《Dice》 Introduction Hello everyone! This is my first fiction ever, so please understand if it isn''t top quality material. I am Chinese so English is not my first language, you may find that grammar may be somewhat skewed at times. Secondly the story will progress rather slowly, minimal action in the beginning with a focus on world building. Although things will pick up once out protagonist gets a few years under her belt. Thirdly, this is a gender bender story, our protagonist will be female, and she will suffer everything that comes with it. As a fair warning, when meeting hot guys, she will describe them in detail. The same applies to cute girls, so everyone gets a piece of the pie. I''m just making sure nobody whines about having to read how cute "his eyes" were... Lastly, this fiction has a mature tag, although that is mainly aimed at language used. There will be little sexual content/ecchi situations until I decide otherwise. Furthermore, there will be depictions of violence, blood and gore. So if that is not your cup of tea, then I''m sorry? I guess? My aim in writing this story is to build upon my writing skills, more particularly on showing rather than telling. Most of the chapter I post will be first drafts so they might be rewritten. As a result, critiques are very much welcome. Please point out any grammatical mistakes, plot holes, inconsistencies that you may find so I can improve the story. My focus will be on building a world that is realistic as you can get in a fantasy world. As a result, whilst our protagonist will get op, it will be realistically op, therefore no summoning meteors to smite thy enemies. Nor will she be going around at the age of 10 slaying Great serpents and dragons and legendary beasts. If she get stabbed in heart, there will be no critical hits or loss of hp, she will simply die and yes there will be dark moments. As for gender issues of a guy turning into a girl, I will not deal with that crap, I will just say that my Mc is extremely pragmatic and welcomes the "fresh viewpoint" of a girl. ;D He also might been brainwashed. Hehe. Prologue is not set in stone, I might revisit it in the future and do the time loop thing again but atm it is too much work. I much prefer the simple one I have now. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Chapter length will be around 3k to 4.5k words each. (edit: changing length to around 1-2k each, it''s easier for me to proofread and edit instead of monster 4k/5 page chapters.) I have the plot planned out really nicely but nothing for the beginning so you''ll have to forgive me extremely slow writing speed. Once I get 3 or 4 more chapters out, I should have reach the main plot line and begin spewing out chapters like I was drinking then someone made me laugh. Also, action will not be strictly "action", she wont be fighting with swords or whatever simply because its impossible for anyone under the age to 10 to do so. Anyways, I shall endeavor to write my best, Hope, You all enjoy the story! #Rant, You may find this condescending /Offensive, i hope not ? :D Do you guys even realise how heavy a medieval sword is? that shit is made of pig iron, and if no one has told you, pig iron, unlike stainless steel, is as heavy as FUCK. A 5 year old would not be able to lift it, let alone swing that crap. Seriously. Also why do all MC''s use swords? swords, unlike what you may think, were actually expensive and slightly uncommon weapons. A good sword requires a blacksmith to have decent skill in making weapons and most smiths in the past were focus upon making other stuff like cutlery instead of swords, after all, war doesn''t last forever, so what would a smith forge then? Secondly, it has to do with the economics of limited resources, a single sword uses enough iron/metal for approx, three good spearheads or around 5-7 metal rims for shields. I do not claim to be an expert on opportunity choice but when equipping an army its pretty obvious why swords weren''t so favoured. Tl:dr swords are overrated. Thirdly, It really annoys me when fanfic authors use fire instead of loose when talking about archery. Firing is strictly used for firearm. you dont "fire" an arrow, which part of the process of firing an arrow utilizes combustion? Ok my rant is over. probably will have more to rant about soon lol >.> Dianas Logbook Diana¡¯s Logbook. Please read up to the latest chapter before reading this, it may contain spoilers and spiders if you''re not careful. I¡¯m not sure how I¡¯m going to update this, probably once every few chapters. Additional things will be added as I progress through the story. Note these information are presented from the point of view of our main character. Please be aware that it is unreliable. For example, if Diana wanders into a magical forest and is put under a magic spell. She will not know because nobody has told her/she hasn''t figured it out yet. So even while in the forest, the "mental health" will say "optimum" instead of "Under illusions" until one of the aforementioned two things happen. Guide +_____+ = Category <_____> = Subcategory (_____) = Notes +About Myself+ Name - Diana (The Roman moon goddess, counterpart to Greek hunting goddess Artemis) Family name - Audacia Regalis. (Brave and Regal in Latin. Perhaps a noble family? Assumption that father is a noble.) Appearance - Still a cute baby, OK I''m biased but still. Jet-black hair, silver eyes and ivory skin. Possesses a single silvery white furred tail. No teeth atm, assumption that longer canines will be present when teething at 6 months. Winged-shaped birthmark on arm. No visual confirmation as yet. Other features unknown/will change in time. Background - Born into a "wealthy or noble" family. Subject to revision upon further consideration. Am 3/4 human and 1/4 demi-human. Demi-human heritage may be complicated, revise upon obtaining information from mother. Previous -Ice-cream -Cheesecake -Sour onion and cream crisps. New -Applesauce -Melted cheese -Milksoaked bread Appearance - Fabulous. Injuries - Bruised and scraped elbows and knees. Health - Optimum Mental health - Tired Hydration - Optimum Satiety - Optimum Hygiene - Unknown. No known standards for comparison. Revise upon additional information. (AN: pathetic excuse lol) (AN: Placeholder until I understand tables. If anyone can get pm me a 7x7 table, I''d really appreciate it.) Fors Fortis Lightning - Unlearnt/Unknown Water - Unlearnt/Unknown Earth - Unlearnt/Unknown Void - Locked/Unknown ------------------------ +People+ Name - My father, Deus. (Also a God''s name, can''t if remember if Roman or Greek origins.) Appearance - 20+ years old. Real age unknown. Tall and handsome. Unable to get estimate of height due to missing reference for measurements. Jet-black hair. Electric blue eyes. Pale skin. Thin swimmers build. Pretty sure has 6 packs, note, bias. Assumptions - Is person of importance? Revise upon obtaining additional information. Clothing style slightly reminiscent of medieval style nobles. Colourful and has expensive trimmings. Assumption is that he is noble or wealthy merchant. Likability - 8/10. Deducting 1 for bad first impression. Deducting 1 for never playing with me. ~~~~~~~~ Name - My mother, Inari. (Name of Japanese origins for Fox spirits serving under goddess.) Appearance - 20+ years old. Real age unknown. Mixture of cuteness and beauty. Height reaches up to father''s chin. Arctic white hair. Silvery eyes and ivory skin. Average figure but draws out/emphasizes on the charms of her albinism/whiteness. Is demi-human with Arctic Fox as base. Has silver furred tail and ears. Long canines and eyes become slits during nighttime. Revise on additional information. Has alternate form where 8 extra tails appear. Other information on form unknown. Unsure what base, possibility numbers three, huli jing(chinese), kitsune(japanese), Kumiho(Korean). May be determined by ascertaining nine tailed characteristics. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Assumptions - None. Love her as is. Do not care about all else. Likability - 11/10. Enough said. ~~~~~~~~ Name - Eldest brother, Aiolos (Greek origins, God of the winds) Appearance - 14-16 years old. Real age unknown. Mini-version of dad. Jet black hair, electric blue eyes, ivory skin. Only has canines. Unsure percentage of demi-human genes. Thin athletes build. Assumptions - Has calculating look in eyes. Perhaps well-versed in politicking or in mercantile. Likability - 8/10. Deducting 1 for cold atmosphere. May improve with time. Deducting 1 for almost never playing with me. ~~~~~~~~ Name - My second brother, Ashura. (Japanese origins, relating to Buddhist concepts of reincarnation. Unclear.) Appearance - 8-9 years old. Real age unknown. Similar to me in features. Only different with me is eyes. Has tail and canines. Assumption that is 1/4 demi-human and 3/4 human like me. Thin but lean build. Assumptions - Assumption that he has just begun physical training? Can feel air of a trained person and aura self-confidence. Unknown degree of training. Assumption on training swordplay on account of the wooden sword he always carries around. Likability - 10/10. Full points for always making with me and making me laugh! ~~~~~~~~ Unknown. None. None. ------------------------ +Locations of interest+ Name - Unknown. Placeholder is Castle Manor. Location - Unknown. Visited/Seen - Mother''s bedchamber - Study - Hallway - 2 sets of stairs - Courtyard. Information - Unknown. ------------------------ +Objects of Interest+ Name - Unknown. Placeholder is fire-stones. Observations - A rock on fire. Information - None. ------------------------ +To-do-list+ 1. Obtain ability to read written language/s - Most common in use. 2-3 max. - Mercantile script/shorthand - Magical scripts. If applicable. - Racial scripts. If applicable. - Develop own script for encryption purposes. Based upon languages of previous world. 2. Obtain information about world. - About family current status and heritage. - About History and Mythology. - About politics of current government. - About Geography and current locale. - About sentient lifeforms - About native lifeforms - About possible religions and beliefs. - About medicinal status/advances. - About technological status/advances. - About dangers of the world. 2. Obtain information about magic. - Learn about basics of magic - Learn about own affinities. - Learn about Void magic. - Begin practitioning if conditions are safe. 3. Misc. - Find out about fire-stones - Find out about demi-human anatomy. - Find out about languages used for name D0C1 - Beginnings (Part I) AN: Kina''s rant and Tasear who Pm''ed with a quick review me, both made me realise this isn''t actually a Prologue. Therefore I will be changing the title to reflect upon this. Treat it as a side story of the MC''s origins if you will. ----------------------- D0C1 - Beginnings (Part I) ¡°Congratulations, you are now in the land of the dead. My name is $&@% and I am your guide. This is the waiting room of the "in-between", we have no official name for it. Your memories of your death should be returning shortly. I will return once you have absorbed them." I wake upon hearing that. To be honest, it didn''t quite fit with the image I was seeing at the moment. I was expecting a devil, with horns and spiky tail, you know, the whole package and whatnot. Instead what I got was beautiful office lady looking all professional, congratulating me for being dead. Although I say office lady, it was more like a teenager in a woman¡¯s suit. Whilst she wasn''t the devil, she sure was devilish. If I were not dead, I would¡¯ve jumped at the chance to ask her out for dinner, but alas, I am dead. Yep, that¡¯s me, a 26 year old genius doctor. Are you sure you¡¯re not a delusional intern? To that I would reply Yes, I¡¯m sure. 26 is rather young, I admit, but the calculations are correct. I finished my IB diploma at 16, thanks to my 43 and my parents connections it was then off to John Hopkins for 4 years of undergrad. After that followed 4 years of med school. Two years as an intern and 9 months for the surgical license. And here I am, the so called ¡°genius¡± of the medical world. To be fair, I would attribute only 20% of my genius to my talent. 40% would go to my being raised by a family of doctors and nurses, 20 more to my exceptional spatial awareness and 20 to my amazing memory. Well, not that amazing, compared to those with eclectic memory, my ¡°quick study¡± of using mnemonics is just tiny. Nevertheless with that technique, I was able to sail through my medical exam with a relatively fair wind. Storms? Nah, I assure you, you''re dreaming. My scores were enough to get me noticed and with the connections my parent had, I was able to enter the John Hopkins Hospital as an intern. Once there, I worked as an intern for 2 years, before a certain doctor noticed the ridiculous speed of my continuous suture technique. Of course, with the medical limitations, I still had to finish my time as an intern before I was allowed anywhere near a real table. So instead he took me under his wing, I was trained relentlessly. On the fast track, it wasn¡¯t long until I got my license. My first few surgeries went extremely well. Of course with my speed and accuracy it was a given. After all, the less time a patient is under, the less chance there is of something going wrong. And with my spacial awareness, I could perform extremely well. So maybe the fame got to me a bit, but I never let my guard down. I practiced my technique to become even better. I eventually got the nickname ¡°Hands of God¡±. Of course, that leads to the question of why I am dead. Well, you know what they say, the higher you are, the harder you fall. It all had to do with a certain fatass. Even if I am dead, I still respect my oaths and doctor-patient confidentiality, so I will not name the ass. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. However, that does not stop me from cursing his mother. You see, what happen was that he had wealth, wealth and CAD, also known as Coronary Artery Disease. The fat fuck ruined his left ventricle with all those carbs and sugars, leaving him with LV dysfunction. His condition was so advanced that he was going to fall on his fat ass dead at any time. Normally, with such conditions, no hospital or doctor would even think about accepting responsibility for him. The risk of failure was extremely high so no doctor or hospital would want a table casualty on record. And so, he was rejected, one after another he was rejected until he happened upon my hospital. Using his wealth, he pressured the hospital board into accepting and treating him. The board, with their unending confidence in me, caved in so fast, their decision was faster that the speed of light. Not that I didn''t expect it, money always persuades greed. This is where it gets worse, ventriculoplasty is not an easy or quick procedure by any means, so when a doctor recommends a procedure, it is because that procedure is the best option. But no, the fat fuck thought of himself as an expert on surgery. Hmph, he probably didn''t even know what the ¡°Jenkins Rule¡± was, let alone surgery. I wanted to do SVR or Surgical Ventricular Restoration but instead of following advice, he insisted on the Batista procedure. At this point I was mad, the procedure was not as efficient as other procedures, to the point where it was dropped out of the U.S heart guidelines. Yet he still insisted upon it. Once again, using his money he coerce the hospital board into forcing me to perform the procedure. So I did. Quick and fast, I was able to finish it just under 2 hours. It was a success and the fatass was fine for a month and a half. Then he suffered SCA (Sudden Cardiac Arrest) and flatlined. Still, I had done all I could so my conscience was whiter than my bathroom walls. But because he was my patient, I was brought under investigation despite the fact that my surgery succeeded. After all, he paid a lot to become one of the hospitals VIP. Fucking hospital politics. At any rate, I was cleared soon enough because I had the foresight to record him denying my recommendation for the safer SVA and instead go for the more risky BP. With proof of the success of my surgery and his refusal to accept the medical recommendation of a licensed doctor, I was able to get away relatively scot-free. That was when I died. Shot point blank to the head. Before my death, my murderer was kind enough to enlighten me as to why I had to die. Turns out the fat fucker had set a dead man¡¯s switch. If he died, a certain organisation was supposed to ensure my demise. And now, I was dead. Fuck me. Mankind truly are scum. D0C2 - Beginnings (Part II) D0C2 - Beginnings (Part II) I look around me. I was in a dull white waiting room. Large was an understatement, the place was the size of 10 football fields. Rows upon rows of comfortable blue padded chairs lay before my eye. People kept popping out of thin air, they were arriving here in droves, from all over the world. Just off the top of my head, I could recognize at least 7 nationalities. I could see people from all ages here, from children to the elderly. The kinds of people were also varied, from soldiers in their green fatigues to supermodels dressed in the latest fashion. No matter what you thought up, if you tried hard enough you would be able to find them here. It was truly a melting pot of humanity. Most of them were sitting on the cushioned waiting chairs, some were crying, others had a blank look in their eyes, as if they were PTSD sufferers. There were also those who were raging mad, these were the ones who were screaming and groaning incoherently. Those who were old had a calm look in their eyes, most likely they were able to accept their death while the rest could not. From the corner of my eye, I could see people being led away by women in office lady attire, just like the one before me, she had left me sometime ago and now she had returned. The aforementioned lady regarded me calmly as I took in my surroundings. The hustle and bustle of all the people here had started to give me a headache. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of it. ¡°Are you ok? This is merely the waiting room, we should get going.¡± She said quietly. ¡°Oh! I¡¯m sorry. Right, lets be on our way then, wherever that is.¡± I replied. Eager to remove myself from the wailing and groaning of the literal living dead. Even if I wasn¡¯t sure what my exact physiological state currently was. ¡°No need to worry, most of the time I would hurry you up, the arbiters are busy and they hate waiting, but you are an exception.¡± She smiled. Leaving me to wonder what an arbiter was. I didn''t have an IQ of over 120 for nothing, I was relatively sure that whoever these arbiters were, they had a hand in deciding what happens next, although exactly what does happen next was a fact that I was unsure of. ¡°If you¡¯ll follow me then.¡± My guide began walking away. Moving quickly, I catch up walking next to her. We weave our way through the thousands rows of chair, eventually reaching a plain white double door. Pushing our way through the double doors, I see an endless corridor full of standard wooden doors, the office ladies were leading people into these doors, when they exited the doors, they were alone. This made me slightly nervous, seeing people go into these doors but not out caused my imagination to run off in all sorts of directions. Sensing my discomfort, my guide spoke. ¡°They are being simply being judged, their fate will depend on their own actions.¡± Hearing this did not comfort me in the least. Although I could not for the life of m, figure out why I would be scared anyways, in the end, I¡¯m already dead, thanks to a bullet in my cranium. We walk through the endless corridor, meandering in and out of several. While we walk through the brightly lit corridors, a question nibbles away at my mind. Eventually, my curiosity gets the better of me and I open my mouth. ¡°What are the outcomes of being judged?¡± I asked. ¡°Normally, I would not be allowed to tell you this, but like I said, you are an exception.¡± Once again she flashes me a honey smile. ¡°There are numerous outcomes but there are three main outcomes to being judged. First is reincarnation, all of you are here in your soul form, if you are judged worthy, you will have your memories erased and be planted into a new body. Second is education, or as some of you might put it, the purgatory. Souls are given the chance to cleanse themselves, they have to endure great suffering but success allows them to reincarnate, failure leads us to the third option. Which is the void, souls that are completely corrupted are sent into the void, in which they will then fade away.