Jack enjoyed snowy weather, for the most part. Like any other kid, he had fond memories of building a snowman with his family during their vacations in northern countries, skiing, snowboarding, at some point, and hunting down people when he was working for Black Hand. Nothing was more thrilling than slow and agonizing death of his target, as they bled out in the snow at negative forty degrees. At least when it came to a holier than thou businessman that just had his assets taken away. Though it was only once, and Jack knew the man being the H1V3 lead researcher, Blanche Fontain, and while he was enjoying his slow and agonizing death for what the bastard did to the clones, and more importantly, him, it was nowhere near enough to satisfy his seething rage at that time. Which might have caused him to go on a rampage in Nordskaget for a while, ending only when he killed about four thousand people, half the population of a small Norwegian town. It also cost him quite a bit to cover up the attack, and a reprimand from the Boss himself.
Now that he thought about it, that wasn't the best period in his life. So many wasteful deaths, so little gain. Until he met Central, he was just another gun for hire, killing people indiscriminately, and occasionally indulging in cannibalism, due to sheer hatred for all humankind. After meeting his de facto best friend, Jack quickly became a weeb, only interested in bettering his skills and gaining wealth beyond all measures. Killing was all fun and games, but actual games allowed him to detach from the cruel realities of a world around him, lessening his bloodlust, to a degree.
All things considered, he wouldn't consider his life to be a tragedy, or drama. It was just life. With it's own high and low points, not that he hadn't any regrets, there were plenty of them, but at the same time, he couldn't turn back the time and change the course of the history, else he would make sure all wars ended on the first one, with good old genocidal maniac in charge of the whole world, and then he might have changed it back to the world it was before that, with some other things being changed. Maybe he would even become a pharaoh, or some other ruler in ancient civilizations, just to have some laugh in the future. But they were all just dreams, he would probably just go on killing sprees out of boredom, just like any other ruler of old. Life seemed to be always boring there, with nothing to do but eat, sleep, fight and fuck.
Might be the reason he only enjoyed fictional settings. He never liked war games, he had too much of a combat on his job, and he always wanted to have some more relaxing time, blasting magic in some random goblin's face, or ordering an orbital strike on some random city, though he could do it in real life, it would bring some really nasty consequences. Jack didn't like dealing with consequences, but like any person, he had to, for all actions and inactions had their own set of consequences, be them short or long term ones.
Like the consequence of making himself a shelter in the woods. He was tired, with nearly empty mana pool, but he had a campfire, roasted venison and a shelter protecting him from wind and snow. This might actually bite him later, if someone stumbles upon it, with ill intentions. But for all purposes, Jack decided to react to random encounters after they happened, and not worry beforehand. Worrying would only make the life become less interesting.
The only thing he regretted after sleeping through the night, was the lack of blanket or a sleeping bag. He wanted to laze around in a comfy bed, snack on some chips, drink some soda and watch some new anime, before starting another boring day full of training, or another generic combat mission, with an extended deployment in a hostile zone, if he was lucky, or peacekeeping operation, if he wasn't. Jack thought that maybe he still had a bit of a deathwish even if years had passed since he had lost most of his family, but he might just wanted to have more thrill in life.
“I hate being alone with my thoughts.” Jack said as he bit into the still warm roasted venison. “Stupid sim, can't I get something fun to do? No, you start a fucking blizzard in the middle of nowhere, and now I am not that keen on going through with the all this northlander survival experience. Fucking blizzards, always spoil the fun.” Jack sighed as he decided to place the beacon at his makeshift shelter. “Anyway, now that I have a spawn point, I might want to actually explore the region a bit. If it was a game, I would make sure to go through various sectors and acquire some loot, like berries, beast corpses, or carcasses, fuck humans, beasts have corpses, it's demeaning if you consider animal corpses carcasses. At least give proper respect to your kills.”
Jack was feeling a bit too bored. His mana recovered a bit, and it might have been a good idea to actually increase his skills, but he didn't want to do anything at the moment. It was just another unscheduled lazy day for him. Maybe it would be a good idea to actually play a bit with the magic, but he didn't want to either. As such, he drifted off to sleep once more. It was a bit uncomfortable however, but nothing a sleeping bag wouldn't fix. Only he never needed one to fall asleep before.
