Just outside of a small village, three small figures could be seen fleeing for their lives. One was a girl had cat ears and tail, another one was a boy had long and pointy ears and the last one was yet another boy, but this one had a horn on his forehead, a devil-like tail and two small wings on his back.
Their village had been attacked by slavers, and they, alongside a couple kids, had been forced to escape into the forest by their desperate parents. They were told to run to the mountain range to the north of the village, where hopefully the slavers wouldn’t chase them.
Their hopes were in vain though, as they knew the slavers were on their tracks by the smell. Desperate, the kids continued to run despite their aching legs.
They kept running for hours and hours. Soon enough, an entire day had passed and they hadn’t had a moment of sleep. They had indeed arrived at the mountain range, but they knew the slavers were close to them.
“Syria, Albert, let’s at least try to find a safe place. Maybe they won’t find us?” Asked the elf in a pained voice. The other two nodded and slowed down their run. They were merely 16 years old, but they were still quite strong. After all, the elf was an acknowledged genius in magic and Syria and Albert were quite good with the sword. Thus, they afford to run for an entire day, but they were extremely tired.
They found a cave after 10 minutes of searching, and entered it. They vigilantly looked around, as the cave almost seemed suspicious. It dug deeply into the mountain’s side, and seemed to go down for hundreds of meters into the ground.
“Guys, I can’t… do this… I’m too tired… will they catch us?” Asked Syria, obviously frightened and tired. The two males looked at each other sadly. They indeed did not have many hopes of escaping anymore, and they certainly didn’t want to be caught, only to be sold off as labor slaves themselves and let Syria be assaulted.
“Let’s search deeper into the cave. Perhaps they won’t find us there…? Zander, help Syria, I’ll be the vanguard.” Zander nodded and helped Syria stand up. They kept walking inside the cave, the atmosphere getting scarier by the second.
After 10 minutes of walking, they arrived and found something… strange.
It was a coffin-like object. It had strange things all around it, and looked quite battered. Albert tried to carefully examine it, however, the moment it got close to it the thing suddenly started to move, which caused Albert’s heart to leap out from his throat from the scare. He backed away and got in front of Syria and Zander.
The three of them were on full alert, with magic ready to be cast and swords drawn. The strange object suddenly stood up, and the coffin’s door-like part started to slowly come out. They watched it warily, but slowly got more and more curious. After all, they were merely teenagers, and despite their training, they were never in any life-or-death situation, so they were quite innocent and naive.
After a couple minutes, the door fully opened and mist came out from the door. As soon as they touched it, they felt that it was extremely strange. It was cold and felt somewhat like milk. It soon dispersed, and they looked again inside the strange object to find a… kid. He or she looked quite young, however it’s age wasn’t all that clear. It had beautiful snow hair going down all the way on to slightly beyond his shoulders. Two horns came out from it’s temples, and it had wolf-like ears on it’s head.
The child slowly opened it’s eyes. One burned a deep ruby red color whilst the other was a deep blue just like the clearest parts of the ocean. It had completely white skin, without any imperfection. It’s chest was flat, but it’s butt slightly came out. It’s face also looked angelic, with a small nose and sharp eyes. It was wearing nothing but a pair of panties.
It looked over at them with a completely emotionless expression. The three teenagers took a step back, slightly scared of the weird child who came out of a weird box. After a bit, Syria asked “Uh… Who are you…?”
The child looked at her, but didn’t reply. After about 5 minutes of staring, his eyes suddenly opened wide and they began to shine and he said, almost like a golem. “Greetings. This is a pre-recorded voice-over. This child has been sent here by me, a god. It requires an offering of life, so may you kind people who found him tell it where to find any living being? Any help will be rewarded by me, the great and powerful god~.”
The three teenagers looked at the kid, who’s eyes stopped shining and who still had an emotionless expression, but one could tell he was slightly confused. They whispered to each other “I don’t believe the kid… Just who is it?” Said Albert, and the other two nodded. Syria also asked “Uh, is he a girl or a boy? I can’t tell…”
The kid then moved for the first time. It slowly took a step forward, almost clumsily. Once it had made the step, it made another one, slightly faster. After it had done this most basic thing, it looked quite satisfied.
The three kids soon heard footsteps resounding from the entrance of the cave, and all turned around, with fear clear in their eyes.
