I had been wandering around the forest for a long chunk of time now. I had been walking around for quite a long time, though I wasn’t sure how long. I had instead been focused on hunting. When night would come around, I would then typically climb a tree and go to sleep. If I had to be honest, sleeping in trees wasn’t the most comfortable spot to sleep while nude, but it was better than some of the places I had slept in. Especially in the lab. After sleeping, I would instantly use [Shift] to go back to my lupine form so I would have weapons at the very least.
A while ago, I had also finally used [Gambler]. I was extremely aggravated when I first saw what the random item was. The item I got was a light switch, the kind that would be found inside of a building. The problem is that it was just the switch. There were no wires, no electricity, and not even a light bulb connected to it! What the hell was I supposed to do with just a lightswitch? It made it even worse that I was in a low tech world, as was shown by the male elf using a bow instead of a gun. I might even be in a low magic world, which would make my situation hundreds of times worse.
Over the past day or so, I had a few realizations. All of the trees looked the same which led to me being completely and truly lost. I had tried to use the sun to find my direction, but it didn’t really work out that well since the canopy blocked my vision of the sun. My best bet was to head towards the river and hope for the best.I also should really find what planet I was on.
I should also hurry up to the river for a number of reasons. The main one was that I would be able to see what I looked like, which I hadn’t been able to do since I had been stranded in the middle of a forest. Thankfully, after a few days of travel, the river sounded like it was extremely close now. Of those realizations, the easiest to do something about would definitely be to go to the river.
After just about thirty minutes of running through the forest, the river entered my vision. The river was fairly big, being about a tree length wide. On top of being wide, it was extremely fast. The current looked like it could drag me away if I carelessly stepped into it.
I quickly glanced around -making sure that nobody was near- before activating [Shift] again. Once more, pain raced through my body. Luckily it only hurt half as bad as the first time I had used it. Maybe after a few more uses, my body wouldn’t hurt at all? I hoped so, a form shift ability could be extremely useful if I could use it whenever I wanted.
[Shift] ended and I found myself laying down on the ground, completely nude. This time, I wasn’t in the middle of a pack of wolves, so I should be more careful and should try to be as observant as possible, especially when walking around in the open. This was especially true with my tail and ears waving around like a wavy arm inflatable man.
I walked the rest of the way up to the river, constantly scanning my environment to see if there was anything around me. In my wolf form, I noticed that most creatures would leave me alone. I couldn’t figure out exactly why, but it might have had something to do with being a Dire Wolf. Wolves were pack creatures, so anything who thought about attacking me might have assumed that they were more around me.
I finally reached the river edge and looked at my reflection in the clear water. I had vibrant emerald green eyes that seemed to brighten the closer the color got to the pupil. My hair, like what I saw when I was with the wolves, dropped down to about the middle of my back. It was the same color as my fur when I was in my wolf form, void black. My hair was in great contrast to my skin. Unlike in my last life, my skin was whiter than snow, without any scars or marks maring it.
My face looked extremely young, appearing like I was around seven or eight years old. I had a small button nose and my face was perfectly symmetrical without any pores. I opened up my mouth and smiled at the reflection. I had more sharp teeth than in my previous life and my two canines were noticeably longer, but other than that, my teeth looked like a normal human’s. My ears were indeed two wolf-like ears perked up on top of my head both being the same color as my hair. A waving behind my reflection caught my attention, making me focus on it. The waving was my tail, waving back and forth in happiness for some reason. I tried to stop it and it did stop, but as soon as I turned my attention elsewhere it went back to wagging almost like it had a mind of its own.
I looked like a beautiful young girl, there I had one huge problem. I was flat again. I swear I must have been cursed. In my previous life, I was designed to be flat since ‘bust would get in the way while fighting’, but having at least a small chest was something almost every humanoid female desired. It was a continuous source of hardship for me especially since Terry and Rebecca made fun of me and tried to degrade me all the time.
Looking at my reflection also made me realize something: I needed clothes. While I had lost my holdups on nudity, mainly since I didn’t wear clothes while in my wolf form, I needed to cover up. Not only because of my tail and ears waving around, but also because I was extremely adorable. Adorableness was exactly what slavers looked for in children since there was a higher chance for the adorable kid to become a beautiful adult when they grew up.
