“There it is,” Zachary muttered as he flipped the corpse over, removing the facial accessory from the body and wiping the smears of berry juice off it with his tunic. It had been a while since he’d had to do this, robbing from his own dead body – but needs must, he supposed.

He wasn’t entirely sure of the mechanics of spawning in each world – he’d been more focused on the practical aspects of the Soul System when he’d been learning – but what was apparent was that if you died and respawned in the same world, your previous impact on the world would remain; meaning the things you did, the monsters you’d killed, and in this case, the body you once inhabited, would be preserved within the next incarnation.

“Eugh,” Zachary scrunched his face up as he flipped up the tunic the body was wearing to examine the skin underneath. There were uneven rows of reddish yellow pustules lining the skin, some of which had popped and subsequently dried into patches of dry flakes over the time between his death and his next life. “Remind me not to eat random berries in forests. Unless it gives me superpowers.”

He warily eyed the small pile of slightly smushed Porri berries next to his previous self as he returned the mask to his face, wondering if they still held some power over him - but dying had cleansed all his existing status effects, so he was all good there.

Hold on, he thought. These could still be useful, no? Berries toxic in high quantities that force people with low mental defense to seek out more; to the point of insanity? Sounds like some sort of alchemic ingredient to me, if not just a handy assassination tool. Yoink!

Zachary pulled the generic cloth tunic off the corpse and fashioned it into a bundle which he promptly tied to a nearby stick. Then, with all the care of a bomb defusal operative, he gingerly shovelled all the berries in the vicinity into the pouch. He’d find a use for them later, he was sure of it.

After all these shenanigans, it was finally time to get into the main meat and potatoes of this world.

Maybe get some actual meat and potatoes too – he was starving.

Shooting one last look of disgust at the bloodshot eyes of his former self, he trudged deeper into the forest. He hadn’t bothered to bury it; he’d let the scavengers of the forest have a heartier meal than usual. Time was of the essence here. Besides, the owner of that body was fine with it, so why go to the trouble?

The logic was simple; any natural phenomena in the world could only cover oh so much area, so if you kept walking in a straight line you’d be bound to see traces of civilisation. Call it optimism or deductive reasoning, but if one thought about it, the denizens of any world would want to build their settlements close to natural resources like the ocean for fish and salt; or perhaps a forest for firewood and meat? And even if you didn’t find actual people, as long as you made it out of whatever biome you were currently in, surely you’d be able to find something else that’d help you survive, right?

Four hours later Zachary slumped against the trunk of a nearby tree and slid to the ground in defeat. This forest seemed almost endless. He knew it wasn’t – it couldn’t be – but there was no way he could keep going on with no food or water.

Water was going to be a bigger problem here, actually. With the amount of liquid leaving his body as sweat, he had to think up a solution to that quickly rather than settle his hunger concerns. What was the saying again? Three days without water, three weeks without food?

The only thing he had to quench his thirst were the little bubbles of poison in his backpack, but even with risking delirium it wouldn’t be much more than a stopgap measure.

Berries were just berries, after all – small. If they had been apples he’d have been less worried.

Plants are like 60% water, right? Could I suckle on a leaf? He side-eyed a nearby bush and plucked a leaf from the bunch. After hesitating for a second or two, he popped it into his mouth and chewed. Almost immediately the bitter plant mush was spat out onto the ground, along with a couple more mouthfuls of spit.

No, he concluded. No, I cannot. Probably shouldn’t just start randomly sticking things in my mouth, either. Haven’t I learnt from those berries?

Grunting a little from exertion, Zachary forced himself to his feet. Water or no water, there was no way he could just sit here all day in this forest. Maybe there’d be a stream further up, or a small village with a well he could draw water from. Staying still would conversely be a guaranteed death sentence, especially since he was still in the dark on the composition of hostile creatures in this world. There was every chance that he had yet to come face to face with the master of this domain.

“Snrrf. Snrrf.”

There was now a sort of low snorting sound that had overpowered the ever constant chirping of the cricket equivalents of this world. Which was quite a feat, given that the incessant whining of those insects had been all around the otherworlder for the entirety of his time on spent on this world. Which either meant a very loud animal, or a very close animal. With mild trepidation, Zachary slowly turned his gaze towards the noise.

It was then that he was reminded of a certain law that humans back on his Earth had come up with. It was something that symbolised the inherent nihilism of humanity, as well as the utter helplessness one felt when presented with a difficult task.

If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Because standing just a few meters away, pawing its hooves at the ground, was a wild hog almost half his size.

“Crap. Crap. Crap.”

