So, the god waved its claws unenthusiastically and answered Tanuki’s question.

“Yes, yes, my name is Cervus, I am the Divine that welcomes deer into the afterlife. Bipedal creatures get to go to all kinds of heavens so animals should have a place too, yada-yada, boring empty talk. I did not choose this life because trust me, deer are not as great of a company as one would imagine and after having to welcome the thousandth of them turning when they turn into bones only to watch on as they wander off the world and fall into the void, you know, everyone has a breaking point. After a while, I just couldn’t care less. Who even likes deer? Do you? Ask yourself now, do you really do? No one does! You could erase every single one of them from existence and barely anyone would notice!”

Tanuki did not have to play scared anymore. The god enjoyed monologuing, all he had to do was pour fuel onto the flames.

“You said you got bored and that’s why you attacked the village, but you could’ve just talked to them. The plantfolk are not aggressive creatures, they welcomed me with open arms.”

“That’s the problem!” Cervus slapped its hands together. “The plantfolk are not aggressive people, because they are weak! I had to suffer their neighborship for decades now, I had plenty of time to observe their failures. I mean, have you heard them talk amongst each other? The way they talk is like a toddler trying to imitate adult talk. And their names? Oh no, thank you, I don’t need anyone to call me numbers. Don’t even get me started on their physique, they need a group to defeat just one of my worthless skeletons. Really, do you think such lowly creatures would ever satisfy my company?”

Tanuki frowned starkly. “I think I finally understand your motives.”

“Clever boy, so you’ve finally opened your ears. I hoped I wouldn’t have to explain to you for the third time, because, well, I’m getting bored.” –– it looked down on its claws and cleaned the dirt from under –– “Now, onto my next question. Where does your portal lead?”

“Nowhere you would find friends.”

“Pardon?” Cervus’s head snapped to him. Tanuki’s eyes shone red with anger and determination.

“You heard me right, shithead! Don’t act like you’re the hottest thing in this realm, because even looking at you makes me question if I feel more pity or disgust. You said this was a game of honesty, yet you’ve been lying from the start! You’re not bored, you’re just jealous! You’re jealous because you’re lonely and looking at the plantfolk reminds you of that! But guess what? You’re not alone because you have yet to find your perfect place; believe me, it doesn’t exist! You’re suffering because you’re a petty narcissist with an inferiority complex!”

Cervus’s breathing grew louder with anger. It snickered with forced mocking and shook its head.

“Foolish child, why would I––“

“You see that they are happy, you see that they are satisfied with each other, and that makes you angry. You want to be a part of a group, but you’re too proud to befriend anybody. To put it simply, you think you’re a bag of gold when in reality, you’re just a sack of shit.”

Cervus laughed again, but the anger in his voice seeped through. There was no deflecting it, Tanuki hit a nerve. Rage clouded its mind, but a stronger, more complicated emotion held it back from immediately slicing up the boy.

“You little piece of shit!” Cervus whispered, stretching out claws, “How dare you talk to me like that? Do you know the difference in power between the two of us?”

“Hell yeah, I know! You’re all upset because all you’ve got is deer while I’m going to bed that beauty over here tonight,” he pointed below, down to the far away Hundredth. She still lay unconscious, her eyes slowly regaining light.

Tanuki’s wry smile grew wide as he channelled all the shit-talking learnt from playing online video games. With a single sentence, he cemented his victory.

“Now, which one of us is more powerful, virgin-boy?”

Tanuki himself was a virgin, but Cervus did not need to know that. Nor could the god ever learn that information, as the anger bubbling inside its skeleton clouded all reasonable thoughts. It raised its claw to slice up Tanuki, but he grinned into the beast’s face. He prayed that his plan would work.

Cervus stopped, staring into his eyes. He could not mask the fear beneath, but the god’s emotions blinded it. It mumbled something to itself, then laughed while lowering the claw. It was not just any kind of laugh, but one longer and louder than all before, filled with anger and a lust for revenge.

“You know what? Fine!” Cervus clapped its claws together, “All I have is deer. Killing you will not change that fact. You’ve got someone to talk to, however, I can take that person away from you, and then you won’t have anyone. Much like I, your world will be silent, filled with deer. Beautiful! We will be equal, now won’t we?”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Cervus stepped down from the tree onto the wall, and Tanuki realised for the first time that throughout their conversation, Cervus was affected by the same gravity as the deer, yet it was strong enough to remain standing vertically.

“Is he that powerful or just that light?” he wondered while the god strutted towards Hundredth.

“Say goodbye to your friend, Hachiro Tanuki!” Cervus turned away from him, waving once before locking both hands behind its back.

The distance between them and Hundredth was only a few seconds. Tanuki used that time to yell and beg, pretending desperation while readying his staff.

His mana had fully recharged. His gloves were ready to double-cast his spell. The acid crawled up from the sides of the staff into a tiny ball atop. It had a distinctive boiling sound that Tanuki hid with his voice.

