Chapter 6: New body - new morals
Day 1:
I spent the first day in the tunnel to try get a grip of the situation. But although I say “first day” there is no way of knowing the time underground, so I don’t really know. But I should be able to judge by the orc’s stamina.
Anyway - first of all, I inspected my newly gained status.
Status Window:
Zodd [Orc Lv. 4] (Controlled)
HP: 37/37
MP: 1/1
Strength: 29
Agility: 9
Intelligence: 14
Stamina: 89%
Passive Skills:
[Hard Skin Lv. 7]
Active Skills:
[Night Vision Lv. 5]
Titles:
-
Oh? A monster with a name? It’s true that I called the shark-like monster from before by a name, but that was merely for the convenience sake.. This is something entirely new.
What does a name have for effects? Well, going by the standards of earth, a name isn’t something special and have no effects at all. But this is a world in which magic exists..
No, I shouldn’t be jumping conclusions on my own since the system doesn’t seem like it will answer me. Rather, I should think about this logically.
Ok, the monster have a name. Which means that someone had to name it. A parent perhaps?
But if that’s so then that would mean that orcs are above beasts in terms of intelligence.
However, I have no way of confirming my guesses so I will leave it at that.
Next I prioritised to explore my surroundings. Although I didn’t discover anything special in particular, I was surprised at the size of this cave. No, it couldn’t be called a cave anymore. It was more of a wide tunnel. But calling it a tunnel would also be wrong since there were several other tunnels crossing my own.
And as I continued to walk I came up with a more fitting name for this underground tunnel system. A labyrinth.
Everywhere looked the same and even though I continued to walk in a straight line, I felt as if I was walking in circles.
So to summarise my situation; I’m a living stone controlling an orc named Zodd, while completely lost in a underground labyrinth. Also, I’m beginning to feel hunger surge from the orcs body.
While being lost doesn’t bother me especially since I never knew where I was from the start - the hunger could prove to be a problem..
There is a chance that Zodd will begin to panic if he gets starved enough, and then break free from my control. If that actually happens, I would be in serious danger since my camouflage is already known by the orc. In short, unable to run away - I would die.
Thus, now that I know my current abilities, my surroundings and what I have to do.
I just need to find something to eat.
And so, I continued to walk in the same direction as before. Only now, I had a reason to do so.
I soon found what I was looking for in a crossing of two tunnels. A potential prey. A pig-faced, dirty, overweight man merely wearing an equally dirty piece of cloth to cover his crotch.
Another orc.
What the hell?! Do I really need to kill and eat my own kind? Well, it’s not really “my” kind but rather Zodd’s.
However, isn’t this a little cruel? And disgusting..
No, I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Yet again I am applying human standards on this world and inhabitants, even though I had decided to live my life from scratch.
Right now, I myself am a monster - a former human, but no longer.
If it’s a life or death situation - it isn’t “cruel” to kill another monster to stay alive yourself. That is what I have decided. Thus, I chose to survive.
The other orc notices me and grunts a greeting to me. Indicating that it’s friendly.
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I don’t bother answering, after all I hardly know how to copy that sound. Instead I observe him quietly.
He turns around, now ignoring me, and takes a few steps into the pathway to the right. I can’t see him anymore, and so, I hurriedly follow his path.
I was never the physical guy in my previous life so I never knew how to throw a punch. But somehow with this new big body it worked out perfectly.
Imagine a sumo wrestler pummeling his opponent from behind with all of his weight supporting him. Not very surprising, the orc was knocked down with just that. He fell to the ground facing downwards without being able to stop his seemingly inflated body with his hands.
Quickly, I placed my hands around his thick neck and squeezed as hard as I could.
Of course the orc struggled with all its might, but in it’s confused state it never really had any chance of breaking loose from my grip. One could say that it’s all thanks to the practise I did while I controlled the squid, or the simple fact that my hands was large enough to grasp all the way around his neck.
But anyway or another, after around one minute the orc finally stopped to struggle.
Notification:
The required experience level have been reached. Skill: [Embrace Lv. 1], have been acquired by controlled individual Zodd [Orc Lv. 4].
Just as the orc exhaled one last time, a notification popped up before my eyes.
.. It seems like living as a squid really did help me.
Since I already had the knowledge of how the skill was executed, I easily acquired it by simply copying it from my memory.
In other words, my loss after my fight against Zodd wasn’t significant. Since the only thing that I lost was access to the squids skills. In fact, if you exclude that it took some time until I got to this point - it was a total victory!
But I don’t really have time to celebrate. Zodd is slowly beginning to oppose me, just as I predicted before. And I can’t do anything about it right now.
Sure, I have meat to still his hunger, but there still remains two problems to be solved, before I can continue.
Problem 1:
It’s raw meat. Raw, and unappealing - to say the least.
Solution: Eat or be eaten.
You should have already noticed, but if I was in such a crisis, I’m the kind of person who would do anything to survive. I would even commit cannibalism if necessary, just to live another day.
Survival for the fittest, is what it’s called. Or even the “law of the jungle” if you prefer that.
There is not really a problem here, it’s just disgusting to eat uncooked meat. Not to mention what kind of meat this is. But as I said, it’s not a question of however I would like to eat it or not - I need it.
However, this is where problem number two comes into the picture:
If I turn my back to the path behind me and only focus on what’s in front of me, then I could easily be done in by another monster. Perhaps yet another orc.
Actually, the ideá of that another orc would come by this place wouldn’t be that weird since there already happened to be one who took this path. Also, since orcs in this world should be relatively intelligent they could very well call it’s friends if it finds me, instead of stupidly attack me alone.
Thinking that, I hastily look around me to see if anyone was alerted by the ground-shaking thud the orc’s fall caused.
The solution to this is obviously to move the corpse to a safe location where I can eat while at the same time being alert of the shadows. In other words, what I need is a height or a dead end so that I know if someone were to close in on me long before they actually get close.
Kind of like how a leopard drags its caught prey up into a tree and eat it, undisturbed and safe from any rivals.
While assuring myself that nothing’s moving, I gripp my prey in both wrists, seperatly, and begin to drag it back the way the unlucky orc came from.