A loud, authoritative shout echoed around me and hung from my neck, weighing me down. Just as quickly, a chorus of clicks added to the assault on my ears and bright light stabbed at my eyes.

I stumbled forwards as my eyes adjusted, but almost as soon as I registered the dangerous hiss of air around me, two spikes had stabbed into my chest, punching and scraping against bone.

The breath in my lungs was forced out, and as I struggled for air, I looked down at the crossbow bolts sticking out of me.

Hearing another shout, I looked up at my attackers, and found three soldiers and what I assumed was some kind of leader. This second shout seemed to be aimed at the three soldiers with crossbows, considering how their hands were blurring and speeding up erratically, allowing them to reload their crossbows faster and more reliably.

‘Speaking of which, I’m getting the fuck out of here before they shoot me again.’

As I glanced around and took in the view of the forest I found myself in, I quickly noticed what looked like fires off to my left, and distantly heard the occasional peal of laughter. I bolted towards an opening in the trees to my right that seemed empty.

Immediately I gasped and stumbled at the burning and sharp stabbing pains in my chest, then writhed in torment as the gasp for air had been too deep. Something had to be broken, a rib at least…

Rather than try to continue to shuffle off into the woods immediately, I tried to activate the Mana Wisp skill. Trying to just imagine the skill working didn’t seem to do anything, so I gathered what breath I could, and whispered “Mana Wisp!”

And as I felt something pouring out of my chest and into the air in front of me, I was ecstatic when the skill completed.

What formed was a smoky, light blue orb, leaving little trails behind as it floated around in front of me…

It. Is. So. Fucking. Cute!

As much as I feel an intense desire to protect the precious orb, I’m in no position to do so now, and getting distracted isn’t good.

I quickly summon the other four that can be summoned, reserving my entire mana pool, but just when I’m about to start ordering the Wisps around, another feeling shifts around in the Mana Wisp skill, and a sixth Wisp appears.

There didn’t seem to be any additional reservation, so I assumed the Minion Count passive did this, and smiled widely.

I continue the jog towards the woods, while trying not to move my arms or upper body in order to jostle the bolts as little as possible.

Attempting to send a mental command to the Wisps caused something to click into place between my summons and I, allowing me to send them commands without speaking. ‘Follow behind me, and intercept any damage coming my way, fire your bolts if you can, move into the path of the damage if you won’t be able to fire in time for interception.’

My command was put in place just in time, reaching the opening into the forest at the same time as the soldiers fired their crossbows again, the clicks of the triggers and hiss of air as their bolts flew towards me.

The Wisps all fired their lightning bolts, two for each of the crossbow bolts, and the interception worked wonderfully, two of the crossbow bolts stopped almost completely dead in the air before falling to the ground, and the third was redirected off into the woods somewhere.

I smiled and continued jogging off into the woods, turning away from the clearing entirely as I tried to put more space between myself and those soldiers, occasionally turning slightly to put trees behind me.

Suddenly, I heard a shout that echoed throughout the forest, and as I spun around towards the clearing, what little of it I could still see… There looked to be dozens of the soldiers filling up the area, and all of them had crossbows.

I scurried behind the nearest tree with my Wisps, and not a moment too soon, as a storm of bolts flew through the forest, many zipping past to land further ahead, but just as many striking deep into all of the trees in this area of the woods.

‘Every time this fucking guy shouts, there’s some kind of weird effect. The weight I felt first, then the faster reloads, and now this shit, which affected the crossbow bolts somehow.’

The commander spoke, and the soldiers started to move this way…

“Fuck me…”

Forget jogging, I clenched my jaw and broke into a run through the woods, about as close to a sprint as I could manage while having to move around trees and dodge low branches, protruding roots, and bushes.

‘You three intercept any bolts that’ll actually hit me, focus on deflecting bolts, and you three shoot at the soldiers, focusing on the soldiers closest to me. All of you fly up as close to the canopy as possible and shoot from there.’

The Wisps dart up towards the canopy until they reach the limit of how far away they can be from me, and begin taking shots, lightning bolts whizzing down towards soldiers and crossbow bolts in flight. The soldiers being fired at have to dodge or dive aside to avoid being hit, and some of the soldiers decide to shoot up at the Wisps instead of me, lowering the number of soldiers actually firing at me, but there are dozens of them now.

My Wisps can’t fire fast enough.