¡± She finishes with yet another smile. ¡°Ah, here we are.¡± She stops walking and I follow suit, looking at where we arrive at. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. In front of me is a wooden door, the same size as all of the other doors. However unlike the ones I saw in the beginning, this once had a wheel carved into it. In the middle of the wheel, there is a dice, although there are only three faces visible. My guide taps the dice lightly and faces of the dice become blurry, as if the dice was spinning. The references were simply too clear. ¡®The wheel of fate? Dice? Am I going to meet Fortuna? ¡­ Wow, a god huh.¡¯ As if she read my thoughts, my guide turns to me and asks. ¡°You are taking this rather well, most of the ones I guide are hysterical in one way or another. And even then they are only meeting with mere judges.¡± She giggles softly. ¡°I would have expected you to panic at the thought of meeting a god. I am glad that I do not need to deal with hysterics for once.¡± ¡°Dealing with life or death injuries on a daily basis does that to you.¡± I give her a level look. ¡°The doctor must remain calm so the patient does not aggravate their injuries. A calm demeanour gives off the impression of confidence, that impression can give the patient the willpower to believe it will all be fine. Even if the doctor is completely panicking on the inside.¡± I shrug. ¡°You would not believe how many times I have seen patients pull through by their own willpower.¡± ¡°Either way I am glad that I do not have to drag a screaming person.¡± She sighs. ¡°If I were not immortal, I swear my eardrums would have bursted a hundred times over.¡± ¡°Such is the price we pay for jobs. My price is sleep. I daresay I would prefer your job to mine. At least I would get a good night of sleep.¡± I say cheekily. ¡°I suppose. But then, having doing this for 1640 years might make you reconsider. thank god we get holidays down to the mortal realms.¡± She says wearily. Before I could respond, a sound interrupts us. Phut! The dice on the door has stopped. The door creaks open. ¡°Well then, I guess this is my cue to go. It has been nice meeting you. I can only hope the rest are as well behaved as you.¡± She shoots me another charming smile, walking off before I can say anything. ¡®Sigh, I didn¡¯t even catch her name. Oh well. Into the unknown now, I guess.¡¯ Taking a deep breath to calm my jittery nerves, I step through the door. Like Alice through the rabbit hole, I am instantly transported into another world. Before I can even ponder upon the physics of how space works here, a soft breeze caresses my cheek as I gazed upon the scene in front of me. A sea of four-leaved clovers was in front of me, waving to and fro as the wind blew upon them. Bunnies hopped about carefree as if the world itself loved them. In the distance blue sky, I could see a rainbow, its vibrant colors sparkled and flashed. Entranced by the fresh air and the somewhat ridiculousness of it all, I stood there motionless. A few meters ahead of me there was a girl dressed in a white sundress accompanied with white summer hat. She begins to walk away from me into the far off distance. Realising I made no move to follow her, she turns around and beckons me coyly before walking off once again. With nothing better to do, I follow her. D0C3 - Beginnings (Part III) D0C3 - Beginnings (Part III) Once we are of some distance from the door that I came through, she turns around, finally facing me. With wave of her hand, two meter sized dice fall from the sky. She sits on one of them and motions me to sit on the other. Once I do so, she waves her hands once again. Just like the first time, I spot something in the sky, falling rapidly. Consecutively 5 large wheels fall land in the space between us, stacking into a table of sorts. After this magical display of godly powers I finally stop getting distracted. With a good look at her, one could truly tell she was a god, albeit a rather young one. She could not have been a day over 16. Nevertheless, despite her cute button face, she had a very full figure, all the right places were sticking out. I could almost hear her personal fan club worshipping her off in the distance, screaming ¡°Step on me~¡±. At this thought, I chuckle to myself. Oh. That¡¯s right. I almost forgot, she already has worshippers. ¡°Had enough? My name is Fortuna, though I prefer to be called Nana or Forty.¡± She smiles at me. Her smile hit me like a rock. Truly deserving of the title Goddess. I begin to introduce myself, but she cuts me off before I can say anything. ¡°Yes yes, I know who you are, both the current ¡±you¡± and all of the past ¡°yous¡±. I would not have requested your presence if I did not, now would I?¡± She says. ¡°Right then. Let¡¯s get down to business, I don¡¯t have much time, Edesia is making her newest batch of homemade ice cream.¡± I raise an eyebrow at this. Who knew gods enjoyed ice-cream of all things. Reading my thoughts, Fortuna exclaims angrily. ¡°HEY! Don¡¯t you judge, even gods have vices. It just so happens that mine is ice-cream okay? Hmph!¡± She puffs her cheeks and pouts at me. Seeing this ridiculously cute scene I could not help but laugh. This Nana was just too cute. I could tell she was once again reading my thoughts, because her face flushed. ¡°Fla-Flattery will not get you anywhere mortal! Hm-Hmph!¡± She exclaims. ¡°Ugh! So distracting. An-Anyways, where were we? Ah, right, to business. I am here to make you a deal. Of course, I would not offer this deal to just anyone. You are rather special, special in that this is your 31st consecutive reincarnation. Normally, once a soul reaches 36 consecutive reincarnations, their soul is pure enough to become a god. ¡° ¡°Before you lays two options. The first is that you can continue living lives and reincarnating, although this option is not very ideal. Becoming a god with your own power is extremely hard, the last five lives are filled with strife as the universe itself literally goes against you in an attempt to corrupt your soul to prevent your ascension. Once corrupted, your have to go through the ¡°education¡±, breaking you streak, stopping you from become a god. No matter which universe you go to, this is a cardinal rule, written into the very fabric of the universes itself. Although, with the Supreme God and Creator of All Universes power it can be broken.¡± She takes a deep breath after her long speech. ¡®A god huh... ¡® Faced with this knowledge, I am speechless. But my being speechless does not change anything. Facts will remain facts, becoming a god was just out of reach. While I am excited at this prospect, I feel some anxiety at the same time. I still do not know even know what being a god entails. ¡°Do not worry about all that, I mean, out of all the candidates at the 31st stage, less than 10 percent successfully become a god. It¡¯s also the reason why we wait until candidates actually become gods before teaching them anything about being a god.¡± Nana pipes up. ¡°Of course, there is also the second option.¡± She continues. ¡°The second option is rather simple, I temporarily take you under my power and send you to Edehalla, making it so that you reincarnate on Edehalla instead of Earth. Edehalla is what you would call the entertainment of the gods, because the mortals there are simply too amusing.¡± ¡°It is the largest planet capable of sustaining life in all the existing universes. The Overgod of that particular universe has made it so that any god from any universe can come and go which makes it so popular. The Supreme God and Creator of All Universes has also recognised it and blessed the planet with its power, as a result, souls that live on the planet have their reincarnation cycles cut by 5 years. What this means is that the original souls born on that planet only need to consecutively reincarnate 31 times, although the cardinal rule of the last five lives of strife will still apply.¡± ¡°However, souls that are NOT of the original world can exploit a loophole in Edehalla. By reincarnating for the first time in Edehalla with 31 reincarnations already under your belt, the 5 year cut still applies meaning after you die, you do not need to suffer the 5 lives of strife and can immediately become a god! As a result, there are many gods who bring their soul-friends/family and soul-lovers who have 31 consecutive reincarnations to Edehalla to immediately become a god without the risk of the 5 years of strife.¡± The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Naturally, the Supreme God and Creator of All Universes picked up on this little loophole. He fixed the exploit rather quickly so now there is only two ways to become a god whilst in Edehalla. The first is to kill 5 other first time reincarnation exploiters because that represents 5 years of strife. Originally, this was the only condition, but the Supreme God and Creator of All Universes took pity on the first time reincarnators who had a pacifist nature and added the extra condition that ¡°dying of old age¡± would also allow one to become a god. The Supreme God and Creator of All Universes also made it so that if you were killed or died from something other than old age, you would lose a single reincarnation turning from 31 to 30 and you would be sent back to your own original universe to reincarnate.¡± Hearing her explanation of the reincarnation system caused a headache in my head. I summed everything up then decided to ask her to make sure I was clear on everything. ¡°So basically I have two choices. One is to live out the rest of my extremely painful 5 lives here on Earth to become a god. Or I could choose to go to Edehalla, kill 5 other people who have reincarnated 31 times and came to the world with the power of their sponsors or go to Edehalla and die of old age to become a god. If I choose the second option and fail, then I will be sent back to Earth to be reborn and the number of times I have reincarnated consecutively will drop to 30. Is that the gist of it?¡± ¡°Yep! You¡¯ve got it in a nutshell! The second option sounds good doesn''t it? Don¡¯t you want to be god? Heehee!¡± She says. Hearing that and her explanation, I glimpse the reason why she wants to offer me a chance to become a god, but I ask to be sure anyways. ¡°Why me? I mean, aren¡¯t there even more candidates that would be more suitable for this?¡± I ask. Forty takes a deep breath, as if pondering a complex and difficult problem. Eventually, it seems she has reached a conclusion. She opens her mouth. ¡°Must I spell it out for you? It¡¯s because I want YOU! I want you to be be my side forever and ever and ever. And ever.¡± She says with puppy eyes. ¡°You do not know of the relationship between us because your soul is still mortal. But I do. When one becomes a god, they recover all the memories of their past 36 lives.¡± ¡°In my 7th life. You were my older sister and I was your little sister, we lived in extreme poverty but each and every day you would make sure I had enough to eat even if you went hungry yourself. In my 12th life, you were my big brother and once again I was your little sister, we lived in a tribe that suffered from monthly raids from bandits, yet you never failed to protect me when those human trash came. My 15th life, you were a soldier in some army and I was a slave in the opposing army. When your side was victorious, you did not kill me and instead set me free, we fell in love and got married. In my 16th life, we were star-crossed lovers. Do I need to continue? Hmmnn? Over half of my reincarnations were spent with you, but ever since I became a god I could not find you. Now that I finally have, YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE! Tee-hee!¡± Indeed, there was some truth to her words. I felt extremely at ease in her presence, it felt not as if I were with a god but rather as if I were with a beloved, or perhaps a family member. It felt as it we had braved and overcome a million dangers together. ¡°This way, you can become god for sure and we can be together FOREVER! And ever! Ufufufufufu.¡± She exclaims. Her voice was now husky and I was somewhat certain there was also a bit of lust when she said ¡°ever¡±. In some ways it was rather creepy. The person in front of me somewhat resembled a pink-haired yandere. I could almost picture her panting. Yet despite all that, I only felt a warm feeling arise within my heart. It would appear that even if I did not recognise her, the subconsciousness of my soul had already identified who ¡°she¡± was. ¡°Fine fine. Since you clearly love me so much, I¡¯ll go to Edehalla for you. Just don¡¯t expect to me to say anything when I get myself killed and sent back to Earth.¡± Despite my moody tone of my words, I could not help my smile as I saw her brighten up like a lightbulb. ¡°Awesomeee! Oh, I also forgot to mention that most of those who go to Edehalla have patron gods and thus their blessings. Lucky for you I¡¯m actually the daughter of this universes Overgod, so my blessing is extremely strong.¡± She leaned over the table made of wheels and lightly kissed me on the forehead, immediately I could feel a surge of power run through me. ¡°I also called in a few favours so you¡¯ll have two extra ¡°gifts¡± in your new world! Don¡¯t forgot to avoid showing off too much or they¡¯ll hunt you down. I¡¯ll be watching over you so don¡¯t worry too much. Ufufufu. It¡¯s too late to change your mind! Bai-bye!¡± Poof! My vision went dark as everything faded away. D1C1 - Womb D1C1 - Womb It''s so dark. They say darkness cannot exist without light. There is no light here. I feel nothing. I see nothing. It''s as if my senses were never there in the first place. Honestly, I''m at a loss as to what I should do. All my knowledge is useless without a body to actually use it. I analyze my situation. Logically, the fact that I have a consciousness that is capable of thinking and contemplating my situation implies that I have, at the very least, a brain. Even when I was talking with Nana, I had a body. Or at least, I think I had one. It''s strange. I know that my "senses" are just sensory information sent to the brain from various bodily faculties. But I have no senses. Implying that there is no sensory information being sent to my brain. Following this chain of thought, it also means that I have no body. But that contradicts my first conclusion of having a brain. Having a brain means having a body to house the brain and thus the consciousness. It''s really confusing. I thought about this for a long time. Exactly how long I do not know but it was a long time. I sift through my various memories trying to think of something that can relate to my situation. I specifically focus on memories that contain information on psychology and biology. Eureka. I''ve found it. I know I''m being reincarnated. My talk with Nana was too realistic to have been a dream. Considering the fact I''ve been reincarnated 31 times, I''ve accepted that the impossible is possible. As a result, if I am being reincarnated then that means I''m a baby. It fits. My baby body has a brain. Most likely because it isn''t fully developed, I can''t feel anything. Even if I did, at most it would be only warmth. After all, eyes aren¡¯t opened until birth. Nose and mouth are blocked to prevent amniotic fluid from entering my body. I don''t feel hunger since I''m getting nutrients through the umbilical cord. I know that sounds can cause a reaction in babies. This probably means if I''m lucky I might hear some sounds. Even I do, they''ll be muffled due to liquid surrounding me. However. At the moment, nothing. I guess my mother is still in her first half of the pregnancy. When I start feeling warm, it''ll mean my body is developed enough. Spinal cord and nerves should also be somewhat developed at that time. No doubt I''ll be able to squirm and kick at that time. Sorry in advance mom. Ufufufu. Nevertheless, it''s all just conjecture at this point. I need to wait for the evidence to show itself. I really hope I''m correct. It''ll really suck if I''m stuck in this unfeeling blackness. Really suck. How long have I been stuck here? My sense of time has completely warped itself. Months? Days? Years? I do not know. I can only wait. They say time is relative. I say it''s subjective. I''ve spent an effing eternity in here. Ugh. For some reason, I can''t even fall asleep. Korewa hontoni saite. Because I can''t sleep, I feel mentally exhausted at all times. Arghhhhhhh. To describe this experience in a more descriptive way, I feel like I''ve gone and done 3 all nighters in a row on ER shift and then going through a studying marathon for the lastest med exam. The absolute worst. Someone kill me already... Ugh. Thank god for meditation. Force quitting all the apps and clearing my brains RAM worked wonders. Although meditation left me feeling somewhat refreshed it was still no replacement for true, sweet, sweet sleep. Finally, I figured out the best way to relieve my poor consciousness. Anytime I felt tired, I would imagine myself sitting in a Buddha pose. Humming a mantra. Yoga? Fuck that shit. If you meditate it got to be the Buddha style. Haven''t you heard? Those monks can sit on spikes. Metal spikes I''m telling you. Aye. Its got to the Buddha style. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. If you could hear me speak, you''d think I''m making light of meditation. But honestly, it¡¯s actually hard to do, Nirvana? Enlightenment? Hell, even clearing my mind is hard. Stray thoughts float in and out, like passengers getting on and off in a train. I won''t say I''ve mastered it but eventually, I got a routine down through force of practice. Crush those barbaric thoughts, my legions of thought police! Muahahahahahaha. I feel like Big Brother. After several hundreds of sessions of stray thought crushing, something weird happened. Ding! Was ist das? A sound. I definitely heard a sound. Like the familiar alarm of a microwave oven. Aye, the sad life of a on-duty doctor. *sob* A disembodied voice spoke up. ¡°Ding! You have reach the required developmental stage for implementation of [User Interface: A.I Nana Version 1.2b] Please wait while files are downloaded¡­¡± Okay¡­ That was really sketchy¡­ But what the hell, I mean it¡¯s the only excitement I¡¯ve had in forever, if I¡¯m able to wait for a near eternity I guess I can wait some more. It¡¯s not like I¡¯m impatient or anything, I¡¯ve only been stuck here for lord knows how long. At any rate, I suppose this is where I get introduced to my ¡°gifts¡± Nana gave me. The name ¡°Nana¡± is a total giveaway and besides, I¡¯m pretty sure that I don¡¯t have multiple personality disorder. The voice spoke again. ¡°Download complete. Installation complete. Temporary Audio Interface activated.¡± ¡°Please select your ideal form of user interface with [A.I Nana]¡± ¡°What do you mean by select? Maybe you haven¡¯t noticed but I have no limbs to select anything with.¡± I said sarcastically. ¡°Query processed. Answer: To select your ideal UI, present the interface as you see it in your mind.¡± It replied. Ok, I can do that. In fact, I have just the thing for it. A VRMMORPG UI. Invisible blue windows are fantastic. Absolutely fabulous. That¡¯s right, even a genius doctor has hobbies, I read Killing Dragon and Legendary Sunlight Sculptor in my spare time. Problem? ¡°Processing data. Blueprint created. Creating. Implementing. Complete.¡± The voice said. Ding! A semi-transparent blue window with a white border appears in front of me. Text started appearing on it like some old school rpg.
Congratulations! If you¡¯re seeing this, then you¡¯ve probably already gone through the reincarnation process. No doubt you¡¯re currently waiting to be born. Haha, I bet you¡¯re bored to death huh? Fear not, Nana to the rescueee! So here we go, the first of your gifts. Oh, by the way, this interface will only activate when you close your eyes, making one that can overlap with vision was too much work, so yeah. Oh, before I forget, Edehalla is slightly medieval but it has MAGIC! So yeah. You might want to keep that in mind. And don¡¯t forget about our deal, ok? YOU. ARE. MINE. M-I-N-E <3 Anyways, I gotta go now, good luck! Eh, not really, since that won¡¯t apply to you anyways. Bai-Bye!