“That's wrong... something is wrong. I am not...” Jack looked at his map, noticing a number of red dots surrounding his location, amidst light dizzyness. “Am I under attack or something?” Jack quickly psyched himself up and sported a maddening grin on his face. But as he exited the shelter, he was puzzled. “Is this some sort of joke? There are no enemies... but then again...” Jack scanned the surrounding area for any life signatures and felt a bit shocked, before deciding to climb a tree, just in case he was attacked by a horde of whatever was hiding in the snow. Then he heard a loud screeching, turning into a blood chilling scream, as the snow had risen, unveiling the fluffy white bodies for Jack to see. “Rabbits?” Jack asked at he felt his head splitting. “Mind raping rabbits?! What the fuck is wrong with this place?!” Jack screamed as he chained [Combustion] spell and prepared to launch the few grenades he had left in the inventory.
Much to Jack's surprise, the rabbits were quite vulnerable to the flame attacks, with 40x53mm grenades dealing quite a bit of damage to the miniature mind rapists as well, sending bloody flaming chunks flying through the snow, turning everything around the explosion zone red, though most of it was hard to notice due to the snow being melted. Unfortunately, Jack had little grenades on him, and there were hundreds, if not thousands of rabbits surrounding him. For all the hilarity of the situation, Jack felt no joy, as his mind was constantly barraged by an unknown magic type. And worst of all, he couldn't even use [Soul Harvest] on tiny attackers, as he kept his distance from them, or were they keeping the distance? Jack didn't know. But he was keen on bringing the battle to the rabbits.
Only to fall on his knees, as the attacks on his mind intensified, but with no clear pattern to them. It was similar to a ddos attack on a site, or so he thought. So, he had to either kill a few more creatures to lower the volume of information passing through his mind, or he could somehow improve his mind, so the attacks won't have as much effect as they had now, but for now, there was only one way he could take care of the mind raping rabbits. He removed his armor, and quickly turned into a wyvern.
Jack grinned. He was a massive carnivorous lizard, with an insatiable appetite, and they were rabbits. The outcome was already decided, the only thing that wasn't decided on how these rabbits would taste comparing to the normal ones, or the ones with horns on their tiny little heads, that are so fun to snap, but that might be just bloodlust showing up.
Surprisingly, the wyvern form of his was somehow resistant to the attacks on his mind, making the rabbit onslaught rather mild, all things considered. Though he did have a minor headache after the transformation, but nothing he couldn't handle, though in his opinion, painkillers wouldn't hurt. But still, he no longer had blurry vision and was no longer disoriented, causing him to regain most of his combat potential.
Jack grinned, as he noticed his minimap was basically red with life signatures of minraping rabbits. And he was quite hungry, all things considered. Then he laughed, as he tore inside each rabbit he saw, and eventually, he started eating them alive, using his tail to smash the rabbits, or just drop on them, burying their tiny bodies into the ground. He lost himself into the fight, eventually getting his bearings after all of the rabbits were eradicated.
“MORE!” He roared into the lightening skies, as the sun warmed his snout. Wyvern glared at the golden-ish disk illuminating the woods, and melting the snow, and was slowly getting back to his senses from the blood rage he experienced. After minutes of heavy breathing and hatred filled gazes, Jack calmed down enough and burped slightly. “Can still feel the taste of the rabbits in my mouth. Must say, they're not bad, though actually, it's really good. Might have eaten a bit of unhealthy amount of metals though and phosphorous.” Much to his surprise, he felt rather energetic, and a bit more joyful than usual. “Berserker title, has actually some effect? Look, titles are not totally useless... though I already read through them at some point, I think?” Jack commented on the oddity of the situation. “Still no levels gained. What a load of bull.” shaking his head, the wyvern slowly turned back into a human, as he didn't like being naked, even if he was one big flying ass of a lizard.
Sighing dejectedly, Jack noted that he might have ate quite a bit of rabbits, judging from the sight of aftermath, and shrugged. The ground was littered with the rabbits, but even then, Jack felt that he might have eaten a bit too much lately. Not that it was a bad thing, but eating meat filled with phosphorous residue was never a good idea, even if it was no longer of white variety, but red was nowhere near being harmless to human body.
