L brought his arms up, twisted his body slightly, and pushed down with his legs and spiraled the force through his arms. The hammer struck the hot iron in a rhythmic tone, leaving behind a reverberating echo in its wake.

Kullburd looked on, his face seemingly satisfied for once. It had been two days, in total, since he had taken himself as a lumberjack. In the mornings, he would fell trees with a few others. Then came the process of cutting the trunk into manageable portions, hauling them across the distance with the help of the oxen that the headmason had allocated to the lumberjacks. After, once the sun falls, and in the few hours that are given before curfew is set in place, he would take up the hammer and work on his craft.

It was mindless work. There was a distinct lack of brain power that went into swinging an ax on one part of the tree, and swinging a hammer at one part of the metal. Because L had more minds than he could possibly be grateful for, such repetitive tasks tend to end with L poking someone with the sharp end of an object. It was not something that L planned on sticking for long, but just long until he had gained a couple coins and achieved a sufficient level in inserting aura into the equipment he crafted for one of Kullburd’s many orders. A little bit of Dark efficiency in a shovel would not be noticed. Even an expert in the field, Kullburd, was barely able to notice the way shadows stuck slightly more to it. It was relatively easy to perform as all L had to do was recall upon a half-life time of gaming experience, cross-reference them, remove any unlikely techniques, then try what’s left, of which there was not much of. Knowledge was expensive, sometimes even more so for the Forsaken World’s--virtual realities that The League Of Nations had abandoned for whatever nonsensical reason. But L’s close association within his guild, combined with his peculiar talents for screwing people up allowed him to accumulate a great source of techniques.

While one of L’s mind’s paid the least amount of attention necessary for that process, his other two-- against his own promise to wholeheartedly avoid doing so--had been scheming up plots.

Or, at least, that’s what he thought he did. In truth, that was simply a glimpse of what he believed he had been thinking about. Quite recently, L’s thoughts had been escaping him, coming in from one foreign region of the brain and existing to another, all under his watch but not his extended consciousness.

It was a somewhat frustrating sensation, like an inaudible noise that you weren’t sure was a noise in the first place.

He did catch a few stray thoughts here and there, something regarding Braj, Jroll, and Meliene, There was a sense of dread about that trail of thought; a revolting taste that smelled horribly rotten, but that was the most intelligent thing he could comprehend. It distressed L greatly, however, to realize he felt repulsed by what he was plotting. If even he was being queasy regarding his thoughts, then L really was going to do something terrible.

“Why you asking?”

The sudden question threw L off balance, nearly making him miss the anvil and take his knee out. “What!” he turned sideways, glaring at Kullburd.

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“Why you asking?” He repeated, lifting up what little was left of his fading eyebrows.

“Asking what?”

Kullburd looked at him oddly. “You asked about town, the guards, other town guards, and how people defend themselves. Also about children. You make something dangerious?"

Children? Oh, so those are the sounds I’ve been hearing.

“I see. I zoned out, mind telling me again?”

Just as Kullburd was about to open his lips to mouth something off, L interrupted him.

“I see. I zoned out,” L began again, this time with emphasis, “mind telling me again?"

Kullburd swallowed. He looked hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure if being talked to by a man half his size was worth it. The memory of the pitch darkness, however, remained vivid on his skin. He opened his mouth and spoke.

L’s vision blurred. The words became statically, their volume increasing and decreasing erratically, with mismatched pitches. Colors began popping up in the corner of his eyes, making even the darkness bright with rainbows.

The next time L regained consciousness was in the next morning, sore with a throbbing headache in the rough hay of the stable. His stomach rumbled unkindly.

L cursed his luck, as it seems his minds were plotting something they did not want him to be conscious of. At one hand, L understood that this was the very thing which made him potent in the field of deception; if even he was not aware of what he was doing, and for what purpose he was doing it, then how can anyone else?

He shook the odd sensation of being a puppet off. He could figure it out using his own resources, and if he so chose, will try his best to make things as difficult as possible for himself.

After all, no one controls L, not even own minds.

Him being hungry was also an issue. It was an unsubtle reminder that the ‘Beginner's Protection,” was now gone. Death would result in the usual permanent debuff, food and thirst intake will now be required, and an unsupportive bed might result in prolonged back damage. It was a pain, to have to eat and drink, but at the very least L was glad he did not piss and shit anymore. He had done it in his real body for a time and while he found the experience pleasurable to a certain degree, it was not in the least bit pleasant.

Puffing a few strands of hay that somehow got into his mouth, L hauled himself out of the stables and into the nettlesome outside world. Dawn had broken a few hours ago, and most of the village was awake for the workday.

As usual, the sun blazed incessantly and the humidity was so high that breathing felt like drinking thick soup through your nostrils. His naked, beastly like feet sizzled against the hard dirt. He felt his soles toughing up under the heat. His nails had grown in the past few days, now becoming half an inch longer than a human’s and as sharp as a wolf’s own claws. L made no apparent effort to hide his body. He wore the trousers and tunic he first spawned with, and was not shy in taking them off in the shade.

As he walked the streets, people stared at his mutations. His eyes, he learned, were like yellow and like a cat’s slit. From his feet to his ankles, and from his hands to his elbows he was more beast than human. Unsurprisingly, disgust and slurs were sometimes thrown at him, and people spoke in slightly too loud whispers, the type of which made you wonder if they wanted you to accidentally hear them, but, of course, they were not nearly as damaging as the rumors that would have been told if L had not satisfied the people’s curiosity. What he was was no longer a secret, and thus not nearly as enticing to discuss and spread.

He was a magician of dark magic, who in an unfortunate ritual, had his body deformed. It was not an unusual event, for magic to go slightly wrong and for it to take a few limbs here and there, and to sometimes even replace it with something more fun.