“Stop! Please, I’m sorry!” He yelled with a straight face. Cervus could not see that because his back was turned and his emotions blinded it to any second guess.

“You’ve made your mistake, boy! Now gaze on as I claw out your girlfriend’s innards!” Cervus stood above Hundredth. She was groaning as her senses slowly returned, with them the pain and the blurry figure above.

“…hero?” she mumbled.

Cervus looked down on her with accomplishment. She was not a person, but a trophy of revenge and a reminder of superiority. Tanuki’s begging echoed through the woods like harmonious chimes.

The god was not expecting this much fun. For the longest time, it believed it would forever be stuck alone without any entertainment. But this was heaven. It could not have wished for anything better.

“Perhaps if we had more time to play, that would’ve been good…”

Cervus raised its claws to strike down on Hundredth but froze as two impactful projectiles hit it in the back. It turned to see that the carcass bore a strange green liquid popping with heat, despite putting a claw on it revealing it to be mild.

The acid was blocked by the deer corpse hanging on its back. Cervus did not recognise its scent, but seeing it drained health points, the god turned furiously.

“What is this? What did you throw at me?!”

Tanuki grinned. “Let me guess, your power comes from that thing on your back? The corpse? I made you turn around to get a better shot at it.”

Cervus reached to grab the carcass. Immediately, its anger dissipated as panic took its place. Its flesh and skin burned away, draining more than half of its health points.

“What… What?!” Cervus was at a loss for words, to which Tanuki laughed with satisfaction.

“I knew it! I could have attacked your bones, but that doesn’t do anything! You’re not the skeleton, but the corpse on its back! This is why you are only level one, you are easy to defeat when knowing where to aim!”

“Stop it! Get this off me!” Cervus shouted, to which it was met with another blast of acid. Even though its claws were large, when the god tried to block the attack, the crackling liquid shot through its thin ribs and fingerbones.

This fight was almost unfair once there was enough distance between them.

[ Cervus (LvL. 1)]

[ HP: 4/10 ]

The corpse’s fur drank the acid, burning itself up from the inside. Cervus fell to its knees as the origins of its existence gradually decimated.

It was dead. Even if it could somehow defend itself from another attack, the acid burrowed into its carcass kills it.

Cervus cried out to Tanuki, “Stop it! Please, stop it!”

“Nope,” Tanuki shook his head.

When winning, he could enjoy a plan working out the way he wanted. That kind of winning would heat his veins, much like landing a decisive attack or successfully blocking one. But when it was all over and the victory was his, the mind cooled down, leaving emptiness in its wake.

This battle was over. He won. All he had to do was wait out until his opponent burnt apart.

Cervus continued to beg.

“Please! It burns! I’ll do anything, just stop the burning!”

“Why would I show kindness to you when you refused the same?” he wanted to shout but kept to himself.

It was a complicated feeling. He wished to mock the god for threatening him and cutting his face, but something held him back. A kind of guilt felt for an action that his alternate self would have taken.

Perhaps if the heat of the battle burned in his veins, if the god still had some fighting spirit in there, he would have said it, but now, he could only beg for his opponent’s quick death.

“Please! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die alone! Phlease, I‘m sho shorry! ’M sho shorry…”

As the magic poured from the corpse into a fine cloud of dust, Cervus’s voice weakened, until it fell quiet. Not because the acid burnt its way through the fabric, finally putting an end to its agony, but Hundredth stood up and cut through the carcass, ending Cervus’s agony.

The skeleton fell to the ground, and with that, the forest echoed as dozens of deer followed. With the god gone, the deer were dead. Perhaps they never even lived, and it was hate that animated them.

Tanuki looked on quietly as Hundredth stared at the corpse. She met his gate, but there was no joy in her eyes. She was tired, much like him.

Eventually, Tanuki broke the silence.

“Do you see any road nearby?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll have to climb up with my rope.”

- - -

Somewhere in a large snowstorm, a man walked with bare feet, every step reminding him of the numbness that crept up his legs like venomous snakes.

The blizzard picked up; his field of view made smaller by the blinding snow, his sense of direction dictated by the shouting following his footsteps.

“Where did he go?”

“Hey, come back, bastard!”

“You’ll pay for what you did!”

The barking of bloodhounds grew louder. He knew only minutes separated him from inevitable death. If lucky, the cold would take him. If not, they would return him alive.

As he walked on, three silhouettes appeared on the horizon, a deer and its two fawns. He got close before they could see, jumping up too late when he was mere meters away. The two fawns could run, but their mother limped with a broken leg.

He ran after her, pushing the last of his strength into his legs, before pulling out a bloody knife and painting it yet again. The deer’s cries ceased as he slit her throat. He cut a large hole into her stomach, then climbed inside the body and warmed in her blood.

His cold was no more.

His smell was no more.

His humanity was no more.

The bloodhounds found his corpse only in the morning. He died from exhaustion, taking one more mother with himself into the forests of death.

Darkness surrounded them…