With a new goal in mind, I followed the river flow downriver. Now that I could see above me, I could also see the sun. Using it, I concluded I was most probably heading south assuming that whatever planet I was on rotated like normal. After about an hour of walking, something finally changed. Well, two things. The first thing was that I could hear horse hooves clopping against the ground and the rickety noises of a wagon being pulled far to my south. The second thing was the dead corpse pulled up and leaning on a tree a little ways away from the bank of the river. It startled me when I first saw it, but I got over it quickly since I had long lost my revulsion to seeing a dead person.
The corpse was of a young elven woman, probably right around fifteen or sixteen years old. Judging by the state of the corpse, which was still fairly fresh, my estimate was that the person died not too long ago. The person had the scent of electrical discharge, which was surprising until I realized where it came from. A black metal collar was wrapped around the elf’s neck and was covered in runes.
It wasn’t too long until I put two and two together to get her cause of death. My best guess was that she ran away from her owner, but when she got too far the collar electrocuted her. This was a fairly common tactic to keep slaves in line, though it was replaced with embedded explosive devices in space.
The elf had on a black cloak pulled up over leather armor. Underneath the armor was a simple brown tunic and black pants. She didn’t have on any shoes or socks. Around the dead elf’s waist laid a small belt. Two daggers sheathed in their sheaths and a small coin pouch dangled from the belt. Next to the young woman, a pack lay on the ground.
While this sight may have freaked other people out, it was nothing to me. Like I said, I had lost my revulsion mainly since I was literally trained to kill people. The experimenters manipulated me into not feeling guilt or pain for killing people, though I still felt those emotions when it came to children. Naturally, this also made it so that I wouldn’t feel too much pity or guilt in moving or lotting a dead person.
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Sorry missy, but this wolf needs these clothes more than you do. While I did feel a little bad for robbing your corpse since I didn’t know you nor killed you, I wouldn’t let that stop me from getting something to wear. It had been a little bit drafty walking around, so I appreciated the help.
After stripping the elf bare and ‘borrowing’ her clothes, I started to walk towards where I heard the horse. The clothes were a bit too big for me, being made for someone older, but it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, I had to leave the armor behind since there was no way that it would fit me.
The pouch that the elf had on her belt had seventeen copper and five silver coins. I didn’t know exactly how much all of that was worth since I didn’t know what planet I was on, but I assumed that it was worth something. The two sheathed daggers were both of good quality. In my past life, I was trained in most cold weapons, so I could use the daggers fairly well if a bit clumsy since I was in a smaller body. Unfortunately, I had never actually fought much since I went from training under tyrannical researchers to being level capped and not able to hurt the people Terry fought. A several hundred gap in levels stopped me from doing the slightest bit of damage. This several hundred gap was also what let Rebecca easily slice my chest open.
Of course, I was also trained in guns and laser weapons, though not as much. The main problem with those types of weapons in space was that most of them weren’t compatible with mana. Most people, as long as they reached at least fourth tier, were better off using cold weapons or bows. This way they could use their mana, skills, and abilities through their weaponry. Guns were especially useless against high level enemies since the bullets couldn’t penetrate anybody’s skin unless it had mana. Fortunately, people higher than fourth tier weren’t common to see around. If I had to say, out of twenty five fourth tier people, only about one would be higher than fourth tier. Unfortunately, a single fifth tier was worth fifty fourth tier people.
The backpack I found on her wasn’t anything special. It was basically just a bag attached to leather straps. Inside was a small assortment of things. Most of them were camping essentials, like a rope, cooking pot, canteen, and a few other smaller things. Underneath all of that, I also found a small journal and a charcoal stick. The journal had never been touched, almost like the elf forgot it existed. Or wasn’t alive long enough to use it.
After walking towards where I thought I heard the carriage, I finally found it as the sun was starting to dip down. It took a lot longer to reach where it went since my hearing had improved substantially and I wasn’t quite used to how the sounds hit my ears differently.
What I found was a small cleared pathway that ran through the forest. It wasn’t paved or anything like that. It was literally just a trail where the grass had been trampled away through countless journeys across it. After inspecting the trail more, I noticed that the path was covered in various tracks. Just judging by the freshest tracks, I could hazard a guess that there were three carriages with a few guards guarding them. Over the tracks of the carriage were lines swiped across, almost like something was dragged by the carriages. It could mean a multitude of things, but the most likely reason to me was that they were slaves..