After a bit, a group of adult humans arrived. They were all muscular, and looked like the typical knight. One of them stepped forward and said “Well, if it isn’t some survivors. We’ve been on your tracks for quite a while. We’d like to have you alive and uninjured, so could you kindly surrender?” He asked in a sweet tone, riddled with arrogance. Albert couldn’t help but grit his teeth and shout “As if! You’ll just sell us! We’d rather die here then be taken by you scum! The kingdom will find out about this and take revenge for us!”
The leader snorted, and then ordered his men “Capture them alive. It’s better if they’re uninjured, and keep the girl for me later.” His gaze then swept over the three, no, four kids. He raised an eyebrow at the addition of a random kid.
He was only supposed to be chasing down three non-humans, not four. However, this was quite the nice addition, as the additional kid looked quite good. Perhaps he could play with it if it was a girl, which he was having serious trouble discerning wether it was or not.
The men surrounded the three kids and blocked all of their attempts at defense, and soon neutralized them and tied them up. They ignored the fourth kid, who was just standing inside of a weird box.
One of the men began to grope the cat-girl, who screamed out. “Let her go you bastards!! I’ll kill all of you!!” Screamed out Albert, almost going insane from the rage and powerlessness he felt. The leader laughed and said “Haha, that’s what you deserve you non-human scum. Men, I said to keep her for me. Do you want me to punish you!” The captain said and the other men nodded.
However, a voice soon resounded through the cave. It was emotionless, as if a golem was speaking. “Initiate pre-arranged birth protocol: Save Finders. Objective: Eliminate possible threats.” Everyone turned to look at the strange kid, who had spoken those strange words. He slowly began to walk forward, a strange, cold aura emanating from it. After a couple steps, the kid stopped.
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Everybody was frozen. They could almost feel the aura touching against their skin. It was cold, emotionless. The aura of a killing machine, ready to inflict sure death upon it’s enemies.
As if on clue, two giant metallic limbs erupted from the kid’s back. They pointed against the men, who immediately tried moving away, but didn’t do so fast enough. The metallic limbs soon began to rotate, and fired an immense volley of tiny blue things. The men were shredded apart the moment it hit them, and the remaining ones threw themselves at the small child.
It looked at them, still completely emotionless. Four new limbs came from the kid’s back and swiftly impaled the four men closest to it, who screamed as they began to turn into skeletons. They’re flesh looked as if it was being sucked into the strange metal limbs.
The remaining six men and the captain began to tremble at the display. This child was a complete monster. They were by no means weak, but they knew their limits, and this kid clearly surpassed them. They tried to turn around and flee, but again, four new limbs sprouted, totaling 10. All of the limbs then transformed and gained a spear-like tip at the end, which looked extremely sharp.
The limbs then sped towards the men like snakes and stabbed into them. The men screamed out, and visibly began to age, and after 10 seconds only bones remained of the men. The limbs then retracted and returned into the kid’s back.
It slowly turned back towards the three shaking kids. They had never seen a person dies, furthermore, the kid terrified them. His heartlessness and cold aura alone was enough to make them cry, but they all held back the tears.
“Terminate protocol.” The kid said slowly and he stood there, motionless and emotionless. 20 minutes pass and the kid still hadn’t moved, so the three other kids looked at each other and slowly retreated. He was blocking the exit, so they couldn’t escape.
They waited for hours for the kid to finally move, and only after 4 hours did the kid finally decide to slightly move. It began to walk, carefully watching his steps, as if trying to learn. It spent another hour walking in circles, sometimes almost falling down.
Then the kid slowly turned towards the three kids and opened his mouth, and nothing came out. The three kids looked at the weird kid baffled. What was this kid doing? Just who was he/she?
[…’s Pov]
I think, therefore I am. This is a saying I somehow know. I know not who I am, but I know my race. I am an Asylum, the last surviving member, shot into space and landed upon a foreign planet.
I know that this information was programmed inside of me by my creator, the Professor. However, he must have messed something up, as I know everything about science, machines, programming, souls and for some reason, cooking, but I have no idea how to do the most basic things like walking or speaking. I do know how to speak, and my programs allow me to communicate with my soul, making it possible for me to speak and understand any language, but how do you emit sound from your mouth? How do you take steps forward without falling down?
Luckily for me, the Professor did program into me some protocols for emergency occasions. One activated when some weird humans came and tried to harm the other 3 bipedal. They shouted something about chasing, but I couldn’t follow their conversation. Why would the strange human save the weird bipedal for later?
My protocol activated, and I killed all of them using my soul absorption. They tasted quite good, I have to admit. After I killed them, I stood there, thinking about myself and trying to reach conclusion. It took me a while, but I eventually figured out who I am by going through all of the programs inside of me and sorting them out.
