after evolving to the second stage.”

 

The 7th research center was monitoring the alpha test subjects within the MMORPG, World of Yggdrasia. Monotonous announcements of the test subjects’ terrible fates rang out, one after another.

At the 100 hours mark, ten percent had dropped out. Once the subjects began to reach their first evolutions, the number of survivors plummeted.

It was the 13th day since the start of the experiment. Seven subjects died from cessation of brain activity. Thirty-one in a vegetative state after their mental collapses and subsequent forced logouts.

 

“Oh wow, a bunch of them at once.” Brian said, bemused.

This man was the deputy director of the 7th research center. The actual director was an ex-politician appointed to the position through a revolving door, and so the facility’s leader was effectively Brian himself.

His secretary-cum-researcher nodded and replied softly, “Our psychologists proposed the following theory to explain for the occurence: these particular subjects had chosen to start with demihuman and animal-type avatars, which had basic actions programmed. However, upon evolution and reaching the second stage, their avatars lost most of the programmed actions, only retaining the bare basics, due to their shapes and range of movements being incongruent to normal living beings. The mental pressure compounded with the Disconnect to elevate their distress and fear, and this could have quickened their collapse of the psyche.”

“Right. So did the doctors mention any solution?”

“Yes. According to the medical team, the easiest solution would be medication, or log the subjects out and stabilize their minds. The game development department suggested analyzing the action feedback from the subjects in order to update the programmed movements for monster avatars as soon as possible.”

“So only impractical solutions, then,” Brian chuckled.

 

Investigating the limits of mental stress that the human mind could handle was one of their purposes, that was true, but not the most important one.

Put a person with a broken ego into a monster vessel, and chances are high operation of the avatar would be near optimal. To investigate how much mental stress resulted from what actions, it was most efficient to push the subjects’ minds as much as possible. Nearly 40% had dropped out after just 13 days, despite the original plan calling for half a year. At the same time, the results they gained was commensurate. The top brass was very satisfied with their progress.

The project’s next test subjects would be actual soldiers. Partially to prepare for them, and partially since the center had managed to acquire test subjects with no official presence in society, Brian planned on squeezing every last drop of science from the orphans.

 

“Right, aren’t there still a few stable ones?”

“Yes, Deputy Director. We retain seventeen relatively stable subjects. However, the majority of them were laying low, far away from human civilization, only barely active.”

“Well, we can’t have that. Ideas to deal with the problem?”

“Reports from the data processing department said they’ve been leaking the testers’ locations to the local adventurer’s guild in-game, plus several online forums and wikis anonymously. Shall we keep it going?”

“Yeah, that’s good. Keep it up. That reminds me, what happened to the berserkers?”

“Over half have been killed by beta testers. 6 subjects had deteriorated into mental collapse from the fear of being hunted by humans.”

“Any of them stable, active, and evolved?”

“Yes. Their stabilities varied, but No. 01, No. 08, No. 13, and No. 17 have been actively entering combat, and also reached the third stage, the rank-up,” the secretary said. She looked at the screen showing the surviving subjects and continued, faint admiration in her words. “The first twenty-three truly lived up to expectations. Only five had dropped out, and it looked like they’d been making good use of their inborn abilities.”

 

***

 

The elves had left for a new land, and the boy had given me a new name as the guardian spirit of this forest.

But I was a demon, not a spirit. And I didn’t even live here!

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 303/303] 3↑
[Total Combat Power: 333/333] 3↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Crude)]

Oh, whatever… I’d have to drop my real name sooner or later, anyway.

In hindsight, picking that fight was a pretty harebrained idea, but it turned out well in the end. I got so much stronger compared to the first day of the game.

I was quite sure I had reached the top of the food chain in this forest by now. Even killing black caterpillars only gave me a pittance of power. And not just that, they were running from me the moment they sensed me, now. Considering all that, I supposed killing humans really was the most efficient way.

Or maybe the bugs were running away because of the new skill I got from the rank-up…

[Racial Skill: Fear]
・A passive skill of the demon race. Terrifies the weak.

…wow, how the hell did that boy not run away from me?

Could I still disguise myself with the cloak? If someone with good presence-sensing skills was to see me, wouldn’t they feel the fear?

Damn it, this was the most obnoxious skill ever. At first glance it might seem useful for combat, but it only worked with enemies so weak as to be inconsequential in the first place, and anything I wanted to hunt would just run away from me.

I supposed I really should leave, then.

But it’d be really awkward to pop up in front of the boy again after that tearful goodbye, so I traveled in the other direction. Those elves cleaned up everything belonging to the slavers I killed. All I had was the usual cloak and my miscellanies.

 

Floating for a while reaffirmed my realization that yes, I had to focus my mind on something, otherwise the discomfort would rear its head again. I had been forcing myself to believe that the discomfort and everything wrong I felt was just the brain’s hallucinations, but reality’s never as easy as you’d like.

But, well, I didn’t need to crawl along on the ground anymore. Just drifting along didn’t provoke the sense of disconnect too badly, and my mind didn’t melt as much. This was pretty much the only good thing in choosing the Ghast.

At least, it was a lot more comfortable than moving with legs.

…could I ever return to a normal human life? I wanted to get in some practice for shapeshifting too, but those rabbit ears just did not go away.

Fine, let’s leave [Humanoid Form] for later thinking.

Got a bit faster, too. I crossed forests and mountains at a power walker’s pace, and three days later, the scenery finally changed.

The thick, gloomy, broad-leaved forest gradually gave way to a bright, open woodland of needle-leaf trees. Far away, a humongous mountain range dominated the horizon.

…so turned out I just got even further away from human civilization.

Well, whatever. I slightly increased my scouting range and found a few magical signals, somewhat stronger than the monsters and animals living in that elven forest. Might be perfect for me as I was now.

I started to move towards them. The signal was rather fast, but stopped midway, as if to feed on something. Then I saw it.

[Horned Wolf]
[Magic Points (MP): 58/70] [Hit Points (HP): 116/120]
[Total Combat Power: 112]

Stronger than a black caterpillar, so it must give decent experience, right? High magic plus the horn meant it should be a monster.

I estimated around 5 to 6 experience points for each wolf. Thankfully, there were a lot of them. I could cover the quality with quantity.