Wasting no time, Zachary turned and scampered. He could hear the powerful thuds of lean muscle against dirt behind him. He had no idea what level the beast was – he hadn’t had the time or resources to get Inspect unlocked – but one thing was certain; it was higher levelled than him. And even a one level difference would be a definite death sentence if the opponent was someone hell bent on having you for dinner.

Well, he thought, sarcastically. On the bright side, if this big guy’s here then there’s got to be water somewhere around. Hooray for me, I guess. Little comfort after he rips me to shreds and I get sent back to my spawn point again. Trekking all the way back here is going to be a bitch. Wait, what am I doing; tree!

Zachary hopped onto the trunk of the closest tree and began to shimmy for his life. After finding purchase on a particularly sturdy branch, he peeked back down to the ground. It had been a rare stroke of brilliance from a dehydrated mind, but he had been entirely correct – the hog was now leaned up against the trunk with its two forelegs, glaring angrily at the one that had escaped him.

Yet instead of giving up and returning to its previous hunt for prey, the wild pig decided to circle the tree, pacing around the trunk in determination; as if it was set on this particular meaty human for dinner.

“Great. It’s not going away.”

He sighed, leaning against the tree in exhaustion.

“Maybe this is a test by the old man. I’ve been playing on Easy Mode all this time so he decided to throw in a curveball to keep me on my toes. Next time I get to talk to him I’m going to file a formal complaint. Ask to speak to his manager.”

Hold on- the berries!

Zachary hurriedly unfurled the makeshift bundle and assessed his arsenal, counting out the individual berries one by one.

Eighty four.

Would that be enough for one angry pig?

It would have to be.

“Alright,” Zachary held the berry-stained shirt over the ground, arms outstretched. “Here goes nothing. Eat this, you shitty pig.”

Tipping the shirt over, he watched as blobs of red rained down onto the pig below.

The pig, pelted by pellets of something, grunted in irritation.

That dinner of his had thrown something in his direction; to try and injure him, no doubt! Well, he sure was lucky that he had such a thick hide and- wait, what was that tantalizing smell? Its snout twitched once, then twice, as the aroma wafting off the Porri berries that had splattered all over the floor drifted towards it.

No, it snorted as it turned its face away in determination. I’m going to have that strange monkey for dinner today – I can’t fill up on that delicious smelling berry assortment spread all over the ground. But… it does smell delightful- no, I can’t! Control yourself; the monkey comes first, I can have these red treats for dessert after I crush his ribcage with my hooves.

Well, maybe I’ll just have one first – as an appetiser.

You have gained 407 XP.

You have levelled up.

You have levelled up.

It had been a sight to behold, the once hostile pig scarfing down berry after berry despite having been dead set on chewing on his flesh literally moments ago. It had finished the bunch in something like a record forty seconds, stumbled about like it was drunk for another fifteen, then finally keeled over stone dead.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Having descended from the tree, Zachary now stood over the carcass of the dead hog, frowning.

He… probably couldn’t eat the meat now, could he? It’d be tainted by the Porri berries.

“Can’t exactly skin it with no knife either… and carrying around something like thirty kilos of inedible meat probably’ll tire me out even more. Damn it. Well, at least I got two levels out of it. And the knowledge that there’s probably some source of potable water around here.”

Then he sighed, deeply.

“Man, not having overpowered characters to trivialise all these sucks.”

The river – or creek, if you wanted to be more specific – turned out to be another couple meters in front of where he had encountered the wild beast. Zachary hungrily lapped from the tiny water stream, rehydrating his body as much as he could. He ignored the possibility of bacteria and such for now – he wasn’t exactly well-versed in starting a fire without magic, anyways. Plus, it wasn’t like the animals that drank from this stream were getting sick from it, or that hog wouldn’t even have been strong enough to come after him.

Thirst fully quenched, Zachary continued his search for the natives of this world.

This time, he was more confident in finding them; all he had to do was follow the stream to its source, and naturally, there’d be civilisation where it ended. A brilliant plan, if he did say so himself – which he did.

In the end, he didn’t manage to find anyone. He’d tried as hard as he could – which you could argue wasn’t hard enough – but his line of reasoning hadn’t yielded the results he wanted. It had been a good plan though, he reassured himself.

He had reached the source of the tiny stream in about two hours; a trickle originating from a cave that had been built into the side of a sheer cliff bordering the forest he had just been in. From the looks of it, there had been a build-up of ice and snow within the cavity during a cold season before this that was now currently melting slowly in the comparatively higher temperature of the current season.

The cave wasn’t even that interesting to explore, either. Simply a tunnel that led something like four meters into the side of the cliff, before ending unceremoniously in a dead end.

Still, it was shelter. It was getting late now, and having a night’s rest in a cave sheltered from the elements beat balancing your body on a precarious branch high up on a tree any day. You didn’t have to worry about falling off, for one. Still no food but plenty of water, so he’d take it. It was all about the tiny victories, after all. Stack them up high enough and you’d have a big victory one of these days.

