“Oughf!”
As Licht opened his eyes he was greeted by an assault of sunbeams. A canopy of green enveloped his vision, and he could feel soft threads of grass below him. Colorful flowers of purple and orange bloomed in bushes and on the ground.
A pleasant reverberation of birds chirping was faintly audible in Licht’s senses. Behind him he heard the soft movement of water and frogs ribbiting. A lake by the sound of it.
“Beautiful.”
Licht’s vision panned his surroundings. He was situated in the midst of a verdant forest. Being accustomed to a rural lifestyle from his seventy-seven years of living, he wasn’t unfamiliar with nature, yet the sight of the forest really made his breath stop. He might have assumed he had been reborn in a divine paradise had he not gone through the survey.
“This really is like a novel. Or at least, it’s definitely not like Earth.”
Licht observed some of the orange flowers that seemed to be moving on their own. A couple of the flowers from a nearby bush had even directed their faces toward him.
“Something’s a little off here though. Why is my vision so low to the ground?”
Licht tried to stand up but realized he had no appendages. He cried out in surprise.
“Forest, I can’t feel my legs, Forest!”
Licht lamented the almost predictable outcome. He had imagined some kind of odd circumstances when he first saw the options on the species selection. This was why he was most inclined to go with humans, which he was already familiar with.
As of right now, Licht couldn’t even see his body. He had no hands, no feet, and no neck. His field of view was like a normal human’s, about 130° horizontally, but it was fixed in place. Licht had no way to move his eyes.
And so he stayed like that for a little while. Time passed until night fell, and the forest lit up with the purple glow from nearby flowers. In that time Licht learned a few things.
Firstly, his hunger wasn’t going to be an issue. Apparently the name of Nature’s Ego was quite fitting. He didn’t require living tissue to feed off of, nor would he have to hunt for his food. It was something that made Licht pretty happy considering he was currently immobile. He found out instead by focusing on his body, the only thing he had to keep him occupied for the moment, that the sensations that traveled along his body were from his cells photosynthesizing.
“I must be some kind of plant then? That’s probably the reason that I’m stuck in place. Kind of sucks to be self-aware as a plant though. Is this some kind of torture I deserve for not appreciating my past life?”
Licht internally shook his fists at the sky. Going from being sedentary in a hospital bed to rooted in the dirt was splendid irony, but he was too busy being melodramatic to notice. In actuality, the experience of being a plant was quite nice. He didn’t have to speak to anyone or follow any government regulations. He lived a life solely of soaking in the sun’s rays.
“This must be what it feels like to be a dog sleeping in the sun all day.”
The other thing that he discovered was a greater shock to him. The few hours that it took for the daylight to pass he had spent testing for cheat-like abilities in hopes that he’d discover some blessing that had traveled with him into the next life. What Licht had found was that he had a status window just like in a video game.
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“Status.”
[Level: 1]
[Exp: 0/10]
[Name: Licht Welles]
[Race: Nature’s Ego (Juvenile)]
[Health: 10/10]
[Stamina: 10/10]
[Energy: 0/0 AF]
[Rank: E-]
[0 STR, 0 DEX, 15 WIS, 2 END, 0 CHA]
[Virtues: None]
[Specializations: Wood]
[Skills: Psychometric Observation (D-), Biogenical Growth (D+), Nutrition Absorption (D)]
“A Nature's Ego root in its juvenile stage. Although yet to mature its ego, its value as a supremely rare natural resource is worth a kingdom’s weight in gold. They are primarily used in alchemy as an ingredient for restorative items of the highest order.”
Licht’s face scrunched up upon looking at his status for the first time.
“No virtues? Zero charisma? Who the hell is this Licht guy?”
Licht laughed and assumed he must be seeing things. The more important thing was his skill list. Just like games from the twenty-first century, he had been blessed with a list of skills.
[Biogenical Growth] and [Nutrition Absorption] had very ‘earthy’ sounding names. Licht assumed that they were just overly complex ways to describe the natural processes of a plant. What caught his eye was the skill [Psychometric Observation].
“If I recall correctly, psychometry was the process of understanding things about an object by touching it. It was mostly a term used when talking about clairvoyant abilities or psychics using mediums. Basically trash.”
Licht didn’t see how it would apply to him. As it was, in his current state he was pretty stationary. A skill that required him to touch things to use it was useless to him.
“It’s like a nerfed version of the typical analysis skill that protagonists usually get. Just my luck.”
Licht inwardly complained that there wasn’t a luck stat that he could distribute points into.
For now, he would have to wait. Not much he could really do anyway. Licht shut his ‘eyes’ and fell into a deep slumber.
plap plap plap plap plap plap
Licht’s vision came back as he felt himself showered by a downpour of rain.
“No grogginess huh? Guess the perks of being a plant are few but noticeable.”
Licht sarcastically reminded himself of an old proverb of being ‘thankful for what you have’, while remaining conscious of the pelting of raindrops all around him. Licht had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but it was day in the forest once again although the canopy of trees was not sparkling with sunbeams but concealing wafts of fog that had come in with the storm. The rumbling of thunder shook Licht’s eardrums from a distance.
In his vision, a puddle had formed around him, finally allowing him to see his own form in the reflection.
“Ah, finally!”
Licht peered into the reflective water. The gray duskiness of the foggy day was just barely bright enough for him to use the water as a mirror.
His form was as he had imagined, he was really reborn as a plant. He was some kind of flower. A thick dark green stem protruded from the ground and was adorned with five oval-shaped leaves. Purple petals surrounded a black sphere in the center of the flower’s face where there should have been a stigma. The black orb looked heavy and metallic, yet the flower didn’t seem to be bothered by the weight.
Licht sighed.
“Kind of evil-looking for a plant. Am I supposed to be the whole plant or just the orb? Does it make any difference?”
Licht posed his query to no one in particular while he watched his own form through the reflection of the water, vainly trying to move his own body. The human convention of identifying things rotund and prominent as heads made him think that maybe his consciousness was centered in the dark orb, and not the whole flower. Suddenly a shadow loomed over the puddle in front of Licht, dimming his view through the water.
“What is that?”
Licht exclaimed as he beheld the giant form of a long-eared beast.
“Death?!”