…how did I get so much experience from humans when they were so much weaker? Was this why monster attack people?

Let’s think about that later. I snuck up behind the wolf, currently busy devouring a rabbit, and struck.

It howled in pain, struggling violently in my grasp, then chomped at me. Ouch! That hurt a bit more than non-magical attacks from humans.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 298/303]
[Total Combat Power: 328/333]

I was careless, relying on my physical resistance. Perhaps the claws and fangs of monsters were magical, like enchanted weapons.

The wolf kept on raging against its restraint and howling. Stop that already.

But well, as I was, the most it could do was just prickling me, so I kept with the absorption and desiccated it. The experience received was just as I predicted.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 302/308]  5↑
[Total Combat Power: 328/338] 5↑

I wanted that horn too, but I wasn’t as corporeal as I used to be pre-evolution. I couldn’t exactly do physical attacks, and thus, couldn’t take the corpse apart.

Seemed like I’d gotten quite used to fighting and the gore, now. I’d managed to learn how to sidestep the constant mental ‘pain’, but I also felt more aggressive from time to time. Problematic.

Alright, anything else to kill? I re-expanded my detection range. A few magical signals were speeding towards me.

…wait, what?

 

A chorus of howls answered me.

 

Shit, that was a wolf pack! More than ten of them. The howling when I was fighting that wolf must’ve had summoned the pack!

This was bad. Their hits could only scratch me, but considering the number, I’d be dead of a thousand cuts. And I couldn’t recover mid-fight like that time with the slavers – individual wolf kills gave me too little.

I ran, floating up high enough so their fangs wouldn’t reach me. Discretion is the better part of valor. I wasn’t going to die and get my magic cut in half again after all this work.

My best speed was just around a human runner’s. The wolves were faster. ‘But they should give up once they saw that they couldn’t reach me’, I thought, and that was when they started to run up a tree and follow me from the branches.

Oh that was just unfair. I could just about imagine them laughing at my thoughts. What sort of super-wolves were these?! They weren’t even scared of me. Was mob psychology bolstering their courage? Shit, what to do, what to do…

 

Then I heard another far-off howl, reverberating from the depths of the woods. I shivered.

Another wolf? The boss of this gang? But then, why did I feel like that howl came from two different voices? And even the wolves feared it. What was that…?

 

Some distance away from us, a tree cracked, falling to the side to reveal the beast.

It was an azure horned wolf with a flaming mane, twice as big as the others. But those eyes. They were steeped in dark hatred, cursing all of existence. Two pairs of eyes on two heads.

…what are you?

 

The two-headed horned wolf approached in an instant. And then – I couldn’t believe my eyes – it began to rip into and tear apart the other wolves.

The wolf pack scattered in panic. I was watching the carnage from above, stunned, when the two-headed wolf pounced at me, despite me being five meters off the ground.

No, shit, wait, owww!

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 270/308] 
[Total Combat Power: 310/338] 

Holy hell! It took off ten percent just by scratching me! Right, what about you…

[Two-headed Horned Wolf]
[Magic Points: 143/170] [Hit Points: 263/280]
[Total Combat Power: 466]

What was this power?! That was fifty percent more than mine!

Nope. No fighting this. The normal horned wolves were still yelping, tails tucked between their legs. I immediately dove into the pack, mingling, trying to get the two-headed to target one of them.

Terribly cruel, even if I say so myself, but it wasn’t the time for that sort of thinking. Luckily it worked, and while the mad beast was ravaging the wolves, I took the chance to retreat as fast as I could.

I was out of the fight. I was pretty sure I didn’t have any sort of smell for it to track me, but I couldn’t take chances here. I kept flying, blindly, without a thought as to my destination. After a while, I thought I heard a howl of sadness, of resentment, coming from the distance.

…were you… an alpha tester?

 

I thought all the other testers were fine, considering how I had managed to endure… but maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe they were suffering.

I looked up at the moon, my mood introspective. A mental sigh resounded in my mind.

I just want my spot of solace…

---

Author’s Note: Main character’s pretty much the only one who seemed easy-going…

---

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

I fought to prevent the hunters from reaching the elven village, and now the villagers were pointing their arrows at me. They likely found out about the battle from all the fire magic and the shouting. And it seemed like they realized the men were slave hunters, judging from the arrow through the goon’s chest.

Three men. Likely, they were all the fighting force the settlement could muster.

[Adult Elf x3] [Race: Elf♂] [Hunter]
[Magic Points (MP): 50/50] [Hit Points (HP): 60/60]
[Total Combat Power: 63]

The women had to stay back for their kids. Against 9 slavers, the settlement would’ve had no hope..

And now they had to contend with a single monster who wiped the floor with those slavers.

Yes, hello, it’s me. No wonder they were on guard. The bow-wielding elves weren’t so much wary as they were terrified. Likely, it was the reason why they didn’t shoot me directly – instead of risking my anger with a hit, they were warning me that they had their eyes on me, that I’d better go somewhere else. No, not a warning. A plea.

Okay, fine…

I drifted off, as non-confrontational as possible. The elves still had their bows trained on me, but relief was clear on their faces. I continued moving deeper into the forest. Once they disappeared from my sight, I hurried upwards to the canopy of a nearby tree and let loose a sigh of relief of my own.

God, I thought I almost had a heart attack… Well, my body was in cold sleep, but still.

I barely had any magic left. If their bows were magically enchanted, a volley could have killed me.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 24/238]
[Total Combat Power: 47/262]
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Terrible)]

[Rank-up Available]

I practically had one foot in the grave already.

Now, this Rank-up thing. I understood that it was different from an evolution. Did it mean becoming a stronger kind of Ghast, then? I couldn’t even begin to imagine what the result would be.

Well, let’s try some [Identification].

[Rank-up Available]
・Transform into a higher-ranking race.

Exactly what it said on the tin, then.

I supposed ranking up would make me immobile again? This probably wasn’t going to be as large a change as evolving, so I might as well try…

Just as well that my magic was near empty, then. If ranking up put my magic back to 1 again, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. And I should be getting as strong as I can, in preparations for any more unforeseen battles.

I started the process.

