No fucking way. Are you kidding me? I live in that hellhole for years, just to die and get Isekai’d? Are you joking? I feel my pink body shiver in anger.
On top of that, I’m some kind of monster? What the fuck. Like I wasn’t treated like one on Earth enough.
You’ve killed an Imek. Your monster score has increased. 0 > 3.
This is real. It has to be, this is too much, even for the quacks that kept me locked up. It’s the only explanation I can think of… Did I die? I don’t remember dying. But would you remember dying? Maybe I just got transported? Or just my soul did?
I’m interrupted by another video game pop-up.
Due to detected intelligence, auto-assign has been disabled. You may choose Ia2r&3#m at your convenience. To open the menu to do so, simply think or say ‘status’.
The gods here are creatively bankrupt. This is literally a video game. Does the whole world work like this? Or just the monsters… Well that doesn’t affect me right now, so let’s check out whatever that scrambled thing it said is.
I quickly think ‘status’ and sure enough another window opens up in the air in front of me.
〘〜〜〜〜〜〜〙 Alexandra ERR 25 Female ERR ERR, No Affinities. ERR, All Average. Blessing of ERR. 〘〜〜〜〜〜〜〙
I stare at my status for a while, trying to glean what I can. Eventually I come to one conclusion. Something fucked up, royally. Now I’m known back home for being something of, how you say, moron, and even I can tell something broke. Is that why I’m a weird blob? Maybe I was supposed to be a person instead of a monster?
Well… no way to know, and honestly I’d have never woken up if I was human. That… Imek… eyerilla is so much better. That Imek would’ve squashed me flat before I ever even opened my eyes. That would’ve sucked.
What’s really weirding me out is how little I’m weirded out. I’m not feeling dysmorphic or anything, which I would’ve expected after such an extreme change in body layout. Maybe it's that ERR in my stat section? Maybe it affects my mind… Or maybe compared to the dysphoria I’ve dealt with in my life, this is just not noticeable…
Whatever, since I’m in a crazy game world, might as well play it! At the very bottom of my stats menu are a few buttons. One is labeled Body, the second says Mind, and the last one says Soul. So I get a menu for the three main… parts? Whatever, let’s look at Body first.
Soon a large diagram of my new form floats before me, with each part labeled. Which isn’t helpful, since there’s only one label, which says MEAT. I guess the error affected this as well? Or maybe my body is just that uniform normally. Whatever the case, the list of words at the bottom is much more interesting than the stupid picture.
The words all sit underneath a header saying ‘ADD_BODY_1’, which sounds totally not broken. Anyway, the list seems to go on forever, and includes any improvement to a physical form you can imagine. Properties, strengths, limbs, organs, even weaknesses are in the list. The problem is that they aren’t ordered in any manner I can notice. At least there’s a searchbar.
Next to each entry is a number, which I assume is the cost to add the attribute. Some of them, like ‘night vision’, are pretty cheap. Where others are much higher, like ‘second brain’. The most expensive things on the list are what seem to be stats. Like ‘Level up Vitality’ is in the triple digits. I guess a level of a stat is way more meaningful here than a game from back home.
Deciding not to spend any points yet, mostly because I don’t know how many I have, I move on to the Mind section. Like with the Body menu, the Mind pops up as a window in front of me.
Unlike the body menu, there’s no diagram of my brain. Instead there’s a large circle, with multiple smaller circles around it. The center one is a dark gray. There’s words written on it, ‘Sanity: -3’... Well at least it’s official then, I guess I’m just barely insane. I quickly ignore that, and look at the next few circles.
They’re all like the large one, a part of my psyche with a score next to it, except they’re all much more specific. I read through each one, seeing what ones are important.
Comfort: -22 Happiness: -2 Anxiety: 47 Guilt: 3 Anger: 39 Lust: 0 Loneliness: 67 Love: 54 Compassion: 4 Empathy: 2 Confusion: 100
Well… I’m not sure how to even begin to unpack some of those. I double check all the stats, and confirm the highest number is a hundred. So my confusion stat is maxed out then? Nice…
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Like body, there’s a list of attributes under a broken header, this one saying ‘ADD_MIND_1’. The list is identical in concept, having things like ‘Add Dark Magic Affinity’ instead of ‘enduring muscles’. I quickly get bored, and try to move on to the last page.
Instead of a new menu opening up, a message blinks into existence instead.
SOUL menu locked due to insufficient ERR, please try again after improving ERR.
Goddammit.
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You know what? I don’t have the patience for this. With a mental thwack I close the menus, leaving me to check out where the hell I am.
The area around me is a dense forest, the trunks all grown close enough to almost touch. Dark green vines wrap around many of the trees, with bright flowers blooming in the canopies. Birds sit in the branches overhead, flashing colorful feathers at each other.
Actually, don’t birds usually sing? It’s oddly quiet. …Now that I think about it, I can’t hear anything. Do I not have ears? …Well I also didn’t have eyes, and I don’t have arms right now, maybe I can just make some ears? I imagine what I want, something to pick up vibrations, and focus on it.
After a few minutes, the sounds of birds screeching slowly fades in. Well I guess I can make my own body parts, if I can imagine them… Doesn’t that make a ton of that body menu useless?
Anyway, I seem to be in what looks like a jungle. There’s thick undergrowth, with the canopy being a solid surface above. The only reason it’s well lit where I am is because that eyerilla had smashed the trees in a large area to make a nest.