“At least I got a bit over two hundred points from the endeavor, and I started talking to myself, again. Great. Am I getting back to the good old days of having personality disorder? Took me years with a shrink to finally understand I do not have a good old voice in my head, like in some of the novels. Though, I am a bit crazy, I suppose, but then again, I never met truly 'sane' humans.” Jack sighed commenting on the idiocy of the situation. “Whatever. 226 points aren't enough to bring my summoning affinity to 40, but more than enough to bring either time, space or void to 20. Void is out, no idea what it does, leaving only time and space. Time most likely will give some sort of haste spell, while space might get me a short range teleportation, or some other stuff. Hm... blinking through the battlefield is more useful than running faster, but then again, if haste accelerates mind as well as body, then it's more useful for a sniper, or any ranged combatant, or melee combatant. And if we count in the fact I can escape at any time, blink isn't that useful, but... sigh. Space, teleportation is fun, and the long range teleportation isn't instantaneous.” Jack said as he spent 204 points into space affinity. “Alright, let's see what I got?”
Name:
Jack
Delgado
Race:
Homunculus
Class:
None
Titles:
Inquisitor
UP: 22
SC: 31'125
ST: 1
Level:
0/10
HP:
12'000/12'000
MP:
7'500/7'500
Traits
Undying, Durable, Esper, Supreme Regeneration, Perfect Physique
Abilities
Grimoire, Soul Siphon, Conversion, Inventory, Auto-Map*, Elemental Possession, Omnikinesis, Evil Eyes*, Shroud*
Bloodlines
Primary: High Human; Secondary: Wyvern; Tertiary: None;
Supreme Strength
100
Supreme Constitution
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
100
Supreme Vitality
100
Supreme Agility
100
Supreme Dexterity
100
Supreme Perception
100
Supreme Focus
100
Supreme Willpower
100
Supreme Attunement
100
Charisma
100
Psyche
100
Luck
100
Resilience
100
Fire
Water
Earth
Air
Light
Darkness
Life
Death
25
25
20
20
15
35
16
25
Summoning
Time
Void
Space
Soul
31
2
2
20
20
Looking at his current stats, Jack shrugged. The random encounter with psychic rabbits gave him quite a bit of points, and might get him a lot of credits, later. But that will come later, right now, he had a spell to pick from a plethora of entries. Though he was going for the most basic spells of all, at least for a spatial mage.
Space spell:
Blink
Fold space between oneself and desired location, blinking from one position to the next. Maximum range of a single blink depends on space affinity. Can't blink through obstacles.
Blink was considered a staple spell for most mages dabbling into space magic, and some assassins. Sometimes, [Blink] was even a staple of every magician's arsenal, allowing to quickly relocate so to evade the attacks from enemies. It might not have been extremely useful, but space affinity lowered costs of all space based magic and abilities, which would no doubt lower the cost to use the long range teleportation for Jack.
“Yeah, might want to actually improve time next. And then void, before specializing in summoning. After that, probably soul again? I got a free heal and mana recovery after killing an enemy, so I wonder what will it bring next?” Jack wondered out loud, before shrugging once more. “Well, I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. But considering I need about 255 points to get from 30 to 40 in an affinity and 355 from 40 to 50, I guess it would be better to... wait, no, that's wrong, it's 355 and 455 respectfully. Eh, whatever, I'll probably focus on summoning after getting extra spells from time and void. Then again, crossing bridges must be done when they are right in front of you, not when you just got a glimpse of them.”
*
Three days had passed since Jack encountered the rabbits for the first time, and at the moment he was sitting in the middle of a mountain range in his human form. He even managed to acquire extra 55 points from all the nightly attacks by the flesh eating rabbits, only they were in much lesser numbers. Though he got tired of being harassed by critters for four nights in a row, and decided to go west, even if he acquired about 30 credits from each rabbit's corpse. Some of them even had mana cores, but unlike the ones found in pegasi or griffins, they had a cost similar to that of a rabbit, though more often than not if was 40 credits rather than 30.
And if he was honest, these critters were actually scary when he encountered them fighting other creatures. Instead of being prey for most carnivorous beasts, they instead ate the what was supposed to be apex predators of the forest. The massive bear he had fought on the first day in the forest could only flee, before it was destabilized by a combined assault of a hundred or more rabbits. If he wasn't used to horror movies, or facing monsters in shape of humans, then he would panic from the sights, but instead, he found it quite hillarious, when rabbits burrowed themselves into the massive bear and ate it from the inside.