………

……

…

Morning of the next day. My magic was back to full. He should be out helping his family around this time, so I headed towards where we promised to meet.

The rank-up worked, nothing particularly noteworthy happened. Didn’t have to recover my magic back from 1, and my body didn’t change much, either. At most, the gas just looked a little thicker. I moved somewhat better in [Humanoid Form] now, so that was good.

After last night, perhaps the elven boy wouldn’t even show up.

On the way, I detoured to where the fight happened to recover my cloak. It was still there, for some reason, but the corpses were gone. Perhaps the elves buried them, perhaps just throwing the corpses somewhere far away, or perhaps like most other games, corpses disappeared after a certain amount of time. At any rate, it had been a whole night. The elves should have gone back home.

I arrived, peeking into the meeting spot from behind a tree. The boy was standing there, alone, a few fruits stuffed in his pockets.

Hey now, that’s very dangerous. A little kid all alone in the forest. What if there were monsters?

I turned humanoid, wore the cloak, and moved towards him. He flashed a smile the moment he saw me.

“Hey. You’re here.”

Yes, I am.

I ceased my sluggish steps and waved. He didn’t get any closer. Good, seemed like he remembered our talk yesterday, as one-sided as it was. He looked relieved, but at the same time, grimaced slightly.

Hmm, what’s this? He looked… somewhat different? Ah, right, no basket on his back today. Why?

“Umm… So, uh… We’ll be leaving this place soon…” The boy said, forcing the words.

What? I asked him with a head-tilt.

“Some scary humans came yesterday. They were slave hunters. The grown-ups said we’d ran away from them once, when I was younger, but they found us again.”

Yeah, but I dealt with them, though?

“And then this ‘white monster’ killed them all. It’s dangerous to live here now, so we’re leaving.”

…right.

I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised. No slavers could be as scary as a monster.

“H-Hey,” the boy interrupted my thoughts, his voice resolute, “You killed those bad people, right? You must be this forest’s elemental spirit, I knew you were!”

…what?

“I told the grown-ups so, but they didn’t believe me. They said you were a scary monster. But I know that’s not true, I know you’re a good elemental!”

No no no, I was worse than monsters. I was a demon.

“Sorry, I have to go soon… Ah, can you tell me your name?”

I thought you knew I couldn’t speak?

I tried to pantomime my muteness, pointing fingers towards my mouth and shaking my head with jerky movements, like a puppet on strings. Realization dawned on the boy’s face.

“I see! You don’t have a name yet! Alright, I’ll name you then!”

…no, seriously, what?

“Let’s see… Right, there was this elven legend about elementals living on cold mountains called shedim¹. And you’re like the white snow, too! So I’ll call you Shedy! It’s perfect!”

Hey, no, wait, what about my opinion…

The naming seemed to have satisfied him. He gave a few vigorous wipes of his face with the shirt’s sleeves, hiding tearful eyes, and before I could do anything, ran off towards the hamlet.

“I’ll see you again, Shedy! I’ll come find you once I get older! I promise!” he turned around and spoke to me for the last time.

I gave a wordless cry.

The elven boy, born and raised in the forest, disappeared in scant moments. He hadn’t even told me his name.

I wasn’t an actual elemental, nor was I living in this forest. I could follow him, but after that farewell full of emotions, it’d be awkward as all hell if I just show up in front of him again so soon.

He was an elf in the first place. How many years would it take for him to grow up? Time passed at the same rate both within and without the game, right?

Such a pity. I finally found a spot of solace in the kid, and now he’s leaving.

Well, whatever… I got more information, and the rank-up strengthened me. That was good enough.

[Shedy] [Race: White Ghast] [Low Demon (High-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. An intelligent spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 300/300] 62↑
[Total Combat Power: 330/330] 68↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Racial Skill: Fear]
[Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Crude)]

…I suddenly had a craving for canned white asparagus. So weird. And I had a name, now…

Managed to dropped one of the ‘low’ in my rank, plus the ‘fragile’ in my description… was this the actual starting point for monsters?

New racial skill, more magic, more strength, and I think I could move faster now. The ‘Terrible’ in my shapeshifting skill turned into ‘Crude’. That’s… better, right? So I guessed it really wasn’t the rank of the skill, but an evaluation of my own design skill.

I tested it out. Driving my humanoid body used to feel like moving iron sand with magnets; now it felt like pulling puppet strings instead. I still only looked like a human if you squint really hard, though.

Before, I could only barely hold my form into a melting wax statue. Now, the melting had stopped, and I felt like I had actual joints. Still wasn’t good enough to appear in front of other people without my cloak.

But I had a more important problem – that wasn’t to say that my waxy look wasn’t a problem, mind you.

For some reason, my bipedal form now had long, droopy ears.

I had had bullies picking on me since a long time ago, and one of their nicknames for me had been ‘Rabbit’, for my white hair and red eyes. Yes, okay, sure, but that was not a good reason for me to be growing rabbit ears.

---

1. In Jewish mythology, shedim was a kind of spirit or demon. Several sources gave conflicting descriptions, but this particular one stood out for the similarities to this novel:

“…In Nahmanides’ opinion the demons (shedim) are to be found in waste (shedudim), ruined, and cold places such as in the North. They were not created out of the four elements but only out of fire and air. They have subtle bodies, imperceptible by the human senses, and these subtle bodies allow them to fly through fire and air. Because they are composed of different elements, they come under the laws of creation and decay and they die like human beings. Their sustenance is derived from water and fire, from odors and saps; hence necromancers burned incense to demons. Despite the element of subtle fire which they contain, they are surrounded by a coldness that frightens off the exorcisers (this detail is singled out only in later sources)…”

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Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter

I detected a few magical signals approaching the small elven settlement, most likely humans. Combined with the word ‘slave hunters’ I heard, I had a bad feeling about this.

I headed towards them. An hour later at normal walking speed, I saw nine humans.

They… probably weren’t beta players.

Dirty, unkempt looks, ratty leather coats. Unlike the players I met before, they weren’t paying much attention to their appearance. Of course, they might be players roleplaying as bandits, but I doubted that. It had only been 10 days since the game started. I didn’t think those kind of roleplayers would show up so soon.

I got as close as I dare, to take a closer look on their equipment.

