Stray Soul

Accepting the side quest given to me by the system, I started thinking if I should go in now and try getting the 200 exp... without dying somehow or do the more sensible thing of just coming back later.

And, after a bit of thinking, I decided to take a quick look inside to see if the golem or whatever was still there and... yup, it was, and it was closer to the hole too, but not by much.

The moment I looked inside the golem looked at me too, and I quickly left without bothering to check if it was coming from behind me or not because I was sure as hell that the golem wasn’t fitting through that opening.

I mean... maybe through some magical shenanigans it might, but it didn’t seem like it was that magical of a creature... or a construct or whatever, so I wasn’t too worried about it.

Putting a vine on the left wall, I started making my way outside of the dungeon as the quest never game me a time limit, so I was free to come here whenever I wanted to, and you can be sure as hell I am not coming here anytime soon!

Well... maybe a dragon decides to drop dead nearby, then I may consider coming here but I doubt my luck would be that great, so probably going to take a few weeks before I am back in this dungeon as the centipedes in this area are just not worth my time to hunt down, and I need to get stronger to go further inside.

Then, as I continued kissing the wall, the dungeon, or luck, decided to throw a few waves of centipedes at me as I was retreating out, but luckily, or unlucky, none of the centipedes were actually high ranked enough to give me exp, and even though they overwhelmed me a lot of times, they couldn’t do anything too serious to me before I killed them all, and got some nice exp too, becoming lvl 12!

I then put all of my newly gained stat points into wisdom, bringing it up to 23, and went on my way.

“Ah, finally, sun light!” I rejoiced reaching the entrance of the dungeon... or is it the exit now that I am leaving through it?

Hmm... food for thought, or I may just be being stupid. Who knows?

“Hmm? What’s that over there?” I asked, looking at the entrance of the dungeon, and quickly went behind the curve and took the eye at the back of my head out with one of my vines, and extended it so I could see whatever was going on in the entrance without anything there being able to see me... hopefully.

And after a few moments, I could see the figures of a few... goblins?

Yeah, I am sure those are goblins... and a lot of them.

Though I can’t say for sure how many there are outside as I can’t see them that clearly.

But what are they doing here... ah... I forgot this place was a dungeon for a moment there...

So, they must be here to delve the dungeon, right? But can they even kill the golem deep inside? Or fight off the centipedes? The goblins I saw yesterday weren’t that bright, and if that holds true for all of them... they are going to quite a bad time here... or do they just not care about their dead?

That’s... a gruesome prediction, but if these goblins are similar to the goblins I’ve seen on media... they probably wouldn’t mind leaving the injured or the dead behind...

Oh, they are on the move... I should probably retreat deeper inside then...

Quickly pulling my eye back after giving a one last look at the goblins, I started going back into the dungeon, and started thinking of how I could leave without alerting the goblins to my presence...

I mean, I could always just walk up to them and there’d be a chance that they’d just scatter, or freeze up so I could walk past them, but I doubt the ones going inside a dungeon would be as weak as the ones from before, or as easily scared as them, and they’d also have more discipline. Probably.

So, the only option of how to exit I can think of is... just go hide in one of the winding tunnels and leave I guess but... what if they just happen to go to the direction I am hiding at? That’d be just no bueno.

So... I guess just retreat, and try to go around their back when the opportunity presents itself?

I mean... that may not be the safest, or the most intelligent plan of action, but I honestly can’t come up with anything else, at least for now.

Hmm... but how do I know if they’ve changed their path or not? If I am close enough to hear them, that’d mean they are near enough to hear, smell, or even see me!

So, I can’t just stay a bit in front of them, and just assume I’ll be fine...

I guess I’ll just have to be in front of them by a large margin, at least for now, and wait for an opportune moment to make my get away.

Deciding to stay far ahead of the goblin adventure group or whatever, I ran past any pesky centipedes I encountered, and stayed behind corners, watching the goblins fight them... which wasn’t stalking, it’s called people watching.

The two are different things!

Anyways, going in front of the goblins, I had many chances to also watch them... rest, which was something I didn’t have a need for and frankly, it surprized me the first time they stopped to rest, and the subsequent times when they just seemed to stop out of nowhere, for apparently no reason.

Had I really lost so much of my humanity in the last week to be surprized by an action as simple and common as resting?

I mean, I rested too! But my rests were something due to my need for mana, and not because I got tired... yeah, I got tired mentally sometimes but... even then, it would pass after some time, and I’d just return to what I was doing, which was often trying to improve my skills, developing my mana cloud network, or just walking.

Hmm... though I don’t have an answer for if I’ve really lost too much of my previous mindset, fit for a body with actual needs other than mana, I am sure that... if I ever try to integrate myself back into polite society... its gonna suck.

After some time, the goblins got up and continued walking forwards, and more and more centipedes continued to attack them, not that the goblins had it hard, or ever got too overwhelmed for the centipedes to do too much damage though.

And after even more time... I finally reached the hole that led to the office or whatever this structure was, and I didn’t really have anywhere to retreat other than inside the weird structure... at least the golem wasn’t there no more, which was an overhaul positive.

But do I really want to go inside...

Hearing the small feet of the goblins far away, I decided to take a few steps inside, my hooves clanking on the tiled floor of this weird place... wait, could this be just some place made by the dungeon and not something made by an actual civilization?

...I hope not, and I am able to get the rewards for that quest... otherwise I am going to be not happy at all.

Looking around, I was able to better understand the size of this place.

To the sides of me, the... concrete? Eh, its probably concrete or just stone, anyways.