D1C2 - Skill D1C2 - Skill As the text ended, a small upside-down triangle appeared. Ugh, I¡¯ve played too many RPGs. This goddess is really happy-go-lucky huh¡­ With a flick of my mental finger, I proceeded to the next message screen. Once again, text started appearing. I wonder if there any way to speed up the text speed. It would be really nice to have options menu at the moment. Even better would be a help screen.
Fors Fortis Hehehe. You¡¯d better thank me for this, I put a lot of work into this. Use it wisely! Active: Current Stacks - [6] Passive: Current Stats - [BM - 1.272] [AOE - 6.072] [BE - 0.6] Skill Description Active - Takes your luck into your own hands. 1. Think of what you want to happen, will, intent and imagery is required. 2. Roll the dice, number represent level of effectiveness. 3. Dice effects are numbered, 1 is the worst/smallest effect, 6 is the best/largest effect. 4. First result is the ¡°good¡±, level of beneficial effect will be dependent on number rolled. 5. Second result is the ¡°bad¡±, level of detrimental effect will be dependent on number rolled. 6. Active can only be used a limited time. - Every 2 months grants 3 uses of active. Uses can be stacked up to a maximum of 99. - Usage of active will reduce Passive Effect by a 1/10th of its current stats.. - Usage of active may cause [Abuse], when certain conditions are met. - Abuse is a status change, when in effect passive effect will convert to ¡°unlucky¡± - Abuse duration is proportional to the number of stacks available for use. - Abuse will happen when, active is used when there are no stacks available. - Abuse will happen when, active is used more than 2 or more times in one week. Passive - Increases chance of beneficial events occurring within a set area. 1. Base Multiplier = 1.2x 2. Base Area of effect = 6 meters 3. Chance of Butterfly effect = 0.6% 4. Everyday, Multiplier and Area of Effects stacks. - Multiplier = +0.0006x - Area of Effect = +0.0006m
Wow¡­ just wow¡­ I¡¯m absolutely speechless, does that airhead goddess know that she just gave me power over probability? From the the looks of it, the bad status really drags this down but in the end, power is still power. But first, let¡¯s figure out how this even works. ¡°Skills¡± don¡¯t exist, at least, they don¡¯t on Earth. Do I shout out the skill name? Dammit, I¡¯m not a 8th grader. Maybe a set of actions, but wouldn¡¯t that mean I can only use it after I¡¯m born? Ah! I¡¯m an idiot, don¡¯t I have a bot right here who can answer my question? ¡°Hello? Um, mister is it? or is it missus? Anyways, would you mind telling me how to activate or use this skill?¡± I asked the monotone voice. ¡°Query processed. Answer: This skill can be activated by thought.¡± It replied. Alrighty! That¡¯s what I like to hear. Let¡¯s do this. First of all, I have to consider what I want, fix the image in my mind, then ¡°activate¡± the skill. Let¡¯s see, what do I want¡­ A lot of things, but I¡¯ve only got 6 stacks and I can¡¯t use them all within this week. Crap, I don¡¯t even know what time it is, how am I supposed to measure the passing of time. It¡¯ll really suck if I have the [Abuse] status when I¡¯m born. I don¡¯t want to suffocate on my own umbilical cord and die a infant! Ok, ok, let¡¯s think about this. Right now I¡¯m a baby, my senses haven¡¯t developed and I¡¯m trapped in my mind without any references to mark the passage of time. Right. I wonder¡­ In the end it¡¯s because I have no senses, maybe if I can somehow use my newly acquired skill to develop my senses somewhat, I¡¯ll get a clue or two as two what time it is. Of course I could always just wait a long time, long enough that a week will pass for sure, but this wasn¡¯t ideal since I¡¯d probably wait so long I¡¯d be born without doing anything else. I really wanted to be able use the skill while I was still within the womb as I¡¯d be able to influence my bodys development. I fixed the thought of have ¡°Better Senses¡± in my head and thought of the skill, activating it.
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°Better Senses¡±. Confirm? Y / N
¡®Yes.¡¯ I pressed.
Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.You have rolled a 6. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. Sight - You gain double focus. Touch - You are more sensitive to environmental effects. Taste - You can sense a wider range of tastes. Smell - You can smell a wider range of odors Hearing - You can hear further. 6th Sense - You gain a 6th sense.
Without even a chance to think about what I¡¯ve gained the window disappears and is replaced by another one.
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 3. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. Touch - Your skin is extremely sensitive. Taste - You cannot taste a certain range of flavors. Smell - You cannot smell a certain range of odors.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [5] Note - Due to several effects contradicting each other, you may choose to cancel them out. If effects are not canceled out, then all gained effects will be implemented. Would you like to do so? Y / N
For the most part I understood what was happening, but the last window really confused me. ¡°Mister, can you clarify for me? If I do not cancel them out, exactly what will happen?¡± I asked. ¡°Query processed. Answer: If canceling out is not selected, then you will experience all effects. Let us use taste as an example. Your palate would be able to identify a wider range of flavors, however, at the same time, you would be unable to taste one of several basic flavours such as sweet, salty or sour.¡± Huh. Might as well cancel them out then, I¡¯ll still come out on top anyways since it¡¯s 6 to 3. ¡®Yes.¡¯ I pressed.
Ding! You have selected to cancel out the contradicting effects. You have gained the following. Sight - You gain double focus. Hearing - You can hear further. 6th Sense - You gain a 6th sense. The skill has completed the process of selection. Implementation in¡­ 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­
As the the number hit 0, a wave of pain overcame me. My eyes burned as if I was having laser eye surgery, my ears felt as if my grandma was still alive pulling on them. Not to mention the splitting headache that finished this killer combo. Arghhhhhhhh! The PAINNN. IT BURNNNSSSS. IT HURTTTSSSS. Poof. I black out, although it was already black to begin with. I woke up to the familiar blackness and a blue window. I must have blacked out from the pain. I sincerely hope this was worth it. I glanced at the window to see what surprises it held now.
Implementation is complete.
Fuck you. The blissful feeling of no pain could have told me that. At any rate, my mood was still very good. After checking a few windows and a few questions, I was able to determine exactly how I had improved. Since I could not actually use my senses, I had to rely on the windows and words of Monotone-san. Hearing was a no brainer, I was supposed to be able to hear better and pick up sounds that were made further away. Simple. Eyesight was a bit tough though, double focus mean exactly that. Normal humans when looking at something, focus on a particular spot, this region is called the ¡°Dual eye overlap¡±. What improved was that somehow, I two ¡°Dual eye overlap¡± thus two focal points available. Of course, for this to happen should have another pair of eyes, but I don¡¯t. When I asked the Mr. Toneless, he replied that my brain was rewired to to accept two points. Don¡¯t look at me, I¡¯m just thankful I don¡¯t have another pair of eyes. Last but not least was the weird ¡°6th sense¡±, I knew science had tried to explain it away as the subconscious picking up clues the conscious missed and then forming conclusion based upon these clues. While this seemed somewhat believable in theory, I never put much stock in it. During my many surgeries, my gut feeling saved more than one person. Asking Artificial voice yielded no results, for some reason, this was the one thing he or she had refused to explain fully. D1C3 - Body D1C3 - Body I still had a stack of [Fors Fortis] I could use at the moment, so I didn¡¯t hesitate. What I desired was an ¡°Ideal Appearance¡± or simply put to be hotter than a model. Hehe. Yeah, girls flocked to me when I was a genius doctor, but that was because of my money. In all honestly, I had a very plain face. What? It¡¯s a given that beautiful people are afforded more advantages in life. This isn¡¯t a baseless point, I remember reading several studies that were done on this topic. In one of them, it was found that attractive people earned approximately 10-20% more and were more likely to get promotions. The world is unfair. Now that I had the power to change myself, I sure as hell was going to use it. Of course, beauty also had its downsides but in my opinion, they were completely outweighed by the advantages, I mean getting free lunch boxes and food, what could be better than that? And they say there is no such thing as a ¡°free¡± lunch. Pal, thats only if you¡¯re ugly. Heh. Either way, though this [Fors Fortis] skill was slightly risky, it still paid off in the end. I rolled a 5 for benefits and got the ¡°Very Attractive¡± effect. As for the detriment, I lucked out and rolled a 1 which resulted in a ¡°wing-shaped birthmark¡± on my upper arm. I didn¡¯t receive any prompt on ¡°canceling out¡± so I suppose that it only appear when the results were incompatible.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [4] Benefit - Appearance is now ¡°Very Attractive¡±. Will activate at onset of [Puberty]. Detriment - Wing-shaped birthmark.
At any rate, I was very happy with this result, although the bone shifting and fleshing melting did kill off the mood somewhat. At least it was not as painful as the last activation of the skill. Now that this was finished, I got back to the problem of having no ¡°time¡±. Immediately, I could feel the passive effect of ¡°luck¡± working on me. Why you ask? Using the skill had forcibly developed my senses, you cannot improve something that does not exist in the first place. I could now hear my Mother! She was singing me a lullaby with her sweet voice. I dreamed of honey and Ice-cream when she was finally done. Don¡¯t you stare. Even a doctor has to maintain his glucose levels, do you know how much we need to study? Even as a doctor, you have to take med exams regularly to keep your license! Don¡¯t think that being a doctor is just about sewing people up and slapping a bandage on them. Namen-ja-ne-yo! At any rate, I soon realised that my mother, being the absolutely wonderful person that she was, would only sing me the lullaby at a set time each ¡°day¡±. Thanks to her I was able to keep track of the time very easy. Very soon, a week had passed and my skill had reset it¡¯s cool down. Right then, what next? Now that I had gotten the two most important things out of the way, it was time to roll for another two body modification. Vain? Me? Oh you. Such a joker. Anyways I decided on ¡°Body¡± and ¡°Immunity¡±. ¡°Body¡± was a simple choice to make. In her message, Nana said that Edehalla was ¡°slightly medieval¡±, knowing her personality, I was fully prepared to believe that it was more like ¡°Dark Ages¡± medieval rather than ¡°Renaissance¡± medieval. And if my textbooks have taught me anything, the Dark Ages was a place where only the strong would survive. No more Obamacare or social security bullshit, you pulled your weight or you died. Nice and simple, my kind of world, no longer would I have to deal with ungrateful fools who would try to sue you just because they tore their own stitches. I mean, what was the fool thinking in the first place? If you leave the hospital to fuck some whore at a brothel, you¡¯re obviously going to ruin your stitches. And yes, that actually happened. Ugh! Fucking Americans, I wish I had gone to some Asian country, at least they give you proper respect. I can only blame myself for not taking my mother¡¯s advice to work in Hong Kong. I was born there, but like fool, I was attracted to a life of fame and went to the U.S. ¡°Immunities¡± was another no-brainer, if I had a strong immune system, I was much more likely to survive in an era where vaccines didn¡¯t even exist. Not to mention it would help me greatly in surviving past my infancy. Being a doctor, I was very well aware of what the hygienic standard was during the middle ages. Whatever you were thinking, it¡¯s ten times worse. For heavens sake, they don''t even wash their hands let alone germ theory. Note to self, don¡¯t do handshakes. Ok, so maybe I was being slightly critical of my new home, but I wasn¡¯t one to leave anything to chance, despite the fact that I have a skill that does that very thing. At any rate, I wanted began my rolls for ¡°Body¡±. Once again the dull voice resounded in my mind. I honestly couldn¡¯t take it anymore. ¡°I can¡¯t take it anymore. Hey! you¡¯re there aren¡¯t you? I can¡¯t keep calling you ¡°Hey¡±, so your new name is ¡°Nana Two¡± or ¡°Nanachu¡±, you got that? And can you please change your voice?¡± ¡°Query processed. Answer: Understood. Designation is now [Nana Two] pronounced as [Na-na-chu]. Understood. Downloading Voice Patterns. Please wait¡­ Download complete. Installation complete. Activation complete.¡± After hear the monotone voice morph into Nana bubbly speech, I could not help but feel somewhat weirded out by the new change, despite the fact that I was the one who had ordered it done. Ah well, whatever. In any case, I was in a hurry to roll for ¡°Body¡±. And so I did.
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°Enhanced Body¡±. Confirm? Y / N
I pressed ¡°Yes¡±.
Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 6. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.Congratulations! You gain the following effects. +15% Pink muscle (Replaces existing muscle mass) +15% Tidal volume (Increases Lung Volume) +15% Body flexibility (Replaces existing joints, ligaments and tendons)
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 6. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. +30% Metabolism rate + Mother¡¯s Heritage
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [3] Benefit - +15% to [Pink muscle], [Tidal volume], [Body Flexibility] Detriment - +30% to Metabolism rate, + Mother¡¯s Heritage
After recovering from the pain that was now known as body-sculpting, I mulled over the attributes I now gained. First of the benefits were really deserving of a 6 after all. Some people might not understand the importance of [Pink Muscle], but I did. It is the most efficient muscle in the human body, the average person only has 2% of this rare muscle. In general there are three types of muscles in our body. Skeletal, Smooth and Cardiac. Skeletal muscle are the muscles we use to move our bodies. They are split into two groups. The first is known as Type I, also known as Red muscle. It¡¯s function is an ¡°endurance¡± muscle, this type can be commonly found in athletes that do Endurance sports like Marathons. Type II can be split into three subgroups but the two most important subgroups are IIa and IIb. Type IIb muscle are known as White muscle. It¡¯s function is a ¡°reflex¡± muscle. this type can be found on alethes who do sport that require very quick, sharp and strong movements. And now for the magical Pink muscle, known as Type IIa. This type of muscle is basically a combination of Red and White muscle, while it has slightly less ¡°endurance¡± than a red muscle and slightly less ¡°reflex¡± than a white muscle, its benefit is that it is EXTREMELY trainable, meaning if you do endurance activities the Pink muscles growth will lean towards more ¡°endurance¡± and vice versa when doing ¡°reflex¡± sports. You could even say that having lots of pink muscles is a bodybuilders wet dream! This basically meant that committing actions into muscle memory is slightly easier for me, I could not have asked for a better treasure. Having increase Tidal Volume basically meant my lungs were bigger, which in turn meant there is more surface area for gas exchange. In simple terms, I will be able to absorb more oxygen which means my muscles won''t get as tired so easily. See that I had increased flexibility was also a great thing, a wider range of movements would mean I would be able to move more nimbly and dodge incoming attacks with more ease. While both were great, they still could not compare to the gift of Pink muscles. As for the detriments, I didn''t really have too much of an opinion, increased metabolism simply meant I would assimilate proteins and amino acids gained from food a lot quicker. I¡¯d have to eat a lot more frequently but that wouldn¡¯t be a problem if carried around high energy snacks like granola bars. If my new home did not have them, then I would simply have to make them myself. Honey and nuts, Simple and Easy. Since I didn''t even know who my mother was, there was no point in worrying about her ¡°heritage¡± at this point. Since I was now done with my ¡°Body¡±, it was time for my ¡°Immunities¡±. The familiar popup appeared before my eyes once again.
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°Advanced Immunity¡±. Confirm? Y / N
I pressed ¡°Yes¡±.
Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 4. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. x4 Resistant to all diseases.
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 4. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. x2 More likely to catch the common cold.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [2] Note - Due to several effects contradicting each other, you may choose to cancel them out. If effects are not canceled out, then all gained effects will be implemented. Would you like to do so? Y / N
I bite and press ¡°Yes¡±. I really did not fancy being called a sniveling idiot.