They had more handaxes and bows than swords, plus plenty of ropes on their belts. Only one looked like a magician. That one was fiddling with a choker.

…that was way more evidence than I ever asked for.

 

Let’s assume they were truly slave hunters.

If this game event happened due to the kid’s talk about slave hunters, then their target must be the elven settlement.

Maybe they were a group of simple animal hunters making a living. The ropes were to capture large animals like deers, the magician was fiddling with that choker because he was bored… yeah, I know, that was a stretch even by my standard.

So then, what do I do?

My original goal was to gain strength and survive until the end of the alpha test, for ten years of life and a new identity.

The experiment’s goal was to investigate the mental stress of the ‘disconnect’ born from using a monster avatar extremely different from the human body. There was no need for me to clear the game.

Being slaves did not necessarily mean being mistreated. The elven villagers were just NPCs, there was no need for me to care…

Sorry, I lied. I cared a ton.

I might have become a lot more apathetic to sapient life ever since my mental health started plummeting, but I had met this boy. I’d talked to him. I couldn’t let anything bad happen to him.

 

There were two choices here.

One, I warn the village of the danger… if only I could speak. I could try to threaten them, but what if their programming didn’t allow them to run? Then I’d be their enemy.

Two, I deal with these people before they could find the settlement… well, they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t know where it was already. Before they could approach the settlement, then.

I couldn’t just chase them away. I needed to make sure they never come back.

I didn’t know if I could even win here, though.

[Magician x1] [Race: Human♂] [Slave Hunter]
[Magic Points (MP): 65/65] [Hit Points (HP): 48/48]
[Total Combat Power: 86]

[Hunter x3] [Race: Human♂] [Slave Hunter]
[Magic Points (MP): 40/40] [Hit Points (HP): 70/70]
[Total Combat Power: 70]

[Goon x5] [Race: Human♂] [Slave Hunter]
[Magic Points (MP): 30/30] [Hit Points (HP): 60/60]
[Total Combat Power: 57]

Unsurprisingly, they were weaker than beta players. But they still had around the same power as a black caterpillar, plus human intelligence and magic. They weren’t exactly easy opponents. Intelligence was what allows one to defeat more powerful enemies, and was the reason why humans were so scary. Yet that was still no reason for me to retreat here.

…but what if they weren’t actually slave hunters? As soft as I was, I couldn’t act until I was 100% sure. I made plans to confirm.

 

First off, I used [Humanoid Form (Terrible)] – a skill in name only, as what should have been processed by the system was all offloaded to my brain – to turn humanoid, then wore the cloak.

I approached, then stopped hiding myself when I was close enough and started walking towards them, taking several seconds for a single step.

The day was nearly over. I supposed the (probable) slave hunters were planning on making camp until morning.

 

“Hey! There’s something over there!”

As I moved closer, the one keeping a lookout shouted to his fellows.

Yes, there’s something here all right. Look, I’m a defenseless kid wandering around in the dark…

The magician tilted his head, looked at me, then smirked.

 

“My, a kid found us. That won’t do, that won’t do at all. Hey, folks, don’t let him escape. The more elven kids we get, the better. They fetch a high price among our more… degenerate buyers.”

“Yeah!” “Got it.”

Two of the goons cracked their knuckles and loosened their shoulders. They approached, looking like this was just another chore to be done, but their leering smiles betrayed their excitement.

 

…guilty as charged.

The forest was darkening, and the goons weren’t expecting trouble. I shot my body out from the coat’s sleeves and covered their faces.

“Wha?!” “Smoke?!”

They panicked. I absorbed their life force as fast as I could. Their comrades still hadn’t realized anything was wrong, with me hidden behind the goons in the gloomy forest.

 

Seeing the two men desperately waving hands in front of their faces, the rest of them stood, finally alarmed. “What happened?”

The two goons gurgled and dropped to the ground. The magician started, eyes wide open.

“Get away from that kid! That’s a monster!”

 

Whoops. But I got two of them!

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 168/176] 16↑
[Total Combat Power: 185/194] 18↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Terrible)]

Plenty of new magic for me. A moment later, an arrow pierced through me.

“Did that kill it?!” A hunter shouted

You killed some air. It tingled a bit, at most. I abandoned my cloak and flew at him.

“Aaaargh!!!”

“Get away from it! That must be a Wraith! Load up your magitools with magic stones, now!”

“No, no, no! Save me!”

The magician merciless set fire on both the enveloped hunter and me. Damn if it wasn’t hot! But I held on, sucking out his last wisps of life. He shriveled up, sowing even more confusion among the men.

They just finished putting some sort of black stones into their bows. I assumed those were the ‘magic stones’ and ‘magitools’. Some sort of enchanted weapons. Those would probably be able to inflict damage on my barely-tangible body, but I had already moved before the men could do anything.

 

Towards the goons unequipped with anything effective.

 

“It’s coming here!” “Stay away! Stay away!”

Humans had more magic than wild animals, so they could still barely hurt me. However, I had more around triple their combat power. I had nothing to worry from them.

“C-Come on, fiend! S-See how you like this!”

In his fear and confusion, one of the more tough-looking goons drew his dirty short sword.

 

“Watch out! One of the Wraith’s ability is to cause fear!” The magician’s voice rang out.

Well. I wasn’t a wraith, but close enough, I supposed.

The sword-wielding goon swung his sword in wild abandon – apparently just seeing me was enough to terrorize him. I absorbed all his life force in one go.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 158/191] 15↑
[Total Combat Power: 177/210] 18↑

My maximum magic went up from killing the hunter and the goons, but my combat power went down from all the damage.

Ow-shit! The hunters used their bows!

The goons tried to run from me. I caught up, then used them as meat shields.

But the hunters no longer cared about friendly fire. One of the arrows pierced clean through a goon’s neck. He gurgled and went down.

If they weren’t worrying about their own comrades, then neither need I. I snatched up the last of his dwindling life.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 149/193] 2↑
[Total Combat Power: 168/212] 2↑

Eh? I got almost nothing. Might be because he was nearly dead, might be because someone else killed him.

There were more important things to worry about. Mainly, that there was still half of them left, while my combat power had dropped too much. One magician, two hunters, one goon… All the strong ones were left. Damn.