Well… now that I’m not in mortal peril, and I’ve figured out the basics of what happened to me… what do I do? I guess I could look for people… if there are people in this world. Maybe there’s only monsters? I wonder if I’m the only one who’s come here from Earth. The system bugging out seems to indicate that.
Maybe… maybe others from the facility came here? It’s a long shot, but those lunatics were messing with crazy stuff, maybe they opened a wormhole here or something. And if that’s the case…
The image of a meek looking girl flashes into my mind, accompanied by an intense longing.
I guess I should find out if there’s anyone else from Earth. Except that means interacting with the possibly non existent people. For some reason I feel like they won’t like talking to me when I look like used gum.
Well, I can make body parts, what if I make a whole body? I don’t need to make organs, or any kind of insides actually. Just the shell of a human would work. A small thrill runs through me.
Maybe I could look however I want! My big eyes and wide head made me look so dopey on Earth, maybe I can actually pull off the bad bitch look I’ve always wanted…
I focus on that image, and try to make myself a new form.
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This is hard. Like really hard. It’s like studying for multiple finals at once, except you’re also taking a final at the same time, all in different subjects. So far I’ve managed to pull together a hip with an attached leg. All naked of course. I guess I could make clothes out of myself too, but let’s figure out the basics first.
After trying until the sun goes down, I give up. Also, I don’t have night vision. How would I even make night vision? I’m sure it has something to do with… rods? In my eyes? But I don’t understand it enough to replicate.
Twenty minutes of fumbling in the dark later, and I cave. I quickly open up the body menu and purchase night vision before I can stop myself. A small box pops up for a few seconds before disappearing.
25mp > 23mp
Now I know how much I have… I guess. By the time the small announcement vanishes, I’m able to see clearly again. I’m assuming there’s some magic involved, because instead of green black or black and white night vision, everything just looks like it’s in daylight. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.
Since I can see again, I guess it’s time to go exploring! Six thin legs pop out the bottom of my blobby body as it contracts in on itself slightly. The new limbs lift me off the ground and quickly start carrying me through the jungle.
As soon as I leave the clearing I woke up in, the ground is covered in thick foliage. The leaves are so close together that you’d think there was no ground beneath. Eventually I get skeeved out enough not knowing what’s under there that I climb up one of the hundreds of nearby trees. After a few failed attempts, I start jumping from trunk to trunk.
A few hours pass before anything interesting happens. But eventually a distant voice breaks the green monotony of the jungle.
“...is she wearing? I’ve never seen clothes like this.” A gruff voice asks.
I start slowly making my way closer, my eyes finally starting to pick up the light of a campfire.
A second voice answers. “Maybe she was a noble? The clothes should fetch a high price at least. Shame she went and died.” The second man sounds disappointed.
I finally make it to a point where I can see the situation from a branch above the campsite. Three men are sitting around a fire, all wearing grubby clothes. Between the trio lies the corpse of a woman, one with blonde hair. She’s wearing clothes that are obviously from Earth, since her shirt says Pepsi.
The final man speaks up. “Yeah, I didn even hit her hard.” He grunts, annoyed.
So, these guys killed her. A girl from Earth. They were probably going to sell her, or worse. I get the urge to kill them. To reach out and rip them apart. For a moment I resist, but then a question floats into my mind. Why not? They killed her, so isn’t killing them fair game?
Before I can really make a decision, I drop down from the branch. A mouth opens up on my underside as I fall onto the largest of the three men. He screams for a second, until my teeth start rotating inside me. Then he goes quiet.
Unlike the eyerilla, this guy tastes awful. Like chewing tobacco. That doesn’t stop me from eating him in his entirety. A girl’s gotta eat after all. The other two don’t even react by the time the man is completely consumed. They just stand there, looking at me in shock.
If I had the focus, or patience, I’d make a mouth just to smile at them. But instead, my mind is fuzzy from hunger and excitement. Pink tendrils reach out from my body, quickly closing in on the smallest of the three men. Well… two men now.
That’s when one of them finally reacts. The last man, the middle sized one, lashes out at my limbs with a dagger. My flesh is easily cut by the blade, sending parts of my body flying as they’re chopped off.
I feel a sting when the tentacles are cut, but not much more. I guess they’re not that important to my new body? Or maybe I just don’t feel much pain. Either way it’s more irritating than painful.
Stealthily I form two human legs underneath me, crouched and ready to spring. As I struggle to pull off my growth, the two… let's say bandits, are standing and watching me warily. I guess they don’t want to get near me. Works for me!
Eventually I finish making the legs hidden beneath me, and ready myself for my next attack. I wait for a moment when their guard is slightly more lax, and jump. The humanoid limbs send my much smaller body flying. As soon as I’m airborne, I reabsorb the legs, and open my mouth wide.
A blade slices a part of me off, but my mouth hits home all the same. With a satisfying smack my maw lands directly in the center of the medium one’s chest. He looks down at me, with horror in his eyes. I wink at him as my trash compactor mouth goes to town.
Blood flies out of the man’s chest as I drill into him. He screams for a much longer time than his friend, but goes silent when the last guy stabs him in the head with a knife. After killing his buddy, the final man starts stabbing me over and over. I ignore him, too distracted by his friend’s apple taste to care. It’s not like it really hurts.
After finishing my second meal, I turn and face down the remaining bandit.