Ding! You have selected to cancel out the contradicting effects. You have gained the following. x2 Resistant to all diseases. The skill has completed the process of selection. Implementation in¡­ 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­
I could feel my veins, arteries and capillaries burn as my lymphocytes began mass production of a large number of ¡°Natural Antibodies¡±. I could almost imagine the white blood cells dressed as white knights, running around all sorts of rural villages and conscripting the men there. Judging from the fact that I had rolled not long after my Mother sang me a song, it was a full day day before I stopped hurting because I could hear the opening notes of Mothers lullaby. The pain had drained me mentally and I fell into blissful sleep. D1C4 - Magic D1C4 - Magic I do not how long I still have to wait until I am born. Assuming that my calculations have been correct, I have been here for close to 5 months now. The average pregnancy lasts for around 38 weeks or 9 months, so I know the remaining time I have to wait is around 4 months. Yet, in truth I feel that it is a bit shorter than 4 months. I know didn¡¯t gain consciousness when I was an embryo, because no matter how you look at it, a one month embryo doesn''t even have a brain. The brain begins development in week 5-7 and grow from week 8 onwards. It is only at week 10 that the embryo develop in a fetus. It is from week 11-15 that the senses show the slow signs of beginning to develop. Lets assume I gained consciousness around week 10, or 2 and a half months. I then waited another two months until I was able to get my [Fors Fortis], in which I was then able to gain my senses. which is around 4 and a half months. Yes, this fits the timeline of fetal development because a baby can begin to hear at week 20 or month 5. My ability must have increased ear development by half a month. Close enough. After being able to hear I waited another fortnight to use my [Fors Fortis] to get my body modifications. I had long since decided I would never use more than 2 uses a week, it would be prudent to keep at least one use for emergencies. Back on the topic of time, it was no wonder that I felt it was shorter than 4 months. In the end, I have actually been in my mothers womb for 6 months already! Before the 27 week mark, the fetal nervous system is not very developed yet, all the movement I made before this marker was completely involuntary. Being inside here is quite stifling. But not anymore, I finally realise I can somewhat control my limbs! It is an exhilarating sense of freedom. Banzai for the 6.2 months marker! I can¡¯t help it. Sorry Mother, I¡¯ll be stretching a bit here. I slowly move my fisted hands and legs around, enjoying my sense of movement. From outside I can hear my mother grunt in pain. Ahh! I better stop before Mother is hurt too much. Sometimes, I really worry for her you know! Still three months huh¡­ no matter how I try and comprehend it, 3 months is still a long long time. Yosh! I know what I can do, right now I still have 2 stacks of [Fors Fortis] to use up. lets think of ideas on what to use it for! Lets see. Maybe I could develop ESP? That would be so cool, imagine not having to do anything physically, I could just lay in bed all and use my esp to do stuff, cleaning, cooking. After so many years of working till my bones shook in the Emergency Room, a life of laziness is absolutely dreamlike. Hah~ I just want to sit on my ass and eat cheese and drink wine, I wonder if they even have grapes here. If my new world does not have wine, I am seriously going to throw a tantrum! Hmph! Now that I mention it, the message did say that there was M-A-G-I-C in this world? Oh man, I absolutely cannot miss this. I mean it¡¯s magic after all! What kind of person isn¡¯t excited by magic? It would amazing if I could fly in the sky using magic, in the end, helicopter and planes simply aren¡¯t flying. They are at most simply sitting in a iron box that speeds through the sky. No, this won¡¯t do. I¡¯ve decided, I WILL be talented in magic. A week had long passed so I was now able to use my skill again. Hah! I will make all the mages of this world jealous of me. Feast your eyes on my magnificence~ Ufufufufufu! Ahhh! it seems like Nana might have messed around with my soul when I was reincarnating, I¡¯m picking up her bad habits now¡­ Aigoo~
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°Magical Talent¡±. Confirm? Y / N
¡°Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.¡± I stab the Y button like it was a big juicy red button. The fact that the window had popped up confirmed the fact that there was indeed magic in the world, otherwise there would be no [Confirm? Y / N]. With it¡¯s existence now confirmed, I was more excited than a child seeing fireworks for the first time.
Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 5. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. Max Elemental Affinity - Water Max Elemental Affinity - Lightning Average Elemental Affinity - Earth
OMAGAWD! IT¡¯S LIGHTNINGGGGGGG!!! JACKPOTTT!!! (AN: Please excuse the author as she goes fangirling about the lightning element and Killua. She promises she won¡¯t be long. And yes our M.C is also frustrated by the HxH hiatus.) I am totally 100 percent stealing Killua''s lightning skin idea. It¡¯s genius and it even theoretically works. By coating oneself with lightning, instead of electrical impulses travelling from brain to muscle through the nervous system, any signals sent out by the brain will immediately reach the muscles! With this ability, the normal human reflex time of 0.25 for visual stimuli can be reduced to under 0.05 sec. You might as well have eyes at the back of your head! Not to mention should lightning be used as a projectile, it¡¯s speed would be even faster than a bullet much less an arrow. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Lightning is the true king of elements. It can be deadly with enough voltage or non lethal with low voltage. Truly the best outcome and don¡¯t forget about the synergy with water too! All I would have to do is stand in the middle of a lake to become a golden statue, I don¡¯t even need that hourglass! No one can reach me and all projectile can be block by ice walls. Check and mate. Secondly, water and lightning huh... If I do not like you, you may as well call for the priest now. I will make you see demons everywhere. As I have mentioned before, our brain ¡°perceives¡± through sensory information sent by our senses. And you guessed it, these ¡°information¡± are in the end, nothing more than electrical signals. Meaning as long as I can command lightning within the human body, I can send false signals to create extremely realistic illusions. Hell, I could probably even pull a Zero and command my enemies with the right signals to commit Seppuku. ¡°YES, Your Highness!¡± music to my ears. Or maybe even a ¡°water-straightener¡± with her blood magic. The possibilities were making me giddy.
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 6. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. Negative Elemental Affinity - Fire Negative Elemental Affinity - Air Negative Elemental Affinity - Metal Negative Elemental Affinity - Wood
Seeing the crap I got from my second roll did make me somewhat sad, but I didn''t particularly care, thanks to my advanced medical knowledge, I was relatively sure that I would be able to use lightning magic to its fullest potential. That should more that make up for not being able to use any other elemental magic. But that wasn''t the point. The message window actually contained a lot of vital information. For example, the fact that the word ¡°elemental¡± was present implied there were other types of magic that weren''t elemental. I had read enough novels to realize that. The negative part was slightly puzzling so I asked my Nanachu for clarification. Short and concise came the answer, negative affinity simply meant that I would be unable to use that type of magic. Unlike the previous message windows, this time a new window popped up.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [4] Note - Due to a the special circumstances of you detriment roll, you may choose to merge all effects into [Unknown], or you may keep them unchanged. Would you like to do so? Y / N
Huh. 4 stacks, instead of 1, I must have gotten 3 extra due to the fact that 2 more months had passed. At any rate, I was interested in what the [Unknown] was, I mean, it would still be better than not being able to use those magics. After weighing up the advantages and disadvantages, I come to the conclusion that there was nothing lost by accepting, the detriment was already a 6, which was the worst case scenario anyways. At any rate, like they say, ¡°Nothing ventured, nothing gained.¡± I press ¡°Yes¡± and wait for the confirmation.
Ding! You have selected to merge the detrimental effects. You have gained the following. Max Elemental Affinity - Water Max Elemental Affinity - Lightning Average Elemental Affinity - Earth [Void Magic(Locked)] - Based upon your negative affinities, you are unable to use fire, air, metal or wood magic. The chance to gain positive affinity with aforementioned magics is also lost. Affinity for the elements will only increase in the negative. Void magic grows stronger as you increase the negativity of aforementioned elements. The skill has completed the process of selection. Implementation in¡­ 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­
Void magic was interesting but it was locked, there was probably some special condition that I had to fulfill to unlock it. At any rate, I put all my thoughts aside as I braced myself for the pain that I knew was sure to come. However, this time was different, instead of sharp or burning or melting pain, a sense of warmth filled my entire being. I wasn¡¯t sure how this had come to pass but I was grateful either way. My theory was that I had no ¡°mana¡± before my rolls and that the warmth I was feeling was most likely ¡°mana¡± entering my body. Nonetheless, it was only a theory, what really happened was something that I could only find out once I was born and able to read. It might even not be ¡°mana¡±. I had only used that term as a placeholder for ¡°special energy¡± that humans are supposedly able to feel. I had expected the ¡°warmth¡± to disappear but contrary to my expectations, it didn''t and so, I fell into slumber once again. D1C5 - Birth D1C5 - Birth Waking up, I find that the ¡°warmth¡± has disappeared. A bit disheartened at the loss of that comfortable feeling, I think about what I should do to pass time once more. Because I didn¡¯t know how long I was asleep, I had lost track of time once again. I could¡¯ve been asleep for a day, or it could have been a week. I thought about using [Fors Fortis]¡¯s skill description to check the time, since the numbers for the passive supposedly stacked every day, but for some reason it didn¡¯t update. So I was at a loss. Eventually, I decided to use a stack to see if the numbers would update if the active was used. I didn¡¯t really think about what I was going to use the stack on, I mean, I have 4 stacks at the moment so wasting one wasn¡¯t exactly a bad thing. Besides, I was still on my first use for the week the last time I checked so using it again would be fine. Without much thought, I decided to just activate the skill.
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°Male Gender¡±. Confirm? Y / N
Eh, whatever, I was feeling lucky today, besides ever since I had learnt that I had been both man and woman in my past lives, I didn¡¯t really care what gender I was. So I pressed ¡°Yes¡±. The current me was beginning to think in terms of being a [Soul] instead of belonging to a gender of [Man] or [Woman]. I wasn¡¯t so foolish as to disregard the fact that being male conferred more advantages in a medieval world, so somewhere within my heart I was hoping that I would be born as a guy. But honestly, I didn¡¯t really care. The importance of gender depend on your goals for life. If you wanted to wield enormous political power and rush into battle, being a guy was definitely better. On the other hand, if you wanted to laze around chatting and just enjoying life, you¡¯d be better off as a girl, marrying into wealth. My goal was to be able travel the world, see the sights and experience new things. Most of all, I wanted to eat new food especially desserts. As a result, gender didn¡¯t really matter was my line of thinking. Of course, there was also the task of killing five other reincarnations but being a doctor, I knew there were many ways of killing someone without having to resort to the brute force that a male often relies upon. Without bated breath, I waited for my first roll to complete.
Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 1. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. +5% of a male strength
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 6. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. You are now a member of the female gender.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [3] Benefit - +5% of a male strength. Detriment - You are now a member of the female gender.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. I sighed, mentally of course. I felt no need to drown. After sighing once, I sigh again as I prepare for the pain that comes with a physical change to the body. My face melts as my features ¡°probably¡± become softer. My entire skeleton creaks and cracks as it restructures itself to that of a female. My muscles, organ and all sorts of bodily tissue are set on fire as the cells that make them up change their genetic gender from XY to XX. Last but not least, I feel my pelvic region twist and retch in agony. I have no doubt that I am now missing a bone. No more extra bone jokes I guess. I am fine with this. I mentally convince myself. Just treat it as completing all the routes of a RPG or VN. You were already a guy once, then you were a soul. That¡¯s 2 out of 4 routes complete. Just gotta do the female perspective and the godly perspective and its [Game Complete]. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the feminists protesting that it is an insult that being a woman is considered a detriment. But whatever, I didn¡¯t like them anyways, equality is good and all but I¡¯ll only believe in it when I see a girl cleaning the sewers. Ugh. my brain is a complete mess, it feels like someone ripped out the wiring and restuffed it. I can¡¯t deal with this any more. I am not going to do anymore physical changes using my skill, if I have to face anymore pain, my mind will break. Thus, I decided to sleep or rather I decide to ¡°hibernate¡± until it is time for me to be born. Months pass and I can slowly feel the changes my body is experiencing during the time I am awake. What used to be a comfortable space has now become a constricting prison. I can feel that my time of birth is near. It is happening. I feel the walls around me tightening and clench. It is time for me to go out into the world. I am extremely excited. What will my new home look like, I wonder. What do my parents look like, I wonder. What sights will I be able to see? What sounds will I be able to hear? What scents will I be able to smell? It is a blur, all I remember are the walls crushing and pushing me. My very soul feels as if a Boa Constrictor is crushing it. (AN: I have an entire paragraph on being pushed by vaginal muscles, with first hand experiences from my aunt who recently gave birth, but I decided that was too weird¡­ be grateful it is not put here. lololol XD) Finally, I can feel a very soft breeze on the top of my head, not long after I am wrapped in a blanket, finally being able to breath makes me cry out in relief. for some reason, wailing out my lungs feels extraordinarily good. I cry and wail like there is no tomorrow. World, tremble before me. For I have arrived. I¡¯m being melodramatic, but better thoughts have never been thought by a newborn baby. For my first thought in my new home, it is truly worthy. I feel like a demon king, but eh, it¡¯s all the same. The darkness that I am so familiar with suddenly turns bright red, I feel the sun¡¯s rays or whatever it was called here, unleash beams of UV light onto my exposed face. I must be careful about my exposure to the sun, it would not do to develop skin cancer in this world. Forget about chemotherapy, they¡¯d probably burn me for being cursed by a witch or something. Finally done with all my random thoughts, I open my eyes. D1C6 - White Last chapter of the day, I am completely wiped. Need to get me ma energy drinks. If you¡¯ve enjoyed this, please don¡¯t forget to rate and comment. Reader feedback gives me motivation! Buh-Bye for now! ------------------------------------------------- D1C6 - White Very slowly, I open my eyes, frowning slightly as I try to avoid the suns glare. I wince and being crying again as I feel a bit of pain near my navel. Being a baby, I am still unable to move my head around but I am sure that what just happened was my umbilical cord being cut. My lower half was then wrapped up with the remaining half of the blanket. Vaguely I could feel something between my butt and the blanket but I dismissed the thought for the moment, being born had left me a bit tired. All that wailing didn¡¯t help any too. All I could see at the moment was a yellowish ceiling as I was lying on my back on some very comfy blankets. Whilst my vision was limited my hearing worked fine. I heard someone rush out the room and exclaims something excitedly. ¡°&%$ # &^*#!!!!¡± A middle aged woman exclaimed. Of course, I wasn¡¯t sure if she was middle aged or not but that was what her voice sounded like. A slew of voices ensued after she made the proclamation. I could hear mix of several male and female voices, whilst I didn¡¯t understand anything, I could tell they were excited and happy. In turn that made me happy as well. ¡°$%^$&¡± ¡°*#$&* (&%*&*$ $(*&*#¡± ¡°#&*$&*$% (*(@(*#$&*(¡° ¡°(#*($^ )()$& ^^%%$ *&*¡± This was just a guess but I bet the middle age woman was saying ¡°It¡¯s a girl!!!¡±. I mean, there are only so many one-liners you can say to elicit such a reaction. The rest of the voices were probably my relatives and siblings, that is, if I had any siblings. All the excitement was tiring me out and my eyes slowly closed. I felt someone, probably the midwife, lift me up and pass me into a pair of soft arms. The person who had these arms began cooing and making soft noises. If I were not a baby, I would have found it funny, but as it were, it felt incredibly soothing. I could feel something being pressed into my mouth. My baby¡¯s instinct overcame the embarrassment of knowing what it was and I began suckling on it, warm liquid filled my tummy and I fell asleep once more. A birds chirping woke me and I opened my eyes. I was laying at an elevated angle so instead of looking at the ceiling, I was able to make out a mass of pure arctic white hair laying to the right of me. To the left was a blue sky filled with ever changing white clouds. It seems like some things would never change. My vision was extraordinary. This was RealityEngine 2.0. Hmph! 1080p? Try 20/20vsn, the newest generation of graphics. Ahhh~ the future was truly bright. I chuckled, but what came out was not ¡°Hahaha¡± instead it came out as ¡±GooGooGaa¡±. My ¡°laughter¡± must have woken the person next to me because I could see the mass of arctic white hair shift this way and that. Once mass of white hair sat up, she immediately grabbed me and settled me into her soft arms once again making soft noises. She brushed her messy hair away and I finally saw the face of this mysterious woman. She wasn¡¯t mysterious for much longer, looking into her silver eyes and seeing the love that dwelled within, I could immediately tell that this person was my mother. After realising this fact, I felt incredibly safe and sound, as if nothing would ever be able to get at me. I giggled as I wriggled, trying to get deeper into her arms. Looking at my antics, my mom smiled. She was extremely cute, almost reminiscent of Fortuna, almost everything I could see of her was white, her skin was ivory white, her eyes silvery and her hair was like soft snow. Only her lips were cherry red. She had an oval face with very soft and young features, my guess put her in her early twenties. Looking at my mom¡¯s beauty had left me speechless. In fact, I was so caught up in admiring her that I almost missed a few details. I could see that her canines were slightly longer than normal and that she had¡­ fox ears? Huh? ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ Okay, deep breath girl, deeeep breath., no need to be shocked by this, you¡¯ve already met a god. I came to my senses relatively quickly considering the fact that I had just realised that my mom was half human half¡­ animal? She had fox ears and slightly longer canines, probably a tail too, her being so extremely white led me to the conclusion that her animal half was probably based on the arctic fox or some kind of fox with albinism. So this was what ¡°Mother¡¯s Heritage¡± meant. So that was the reason why I couldn¡¯t feel the blanket on my butt, it was probably because of my extra appendage, a tail. Whatever. My mom or my being half animal didn¡¯t change a thing, I saw the love in her eyes and in turn I could feel myself loving her. That was all that mattered. For snagging such a amazing woman for my mom, I must say, terrific job dad! You make me proud. I giggled once more as my mom rocked me back and forth in her arms. I saw turn and speak softly to someone. Whoever it was left the room we were in, their soft footsteps fading away. Not long after, I could hear some extremely loud and obnoxious footsteps approaching, I decided I didn¡¯t like this person, whoever they were. Nobody disturbs my comfy time with mummy. Hmph! As it got closer and closer, I grew more and more nervous. As the door creaked open, I just couldn¡¯t take it and I started wailing. The moment I did, I could see my mother shoot whoever it was a stern gaze. Hahaha, the footsteps immediately became less obnoxious sounding and I turned down the crying. My mom smiled as I lowered the volume, hehehe! I was feeling really blissful. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. All of a sudden, my mother''s beautiful face was replaced by the face of a really photogenic man. And when I said photogenic, I meant supermodel kind hot. He too, was also in his early twenties, he had jet black hair with electric blue eyes. He had an oblong face that had two faint eye bags. I bet this person had really worried for my mother, all of a sudden, I felt that this person wasn¡¯t so bad after all. Lifting me from my mothers arms, he hugged me. As I left his embrace, he looked me in the eyes and I could see my own image reflected in his eyes. Damn was I ugly, ok maybe that was just my self-image complex acting up, but I really was chubby. I hope I am able to lose all my baby fat when I grow up. It would suck to be called chub-face. I could also see that my eyes were silvery like my mothers, my skin was also like hers, all ivory and smooth. My hair, however, was what led me to believe that the person before me was my dad, instead of my mothers arctic white, it was jet black. Upon this realisation, I could feel the previously negative feelings I had for him drain away. To be replaced by love. I mean, since I¡¯m now a girl, if I have to love a guy, it may as well be my dad. No heartbreaks there. Hah! Genius plan so says moi. Not too shabby if I say so myself, I had the whole raven-hair, ivory skin trope going on. All I need was some ruby red lipstick and you may as well call me Snow White. Well, in all fairness, I did roll a five for beauty. It stands to reason that if I am to be beautiful, then my parent would have to be beautiful themselves. Scien-Errr. Genetics, Bitch! I still couldn¡¯t turn my head around so I was unable to see what my ¡°Wing-Shaped Birthmark¡± looked like. Oh well, at least it was wing shaped and not some weird shape like the illuminati triangle or whatnot. Honestly, I wasn¡¯t sure who I was prouder of, my mom, for getting such a great deal like dad, or dad for getting such a great catch like mom. With their looks, I bet my mother had her very own fan club and my father his very own harem. Props to them for defeating their respective hordes. Respect! After my Dad stopped playing peekaboo with me (What can I say?It¡¯s fun), he and mom exchanged a few words and my dad left the room. This time, instead of thinking his footsteps obnoxious, I felt like he was someone of great importance. Which to be fair, he probably was. While I may be reduced to a infantish form with an immobile head, my powers of observation are still top class. My mom had long since moved us to her bedchambers instead of the birthing chamber in which I first met the world. While she was rocking me about, I was able to get glimpses of the room we were in. The bed was luxurious, with large pillows, soft quilts and from what I could tell, feather mattresses. It was one of those four poster beds with silk curtains. Mounted on the walls were stones that seem to be eternally on fire. For lack of better term, I simply called them fire-stones. That was the first indication that this world was truly different from mine. In mine, instead of the these wall mounted fire-stones, there would¡¯ve been candlesticks. No torches because unlike what some people believe, torches were never used inside castles, homes or within closed spaces like caves. Medieval people may have lacked technology but they weren¡¯t stupid, once a person died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to the torches burning up the oxygen, they would¡¯ve learnt not to use torches in enclosed spaces. Thinking about this also made me wonder how the fire-stones actually worked, as far as I could tell, they were burning, that is, they had a open flame. But if they were put here, especially within a bedchamber, it implied that they were safe. Maybe the flame was just a trick of the eye? I could not get close so I couldn¡¯t feel the heat. I put the confirmation of my theory into my already growing to-do-list. Continuing on with my observation, I could also see that the opposing of the bed had a bookshelf filled to the brim. This indicated that my family was at the very least, not lacking in money. Without the printing press, books would have to been transcribed by hand making them expensive due to the effort involved. With magic however, this might not hold true. Either way it didn¡¯t matter, because I could see that these books were very ornate, with gold stenciling on the spines. Which only screamed wealth. The room had no such thing as a bare wall as most of the stone walls were draped with elegant tapestries depicting all manners of things.The floor too was covered in soft carpets, I was itching to grow up and crawl in them, they just looked so soft. To my left was an open balcony, we were high enough that all I could see outside the balcony from the bed was a blue sky. Looking at the sky combined with my moms gentle rocking caused me to daydream about floating in the clouds. Whether it was a daydream or not didn¡¯t matter, I felt I was lying on something soft all the same and for the nth time, I go to sleep. D1C7 - Names D1C7 - Names My stomach woke me with a fierce growl, I was beginning to regret my body modifications. Of course, An extra 30 percent metabolism was fine in normal circumstances, that is, assuming that I was to be born a human. But now that I wasn''t, life was sucking. Literally, I felt the need to eat at every other hour. Of course, I never cried too loud, I felt apologetic towards my mother for having to eat so often, but she only gave me an understanding smile each time. With a bit of thought, I realised why I was so hungry. Of course, this realisation was also based on the fact that my other half was indeed based upon an arctic fox, or any kind of fox. If I wasn¡¯t then I may as well throw my conclusions out the window. Not that we had any windows, at least from what I could see. In my previous life, or more specifically, during my years as an undergrad, I met quite a few girls who wanted to get cosy with the so called ¡°prodigy¡±. My future was bright, so if they managed to score with me, ie, get married, they wouldn¡¯t have a hard life. Naturally, being the hormone-pumped teenager that I was, I was too blinded by love and I never saw through their seduction. My mother on the other hand, was too smart for those gold diggers or should I say prospectors. ¡°You can fuck them all, but no permanent relationships.¡± was her words. And so it was. In my household, it wasn¡¯t the men who ruled, it was the women. The one time I saw her and daddy get in a spat, I swear I could¡¯ve seen the arms of Asura come out of her back. Yes, she was scarier than the slenderman himself. Monsters under the bed? Ain¡¯t nobody got time fo¡¯ dat. I gotta deal with the one in front of me! And so with her Iron-fisted arms of Asura she ruled our household like the tyrant Nero. Alright, so maybe I was exaggerating, I did love my mother and her sushi rolls but she was rather strict at times. At any rate, enough about my old life, back to the point. You see, one of the girls I dated was a hopeful veterinarian-in-training. One time, we went to on a date to the zoo, where she then proceeded to bore me with the details of all the animals there, such as the arctic fox. Of course, I paid attention, even if it was boring. After all, I did want to get some. Anyways, said details was that foxes, including the arctic subspecies, were built like felines (cats). They were light weight, had a structurally strong loose-jointed skeleton, a small stomach(50% the size of an average dog), powerful muscles for acceleration, agility at high speeds with excellent jumping ability. Of course, it was all thanks to my amazing memory that I could remember this, it had nothing to do with the fact that that girl was a bombshell ok? At any rate, even with my memory, I was unable to remember the finer details such as the numbers on speed and whatnot but that didn¡¯t matter. What did matter at this moment was the fact that foxes had a small stomach. This trait must have been passed on into human form, which explained why I was always so freaking hungry! Combined, with my extra metabolism, I was basically screwed. Of course, I wasn¡¯t about to give up any time soon, splitting the standard 3 meals a day into, 5 light meals a day should tide me over until I was able to work out a proper diet regiment. I was also curious as to exactly ¡°what¡± I was. Was I beastman? Or perhaps demi-human? Or god forbid, Were? This line of thought was somewhat amusing. The modern humans binomial nomenclature or scientific name was Homo sapiens sapiens, or H.s. Sapiens. The arctic wolf was called Vulpes lagopus. So what would the current me be called? H.s. lagopus? This was a question worth thinking about, but then again, if I actually did want to tackle this question, wouldn¡¯t I have to come up with some sort of classification system for organisms that were like me? Ugh. too much work. I put thought away into my ¡°lock and forget¡± cell. To be entirely honest, this was a rather important issue. Being a surgical doctor, if a demi-human or beastman or whatever they are called, is not anatomically similar to a human, then I will be unable to perform surgery, or be able to diagnose my own condition. Of course, there was also the possibility of ¡°healing¡± magic, but I would prefer to put stock in something that I am already familiar with. I guess will have to find a dead fresh beastman cadaver in the future for dissection. Yet another thing for my to-do-list. Of course, all this would only happen in the far far far off future. I didn¡¯t want to know what they did to a child hoisting around a cadaver. As I was thinking these dastardly thoughts, my mother rocked me back and forth in her arms. Did I mention how much I love her? Having a mom who does not have the arms of Asura was just so gratifying. I could lay here all day and be satifisied, which to be fair, I was doing. A few had passed now and I have not seen many people. Only my mom who was always beside me, my dad who visited often and the maids who often came in to clean and bring. food. My mom was still tired and recovering from my birth so all we did all day was play peekaboo and laze around. I might have been a young adult before, but I am now a baby. I realise that my body is somewhat influencing the way I am thinking, I have somewhat short attentions spans and anything my mother does never fails to make me giggle like some high school girl. I also seem to have grown a fascination for my mother¡¯s hair, it was simply so silky and smooth. I could totally picture her in a shampoo commercial. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. On the fourth day from my birth, my dad came visited us with a pair boys in tow. At this time my mother has holding me in the air so I could see who had entered the room. Immediately, I was able to recognise who they were. Like me, they had pale ivory skin and jet black hair. Unlike me, however, they had my dad¡¯s electric blue eyes. With that, the question of whether or not I have siblings was answered. My two brothers were very different despite their similar looks. The younger of the two, he looked around 9 and had my moms features, had a slightly martial atmosphere around him, he was very cheery and somewhat childlike for his age. Yet despite this, I could tell his future lay in battle. The aura he had about him was similar to the SWAT team members or MMA fighters I had once treated. It wasn¡¯t the cold atmosphere of a killer but rather that of someone who had something to protect. I also noticed, he was like my mom and myself in that he had the features of a demi-human. The tail swishing behind him had made that glaringly obvious. Then there was my eldest brother. He had inherited the handsome features from my dad and looked to be about 15 years old, but like my second brother, he too, was also rather cheery and childlike.Unlike me, mom and my brother, he had no demi-human features except for the sharp canines which I saw as he smiled. He was a lot more human than the three of us and very closely resembled my pure human father. Whilst he didn¡¯t have my second brother¡¯s protective aura about him, his eyes had a very calculating look. I almost see that calculations running inside his head, calculating the advantages and disadvantages of every decision. As it were, despite all his smiles, he seemed to be somewhere else, worrying about something else. A look that I had seen upon my dad¡¯s face as he visited us during the past few days. ¡®There must be something big going on outside these walls,¡¯ I thought to myself. Both my dad and brother had hid their expressions well, but I had once dealt with patients who grimaced under extreme pain. I could easily see through them. Although I wanted to help them, I could do nothing as a baby who had only just been born. And so, yet again I dismiss my thoughts. Anyhow, as soon as they came close to us, my dad exclaimed something excited and pointed at me. The two boys face lit up like some kind of christmas tree light and they rushed over. Gabbling in their unknown language and making wild gestures while laugh at this or that. Their excitement was extremely infectious and I could my parents wearing silly grins too. Eventually it spread to me too and I gabbled along with them in my own baby language. We did this for probably over an hour until I realised they were trying to tell me something. With wild movements and pointing, we weren¡¯t playing a weird game of charades. I observed them carefully. Eventually all the pointing began making sense. My daddy would point at me and say something, then he would point out himself and say something. My brothers and my mother repeated his actions as well. Soon enough, I was able to realise that they were saying their names, there are only so many words that one says while pointing to themselves. I was unable to pronounce their names, due to the fact that both my vocal cords and tongue did not know the range of movement required to produce the correct phonetic sound of whatever language they were speaking in. However, I could do it in my mind. Because all of my family had made the same ¡°sounds¡± at the end of each phrase they spoke, I was able to determine that it was probably our family name. It sounded something like¡±Audacia Regalis¡±. It was interesting that it sounded so much like Latin. Then again, I am most likely not the only person who was originally from earth, so maybe others like me had come and spread the use of a ¡°latin-like¡± language. This implied a lot, could our society also then be based upon a Roman model? I was frustrated by my lack of knowledge of my new home. I vowed to myself to read as soon as I learnt the written language. Moving on, it would seem that my dad was called ¡°Deus¡±, my elder brother ¡°Aiolos¡±. Now, I was truly confused, both these names were of Ancient Greek origins. Latin and Greek¡­ The Hellenistic Era? But that wasn¡¯t all, no, not in the least. My mother was called ¡°Inari¡± and my second brother ¡°Ashura¡± which coincidentally was my own nickname for the mother of my previous life. They were both of Japanese origin. Another thing to research. Sigh. Maybe I was putting too much thought into this, it was after all, it was just names. I could ask my parents about them once I was able to talk. My to-do-list was already growing at a ridiculous pace. Oh, and apparently I was named ¡°Diana¡±. Heh! Not bad. Whilst it may mean something different in the language of my parents. In my world, Diana was still a goddess, so I have no complaints. D1C8 - Developments D1C8 - Developments Two and a half months have passed since my birth. I have since been able to slightly move my head and limbs and wriggle a bit, although I am still a long way away from being able to flip my body or sit up, let alone crawl. Nevertheless, I am doing my best. My blankets are thick yet soft, so I have taken to the habit of making blankets angels as if I were lying in snow making snow angels. It may seem like a silly thing for a grown adult to do, but what do I care about your opinions? I am a baby. B-A-B-Y. Besides it was fun. Everyday, I eat, sleep, play with mommy, then sleep again. It was a very irregular schedule, yet I felt truly free, no expectations to do anything, or save someone from a life or death wound. Just I, me and myself living in the here and now. It wasn¡¯t as if I was unsatisfied by this kind of lifestyle, it was just slightly boring at times. Also not being able to go to the toilet also took some of the fun out of a free lifestyle. As much as I am ashamed to say this, I had absolutely no bladder control. Things just... came and went. My mom, being the amazing parent that she is, put up with it and never failed to change my nappy. Although I say nappy, it was more like an inexpensive rag that felt like cotton carefully wrapped to let my tail loose. Yes, that¡¯s right, I had a tail. It was fluffy thing that grew out from my tailbone. it was as long as my legs, flexible to the point of ridiculousness and it seemed to have a mind of its own. In scientific terms, I had little to none voluntary muscles in my tail, it was all involuntary. It was actually rather fun trying to catch and grab my tail and for a moment I felt as if I understood why dogs like chasing their tails. Just thinking about that made me giggle and laugh. Which then, of course, caused my mother to send me another endearing smile. Dad had truly struck gold with my mom. Unlike the tufts of hair on my scalp, the hair on my tail was furry. Another weird thing about it was that the fur on my tail was all white, unlike the black colour of my hair. It wasn¡¯t the greyish white of age either, it was silvery in colour and it was silky smooth like my mothers hair. I guess that¡¯s another thing I inherited from her then. Whilst I had been engrossed with my serpent-like tail which liked whacking my arms, my mother since had me moved to a baby''s crib. She would then disappear for short amounts of time, although she never failed to appear during all 5 of my feeding times. She would also always sing me to sleep and bring me out of the crib to sleep beside her. Of course, even so, I missed my mommy whenever she was gone. I never faulted her for that though, I could tell that she was a very important and busy person. Firstly, she was my dad¡¯s wife, and if I were to assume that my dad held a high position of authority, then my mother would be doing whatever she could to support him. Secondly, I could see her wearing very regal clothing at times when she reappeared for my feeding from wherever she had gone off to, this led me to believe that she was also an important person. One can''t be too selfish after all. Often, when she was not around, she would leave Ashura to play with me. Ashura would then play with me, sometimes playing peekaboo and other sort of games. The one I like the most was where he held a ball of yarn above and let me swipe at it. Sometimes, if I was lucky, mommy would allow Ashura to bring his pet dog into the room to play. The two of them would then play a few rough and tumble games while I laughed at Ashura for getting his ass handed to him by a dog. Of course, there were also times where nobody visited me. I felt supremely lonely whenever that happened but I didn¡¯t complain unless it was near my meal times. Whenever, I was left alone, I would pretend to be Scofield trapped in the prison. I hatched elaborate plans to escape my prison and get to the books with gold stenciling. My goal was, after all, to learn the written language of this world. However, since I wasn¡¯t even able to sit up, these plans could be called delusions of grandeur. The only thing I could do was wait another one or two months until my body developed enough for movement. And so I waited. I soon learnt that my mommy leaving me alone at times was only a phase and before long she was back at my side all day and night. I guessed that whatever had made her leave me alone was probably pretty important, most likely something to do with whatever my dad and brother was worried about. Now that whatever that matter was had been taken care of, my mom was now back at my side and my dad and brothers resumed their regular visits. Before long, another 3 months had passed. I was now 5 and a half months old. My body had grown quite a bit, I must say. My hair was no longer just tufts and I now had a full head of hair, albeit a still very thin layer of it. I was also now able to eat solid foods, and my mother soon picked up on my love for melted cheese with milk-soaked bread, so I mostly ate that for brunch and tea, not that they had brunch and tea in this world. Either way, I cared not, all I knew was dairy products for the win. Of course my mother would still occasionally breastfeed me, but 2 out of my 5 meals were solid food, which was absolutely fantastic. My second favorite food was applesauce, once, my mommy had left in the middle of feeding me and I finished off the entire jar of sauce with my own hands. Needless to say, never again did she bring the entire jar of sauce with her, she only ever brought bowls of that amazing stuff afterwards. At that, I can only blame myself for my greed. Nonetheless, that wasn¡¯t the largest change that happened, the biggest change was that my plans for world domination had finally taken another step! Is what I would like to say but in truth what really happen was that II was finally able sit up and roll my fat arse around. Not that having a fat ass is bad, I mean, a girl¡¯s gotta have the right places stick out, amirite? In the distance, I could almost hear someone singing, they see me rollin¡¯ they hatin¡¯. To them I¡¯d ask who¡¯s hatin¡¯. To which they would then reply. ¡°Whoever sent the FREAKING ASSASSINS!