 

“Fucking useless dumbasses! What the fuck am I paying you for?! Kill that thing!”

“But Boss, it’s strong!” “We lost too many of us. Let’s retreat!”

“Shut the fuck up! The nobles wanted us to bring back young girls and elven kids! We can’t go back like this!”

 

Oh, I see… They wanted elven children slaves. A part of me understood that this was just a game event, that they were just NPCs, but the rest of me was too busy being incensed.

The group kept shooting and the magician kept throwing fire even as they argued. I ignored the hits and attacked the weakest one first.

 

“Noooo, stay away, stay awaaaaaay!!!”

“Stay, you maggot! Stay and keep it still! The rest, keep shooting!”

“Don’t hate us, alright? You were just unlucky,” one of the hunters clicked his tongue.

 

Yeah, sure, don’t hold a grudge for being sacrificed. But considering it was me they were sacrificing to, it wasn’t really my place to say anything.

The goon hysterically ran about, and I chased after my future meat shield. Then one of the hunters shot through his leg. The goon screamed.

“Good job! [Fire Bolt]!”

There weren’t anywhere for me to hide, now. The magician shot a bullet of flame at me.

 

[Reroll]

 

The mass of flame exploded in front of me. Freaking hot! At least it wasn’t a direct hit. I could bear with this.

“What?!”

I used the flame as a smokescreen and attacked the bow-wielding hunter closest to me.

It wasn’t really anything amazing. I just stretched out a part of me and tried to ‘parry’ the bullet of fire away, for a lack of a better term. I couldn’t afford to fail there, so I used [Reroll] to raise my chances of success. It worked, the spell’s damage was reduced by half, and I could get moving right away after the parry.

The hunters were fast, but not the one carelessly believing I was down from the fire. I landed a clean grab on him. He rolled and writhed around, desperately trying to dislodge me.

“Stay right there! This is our chance!”

“Boss, stop!”

The magician was about to burn the both of us like he did with the goon, and this time the other hunter took offense to that. I took the chance to absorb the life of the downed hunter post-haste.

“I am your employer! Shut up and follow my fucking orders!”

“We accepted because we were promised a few elves of our own, not to get fucking killed by a fucking dumbass!”

The magician screamed in incoherent rage. He readied a particularly powerful fire spell, to be cast at the hunter.

Here’s my chance!

 

[Reroll]

 

I forced the spell to fail, and it exploded right on their heads. They howled in pain and stumbled, faces held in hands.

The magician losing his calm probably contributed to my own success with the skill. Also, I confirmed that using the skill on someone else drove up the cost immensely. I felt like I just lost almost half my magic in one go.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
[Magic Points: 63/193] 
[Total Combat Power: 82/212]

I absorbed the last dregs of life from the nearly-mummified hunter, then went on to envelop both the magician and the final hunter all at once. My combat power was low, my movement was sluggish, and I was getting quite irritated.

“W-Wha-”

“Damn wraith! Stop!”

Screw you, I wasn’t a wraith.

“Guurgh…”

“Fuck! [Fire]!”

The hunter went limp nearly immediately, but the magician’s high magic power took time to completely absorb. He burned me as I clinged on his face, scorching my life. I held on.

The spells he used only helped me empty his magic faster. A few seconds later, he finally slumped on the ground. The battle was over.

 

With victory, relief washed over me. I only barely won. I’d been on tenterhooks the whole fight, and it ended with me having only a sliver of health left. Too dangerous.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 27/238] 45↑
[Total Combat Power: 50/262] 69↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Terrible)]

[Rank-up Available]

My maximum power grew a bunch, but I was as weak as the day I began the game. I still couldn’t believe I won… wait a minute… rank-up?!

…more weird stuff.

This… wasn’t evolution? Well, whatever, that was for future me to think about. Current me was feeling too drained, my mind heavily abused from the exertion of the fight and the lack of magic.

 

So, the village. Should be pretty safe now… oh, right. That one goon with his leg shot was still alive.

I honestly wasn’t all that keen on killing someone defenseless, but if he report back, there’d be more slave hunters coming. So I made up my mind. I slowly rose. The goon quivered, watching me with fear evident in his eyes.

Then an arrow went through his chest, and another into the ground beneath me.

What?! I expanded my consciousness to scout for threats. Several adult elves emerged from the forest depths, bows pointing towards me warily.

…oh boy. What do I do?

---

Author’s Note: The fights still seem low-key, but that’s only for the moment. We’ll be getting to the big booms sooner or later.

A bit of exposition for [Reroll]:

Actions have a fixed 3% chance of being a critical failure.

Chances of success for physical attacks are lowered by the opponent’s dodge rate. Magic-like effects can vary in power, is modified by the opponent’s resistance plus other factors, but they only rarely fail completely.

However, one trait is shared among all demon-types: the ability to cause fear to living beings. When a demon is feared by a weaker opponent, for each rank the demon possesses, the opponent’s success rate drops by 10%.

The Reroll skill also has ranks. At its current rank, the protagonist can use it twice in a row. The skill consumes 10 magic each time it fails. If it succeeds, and if the skill was used on a target that wasn’t the skill user, it consumes an amount of magic according to the power difference between the target and the user. And of course, rerolling can fail every single time.

---

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I found a small settlement hidden deep behind the leaves.

At first glance, the dwellings weren’t much better than large tents draped with leaves for camouflage. There were three such tents. Three families, about ten people.

Certain spaces, such as the kitchen, the wood chopping block, or the butcher table, were communal. All were outside.

I caught a few glimpses of the villagers. All was wearing simple flax tunics and leather boots. They lived a simple life, at one with nature.

I couldn’t try to make contact. I had the common language jammed into my brain, but I couldn’t actually speak. And just look at me now – normal animals and humanoid NPCs would just run away from me. I had better chances with players. Well, I was a type of demon, really, that shouldn’t be surprising.

Still, I wanted to continue watching them. Just a bit more.

I couldn’t approach the hamlet, but my guess was that they didn’t have the barrier thing.

I wanted to relax. Somehow, someway. My spirit was being beaten black and blue by the constant unease, like pins and needles in my brain; by the feeling of extreme disconnect to reality; and by so many other things. I was getting used to the feeling itself bit by bit, but I feared that after I’d completely adapted myself to it, going back to reality would drive me insane.