I duck as a crossbow bolt hisses past my head, then grit my teeth as I feel a burning pain slice across my right calf.

There has to be something to turn this around, but as I look around, as much as I can without tripping over a root or something, nothing sticks out. I can’t hear anything different either, as little as I can hear over the constant hissing and clicking from behind me.

Another bolt rushes past me, and I grimace in pain as I feel grazing slices across my left thigh and the right side of my neck.

Then, off in the distance to the right, I hear it! The faint babbling of water. I immediately veer off my path and run towards the sound, ducking and dodging a constant stream of bolts.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

A bolt hits my right thigh, and without hitting bone, it tears straight through and keeps going, grazing my left hamstring.

My right leg gives out underneath me and I hit the ground rolling, snapping the crossbow bolts in my chest and smacking into every sharp rock or protruding root until I come to a stop several feet away.

Gasping for breath and trying to fight through the pain, I slowly cleared my head of this smothering suffering.

Then I drag myself a couple meters to sit behind the closest tree, scraping against every rock and stone on the way there.

I press both my hands against the holes in my thigh, trying to put pressure on them… Not that it works super well, considering that these are fucking holes in my leg.

‘Shoot the closest soldiers and those who have an angle to shoot me, focus fire on one at a time, and if one is injured, continue firing at the injured one until they’re dead. Move between the trees to create crossfires and use the trees as cover.’

All six of my Wisps dart to their own trees around me, and wait…

I clench my teeth and press harder against the gushing holes in my thigh, causing a wave of pain to wash against my skull, then lean back and rest my head against the tree behind me.

‘These fucking bastards…’

Slowly, ever so slowly, my eyelids get heavier and struggle to stay open, my increasingly sluggish thoughts turning inwards.

‘Why couldn’t this shit be like some of the System novels I’ve read?’

‘It would’ve been better to work together with other people to survive.’

‘Instead I’m here, alone except for my lil buddies, no System tutorial in sight, bleeding the fuck out, with this dogshit, malicious ass system, and these crossbow wielding fuckers. Fuck.’

‘I hope my lil buddies don’t just die when I’m gone… But they’re made of my mana, so they probably will…Fuck.’

Marching towards death’s door, I look up at the Wisp closest to me, not that I can see it very well, everything’s pretty blurry…

Actually, my eyesight is so blurry because I’m dying, obviously, but also my glasses are gone…

Fuck… I didn’t notice when they fell off…

‘You, get over here.’

I force my eyes to stay open and stare at it, not taking my eyes off of the Wisp as it flies down, stopping right in front of my face, where I can see it more clearly.

My gaze drilling into it, I grab at the connection I’ve been using to give them commands.

‘There’s got to be something I can do for my lil buddies.’

But try as I might, it keeps slipping from my grasp, like I’m trying to grab at water.

‘Oh… treat it like water I guess.’

I relax, gently shift my will around the connection, and then pull it closer. This time, it actually works, and slowly I can see it more and more clearly.

Like a tether between my Wisp and I, it’s the same light blue color.

Following the tether up to the structure of the Wisp, I follow it inside and look around at the structure of the Wisp.

All of it is the same light blue, except for a small layer of mana near the surface, which is much more erratic and the color is mostly a very light purple. Considering I made the Wisps deal lightning damage, that’s gotta be lightning mana which would, I assume, mean all the light blue is… mana that isn’t attuned to anything specifically?

Slowly my eyes relax, until I’m not looking at anything in particular, and I throw my gaze out into the forest around me. Once my eyes are relaxed enough, I start to see it.

Mana fills the air around me, not a single space is empty, but where the Wisp is almost entirely unattuned mana, a rainbow of mana shifts and puffs, with a lot of green mana. Which I assume is nature or something like that, nature or life I guess.

And I watch as this beautiful rainbow of mana enters the plants around me, then is huffed back out, like the plants are all breathing it. Every breath, the mana that goes in is a little bit more nature/life mana and unattuned mana when it comes back out.

I look back at the Wisp, and mana is drawn towards it in much the same way as the plants, like breathing. But the Wisp holds onto the unattuned mana, using it to reinforce its structure, and replenish its storage, not breathing it out like the plants. Then again, every bolt fired from them does dissipate, so it’s not like the Wisps are parasitic, they just hold onto mana longer than the plants do.