¡± Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Aye. Assassins. Honest to gods, dagger wielding, black clothed assassins, On a day like every other day, after finishing my last meal of the day I fall asleep. As my mother brought me out of the crib onto her bed, she sang me a lullaby and the sandman soon paid me a visit. I dreamt of lakes of soda and mountains of Ice-cream. Vanilla, chocolate, cookie and cream, mango, you name it, it was there. It wasn¡¯t healthy but it sure tasted good. My gorging and slurping of ice-cream and soda was rudely interrupted. In the dream sky above me where candy floss clouds floated. A gigantic fruit knife appeared. It wouldn¡¯t have been so bad if it was just that. I mean, like the saying goes where there¡¯s smoke there¡¯s fire, where there¡¯s a fruit knife, there¡¯s fruitcake. Except this time, I was pretty sure, there was no fucking fruitcake! Either that or the fucking fruitcake is me! As the knife descends, I try to move, to dodge the gigantic falling blade. I have no wish to be chopped in half like some vegetable. I try and I try but I am rooted to the spot. It is as if chains were holding me to the spot. I can only watch on in morbid fascination as the knife slowly falls, soon reaching terminal velocity. I see the blade grow in in size as it falls on me, destined for my soft baby head. Panicking, I wake up and begin wailing like a air siren. And what do you know, the moment I wake up I see a dark figure holding a knife above me. Fuck me! I escape one blade only to find another heading for me. I wail even louder and began thrashing about. I roll to one side as my assassin brings down his dagger, barely dodging the glinting blade. Thud! The dagger drives into the mattress with a vicious energy. I can hear it screaming for my flesh. I feel the blood drain from my face, if I had been one second late, that would have been a lethal head wound. Forget about internal fucking hemorrhage, I¡¯d be dead before I even knew what was going on! Feathers fly out of the mattress as the assassin pulls his dagger free.with both hands, he turns and attempts to grab my leg but I had long since seen through his intentions. In a mad dash to get away, I roll to the side once and fall off the bed. All the while, wailing my poor throat out. Heh, at least I still have a throat, I probably can''t say the same for whoever was on night patrol. As I hit the carpeted floor, a burst of pain fills my elbows, I can only hope I didn¡¯t break anything important. I swear to god if my growth is stunted because of these fuckers, I will hunt down every last one of them and gut them like a fish before feeding them their own entrails. I try to ignore the pain, but unlike the pain I suffered before in my mind, this was REAL.Pushing on, I try to find a place to hide. I do not know how but I can feel the assassin move. I look around and find nothing to hide behind. I hear the bed creak as my assassin gets off it. Scrambling, I duck and crawl under the small space under the bed, scraping my elbows and knees against the stone floor. My would be assassin sees this and he drops down to one knee, reaching his arm under the bed, trying to get at me. I push and push trying to avoid his hands. I can almost feel his desire to kill me. However, his arms are not long enough and he fails to catch hold of me. The bastard is extremely persistent, he begins to lay prone to crawl to get to me but his gear gets in the way, clunking against the bed frame. I don¡¯t know what to do. I look out from under the bed, searching for my mother. Near the balcony, I see my mother ripping out some dark figures throat. Chunks of flesh fall from her hand as she lets go of the body. The body slumps and blood gushes out from the neck like a fountain. Her silver hair shining in the moonlight is painted red with the gushing blood. Vaguely in the back of my mind where everything was still rational. A several stray thoughts crossed my mind. ¡®They sent more than one?¡¯ ¡®Is the target me or my mother?¡¯ ¡®What do I do? What CAN I do?¡¯ ¡®Where are the guards?Silenced?Or Betrayed?¡¯ ¡®Will I live through this?¡¯ ¡®FUCK!¡¯ While the rational me calculated the answers to these, the normal me was panicking her ass off. With no options left, my terror morphs into a huge all consuming beast and I feel my panic reaching new heights. Scared stiff, I let out a bloodcurdling scream of terror. Fuck! I¡¯m a doctor, not a fucking fighter! Hearing my scream, I see my mother spotting the assassin trying to reach under the bed where I was. With a scream of her own, she charges him. The last thought I had before I blacked out was. ¡®Nine tails?¡¯ (AN: If you guys need some imagery for the tails, go to 2:22 in the link below. Just think of 9 tails instead of four. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOh3o3m7Cs0) So this was my first official action scene of the story, how did you guys like it? Half the time, I felt as if I should pull a hat trick and have the MC fry her enemies using lightning magic, but then that would ruin my plans for character development lol. Anyways hope you enjoyed it! D1C9 - Guards D1C9 - Guards AN: I restored one of my deleted prologue threads and changed it to ¡°Diana¡¯s Logbook¡±. Everything you need to know will ¡°probably¡± be in there. -------------------------- I woke not in my familiar bed, nor my crib but in the cradled arms of my mother. The events of yesterday night felt so far away, almost akin to my memories of a previous life. However, I knew that was no dream. The scent of blood and the tangy taste of iron was still in the air. She must have changed my nappy when I was asleep because I was relatively sure I had wet myself last night in fear. Hey, don¡¯t you judge, I bet you¡¯ve never had a dagger coming at your face. Once I woke up, my mom began moving the two of us to another room. I would¡¯ve welcomed the chance of seeing something besides the bedchamber I was kept in but the events of last night were still as fresh as morning dew in my mind. The helplessness I felt in those few moments kept haunting me. The beast of terror was still within me, howling and growling with each pulse of pain I felt when I wriggled my limbs. It would seem I had suffered no injuries apart from bruises and scrapes. Bruises and scrapes they may be, minor injuries they say, but to a baby like me they hurt as if someone had run a cheese grater over them. I do my my best to ignore the pain, but I cannot help but whimper every once in a while. Looking up at my mom''s gentle face, all traces of the previous night had disappeared. Gone was the blood splatter on her hair, gone was the face of murder and gone too, was her extra 8 tails. Instead, they were all replaced by a mask of cold fury. My mother may have been smiling, but she could not fool me. As someone who had been in the courtrooms looking upon the faces of defendants and plaintiffs, I had seen too many masked smiles. My mother was smiling for my sake but I knew deep inside she was absolutely furious. At what, at who, I know not but after seeing her form last night, I feel only pity for whoever had invoked her wrath. Dad arrived not long after I woke up, rushing into the study we were now in with his sword drawn and a worried expression on his face. ¡°A%$ t@e two &f $&u f@ne?¡± ¡°Yes, t%e& #ere&¡¯$ A&!e to h*&t us¡± ¡°%^&& $*^^# *^*^($))@¡± ¡°$^%()@ %*&^* &%*%*#%* #*^^%^¡± ¡°#^&^*@ *%*¡± After a few terse words, my mom with me in her arms, followed dad down a long hallway and down 2 flights of stairs. It was only now, after seeing the opulent architecture, paintings, square chandeliers and balustrade staircase that I fully understood the extent of my family''s wealth. The whole time we followed dad, there was a contingent of guards closely walking behind us. To be honest, I wasn¡¯t too impressed with them and I could tell from my dad¡¯s frown that he was also not impressed. They did not walk in sync nor were their weapons kept in good order, I could spot chips here and there on spearheads and their lamellar styled armor. There was no sign of battle fatigue or wear from last night so it could be assumed that they were always in this condition. If our guards were this shabby, it was no wonder that assassins had managed to make their way in. Briefly, I wondered where our REAL guards were, I was relatively certain that my dad would not assign such peasant militia to protect his wife, not that she needed protecting. We eventually made our way out to the courtyard, to one side a garden was currently in full bloom, with bee-like insects buzzing around the brightly coloured flowers. To the other side, a different picture emerged. Filled with craters and dead bodies, scorch marks littered the area and the occasional boulder or spike could be seen. It was a sure sign that a huge struggle had taken place here last night. My mom attempted to cover my eyes at the sight but I had long seen the corpses which were beginning to show signs of rigor mortis. My dad led us through the garden side of the courtyard where the stench of death and rot was not so prevalent. My mom must have been concerned about my abnormal silence so she had started whispering sweet words to me, While I understood nothing, it lifted my spirits all the same. I must have visibly improved because I could see mom smile in relief. Winding our way through the garden, we eventually happened upon a luxurious looking carriage. it had strange runes carved on the doors, sides and wheels. My guess was that they were some form of protective runes. Maybe barrier magic or anti magic runes. Either way, I knew nothing about magic in this world so I could not say for sure, but everything I had read in my past life indicated to this conclusion. But that wasn¡¯t all, there was yet another surprise for me as I saw what was pulling the carriage. Instead of the stereotypical horses, I could see a pair of what could only be described as overgrown lizards pulling it. In any case, as long as they were fast, I could care less about what was pulling the carriage. After the attack last night, I was under no delusions as to what was happening. We were bugging out. After the failed attack last night, I was sure the enemy, whoever they were, would try to mount another assault. As such, as long as these lizards could haul ass out of a battlefield I cared not. Upon further consideration, I also realised that last night¡¯s attack may not necessarily have failed. Sure, they weren¡¯t able to kill me or my mom, but it was entirely possible that that had never been their objective in the first place. It could have been a distraction to steal something the manor I lived in held. Or it could also have been a ruse to get my dad here from wherever he was before. It could also have even been carried out to frame someone innocent or even start a war. The possibilities were endless. I gave up thinking about them and decided to trust in parents. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. We were eventually led next to the carriage and it we were ready to board and leave but my dad didn¡¯t allow it to leave, instead we waited next to it for a short while. Not that I minded, as long as I was near my mom, I had a laissez-faire attitude towards everything. Eventually the reason why we had to wait made itself known with the slight trembling of the ground, which in turn shook the carriage slightly. It¡¯s here. The cavalry has finally arrived! Although I say cavalry, that¡¯s a bit of a misnomer since they weren¡¯t riding on horses but rather on gigantic birds. The best comparison I could come up with was that one RPG game I used to play a kid. Yep, they were chocobo knights. At this point in time, I had long decided that I wasn¡¯t going to be surprised by anything I saw in this world, there was just no point in comparing it with my old one. Best to just accept it and move on. I could see why they chose they big-ass birds. Their beaks could be deadly weapons, and their legs weren''t like the fragile ones of horses, instead, they were big and stumpy, with claws at the bottom. Claws! Hell, judging from their size, even though they might not be able to run as fast as a horse the shock momentum they have when charging into a line formation would more than make up for it. There were reins but there was no bit, instead of being attached to the head of the bird, it was attached to the sides of the neck. probably to allow the bird to utilize their beaks during battle. They were also armored with what looked like light pieces of metal. At the top of the head, there was also a spike, probably in case the beak was occupied. Looking at them made them made me have a fangirl moment. It felt like some god out there had seen my wish fulfillment fantasies and decided to make them a reality, which to be fair, probably actually did happen. (AN: Picture of them knights. So cool!) The knights themselves were were dressed in full plate armor, as expected of heavy cavalry. They had on Germanic styled sallets with horsetails on top for helms and were dressed in a suits of Swiss styled armor. I could see short-bows and one or two quivers of arrows along with other miscellaneous baggage on the birds. Most of them were armed with a lance and shield along with a short sword hanging from the side of the saddle. A few of the knights had banners on their lances. With that I was able to tell that these guys were truly the cream of the crop. Probably our own personal household troops or at the very least, an extremely well armed mercenary band. My opinion was of the former. What they were did not matter, if we had been guarded by these men, yesterday night probably would not have been such a fiasco. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see envy on the faces of our shabby escort. I also noticed how different their style of armor were. Back in my world, lamellar style armor was mostly found in the east, for example, the Japanese ¨­-yoroi armor, or the Chinese terracotta armor. On the other hand, plate armor was mostly used in the west such as the Germanic knights. This fusion of east and west truly made me feel out of my depth. My feeling out of depth didn¡¯t change anything though. After a quick headcount, I estimated that there was around 80 of these heavily armed knights and around 120 footmen. Along with 20 or so servants and other miscellaneous personnel. These footmen were dressed in the same style of lamellar armor as our previous escort, however, unlike them, these men seemed much more prepared. Their weapon would occasionally flash with reflected sunlight and it showed the amount of polishing they had done. Personally, I thought that it was all nice and well, but it would suck if it gave away our position. Moving on, their armor was uniform with one another and they moved in sync. Whilst they too, were an impressive sight to behold, they could not hold a candle to the mounted knights. Once the bird mounted knights got set up with my dad, they fanned out with military precision into a column formation. Our carriage and another carriage along with two supply carts were located in the middle of the formation. Around 50 knights were in a rectangle in front of us, the remaining 30 were located in another rectangle to the back of us. The footmen were divided into two long strips of 60 men each and were place towards the sides of the knights and carriages. The few RTS games I played back as teenager gave me some insight as to what the purpose of the formation was. The footmen on the two sides were supposed to hold their positions during an enemy attack so that the knights could ride out and flank the enemy fighting the footmen from the back. A classic hammer and anvil strategy. It wasn''t a bad formation by any means, but in the words of Helmuth himself, ¡°No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.¡± With that thought, my mom and me entered the carriage and the caravan began moving out. D1C10 - Travel D1C10 - Travel I never actually noticed how well we had it with cars. However, like they say, you never actually really notice how much something matters until it¡¯s gone. Air-conditioning. Suspension. Self-propelling. All of these things a car had and a carriage not. But I can deal with it. Is what I say to myself every couple of minutes I am in this rattling deathtrap. Ok, so maybe it wasn¡¯t as bad as I am describing it but the stuffiness of the carriage made my brain go woozy. Not only woozy but dizzy as well. I also threw up a few times. I don¡¯t normally get carsick but this¡­ It felt like I was back in college smoking weed. The world span and span. I honestly could not tell whether the world revolved around the sun or whether it revolved around me. And this was only day one. I had to suffer for gods know how long. Every once in a while, the wheel would roll over some stone and the carriage would get jolted up and down. It was comparable to a massage chair that you could not turn off. My mother had put me in a weird medieval version of a baby seat; a basket with blankets and some rope securing me in the basket. It was then tied to the carriage seat, praised be for the invention of soft blanket, if not for them, my bruises would have hurt like hell. Luckily my injuries were only bruises now. My mom had cleaned the scrapes by rinsing them with water, then she went to dad took some kind of bottle from him. Opening it, I could smell the alcohol it contained. She then proceeded to pour the stuff over my scrapes. It burnt like hell and sent me crying again. After I calmed down, I felt somewhat surprised at the fact that she knew about the theory of disinfectant. I thought about it some more then realised I was expecting too much. Most likely she did it because ¡°wounds heal better if I do it¡± and not because they knew about germ theory. After cleaning she wrapped my knees and elbows in some some linen bandages. During the second meal of the day, my mom took out a corked vial that had a weird reddish liquid in it. She took off my linen bandages. Then she poured the liquid out in a cup and diluted it with some water before feeding half of it to me, then she poured the remaining half of the diluted liquid onto my scrapes. This was where I was internally screaming with excitement. It was a freaking HEAL potion. Holy pigs that can fly, I was seeing a true to god healing potion. This stuff was probably as common as dirt considering the fact that I have previously seen the same corked vials on the belts of the bird-mounted knights and footmen. Still, it was my first time seeing a real healing potion so I could not help but be excited. Internally, I marked down the method of using a heal potion. Drink half and pour other half onto required area. The average person would have simply gone ¡°Oh! That¡¯s nice, convenient too!¡± then forgot all about it. However, as for me, being a doctor, I know there is no valid scientific method of speeding up natural regeneration to the point where cuts can be healed within seconds. But lo and behold, my scrapes were healed within the span of 5 minutes. It would have probably taken less time if I drank the concentrated, undiluted version of the potion. But my mother HAD diluted it, which probably meant it wasn¡¯t good for baby¡¯s to drink it concentrated. Somewhere in my mind, I wondered if this meant that stitching was no longer required, since all you had to do was drink and pour it onto the cut. How convenient! Watching my scrapes magically knit themselves together was really fascinating, it was like watching a sped up footage of a wound healing. There was some slight differences, the scabs did not fall off and instead they magically disintegrated. I would have expected some new pink skin in place of the scrapes however that didn¡¯t appear. Instead , my skin looked as if nothing had happened to it in the first place. Truly a woman¡¯s best friend! The miracles of modern, er I mean, magical medicine! I spent a few moments praising whatever god had decided to give life to magic in this world. I was pretty sure that a healing potion contained some form of magic and that it wasn¡¯t some kind of panacea. Still, the fascination with the magical knitting of flesh and god praising only lasted for a short while. While the potion may have healed my scrapes, it sure as hell didn¡¯t heal my headache nor my car sickness! When I am old enough, I am definitely going to invent a better suspension system. Nobody should have to undergo such torture! The only relief I got was during sunset, when everyone began setting up camp in preparations for nightfall and supper. It was only then that I was finally able to get me my fresh air. When I was finally brought out of the carriage, several large campfires had already been set up. I was some what disappointed at not being able to see how they started the fires. The reason for this was because even something as insignificant as the way to start a fire could hold a tremendous amount of information. For example, if the fire had been started by friction or flint and stone, it would¡¯ve told me that magic was rare enough in this world that they weren¡¯t used for simple tasks like lighting a fire. On the other hand, if they did light the fire through magical means then it would tell me that there was a mage capable of using fire in our group. I would then be able to observe the mage and learn more about how magic works in this world. Conversely, if the fire had been started by a magical item, it would tell me that things like flaming swords and bows that shot rays of lights or other magical items could possibly exist. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Swallowing my disappointment, I continued my observation of our guards as my mother and I slowly weaved our way through the campfire to a tent that had been set up for us. Most of our guards were sitting around the campfires will sleeping rolls laid out, the mounted knights had taken off their armor and they were now only wearing the leather clothes that they wore beneath the metal armor. Their mounts laid next the sleeping rolls and I could see many of them laughing with their comrades and eating stew that was cooked in the large pot that was present on most campfires. The footmen lay at some distance away from our camp so I was unable to observe them as well. Although I suppose it made sense, only the most elite would be guarding us. Once again, my suspicions that my family was of wealth was confirmed. In the distance, I could spot several guards standing watch. I was also able to see a bunch of them in leather clothes return from the forest next to the road we were on, carrying their short bows and quivers along with a large boar-like creature. So the bows and arrows were for hunting rations on the go. I was wondering why heavy metal-plated knights needed bows, they could hardly draw them. But now that was made clear and I heard the men laugh and pat the team of hunters on their backs for securing more meat. That was the last I saw as my mother brought me into our tent. The tent flap was open, allowing the campfires to illuminate the inside of the tent. She sat down on her bedroll and fed me my last meal of the the day. As she sang a lullaby, I began falling asleep. Just before I dozed off to unconsciousness, I heard the footsteps of my dad approaching. He entered our tent and whispered quietly with my mom. Drowsy, my last thought was ¡®Please don¡¯t have your nightly fun in the same tent as me¡­¡¯. I was shaken awake the next morning as my mom moved around. Opening my eyes, I could see that we were no longer in the tent. My mother was walking next to my dad as the two of them chatted about something. Every once in a while, he would turn and chat with some soldier. Huh, the basics of leadership, I could see from the eyes of the guards that they really liked and respected my dad. Well, that was one surefire way of buying loyalty. By now, everything had long since been packed, the fires had been doused, the sleeping rolls and pots were now back on the birds. Our guards had also long since donned their full plate armors and most of them had began mounting their birds. In no time at all, they had resumed their formations in front and in the back respectively. Our footmen had also resumed their own formations. Without further ado, the caravan started moving once more. Once again the car sickness started up. I really couldn¡¯t take it anymore.