 

Actually, why did these people decided to live all the way over here?

The world was so real I forgot it was a game sometimes, but they were NPCs. Did they have a particular reason to live here? Did the developers expect the players to go in this deep?

I thought, this could be an event, and approached as close as I dared, then I understood why they were living here. They were elves.

That reminded me of the guide’s words. It said there were ninety-nine human countries around the ninety-nine saplings. Did that mean anyone not human were living in places so remote? I heard human civilization here were rather developed, with trains and everything. So there was quite the economic inequality here.

If this world was as big as Earth, then the developers wouldn’t bother manually placing every villages and settlements. This hamlet was probably randomly generated.

Oh hey, there was a kid. A boy, about 5 years old. The only other kids in this settlement were babies, so the boy was playing alone, looking rather forlorn.

…oh god I want to meet him. I want to meet him so bad!

 

I never had the best impression of adults and people my age. The only exceptions were little kids.

Was there a way to make him not wary of me…? I couldn’t think of any. Oh, wait. There was those items that player dropped. Maybe I could use them.

 

One old, un-dyed cloak.

Three small coins, and a few coins of another type. They looked like they were made from silver and copper, respectively.

A wooden stick that looked like a meat skewer.

And the Identification Crystal 5/99 I had since the beginning, plus one dark-red caterpillar fang.

 

…I could become the most suspicious-looking person ever.

Anyway, first time for everything. Let’s try wearing the cloak. Come… on… god, this is hard. Using my dry-ice smoke as hands was really difficult.

It took me a few more minutes to realize that without fingers, I couldn’t do any fine manipulation. I used nearly an hour just to put the cloak on my body.

…aaand the cloak just slipped through my Ghast body… why?

 

I could use my body to ‘pick up’ things. It was actually more like enveloping them, but it worked. I could hold small items like the crystal or coins within me, and they didn’t drop. It just felt like holding onto a purse (which meant that if I was surprised, I’d drop the stuff).

The cloak was big, but I could pick it up as long as I enveloped around half of it. It felt like balancing a tray with a dish of soup on top – difficult, but still possible. And of course I’d still drop it if anything happened.

So I could pick it up. I thought that meant I could wear it too, yet it didn’t work. That was one hour stressing my little brain out. Give me back my time. Really…

 

Normally, monster avatars like mine were only capable of basic, preset actions, like how a normal game character could only do the actions bound on your keyboard. I’d had the chance to use VR a few times before. I’d seen swimming people who sank like rocks in real life, and martial arts masters without a single day of training. Those were all preset actions.

It could be that this game’s developers were also having us alpha testers evaluate what actions were possible for monster avatars, in addition to their stated purpose.

 

…I should calm down. I felt like I just spent a frustrating hour crocheting with two left feet. I rested, enjoying the debilitating dizziness from seeing beautiful nature with 360 degrees fullscreen vision. After a few hours of incapacitation, I finally found the strength to face reality again.

Oh yes, Ghasts could shapeshift, right? Could I do humanoid shapeshifting?

I thought my current body was a lot nimbler than my previous, doughy one. I had more volume now, I should be able to look like a small kid, at least.

Alright, let’s try.

…

………

……………

…………………

Greetings, everyone. It’s a beautiful new day today.

True, I could work this body similarly to my previous one. I could stretch and shrink, spread and cover, and more. But that didn’t translate to having complete freedom over my shape.

When I focused on a part to shapeshift, the parts of me I no longer focus on started to warp and pop. Shifting one part a centimeter caused it to somehow stretch by a whole meter. And I had to fight against my own gaseous body constantly drifting and changing by itself.

All those problems took up a huge amount of my time. My mind was being tortured by the feeling of becoming a mass of sticky mud, but I persevered through. Had I manage to ignore the distress in my moment of extreme focus?

Anyway, at about sunrise, I finally managed to assume a humanoid shape, just about as big as that elven boy, alabaster in color and waxy in texture. One problem: my ‘skin’ was constantly melting and dripping.

…what the hell was I? A new type of monster? I couldn’t even fathom how to make contact with people, looking like this.

 

Let’s think about that later. I should try to move. This should be simple: just move the way I moved my real body. Easy!

Oh, sweet naiveté, past me of a few minutes ago. How you underestimated this game.

Imagine this: you had a human statue, carefully built with iron sand, on a table. And you were only allowed to move it with 10 magnets, all held by different arms behind the statue, without letting it collapse.

Impossible. Nope.

And my brain was wailing at me, too. It was screaming from the feeling of extreme disconnect, born from moving a humanoid body with inhuman means. My vision twisted and turned.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 160/160] 10↑
[Total Combat Power: 176/176] 11↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification] [Humanoid Form (Terrible)]

…and before I knew it, I had a new weird skill. What was this…

[Humanoid Form (Terrible)]
・Transformation of a non-human thing into something humanoid.

[Identification] gave me pretty much what I expected.

Also, I was really bothered by this one thing. By ‘Terrible’, did it mean the skill was at the lowest level, or was it insulting my sculpting skill?

Anyway, so that’s another thing to practice daily – holding humanoid form. I should learn how to walk first. Currently, I was taking more than a minute just to move forward a step.

I practiced until the sun set that day, all the while fighting against the nausea. My sculpting still hadn’t gotten any better, so in the end I switched over to intensive training on wearing the cloak, all the way until morning. Again.

…what am I even doing with my life.

*

We met when the elven boy was picking fruits and dried branches right near his village.

“…who are you?” He asked timidly, but he hadn’t bolt immediately. That’s good. If he had, I was ready to turn back into gas and ran right away. Also, three cheers for the common language.

Alright, first step cleared. Judging from the way he looked, he wasn’t afraid of me.

I looked about as tall as him at the moment, wearing an oversized coat, the hood hiding my face. Even I had to admit I looked suspicious as all hell. I’d have run away if I saw me.

Coming here, it took me ten seconds just to walk a single step, so really, I was super grateful for the kid’s courage… or maybe NPCs were just that way.

 

“…do you need me for something?” He asked.

I didn’t. Despite all the effort I put into making contact with him, I actually didn’t.