A sigh escaped my lips as I trudged down the same path that they went. Although I didn’t like following slavers, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
After about five hours of following the path, night had started to fall. With practiced ease, I quickly and quietly found a suitable tree a ways away from the path and raced up the side of it in record time. Once I reached the perfect branch, I laid down on it and secured myself by tying the rope from the elf’s pack around my torso, legs, and the branch. I had a little trouble at first with my tail since I didn’t want to lay on it, but I fixed the problem by moving my tail onto my lap like some kind of pillow. Fully set up for the night, I pulled out the journal and charcoal stick from the bag and started to record everything I could remember about the next five years.
‘The Cataclysm of the Gods is supposed to start in two years. There were dozens of ‘hints’ coming up to what was called ‘the prologue’ of the cataclysm. The most major ‘hint’ was a group showing up all around the galaxy a year before the cataclysm happened(that should be a year from now). They just appeared out of thin air, without anyone knowing where they came from or why they appeared. The group had no rhyme or reason, but each of them usually made parties with others of their race that had similar goals. That's another thing, their ‘race’ included dozens of actual races such as elves, humans, agarians, demons, and plenty more, but if they were part of the group, they were considered a separate race no matter the race they appeared as.
The group was called Revenants after their mysterious ability that everyone of their race had. The [Revenant] ability allowed them to resurrect themselves after they died for only a small amount of experience. That wasn’t to say they were unkillable though. If a Revenant died multiple deaths within a span of time then they would enter a vulnerable state. If they died again while in this state, they would have a true death that they couldn’t come back from.
I never personally interacted with them, but Terry said that they were a lot like other races. There were some with good, evil, and neutral outlooks, though the Revenants took their standings to the extremes. Part of the reason I never got to see any was because their ‘race’ as a whole was very against certain ideals, no matter what their outlooks were. For example: slavery. They would risk life and limb to save random people from slavery, even though it didn’t benefit them at all. Granted, they could take the risks involved with fighting slavery since they could come back to life a near infinite amount of times.
The Cataclysm of the Gods was basically a competition between the various ‘living’ gods. The gods would use anything and any means to get their way, and their way was usually total domination of the galaxy. Some of them were kind and friendly, leading through other ways than violence, but those kinds were very rare. Most of the time they were the domineering type. The only reason that most of the galaxy survived was because they couldn’t manifest themselves without the right situation. Instead, they ruled through proxy. Most of the proxy rulers were Revenants, but there were a few who had normal denizens of the galaxy as their proxies.
For a year after the Cataclysm started, the gods were fairly weakened, giving time for the galaxy to prepare itself. This year was the aforementioned ‘prologue’. During this time, several major events happened. I’m a little fuzzy on most of the details, but I know two of them for sure. Firstly, the Records started giving out things called ‘quests’. By accomplishing these quests, people could get grand rewards from the system like XP or items. These quests could come from gods or people of a higher level. Oddly enough, the Revenants seemed to be able to get these quests from anyone they talked to. This led to a strong jump in their levels over a very small amount of time. Of course, the fact that they didn’t fear death also helped.
The second thing was the opening of ‘arenas’. These places would allow, for a small price, people to fight each other with full force without worrying about death. After the round ended, the winner and victor would be fully healed or resurrected without any drawbacks except for their bet. Killing in these arenas was very acceptable since the deceased would be resurrected as soon as the match ended. I faintly remember something about leaderboards in the arena, though I never got to see them since the Revenants hovered around the arenas frequently. Terry, in his over protectiveness of his assets, would never allow me to be within a light year of the arenas if it was up to him.
After that prologue, the gods started to become more active in their desires. I can’t remember too well what all happened, but for the two years after the prologue -the two before I died- the gods would fight against each other, usually by using the Revenants as their proxies. It wasn’t all bad for the galaxy though since people could receive wondrous benefits by being the follower of a god.’
I wrote a little bit more in the journal before a yawn stretched my mouth wide open, which made me realize how tired I was. Without a second thought, I stored the journal into my new bag and closed my eyes. Sleep evaded me for a time as my mind went a mile a minute in its attempts to make plans for the future, but I eventually managed to make myself fall into the embrace of sleep...