You have activated the skill [Fors Fortis], your wish is to have ¡°No more carriage sickness¡±. Confirm? Y / N
Ding! You are rolling for benefits. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 5. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. - Effects of carriage sickness reduced by 80% for 8 days.
Ding! You are rolling for detriments. Processing. Complete. You have rolled a 6. Congratulations! You gain the following effects. - Effects of concussion simulated for 60 Minutes.
Ding! You have completed both rolls. [1] Stack will be used. Remaining stacks - [8] - Effects of carriage sickness reduced by 80% for 8 days. - Effects of concussion simulated for 60 Minutes.
(AN: I will not be keeping count of stacks gained every month, that would just be too complicated. Instead, just assume that our mc uses stacks for silly things like rolling for chances to get more applesauce or melted cheese during the time we are not reading about her.) Right away, I felt as if someone had viciously whacked me on the back of my head. I was seeing stars and feeling light-headed, my eyes must¡¯ve been rolling here and there. Like this, I suffered for a full hour. Oh well, it was still in the end, way better than throwing my guts up. To be rid of most of my carriage sickness for 8 days was a pretty good deal in my opinion, after the full hour passed, I felt a lot more clear-headed. At times, my mom would bring me to the front of the carriage next to the coachmans seat where she chatted with the coachman and my dad who occasionally rode up to us on his bird to check up on us. Because there were huge birds in front of us, I could not see over them. However, the carriage was higher than the average height of the footmen and so I was able to enjoy the scenery, Not that there was any scenery to enjoy though. It was just like the woodlands back on earth, trees and green shrubbery with more trees and shrubbery. In the far off distance, several green covered mountains were visible and that was it. D1C11 - Nerves D1C11 - Nerves A moment or two after the midday sun had passed overhead, the caravan stopped for lunch as a enormous cloud passed overhead, providing ample shade for comfort. My mother took me out of the carriage for some much needed fresh air. She carried me as she looked for and found my dad, who was near the supply carts handling and sometimes overseeing ration distribution along with the servants we had brought along. To do such menial work even though he was the big boss, I could see why our men liked him. Of course, the wages they were being paid also probably had something to do with that. I refused to believe that guards of this caliber were not being paid high wages. Sometimes, he would send men with food to the second carriage that often followed closely behind us. Briefly, I wonder who the occupants of the riders were. Not once had I seen them since the journey began. I put the thought out of my mind, there was no point in wondering about it. Eventually, one way or another, they would have to come out. Our guards didn¡¯t dismount but rather they hooked one leg over their mounts facing to the sides. The bird would then lay down and the men gave the impression of sitting on their mounts like a chair. This was so that in case of ambush , they could quickly throw a leg over the saddle and be good to go. The footmen on the other hand, had to sit on the dirt road. Although we were having lunch, nobody let their guards down, I could see the men designated as sentries patrolling around the perimeter of the caravan. It was interesting to see what they were having for lunch. It would appear that when the meal was taken at camp, such as breakfast or dinner, all the men would eat the same food rations and anything they caught themselves. However if the meal was taken on the go, such as right now, there would be a pecking order as the rations were passed out from the supply cart. The leaders or commanders, those who had some form of identification such as an armband, received more rations than their men. They would get two pieces of bread and 3 pieces of meat, their direct subordinates, whom I assumed were their lieutenants received one piece of bread with two pieces of meat. The soldiers on the other hand would get only one of each. Sometimes I could see a few soldiers supplementing their meal with game that they had hunted the previous night. For example, I recognised the team of hunters, they brought out haunches and legs of the boar creatures meat and shared it with their fellow men. Other would occasionally bring out a some unidentified meat from some creature or another. With the food rations, skins were handed out. I could hear the sloshing of liquids within them so it was probably water or some kind of wayfarers drink. There was no way the men would be allowed to drink during a march. Mentally, I nodded approvingly as I saw the smarter leaders and lieutenants pool together their rations with those under their command, splitting it so that everyone in their unit got an equal share. I could easily discern that these leaders were favoured and smiles and compliments came their way. I mentally make a note to give both officers and men the same treatment if I were ever in command of troops. Not that that was very likely, however I did spot the faces of several women within the knights and the footmen, including an all female squad of knights, so you never know. As my stomach growled in protest, I turned my attention to my own meal. A few minutes later, I sighed elegantly in satisfaction. Nah, what actually happened was that I gave a long and loud burp as my mother patted my back while smirking. I was tempted to go back to sleep immediately however, seeing the slightly worried faces of my two parents, I decided to stay awake a bit longer to see if I could figure out what was going on. My mom, with me on her back; she had in me in a baby wrap, and my dad walked over to where the commander of the guards was. At first I didn¡¯t realise who he was, since his armor and kit was similar to most of the knights. However his armband had a complicated design on it, something which I have not seen on anyone else. My observations indicated that the armbands were used to define rank, the more complicated the design was, the higher the rank. Which led me to believe that the man in front of me was the commander since his armband had the most complicated design so far. Looking at it felt like some kind of optical illusion. Ugh. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. In the beginning, part of me had wondered why they did not use a easy to spot identifier, like coloured horsetails on helmets instead of the plain grey horsetails everyone had. Then, I realised that it would be disadvantageous since the enemy too, would be able to single out the officers rather quickly. So instead they used armbands, which were slightly easier to conceal. The whole concept was similar to my previous world, where troops did not salute their commanders to prevent them from being identified by enemy snipers. A fact my combat vet grandfather, who served as a battlefield medic in World War 2, told me. At any rate, my mother, my father and the commander along with his two subordinates or advisors, squabbled over a piece of map. I didn¡¯t know what was going on, but my best guess had something to do with deciding what route to travel on. The places they were so excitedly pointing out on the map were probably spots that were ideal for ambush, since they kept pointing at them and making hand gestures to avoid the pointed spots. While I was busying sucking on my thumb and enjoying the soft breeze, they had somehow come to a conclusion. My father pointed to somewhere on the map where a statuette of a bird knight thing was located and muttered a few words. The commander gave a short nod and my mother whispered several words with a worried look on her face. Once she was done however, my father stylishly donned his cloak with a twirl, turning his back to us and leaving the tent, like he was some sort of hero about to face a dragon or something. Damn, I hope he didn¡¯t just raise a death flag¡­ Speaking of death flags, I wondered how my brothers were doing. I was pretty sure they were well and alive. They weren¡¯t caught in the attack because they probably weren¡¯t in the manor-like house or castle thing anyhow. A month and a half before the attack that happened a few days ago, my brothers had stopped visiting so often. Instead of visits twice a week. it had dropped to once a fortnight. This made me assume that they were coming here from a far off place. The travel time probably limited the amount of times they could visit. Of course this was just a basic assumption, however if I was correct, it also meant that my family had a location where we would definitely be safe, a safehouse of sorts, if you will. That was probably where we were going to and most likely my brothers were already there. Assuming it was correct, it also meant that it would take around 5-7 days to arrive, based on the fact that my brothers visited once a fortnight. A week of travel time to and a week from. Furthermore, if my brothers had indeed been harmed, my parents would not be so calm and unfazed. Perhaps they were the type to have iron hearts but that didn¡¯t seem too likely. As the lunch ended, I saw everyone mount up on their birds and footmen resume their positions as we made our way back to the carriage. What was out of the ordinary was that my dad had begun riding away from the caravan at full speed, leading a contingent of ten or so riders. Recalling the statuette of a bird and the knight on its back, I bet all of my remaining 2 meals that my dad was probably riding ahead to rendezvous with reinforcements to lead them to the caravan. Knowing that there were reinforcements should have relieved me, but instead I felt a gnawing fear. Why? Why did we need reinforcements in the first place? All of a sudden, I felt as if the probability of attack had just been raised by a factor of ten. I cursed myself as I thought this, jinxing myself was a dumb thing to do. I endured the rest of the bone-shaking day in the carriage with a bit of slight apprehension. Having knowledge that an attack was coming bit off my patience piece by piece. I grew more and more impatient, feeling unsettled. My mom had long since noticed and gave me hugs but even that did not calm my fraying nerves. I had no ability to protect myself or anyone else. Not for the first time, I curse the fact that I was still a baby. The sun sets and we set up for camp. I fall into an uneasy sleep. D1C12 - Ambush D1C12 - Ambush Its here. All the signs had pointed to this happening. I knew it was going to happen. I just didn¡¯t think it would happen so soon. Still, to the rational and detached Surgeon me, it was not unexpected. A night-time raid is one of the most basic strategies one employs. Take the enemy as they sleep, slit their throats and hope you kill enough to make achieving your objective easier. Outside of my tent, I hear the sounds of metal clashing metal. Dull thuds of blades on wooden shields rang out to the beat of some inaudible music. The twangs and phuts of arrows hitting and being drawn could be heard every once in a while. In all directions, battle cries along with cries of pain resounded in the quiet forest. Every so often, the soft thud of a body hitting the dirt was audible. Listening carefully, I realised there were no screams of men taken by surprise. Nor were there shouts of desperation and despair which was so often heard when one was alone amongst dead comrades. This was good, the sentries had done their job properly, probably. I look to the side, moving my arms in an attempt to feel the fabric of the tent. Instead, I feel a wall. The slight panic begins to grow in me yet again. I roll to the opposite side and once again I feel a wall. I was in some sort of enclosed space. I hope it isn¡¯t airtight, I don¡¯t want to die of suffocation. The terror-beast pushes me towards the abyss of fright and fear. Shit. What now? Calm yourself. Panicking isn¡¯t going to get you anywhere. I take a deep breath and force a legion of thought police upon my mind. With cries of ¡°Big Brother is watching!¡±, their batons and riot shields bash the thoughts of fear back into submission and I feel my heartbeat slowing down. Options, options, options. My mind clears. I think. ¡®What are my options.¡¯ My last memory was of me sleeping next to mother. Now I am in a¡­ box? Perhaps. Let¡¯s see. A. Attempt to escape the enclosed space. B. Try to poke a hole in whatever you are confined in. C. Cry out and hope that mom is nearby. A and C wasn¡¯t a very smart choice, a battle is raging outside, not being noticed is what''s keeping my sorry ass alive. B I try, feeling my way around the wall I realise that they aren¡¯t exactly hard and solid. I¡¯m not in a chest, perhaps some sort of closed basket? I move me under under me and feel the soft silk-like material my mom like to wear. I realise where I am. In the woven closed basket mom likes to keeps her clothes in. To hide me temporarily was a smart decision, however if whoever is attacking us is aiming for me, anybody with half a brain will begin searching the tent at once, including opening baskets. There were only so many tents that are set up during camp. Most of our escort prefered sleeping in bedrolls out in the open. It allowed them to respond easily to any kind of attack and mount a counter-offensive. However that was no concern of mine. My priority at the moment was to get out of the basket and get I me and myself next to my mom. I know she can protect me. Before that, I needed to make sure the immediate vicinity is safe. Feeling the clothes around me I find a hairpin buried in the edges of the basket. Perfect. I grab it and sit up my ass up. Poking the hairpin into the basket walls, I create a small hole that I can peek out of. Looking out, I see the inside of the tent I fell asleep in. Silhouettes are illuminated on the tent fabric by the campfires outside the tent. The Chinese shadow plays I once saw is nothing compared to the view in front of me. I see shadow warriors fighting against other shadow warriors, they clash against each other, bashing shields with their swords and parrying attacks with the back of their blades. I see one warrior get disarmed by his opponent, his sword flying away. Immediately, the disarmed warrior draws the dagger on his waist and wrestles his opponent to the ground. Once on the ground, he stabs his knife into his opponent''s neck. Little shadowy grains of black fly out of the neck as he removes the dagger from the body. Before he can do anything else, a black stick whizzes and embeds itself in the head. One arrow, one kill. Whoever shot the arrow had considerable skill. Assuming they shot the arrow from a distance. I turn my attention to the other dancing shadow figures. They are all violent, their movements vicious and ruthless. I cannot tell who is on our side from just the silhouettes. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. However, after watching them for a while, I am able to realize that there two distinct sides in the battle. One side consists of the warriors who fight in a consistent and calm manner showing their training with each movement they make. The other side is a lot more wild, the shadows that belonged to this side made wild attacks missing more often than not. Logically, I know that the trained warriors are most likely our men, while the wild attackers were most likely the enemy. However some part of me can¡¯t stop thinking that if the enemy was also so well trained, we¡¯d be screwed. In the smaller shadows, I see the trained warrior figures forming into a some sort of shield wall. Their human silhouettes are replaced by moving rectangles. Those must be the footmen we brought with us I think to myself. They advance in sync, a lone wild attacker occasionally throw themselves at the wall, but they can do nothing to it. All that happens is a loud thump as the shields pushes him back. The warrior falls and the rectangles advance over him before he can rise; a scream can be heard as they move along. However, the battlefield rages on, everywhere else fierce fighting continues. Looking on in my hidey hole, I see beheading and spears impaling. Lances stab and sword slashes. Shield bashes and arrow pierces. The primitive weapons humanity uses against itself are truly fearsome. Gunshot wounds are almost clinical in nature when compared to the wounds that must have been inflicted by this sort of melee combat. ¡®Tis just a flesh wound?¡¯ I like to see the man who can say that after having a sword run him through. But all that is nothing compared to ONE kind of shadow figure. This one I definitely recognise as belonging to our side. But that doesn¡¯t stop me shivering in fear when I see it in action. The shadow was that of a bird. Some were mounted, some were not. It didn¡¯t matter. They weren¡¯t bird but demons. Some birds were chomping down on enemy heads with their beaks, crushing the helmet and the skull, causing lumps of matter to drip towards the ground. You don¡¯t have to be a genius to realise it was brain matter. Other birds were kicking with their stumpy legs. Even though they seemed to be in the distance, every time it the kicks struck the enemy, I could hear the crack sound like thunder and the bones were annihilated into smithereens. But that was childs play. The truly fearsome birds were those that used their claws to swipe at the enemy. Snap the bones went. Crack the ribcages went. Pop the sockets went. Rip the flesh went. And if they were unlucky. Chop went the body as it separated into thirds. I imagine that if I had a camera to film this moment, it would probably win some kind of short-film award. Probably most violent scenes depicted through shadows. Rated +18 for blood, gore and intense violence. It is my luck that the shadows do not grow bigger and bigger, it means that there is no one approaching. I turn around and poke another hole to get another view. Just my luck, on the tent flap I see three shadows growing bigger and bigger. Their swords and axes are drawn, dripping with black drops that I know to be blood. Now that they are close I can see that the silhouettes do not have the shadow of the smooth semi-circular helms our footmen wore, nor did they have the horsetail shadows of our mounted knights. Oh, why did I have to open my mental mouth! As they get closer and closer, I grow quieter and quieter, I retreat into my inner self, hoping that it will somehow make me invisible to them. I am tempted to make a roll, but no amount of luck can save me now. My heartbeat slows down to a third of what it was before. My lungs move in slow motion as I forcibly make myself breathe slower. I feel almost feel the sweat dropping from my chin despite the fact that baby''s don''t sweat. The imaginary sweatdrop lands on the clothes below me. The tent flap opens. -------------------- (AN: thanks to mufurasu for the sweat catch, didn''t know babies can''t sweat >. >) D1C13 - Tails OK, extra chapter since I was free today. Blood and gore warning? Though, I suppose if you''ve read this far, you''re already used to it... Don''t worry, there will be fluffy chapters in the future! Yay! Anyways without further ado. ------------------------ D1C13 - Tails The tent flaps open, and the inside of the tent is sprayed with blood. I blink in bewilderment. Where there had been three men, there were now three bodies with holes where the heart was. One by one, they slump onto the ground half their torso inside the tent. With no heart to maintain the pumping and blood pressure, their blood drips out instead of squirting in rhythm. Their blood pools around them. The tent flap flutters slightly as it falls back down. It does not close fully with the bodies in the way. I can see their faces, glassy eyes in a frown with lips still pulled back in a snarl. I had not a single shred of sympathy for them. Even when I was back on Earth, I had long since understood the concept of eat or be eaten. Admittedly, I did most of the eating but there was no shortage of people who wanted to one up the ¡°prodigy¡±. Even as a genius, I had to fight for my place, there was no shortage of talent around, I was only slightly more talented than others. Even this place was a dog eat dog world. In the words of my ever wise, all-knowing grandpa. ¡°A half-baked heart will only ruin you, sympathy will get you backstabbed and mercy will be the death of you. In family you can trust, in love you doubt. In friends you mistrust, with comrades there will be no doubt.