The only saving grace for all life in the forest was the fact rabbits were nocturnal creatures, and burrowed themselves into earth during the daylight hours. They were also gluttons, and would eat their own, if they were to die for whatever reason, including the infighting. It was however quite eerie to see the white furs not being stained by dirt or blood, as if they were ghosts coming to feast on flesh of the living.
At the same time, these rabbits were simply delicious, especially for wyvern Jack, who could snack on them by the dozens and not tire of their taste, which left him with very little credits to acquire from corpses, barely even getting a thousand despite having a bit of mana cores harvested from the bodies.
And while the rabbits were surprisingly the most dangerous animal in the forest, they were nowhere near as dangerous comparing to the giant eagles. They were quite often seen trying to snatch a prey from the forest and bring it to mountain range. And while Jack could hunt them as a wyvern quite easily, his human form wasn't as capable.
The magic eagles used was similar to electricity, temporarily paralyzing the victim, and dealing quite a bit of damage, and being a hitscan attack, it was almost impossible to evade. For wyvern, it only meant his scales would be damaged, but for Jack, it meant he would get his skin fried, a bit. The damage was only dangerous due to it's paralyzing properties, and the fact he got his armor slightly damaged after getting exposed to two of these attacks. Of course, Jack was unable to retaliate at that time, and had to use shroud to escape eagle, before deciding to snipe the bastard out of the sky, though, unfortunately, firearms proved to be rather inefficient at bringing it down.
The eagle proved to be highly resistant to firearms, reason still eluded Jack, but at the same time, said eagle wasn't resistant to wyvern's teeth, which sank inside it's flesh with ease. Though if Jack was to be honest, the eagle tasted much better cooked, but even then, the rabbits tasted much better than eagle, even if he loved poultry more than other types of meat.
Jack would say that using firearms was ineffective way to get kills, but that would be a lie, considering that the only creature resistant to bullets so far was the aforementioned eagle. Everyone else, especially rabbits, were vulnerable to firearms, as was evident by the flock of pegasi, who were much weaker than previous ones he encountered, albeit this time, he was the one to ambush them and not the other way around, which resulted in quick dispatch of the flying horses, with their bodies still relatively intact, allowing him to dissect them later, be it for research or fun. Still, they lacked some distinct features of other pegasi, making Jack wonder if he actually killed baby pegasi. So, he was going to cook some of them over fire, everybody knew that younger flesh tasted better.
Of course, chairman Ciao was to blame for the information, though Jack didn't enjoy the taste of human meat, it had a taste, smell and texture that of a pork, and piglet was still a pig all things considered. Not the most pleasant of acquaintances he was, with all the incest and cannibalism going on, but if for some reason magic was real, then the blood bath the man took a liking to could actually bring him youthful appearance, and not just extensive gene altering.
Thinking about it, Jack would have loved for it to be an actual isekai situation. The idea of exploring the new world in the flesh would be really exciting, but, unfortunately, it would prove to be impossible to actually travel between worlds at the moment, not to mention that Mars was yet to be colonized, or terraformed. Moon was on another level, it was close to Earth, and it long since became his second home. Maybe the isekai situation would give him purpose, something to live for, and not just kill everything and get back to hobbies. Though if not for the extremely long wait between the random encounters and limited amount of said encounters, Jack would actually consider it to be one of the best games on the market. Or simulations.
“Imagine it actually being another world.” Jack shook his head looking up in the night sky. “It might actually be interesting, but the only people I saw so far were just some human cultists. But even if it is, then it's not that different from a game. Just that my death will be permanent, but that isn't important anyway. Maybe actually try to be a 'good' guy? I tried study medicine once, even managed to get into university back home. Still, wish sis wouldn't meet that asshole, there would be no wedding or honeymoon, and she would still be alive live, and I would actually try to become the surgeon... maybe sis influenced my life decisions more than I was willing to admit at that time, huh?” Jack sighed reminiscing good old days.
“Anyway, I am decent at first aid and minor surgeries, as well as torture and vivisection. I could also specialize in life magic for a while to learn all there is to learn about healing various creatures... but I will still need a way to acquire more points and pills, so I will need credits, which I can gather from fallen creatures and various materials. Hm... probably would be best to become an adventurer here, go around the world, exploring various ruins, fighting monsters, converting items and fallen enemies to something useful, while learning medicine. Yep, good plan, now I only need to find a starting city.”