This was also a good time to re-examine his current assumptions of the world, too.

“Levels are definitely still a thing; which is nice. Won’t need to worry about hidden stats and crap like that. Killing things gives you XP, so that’s still the same as last world. Not sure about things like training skills or learning from a more experienced expert, but I’ll come to that when I find the first village or something.”

“Speaking of which,” Zachary mused to himself. “still gotta find a time for me to get that Inspect skill learnt. Going to be damn near necessary for threat assessment. And to check my Status, too. Which is annoying. It should be a given that you’d be able to see your personal Status in any of these worlds; why’d you even make this a thing, old man?”

His fingers brushed against the golden mask he wore as he cupped his chin in introspection. Zachary pulled it from his face, turning it around to stare blankly into its empty eyes.

“Why aren’t you working, Profile Swap? Huh?” He placed an accusatory finger on the nose of the mask. “Are you messing with me, Demon Lord Masquerade? You had so much fun terrorizing a couple of natives and now you’re turning your rampage onto me, your master, eh? Is someone getting a little too arrogant?”

Zachary shifted his tone down a few registers.

“Why no, little Zachary, I would never think to scare you! All I’m doing is screwing around and making you have to work a little harder for my power!”

He buried his head in his hands.

What was he even doing now? Cowering in a cave? Talking to himself? He couldn’t even see his Status Page! He needed to do something, not sit about and start yapping to a goddamned, inanimate mask!

He slammed the mask onto the ground in anger, the object bouncing off the ground with force and clattering into the side of the cave. Zachary stared at the masquerade mask a few moments more, silently fuming. Then he slowly laid back down onto the cold cave floor, hands clasped, staring up into the ceiling of the cave, thinking.

He hadn’t really planned to keep going, really. It had always been supposed to be an extra life or two. That’s what his bumbling, well-meaning teacher had told him in the beginning. One or two lives more in exchange for the one accidentally taken from him.

But it wasn’t like there was a hard limit set. That was up to him. Until you get bored – those were the words used.

So he’d kept going.

Mask after mask, life after life. He still wasn’t satisfied – or at least, he thought he still wasn’t.

Maybe after I hit a thousand. I’ll reassess again then. Definitely.

He got up and walked over to the mask, picking it up. It had gotten a little damp, but that was to be expected – it had been spiked into the damp, moist ground of a half-frozen, half-melted cave. Zachary polished the mask the best he could with the cloth tunic he was wearing, then brought it back up to his face to inspect the sheen.

He’d been wearing this mask for so long, he’d almost never seen it from this perspective. It had always been on his face, after all. He smiled as he shifted the mask in his hands, watching as it glinted in the moonlight shining from outside the cave. It was funny, really. A simple mask. Hard to imagine that one small little accessory like this could alter one’s Status Page.

Wait.

Wait just one second.

Status Page?

Could it be that simple?

Zachary turned the mask over in his hands, carefully donning it as he spoke the words to bring up the stat-altering page.

“Mask of Lies.”

Name:

Zachary Altair (Edit)

Race:

Human (Edit)

Level:

3 (Edit)

Overall Animalisation:

4% (Edit)

HP:

85/85 (Edit)

MP:

24/24 (Edit)

Attributes:

LVL

STR:

15 (Edit)

DEF:

22 (Edit)

INT:

8 (Edit)

SPD:

34 (Edit)

LUK:

25 (Edit)

Skills:

LVL

Mask Generation

- (Edit)

Profile Swap (1/1)

- (Edit)

Sure enough, it had worked; even without being able to bring up the Status Page using the tried and tested method, the mask’s inherent functionality allowed one to bypass that restriction completely. It made sense; you wouldn’t be able to edit anything if you didn’t have a basis to edit it from.

“Let’s see here…” Zachary muttered absentmindedly as he scanned down the words on the transparent blue page. “Something about animalisation here… natives could be part beast? Or full beast? Humans might be the underclass here, then. Or even non-existent. Going to have to get a thick, hooded cloak if I want to blend in. Then again… I could find some way to progress Animalisation; this is their world after all, and when in Rome… Okay, stats aren’t too bad; Int’s a little low though, but from preliminary observations, this world probably isn’t too magic-oriented, so I-“

He stopped short as his eyes ran over something he did not expect to see.

The glaring number one next to his Profile Swap skill.

Zachary stared at it in stark disbelief, as if focusing on it would magically alter the number back to their former total.

Then, drawing breath deep into his lungs, he shouted as loud as he could.

“WHAT IN THE GODDAMNED HELL IS THAT?!”