At any rate, I tried to tilt my head… okay, this was difficult. Couldn’t afford to traumatize him by messing up and looking like an eldritch abomination, though. I tried, somehow managing the gesture.

“You can’t speak?” He looked concerned.

I nodded a fraction. He stepped forward. I frantically shook my head, and he stopped.

“I shouldn’t get close?”

I nodded, affirming. Once again, he looked concerned. I know, right? I wouldn’t know what to do with a kid who didn’t speak, didn’t allow anyone to get close, and didn’t show their face, either.

I just wanted to look at the boy close-up. I never had any plans beyond that.

 

He went silent, deep in thought. After a while, he nodded, seeming to have come to a conclusion.

“…so, I was helping mom out,” he suddenly started talking about himself, “Dad hunts, and he sometimes brings back monsters too. They look like black caterpillars, but really tasty.”

Oh? Those were edible?

He continued picking dried branches, talking while keeping a 10 meters distance with me. The work was done a while after. He fidgeted, adjusting his basket full of branches and fruits on his back, and looked at me.

“…hey, umm, I’m going back home. Can we meet again tomorrow?” he suggested a most wonderful idea.

I nodded.

“Alright, tomorrow then! I have to go home now, or mom would scold me. We were running from the slave hunters, so I’m not allowed to get back late.” he replied with a beaming smile.

I tried to wave as best as I could. He cheerfully returned with a wave of his own and ran towards to village. AIs these days were really amazing. It felt just like talking with a real human.

So, slave hunters… Those collared elves and beastmen I saw back then were actual slaves, then.

 

I reached my limits just as the boy disappeared from my sight. I poofed back into gas, then hurried into the forest depths.

Weren’t skills supposed to be handled by the system, normally? My brain been doing all the work ever since the beginning here.

I allowed myself to relax. This was interesting, but really stressful. At least I knew a lot more now.

Even NPCs – adult elves, in this case – could hunt the black caterpillars, despite their strength not seemingly that high.

[Adult Elf] [Race: Elf ♂] [Villager?]
[Magic Points (MP): 50/50] [Hit Points (HP): 60/60]
[Total Combat Power: 63]

About the same as the black bug, and the same as me just before my evolution. I supposed that was why they could survive here, in this forest.

I’d been practicing my humanoid form for two days straight already. I should get back to hunting, but after knowing their food situation, I was much more reluctant to continue staying here. Was there something for me to hunt further away?

Recent events had shown me the need to be much more cautious, which was why I’d been heavily scouting. And a few organized magical signals was pinging on my radar.

They were… humans? Wait a minute, don’t tell me that kid’s talk about slave hunters just caused a game event to start?

---

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Five days since the start of World of Yggdrasia’s beta test. New information continued to be posted and constantly updated on the VR chat forum. Efficient skill leveling, types of monsters, information on the game world’s countries, etc.

[Chat Board 7 - *Please use the in-game common language]

“So yeah, instead of killing mobs willy-nilly, it’s better to grind your skill with a decently strong monster.”

“But you’ll just get bogged down if you have low magic. Efficiency would go to shit.”

“System’s too annoying in the first place. Why do you have to use MP to actually use your combat skills?”

“Go use items. Don’t you know about magic recovery potions, idiot?”

“That’s fucking expensive. Those are one silver a pot, how the fuck do I afford that sort of drinking?!”

“It’s around 6 small silvers a bottle here, in Quarancinq.”

“That’s dirt cheap! Where’s that?”

“Lessee… Around the middle-left part of the world map, I guess? Architecture looks Eastern European-ish.”

“That’s way far… I’m in Katrosvingt. Looks like an Eastern country. Other side of the map from you.”

“Hey, the world’s round! You’re just right next door!”

“Has anyone tried crossing continents?”

“Don’t think so. Even the fastest and most expensive express ship takes at least a few weeks.”

“So do you just twiddle your thumbs while on the ship?”

“Apparently if you log out from the ship you’ll log back in there. Or if you logged out for too long, you’ll show up at the nearest Temple. Monsters attack the ship anyway, so you can level your weapon skill.”

“So pretty much only people with free time are going to travel. Also, can we fish?”

“I saw fishing gear on the market. Right, so the central continent’s medieval European style, how about the other countries? I’m at the Holy City Ayune, smack dab in the middle of the central cont. Closest country to the world tree. Good weather’s coming soon.”

“Damn, that’s nice… If only my time zone fit with yours. I’m in Soixansept Kingdom, btw. Bottom left of world map. Kinda like a tropical island.”

“Most convenient medieval world ever. They have flush toilets.”

“Food looks great too, but not edible. At least alcohol works fine.”

“Still no food with buffs yet, right? Can’t wait for the next update.”

“So fed up with the damn bar. It’s just sweet, nothing else.”

“Stop complaining and go eat real food. VR can’t fill your stomach.”

“Hey, anyone knows about that rumor of weird monsters recently?”

“What do you mean? How weird?”

“Lots of different types. They have different colors or special skills, kinda like sub-species of the main one. People in other countries have been talking about that in the other chatrooms.”

“Oh yeah, I know about that. Haven’t seen them myself, but apparently they show up here and there. The adventurer’s guild has information on them now. There’s a compilation of eyewitness reports on some other website, too.”

“Like an event monster or something? Checking out that site now.”

“Ooooh, right, that might be the one that attacked my friend.”

“Hostile, then.”

“Yeah. Charged in right when it saw the party. It looked like a hobgoblin but with red skin. Friend’s party was 4 people, killed it, but lost one of their own. They told me, ‘It’s just a game, but I could actually feel the madness. I damn near pissed my pants’. So weird...”

“Just checked out the website. So right now, we have info on around 10 of them. Maybe it’s actually a new event?”

“How strong are they generally? Anything new?”

“Apparently you can win with combat skill 2 or 3. Also I heard there’s this new one in the western forest of Seize Kingdom. Looks like a white mist or a ghost or something.”

***

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 132/150] 20↑
[Total Combat Power: 145/165] 22↑
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification]

Two days since I fought that beta tester.

That reminded me, the beta players could only picked the Human race. Unless they had some really good intuition, I don’t think they’d realize that monsters could be players. And I hadn’t realized how desperate I’d become – I actually looked for help from just a normal player.