With the beginnings of an actual plan, Jack got up from his temporary encampment, and started moving further west, as a human. Much to his surprise, the night this time was eerily calm. As if the flesh craving night rabbits were just an imagination of his. Still, he didn't care about it in the slightest, and actually wanted to kill more of them, only this time abstaining from eating all of them, instead converting them to credits. He could gain as much as 30K from converting their corpses alone, if they were to attack them simultaneously as a thousand creatures, but knowing himself, it might prove to be problematic to abstain from eating their juicy meat.
As he was traversing through the mountains in his feeble human form, Jack understood that he loathed the idea of walking anywhere. Still, it wasn't for naught, as he left the mountain range in about an hour of walking through it, and immediately stumbled upon a dirt road going through yet another forest. It didn't matter much for him, but he decided to be vigilant constantly. He wanted to talk to some NPCs and to see if he would need to learn a language other than English, German or French. He also knew Russian, but with the RSSR no longer functional and it's territories and people absorbed by other countries, there was little reason to continue learning the language, and there were more merit in learning Chinese. He never liked learning languages however, always relying on universal translator since he managed to acquire one.
Now however, his only option of acquiring new language was to either learn it, or to steal the memories of someone to learn it at a rapid pace, perhaps almost instantly, but for that, he needed test subjects. And he would get them, at some point. Hopefully soon, as he was getting bored of fighting only wildlife, though they posed slightly more challenge than he expected they would, but they provided less resources than demons for the same amount of effort.
“And I get a random encounter already?” Jack wondered as he saw a carriage in the distance. “Well, I guess it was time to get one with humans by this point, or generic fantasy races.” Saying that, Jack got away from the road and moved up to the canopy, while simultaneously preparing his rifle. “Kinda surprising that the road is straight with good visibility. Still, there is no sign of this carriage being ambushed. Maybe it is part of an ambush?” Jack wondered as he got closer to the carriage, before deciding to shut up, just in case.
As he came closer to the carriage, Jack felt a bit bewildered by the lack of passengers. What's more, the carriage seemed to have been carrying quite a bit of provisions, some weapons and armor, as well as various bags filled with powders and glass flasks containing liquids of two colors, green and blue.
Thinking nothing at the moment, Jack decided to pocket everything there was to pocket, including the carriage, though later proved to be rather large, for the first time he had to actually spend a few seconds dropping it inside his inventory, which was surprising to say the least. Deciding to retrieve the carriage out, Jack noted that it also took him a few seconds to do so, and when he tried to convert it, the process went similarly to the sandworm conversion, as it took some time, once again, a couple seconds.
Much to his surprise, there were no one around him for the moment, what's more, there were no horses around to pull the carriage, though there were some footprints coming from the carriage, or where it had been previously, leading into the forest, until they suddenly disappeared, with no hidden entrance on the map.
“Alright, I'd better get the hell out of here. I am not messing with SCP, even if it's a frigging simulation.” Jack said backing away from the forest and getting back to the road. “Well, let's see... the road goes southwest, sort of, though it looks to be more south than west in my opinion, so, maybe continue down the road?” Jack wondered as he moved forth. “And here I thought it would be an interesting random encounter. But no, just a mystery I am not keen on solving. It was probably a monster anyway.” But just as he said that, he noticed a pegasus flying in the skies. “Doubt it was a pegasus.”
Saying that, Jack prepared to use his rifle to dispatch the flying horse, if it came closer. Much to his surprise, it circled a bit around his position, before flying back. It felt odd to Jack, but he thought nothing on the matter at the moment. He wasn't going to waste shots attempting to kill the flying horse. True, it would give him some credits, but he didn't feel like it at the moment. After a few minutes, however, the pegasus left the area, with Jack being left to his own devices.
“Stupid encounters. Whatever. I am going down the road. No reason not to, right?” Jack asked no one in particular, looking towards the mountain range. “I don't like grind, so not going back towards the psycho rabbits or demons, unless it's really necessary. Though the money I can make from the demons could be patched, at some point... don't really care though.” Jack said and moved on. “Then there is a potential zombie outbreak, which will most likely lead me to the genocide route, though considering lifespan of zombies, I doubt it will happen in a medieval world. Maybe try more neutral run this time, before committing to a pacifist or genocide? Though, I am not a human person... do they have catgirls here? Hope they do. Or foxgirls. I hope they are like... kennomimi or something? Not furries, just with animal features, like in anime. Well... most anime.” Jack rambled as he walked. “And hentai.”