¡± In this world, these words were ever more so, there was no Geneva Convention for human rights to make things nice and safe for you, there were no police that would arrive barely in the nick of time to save you. In the wild, you fought and you lived, or you fought and you die. These men were trying to get me, so I had no problem with their deaths. Had I been anything else in my past life, I would¡¯ve thrown up at the sight of the holes and all the blood. As it were, I had seen worse. I¡¯m sorry but you¡¯ll have to do better than that to make me puke. Of course, that doesn¡¯t count the carriage ok? That thing is a monstrosity. It should be destroyed at the earliest convenience. Leaning and moving about, I repositioned myself to get a better look out my peek-hole. The gigantic silhouette of a woman with 9 tails appeared. The shadow move towards the tent flap and it raised. My moms beautiful face popped into existence as she came over to where I was hiding. With my moms beauty and the peek-hole I was viewing her through, I had the vague sense that I was somehow committing a crime. I laughed off the thought. They call beautiful woman vixens and my mother was one, in the truest sense of the word. The top of the basket was lifted and my mother brought me out of the basket with her slender hands. I don''t know how it works but she gave me frowning smile. A frown at the fact that I had slightly damaged her favourite clothes basket and a smile at the fact that I was safe. It was somewhat ridiculous in context that both me and my mom was smiling at the moment, me because I had just escaped death. My mom because she had just eviscerated 3 men in a mere instant. She gave me the once over to make sure I was fine and then switched to holding me with one arm. As she made the shift, I realised what killed the men as I saw the blood on the tips of her tails that were swishing to and fro. It was absolutely entrancing, I wonder if I too, would one day, grow tails like my mother. I may sound somewhat bloodthirsty, but it is a given fact that you need strength to survive in the world, either personal strength or otherwise. Of course, I could not even control my own single one at the moment so being able to gut and rip the hearts out of men in an instant was merely a pipe dream, as attractive as that sounds. I felt like there was something wrong with that statement, but I didn¡¯t mind it. Once again, the rational Diana had concluded that the scent of blood had stimulated my animal half making me think bloodthirsty thoughts, but I paid no attention to her. Always so prim and proper. Hmph! My mom held me close as she rummaged for something in the basket with her free arm. It took her the entirety of 5 seconds to find what she was looking for. She proceed to then wrap me up in some kind of blanket thing and then wrap the rest around herself. Eventually, I was stuck to her back nice and tight thanks the the baby wrap. Her arctic white hair was flecked with blood splatters here and there. However, because her hair was braided, there was no loose hair to blow into my face and tickle me. My head was free to turn and look around and I was high enough to look over her shoulder somewhat but my hands and feet were tightly wrapped. After checking and double checking to make sure I was 100 percent secured to her back, she went to the corner to the tent for some satchel. Opening it, she checked its contents. Looking over her shoulder, I was able to see a bunch of red and blue vials along with a map and several pieces of food. She then open the chest that the satchel was located on top of. Opening it, I could see a whole ton of blue vials. With deft hands, she transferred the vials to the satchel. Once she confirmed the contents, she slung it over her shoulder and went to the other corner of the tent. Here a silverish bow and a quiver of white feathered arrows lay. With a belt, she secured the quiver just under me, to the small of her back. Grabbing the bow, we left the tent. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Outside the tent was a chaotic scene. The sounds of battle had faded from my mind when my mom arrived. I was so taken with her arrival that I hadn¡¯t really noticed anything else. Now that we had exited the safety of the tent, the full extent of the battle could be seen. Whoever coined the phrase, ¡°War is simply controlled chaos¡± really knew their stuff. Some tents were on fire, their flickering flames casting devilish shadows on the ground. Around us, there was a whirlwind of fights happening. Some were one on one. In other cases, men were being ganged up, two against one or three against one was not uncommon as each man searched for an advantage in battle. And what better advantage was there than strength in numbers? My mom took a look around the tumultuous battlefield and seemingly decided on a course of action. She began running in a certain direction but I was too confused to tell where we were heading. I wasn¡¯t able to tell what was going on at all. The flickering light of the flames made me dizzy and the disconcordant sounds of clanging metal and shouting gave me a very disorderly feeling. Although, I suppose I have to get used to this if I am to take part in battle in the future. Of course, I could alway just be the pretty princess and get married to some rich fool and live a comfortable life, but where would the fun be in that? (AN: More like, where would be the story in that! Not that I¡¯m knocking on politics stories with female mcs lol) A soft breeze sifted through the air, shifting the scent of the battlefield around. I could smell the pungent odours of sweat as our men fought on. The ashes from the still burning fires tickled my nose, but in the end, the most heavy smell was that of blood. Thick and thin, fresh and congealing, blood was everywhere on the battlefield. I saw soldiers who had won their fights taking a short respite drink half of a red vial and pour the remaining half onto their wounds. They magically knit back together and the soldiers would then throw themselves back into the fight with a fresh scream, getting new wounds and spilling fresh blood. This scene was one that I saw happen everywhere around us. My mom walked briskly, advancing steadily and surely in her chosen direction. I watched on from over her shoulder as she calmly nocked, aimed, and loosed arrow after arrow at whoever dared charge at her. None of her arrows ever missed and whilst she wasn¡¯t able to kill every enemy with a single arrow, she never let a single one live. Some, seeing her skill with archery, turned and ran but even they were not spared. A quick arrow always found its way to the back of their skulls. At those who decided to fight, she would aim for their heads at first. If it bounced off the helmet should they be wearing one, she would then aim at the knees. Once they were crippled, she would put an arrow through their throats as they fell. Making them gurgle in pain, not even giving them the chance to say ¡°I used to be an adventurer until...¡± If their fallen bodies were in the way she would take a few seconds to extract the arrows with one of her tails. Often, It would make a ¡°smuck¡± sound as her tail ripped the arrow from the flesh. Without even giving the blood a chance to dry, she would then nock, aim and loose the arrow at another enemy. Even so, despite her amazing rate of aimed shooting, every now and then an enemy would get close before she could put them down with her arrows. That wasn¡¯t a problem at all. Instead of doing something inelegant like hand-to-hand combat, she would simply use her tails to either whack their heads with such force that they were instantly beheaded with a sharp crack or thrust the tip of her tails into their chests, completely destroying the heart, leaving a hole in the torso. Armor and helmet didn¡¯t do a damned thing, my moms tails went through the enemy like a hot knife through butter. Sometimes, as if for giggles, she would would swipe and break the legs of the more belligerent ones, especially the ones who scream their battle cries loudly which then made me cry a bit. My mother only needed one or two tails to whack and stab everything that came her way, so she would use the remaining tails to stab several holes into their bodies. Which would then make me giggle in mad glee. Sometimes, they would call her a monster and scream and beg for their pathetic lives. Hah! you were the ones who decided to attack. Mercy is for the weak. Die. Vaguely I wondered why she didn¡¯t just let them all run at her and behead them all instead of shooting them with arrows. Then I realised that every time she used her tails, some blood would splatter onto her despite her best efforts at using her tails to block the blood. I guess my mother didn¡¯t fancy the prospect of being drenched in blood. Even us ladies have standards. It was a efficient way to kill someone but it was no doubt very messy. I was glad I had water magic, in the future, when I learnt my mom¡¯s tail whacking technique, I would make a screen of water so that no blood would splatter onto me when I beheaded and heart-ripped my enemies. Rational Diana shakes her head at my bloody thoughts and tells me that I have been corrupted but what can I say? It¡¯s an absolutely genius plan. Absolutely bloody genius. D1C14 - Rally Alrighty our first official bit of action where our baby Diana actually contributes something lol¡­ Hope you guys are enjoying this! There will still be a quite a bit of action scenes before we can return to fluff land!!! Chapter is late today since Uni dorm applications opened up... I''ll see if have time to write more, but if not, probably only one chapter today. ---------------------- D1C14 - Rally As we went on our merry head-whacking hole-making way, my mom used more and more of her arrows. Whilst she was often able to use her tails to recover arrows from fallen enemies or grab quivers from fallen archers, her rate of sustained shooting was simply too much and eventually she ran out of arrows in her quiver and the quivers her tails had scavenged from the dead bodies. After using up all her arrows my mother made annoyed sound as if she was irritated by the fact that she could no longer kill from a distance. She slung her bow across her shoulder and began the process of looking irked. Looking at her displeased countenance, I couldn¡¯t help but want to solve my beautiful mom¡¯s dilemma. Perhaps it was just me who thought that red and white made a startling nice contrast of colours. Sigh, I am beginning to think that Miss Rational may have had a point. A few meters away from us, I spot a few javelins impaling the bodies of several men. Perfect. I tried to draw my mom¡¯s attention to them but I forgot that my hands were bounded tight. With nothing else I could to do, I softly cried out and my mother cranes her neck to look at me. The moment she did, I stopped and gave her a meaningful look and then stared at the javelins, not that my face was very meaningful looking but my mom got the point. It was like that phenomenon where two men can communication with their eyes. In this case, it was two girls? Girl¡¯s telepathy? A woman¡¯s intuition? Wait, does that even work on weapons of mass murder? Whatever, my mom followed my gaze and she spotted the javelins, as she did, she gave a cry of delight, went over and separated the bodies from the treasures. Patting my head with one of her unbloodied tails she muttered something to me. Although I was unable to understand her words, somehow, one way or another I got the gist of it. It was something like ¡°You¡¯ll make a fine Audacia someday¡±. Huh¡­ strange, I was more under the impression that my mom would be somewhat weirded out by the fact that her baby girl is nodding at a bunch of dead guys impaled on javelins. Looking back at the trail of dead bodies, I felt a slight bit of fear. Not for the first time, I wondered who my mother truly was. However, now was not the time for such thoughts, the fighting was far from over. Several more idiots charged at my mother, With a flick of her tails, she sent all 6 javelins at them. All 6 of the poor fools ended up with a stick through their hearts. I guess they didn¡¯t read their horoscopes today. It probably would¡¯ve said something like avoid the woman with 9 tails. I wondered why they were all so intent on attacking my mom. It was a bit ridiculous that every enemy we came across didn¡¯t even hesitate to immediately charge on the offensive. My mom walked over to the dead men and whipped out the javelins , then she continued on as if we were just a normal mother taking her baby for a stroll in the park. It was probably this air of self-confidence and arrogance that led them to attack but hey, if you can¡¯t be arrogant on the battlefield, where can you be arrogant? In any case, mom continued to throw the javelins and retrieving them, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. Unlike her arrows she didn¡¯t run out of them which made her slightly happy. As we continued walk in the valleys of the shadow of death, or more precisely HER shadow of death, we began gaining a following of guards. Quite of a few of our guards had been saved by a timely arrow from my mom and they reciprocated by joining her side. Although I say ¡°side¡±, it was more like a few meters back where her tails had a large clearance. And when I say few, I meant 10. Nobody dared to get in my moms way. Eventually, it seems like my mom had become a rallying point of sorts. Which wasn¡¯t unexpected considering the fact that being next to her probably raised your chances of living. Our guards came over in droves and soon enough the footmen and the knights were working together to repel the attackers. The foot men would form a shield wall trampling over the enemies while the knights would ride on their fearsome birds cutting down enemies. More often than not, the knights were only wearing half their armor properly since they had been taken by surprise without much time to don their armor. As a result, I could constantly see knights dismounting their birds to properly wear their armor and remount afterwards. This kept happening as more and more knights rallied to us. However, even though we had become a rallying point, at no point did my mom stop walking. Somewhere, somehow, she had gotten a quiver of arrows from someone and has unslung her bow and began loosing arrows again. The guards following us grew to a sizable amount and our progress sped up and more guards joined and more enemies were defeated. in due course, we had rallied enough numbers that most enemies would run at the sight of us. Although no one escaped, thanks to the arrow lodged in the back of their heads, courtesy of my mother and our fellow bow-toting footmen. Eventually we were able to reach the outlying area of our bivouac. All around there were dead bodies, some burnt to mere ashes and bones, others crushed by gigantic boulders which I did not know where they came from. Others were frozen and had been shattered into pieces. Our two carriages and supply carts lay here defended by around 15 knights and 50 footmen who were in a shield wall surrounding the wheeled vehicles in a circular formation. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. They were besieged by 150 or somewhere thereabout enemy troops. I say troops because I wasn¡¯t sure exactly WHAT they were. They were too well armed to be bandits but at the same time, they seemed too untrained to be any kind of professional fighting men. Most of their armor consisted of leather pieces, rarely did I spot any metal, however, leather it may be, but it did look as though it provided decent protection. Nevertheless, it didn''t help them much since they weren''t able to exploit the protection offered. They fought with no formation, no better than a horde. Vaguely I was reminded of the barbarians of Gaul clashing against the Legions of Rome. It was no wonder that our handful of guards had been able to hold out for so long. The 150 or so felt like a band of extremely green mercenaries. Which to be fair, they probably were. Most likely, if they were an experienced mercenary band, they would not have taken on the commission to attack us. No seasoned mercenary band would attack a well armed caravan escorting a VIP. The risk of failure was high and wrath of the VIP was likely, cutting off future employment opportunities. No, I come to the conclusion that whoever had hired these fools hadn¡¯t told them of our identities and had probably lured them with promises of a large reward. Either that or these nutheads were actually the men who worked under the person behind the attack. Personally, I felt like the former was more likely than the latter but both outcomes were ideal, the first because it meant an easy win, the second even more so because it meant an easy win and the chance to obtain information on whoever had sent them. Suddenly, all thoughts of their identities was blown away as I realised what I had just witnessed. Burnt bodies. Crushed bodies. Frozen bodies. It¡¯s MAGIC! Ohmahgawd, there are fucking mages here. MAGES. I am so hyped to see one in action. WOOT! MAN. Today is mah luckay day. Luh-Luh-Luh-Luckeyyy~ I look around frantically and my mom smiles as she notices my antics. Sadly, I cannot see any visible signs of the mages anywhere. No gouts of flames blazing away in the night sky. No gigantic boulders of rock solid earth mashing humans. No pillars of ice rising into the sky. The disappointment is real. Dang. For a moment, I am slightly miffed but then I realise I will be seeing them soon anyways! With so many enemies present, there is no way that they won¡¯t show themselves. Unless they are dead. Which isn¡¯t really possible considering the amount of magically destroyed bodies littering the ground. Seeing their fellow guards under siege, many of the rallied men had their spirits all fired up. They were just itching for a fight, to save their comrades. Even though we could see the enemy they had yet to see us, mom had passed the command to mount a counter-attack to break the encirclement. She told everyone to lay down on the ground and begin crawling and sneaking towards the 150 or so men. As my mom moved, at times I was able to spot the rallied men who were following behind us. I did a quick estimate of the headcount. Being so white, my mom was natural target for the enemy so the two of us stayed back with a bunch of knights. There were 40 knights that had been told to hang back by my mom, although what she planned on doing with the was something I had yet to figure out. There was another 40 or so footmen with crawling in the dirt, slowly but surely inching their way to the besieged troops, concealed by the veil of night. In total, those that were missing or killed numbered around 15 knights and 30 footmen. Of course all these numbers were just rough guesses so I wasn¡¯t sure of the real tally. In fact, in all honesty, I would have expected far more wounded from a night-raid. We weren¡¯t taken by surprise and the enemies were unskilled but that still didn¡¯t explain our low casualties. Our enemies outnumbered us by quite a bit. There was no concept of vitamins in the medieval times so Nyctalopia or night-blindness was actually something that was relatively common amongst soldiers as they lacked their vitamin A. Of course, it wasn¡¯t like they didn¡¯t know about the cure for night-blindness, even back in roman times, they ate liver as a supplement for night-blindness. It was just that they had an unbalanced diet due to the bad resource management and lack of widespread knowledge on the topic. The soldiers here ate their rations and hunted game, but because there was no concept of nutrition, rations were mostly bread, meat and biscuits. Even the hunted game, only possesses one liver per animal. As a result, most soldiers were lacking in certain vitamin and minerals. To a soldier having night-blindness, night combat would have been been equivalent to a death sentence. Which is why I am slightly surprised at the number of guards still alive. Upon further thought, I realised that this was the force multiplication of heal potions taking effect. Bleeding out did not happen as much and shallow cuts or wounds that hindered combat potential could be healed, preventing fatal mistakes like a slip of the foot due to pain, from happening as much. If I were to talk about it in terms of modern technology, having a potion was almost akin to having kevlar body armor and a combat medic by your side at all times. That thought made me reconsider the value of these potions, they may have been common as dirt, but that possibly only applied to elite troops like the ones currently guarding us. I doubt that such miraculous liquid could be mass manufactured to the point where each cannon fodder had one, it just felt too unlikely.