I did a few more tests and experiments during the two days. Didn’t grow my strength much, though. The forest didn’t have any other monsters aside from me and the caterpillar-type, so I wandered around and hunted some normal animals too.

Speaking of which… the human mind really is good at adapting.

It wasn’t that I adapted to this body and no longer felt the sense of disconnect, no. It was still there. I only adapted to that feeling of disconnect itself. Like getting used to living with permanent nausea.

So I started widening my area of activity a little bit, but I only found less and less caterpillars, with normal wild animals taking their place. Rabbits, foxes, wolves, boars, birds. The foxes and birds ran away as soon as I approached. The wolves and boars I fought, and here was where I discovered that no normal beasts could harm me.

I assumed that in a straight fight, the wolves could win against red caterpillars, and the boars had a chance against the black caterpillars too, if they were allowed to charge into and crush the bugs. But unlike monsters, wild animals had little magic. They had around the same amount as the snakes I saw.

What did this mean? Monsters used magic to fight, but the wild animals’ meager amount of magic only allowed them to fight purely physically.

I still received 1 and 2 damage from the black caterpillar and that player’s physical attacks, but that was because they strengthened themselves with magic. I was a spiritual life-form, a Ghast with resistance to physical damage. The wild animals’ unenhanced strikes couldn’t harm me.

Which meant the snakes might actually have been a kind of newborn monsters, not wild animals, since they did use magic.

In the end, I was barely getting any stronger, despite my wholesale murder of the fauna.

Back to the present. What was I doing? Well, I was busy getting chased by armed people.

“That way!”
“Over there!”
“My turn! [Stone Bolt]!”

Holy crap was that close! I only just managed to hide myself behind a tree trunk scant moments before the rock bullet bounced off the bark. The projectile looked like a normal rock, but it was magic, which meant it could hurt me just fine. I had actual proof.

Three humans wielding swords and staves were my opponents.

They could have been normal NPC adventurers, but players were much more likely to be the kind of people who would charge this deep into the forest so thoughtlessly.

[Young Man in Swordsman Equipment] [Race: Human ♂] [Adventurer]
[Magic Points (MP): 55/65] [Hit Points (HP): 118/120]
[Total Combat Power: 145]

[Young Woman(?) in Magician Equipment] [Race: Human ♀] [Adventurer]
[Magic Points (MP): 57/75] [Hit Points (HP): 58/80]
[Total Combat Power: 144]

[Young Man(?) in Warrior Equipment] [Race: Human ♂] [Adventurer]
[Magic Points (MP): 63/70] [Hit Points (HP): 94/110]
[Total Combat Power: 148]

The swordsman’s appearance looked truthful enough, but I had a feeling the magician lady was fudging her age. And the warrior’s movements looked somehow disjointed. My hunch told me he was actually fat in real life.

We’d been playing tag in the forest, and obviously, I wasn’t any closer to victory. All of them had around the same power as me, with at least one confirmed magician. I didn’t know if the others also had spells.

The unfamiliar forest hampered their steps quite a bit, but then again, my best speed was only about a power walker’s. I couldn’t lose them, and they couldn’t catch me.

…really, would you people please stop? Moving at this speed was dizzying the crap out of me.

So you must be wondering how I got into this mess. Well, after that fight with the meathead player, I wandered here and there, partially to watch for other beta players, partially to look for more black caterpillars. It was then that I found a small farming village.

My curiosity spurred me to get closer…no no no, I wasn’t going to attack the people. Really. Just the large cattles, like a cow or a horse. Maybe they’ll give me some good experience. I just wanted to test it out.

I thought it’d be an old, poor village. Instead, the farming community actually seemed quite well-off. However, the farmhands weren’t human, but… elves, I supposed? Elves and beastmen with dog ears and cat ears. They showed no liveliness, no vigor in their work, their necks bound by some strange-looking collars.

Who were these people? Slaves? Some human came along once in a while, at times to give orders, at times to give the slaves some steamed potato and soup. So it actually wasn’t as bad as it could be, but in the end, the only ones not working were the humans.

I was curious about them, or to be more precise, about their animal ears and tails. I approached to try to get a closer look, but just as I neared the fields, I hit something invisible. It gave me a jolt and pushed me away.

What was that? It even damaged me a little bit. I stayed rooted on the spot, confused. A few moments later, some armed farmers began to show up from the building, so I panicked and ran away.

They were just normal villagers. I was sure I could take them, but it would get much too troublesome if they sent soldiers to hunt me down.

The farmers stopped chasing me once I entered the forest. Relieved, I decided to continue hunting some animals in the nearby woods and wait until the heat dies down. It was then that I met the group of three. They suddenly attacked the moment they found me.

And so here I was, running off deeper and deeper into the forest. Yet the group didn’t even think twice before giving chase. They didn’t seem to care about how they’d get back out again.

Damn, that rock again! Why the hell wasn’t the magician running out of magic? Was she taking drugs? And another one-oh crap, she’s readying some fire this time!

Right. That. Is. Enough!

[Reroll]

The flame blazing at the end of her staff exploded. The woman wailed, in surprise and pain.

Wait, what? Did I just Reroll the magician’s spell? I can actually use the skill on someone else?

…Oh, wait, crap.

[NO NAME] [Race: Ghast] [Low Demon (Low-Rank)]
・A low demon made of dust and gases. A fragile spiritual lifeform.

[Magic Points: 65/150]
[Total Combat Power: 72/165]
[Unique Skill: Reroll] [Simple Identification]

My magic just plummeted from the improper use of my unique skill.

Damn it, I couldn’t engage them any longer. All three of them were too surprised to continue giving chase, so I took the chance to run off.

Right, looked like I lost them. Still, I kept on gaining distance, cutting through the forest without rest. Not like I could ever get tired.

I killed whatever caterpillars and animals I encountered along the way. After a whole three days of constant travel without stopping, I found a simple, primitive hamlet, hidden deep inside the forest.

---

AN:

World map of Yggdrasia. Red numbers are large countries, black numbers are small ones.

TN: Obvious author typo in map, just ignore it. Here’s the direct link in case the image was too small.

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