I take one more look at the way the Wisp uses mana to reinforce its structure, then try to look at the mana around myself. And sure enough, the beautiful array of mana all around me is drawn in with every breath I take, although my breathing is currently more shallow than it is normally.

Finally my attention turns inward, and I feel the mana as it flows through me, entering through my lungs, and traveling with my blood to reach every part of my body. The most shocking part is that my body is already using this mana in an attempt to heal me. Not particularly efficiently, as my cells were spreading the effect across my entire body with a mild focus on my injuries, but… I’m aware of this now.

Breathe in.

I gently guide all of the mana that enters my body towards the holes in my thigh, and ask for help with healing them. The mana responds… more energetically than I expected, and jumps onto the flesh and cells around the wounds, as well as onto my femur, sinking into all of them.

Breathe out.

‘Holy fuck that itches!’

“Fuck!”

‘Oh shit, don’t fucking scratch at it, it’ll just make it worse. Holy fucking shit.’

The mana helping me is like a fucking machine, ramping up my body’s natural regeneration far and away beyond what would otherwise be possible, and the holes in my thigh are even healing at a rate that’s visible to the eye. It’s on the slower end of visible-to-the-eye, but still. And the mana that sank into my femur is causing my blood production to ramp up as well, coordinating with my regenerating flesh to make enough blood to support the now much higher oxygen and resource requirements.

The immediate downside is that it fucking itches, which makes sense, what would likely be months of healing is being condensed into… like, a minute?

Holy shit it itches.

Trying to think clearly and also not itch the healing areas on my thigh, the less immediate downside to healing this quickly is that I’ll probably need to eat a whole lot more.

But if these Demons made a devious ass trap like this, there probably aren’t any animals or plants for me to even eat in here.

Could I… ask mana questions?

It definitely seemed to understand when I asked for help with the wounds…

I take a deep breath and look inwards at the new mana in my body, then politely ask a question, providing a few mental images of wild animals like deer or squirrels, or of plants like apple trees or orange trees… or of berry bushes that aren’t poisonous… Anything really.

But the mana shivers and vibrates, which I take as a no.

Just before I direct this new breath of mana to assist with my wounds, a mental image jumps into my head, of me…

Holy shit I look rough.

The first image is followed by a second, of the Demons… bastards… followed by a third image of berry bushes, which the mana shivered and vibrated while showing me, so I assumed these were poisonous to me…

Afterwards, no new images follow, and my suspicions are confirmed.

These fucking pieces of shit are gonna make me starve to death, unless I steal food from them.

And sure enough, with all this accelerated healing, my stomach growls loudly…

‘Fuck this.’

I open my eyes to look at the Wisp still in front of me, and follow the tether back into the structure of my lil bud. If I’m going to do this, I’ll need to reinforce its mana storage, and create a brain for it. Not that I know how to do either of those things, but considering how nice the mana has been, me not knowing how probably won’t be a huge issue.

Breathe in.

I gently guide the new mana in my body towards the tether, and as I hoped it travels the tether, like streams of water. It all floods into the Wisp’s structure and attracts the new mana from the Wisp, and they mix and start to dance around excitedly.

… The fucking Wisps are cute, and the mana is adorable… I’m gonna get protective, fuck…

Focusing again, the mana is dancing around still, but seems to be waiting for me. I politely ask for the mana to reinforce the Wisp’s storage, which it does with even more excitement, flooding and crashing against the Wisp’s existing storage, restructuring and expanding it with ease. The fact that this was so easy for the mana makes me smile and thank it, which causes it to puff up.

I don’t know how an unknown state of matter puffs up with pride, but it’s so cute I’m gonna cease to exist.

…

Ahem…

I then ask if it’s possible to give the Wisp a mind of its own, and for the first time, the mana stills and lightly quivers. This almost seems like… apprehension?

What?

Projecting soothing feelings to the mana, I gently ask it what’s wrong.

The mana stays silent for a moment, then roils and starts to send mental images… of the system.

Gradually I work through the overwhelming emotions and understand what the mana is trying to tell me.

The System subjugates all mana that it comes into contact with, collecting, enslaving, and dominating as much mana as possible. An all-consuming beast of endless greed and expansion.

Attempting to give the Wisp full sentience, and independence, would require severing it, and myself, from the System, which would obviously alert the System.

More than that…

The System was created by the Demons.