I am an Asylum who was sent away as the last hope for it’s race. I am also the single strongest Asylum to ever be alive by a wide margin, considering all of the resources Creator invested into me. He designed me as a cute child in order for me to get into a school of this world and hopefully learn common sense, which he didn’t input into me so that I could fully comprehend the common sense of this planet.
However, I still can’t figure out what Creator wanted me to do. Did he want me to live my life happily? But what is happiness? What are emotions? I can’t understand several things inside of my coding for some reason, and some words just don’t make any sense. What does he mean by ‘mercy’? It seems as if it’s somehow related to fights, but I can’t understand it’s meaning. Also, what am I supposed to do about these three weird… somethings? They seem humans, but are clearly not judging by the smell of their soul. I tried talking to them after I finally figured out how to walk, which came pretty quickly thanks to my advanced brain, that can be considered monstrous even by my fellow Asylums. However, I still needed to learn how to speak. I kept trying for some hours, after which I finally said “Greeting. I am me. Who are you. Can I go outside. Why were those humans attacking.” I asked, and the three had a weird expression on their face. Are they angry?
“P-please don’t kill us!” One of them asks. She has a limb behind her butt, and has ears similar to mine, yet a bit different. I look at her and say “I won’t.” She still shrinks back at my words for some reason. Is that a sign of aggression? Does she want to attack me? No, that can’t be right, otherwise why would she ask me if I’d kill her? So many questions…
I wait for the three strange weirdos to speak. They keep looking at each other, as if trying to decide something. Do they want to attack me? Should I really kill them all? Maybe I should do that…
Before I could do anything, a different one from before asks “Uh… Can you let us go outside?” I look at him and say “Why should I let you go outside?” The boy was about to say something, but shut up when I added “Can’t you go by yourselves?”
The other boy looks at me and raises an eyebrow. He then says “You’re blocking the exit.” I look at him and he takes a step back for some reason. “I’m clearly not blocking the exit. My frame is only 163.421141512cm tall. I’m not large enough to block the exit. Your argument is therefore incorrect.” They were all looking at me with weird expressions. I wonder why they do that, maybe I truly should kill them? But then having spared them till now would go to waste, and I could get them to help me.
The three look at each other and walk past me, always keeping an eye on me. I just stood there, waiting for them to do their things.
They stop when they’re outside the cave and they look back at me and one of them says “… So, what are you going to do?” I look at the person speaking, who had long and pointed ears and say “I will follow my program and deconstruct my spaceship and use it to initialize my systems. Afterwards, I will hunt down all the living beings around my landing point and take their souls. By doing so I will gain the necessary experience to turn off the pre-made programs and a bare minimum of soul.” My mind goes into one of it’s pre-arranged programs and I begin to explain. I wonder why Creator would make me want to explain this…
The three weirdo’s eyes were wide open and the one with a limb on her butt says “U-uh, what do you mean by taking t-their souls?” I look at her and answer after a while “Souls. Essence of life. Without it, nothing lives. I can feed off of other’s souls.” The three kids start shaking, but I ignore them and turn around, heading back into the cave.
I spend the entire day savaging all usable materials in the spaceship. I used my tool-mode limbs on my back (I’m going to call them mech-arms for convenience’s sake.) and tore apart my ship. From my programs, the doctor tells me that me having 10 mech-arms signifies I’m the strongest. I suppose they are strong, but right now I don’t have enough soul to use them to their fullest. Even just using the machine-gun drained me of half of my soul. Thankfully, those humans were enough for me to gain enough soul to save some. I can store soul inside of my heart, and I can make it into set amounts in order to calculate how much I have. I created a blueprint of the sizes and shapes I want my extra soul to be in beforehand, in order to save time and be organized. They’re going to be like a star system, with a huge ball of essence at the center and many other orbs circling it. The huge ball is my last reserve, and my plan is to always keep it full no matter what, least I fall into a dormant state during battle.
It takes me 6 hours alone to dismantle the ship, and 6 other hours incorporating those pieces into my body in order to finalize myself. After I finished, I could feel myself thinking faster, moving faster and stronger, but the main upgrade is the downgraded expenditure of soul from using my body weapons.
I walk out of the cave and begin my mission. My objective is to hunt down all living beings in an area of 5 kilometers squared around the landing point, afterwards, I will head towards the most advanced race in the area and possibly learn from them what this world is like. My design will make me most suited to be a mercenary or something similar, so I shall do so. “Initialize protocol: Hunt of dawn: Begin.”