To the sides of me, the concrete walls continued for a hundred doors or so, curving ever so slightly so that the place seemed like a half circle, all of them around 2-3 meters away from each other, giving me the vibes that this place was some kind of office building, and the doors leading to cubicles... or really shitty bedrooms.

And in front of me was a small hallway that led deeper inside the building, but there weren’t any doors, or at least any visible doors at the end of the hallway, instead there was just a wall of concrete blocking me from seeing what was behind it... is this place some kind of labyrinth?

Or is this considered good office planning in this world?

I mean... if this place is an office, they are just trying to be keep their workers locked up in a labyrinth which is probably the wet dream of any ceo form my old world come to think of it.

Yeah, maybe this place isn’t that badly designed after all...

But I should stop dilly dallying around and hide somewhere but... where?

The structure continues for a few hundred meters to my sides, and I can’t exactly run without alerting the goblins to the noises I make...

*clank**clank*

“Oh shi— they are faster than I thought...” I said, hearing the sounds of the end of the goblins’ spears hitting the ground.

What to do what to do... fuck it, I am just going to go into a room, and if they open it, I’ll just charge out, not like they’d be expecting to find an undead inside one of these rooms, right?

Quickly making my way to one of the rooms that was further away, which wasn’t actually that far away, only by a few doors, I quietly opened the door using my vines and quickly went inside, carefully closing the door to not make any noise.

And after waiting for a bit, I heard the muted sounds of goblins getting closer and closer.

Do they not care for the sound they make? What happens if they encounter a golem or something?

Or is that what they want?

I mean, frankly, the centipedes were disappointingly weak, so I wouldn’t be surprized if they came here just for the golems, and this number of goblins can probably take down a golem by themselves... anyways, no need to think about the goblins any further as I am pretty sure they’ll just go deeper into the dungeon instead of opening all the doors one by one... hopefully.

Retreating from the door, I started paying attention to the room I found myself in and... it was just a cubicle, just made of concrete, in the middle of a dungeon... for some unholy reason.

But the room I found myself in, however boring it may be, had something interesting in it... well, depending on what you call interesting of course.

For a certain person that shall remain unnamed for legal reasons, seeing a skeleton on a desk might be interesting. To me? Mine was just morbid curiosity, like when you see a car crash and slow down to look at it when you should be just driving away at full speed, ignoring the accident.

And yes, that is legal advice, you should ignore any and all car crashes you encounter. (For legal reasons, that is not legal advice. -William)

And the skeleton looked to be that of a human, or at least humanoid, not sure if this skeleton actually belongs to a human as, well, I didn’t really have the opportunity to break into a morgue, or a cemetery, and take a look at the corpses while I was still on earth, so while I think this is probably a human skeleton, I can’t say for sure.

Staring at the skeleton for a few moments that could’ve been very well a few minutes, I broke out of my trance, and advanced forwards, at least wanting to get a look at the desk, if not the skeleton itself.

And, while I didn’t want to desecrate the corpse of a previously living, and thinking human, or at least humanoid, I also wanted to... you know... relieve the dead of their possessions that may be burdening them.

Now you may call me heartless... which you’d be correct about, but I’d like to believe that this fella would’ve wanted me to have his belongings.

Extending a vine to the skeleton, I started to—

*WAGH*

“HOLY—” I said in the moment it took for the skeleton to come alive and jump at me, and drop me to the ground because, while I was occupying the body of a quadrupedal animal, having a real life jump scare was enough for me to lose my footing.

*BANG*

Hitting the ground, the skeleton on top of me quickly started attacking me, aiming for my throat, ripping the flesh on it to shreds with surprizing speed, but, thankfully, there wasn’t some bullshit mechanic in the system that made me have a fear effect, that didn’t allow me to move for a few seconds.

So, as quickly as I was able to regain the control of my body, I got the skeleton off of me by throwing it at the desk, which promptly collapsed from the little pressure exerted on it from me throwing the skeleton.

Quickly flipping to my side, I tried to get up, but for some unholy reason, for real this time, the skeleton wasn’t your usual slow and stupid undead, but really fuckin quick and aggressive, and before I was able to get up, it threw itself at me once more, but this time instead of its claws reaping my flesh away, it was reaping my vines and the bush harness I made... and started to rip into my flesh after it got through the small layer of vines, bush, and chitinous plates.

Which just wasn’t fair as I had spent a lot of time and effort making that harness and placing those plates there... note to self, just put more bushes on yourself instead of bothering with weak plates of chitin next time.

Not wanting to allow this demonic abomination to desecrate my body no longer, I put some mana into my legs, and jumped onto it, dropping it to the ground with my body, and not allowing it to move... unintended side effect, the skeleton is now stuck under me, and is tearing at me with its hand, feet, and mouth.

“DIE ALREADY!!!” I wanted to scream at the undead, but I couldn’t because of a lack of a mouth that could produce such words, and for the fact that it was already dead.

But seriously, how do I kill this thing? I can feel its broken ribs and bones sticking into my flesh from the side, and that’s seriously not enough to kill it?

Fuck me, now I understand why the goblins didn’t even attempt to look into the rooms, they must’ve known these fuckers existed!

And yes, I am an undead too, but I cannot function if I don’t have at least some muscles, so I can be defeated by conventional means pretty easily, but this fucker?

It’s just raw dogging all the ambient mana and is fine! How the fuck am I supposed to kill you!

Putting my mind to hyper speed... which is just another word for desperately trying to think of something when you can’t do anything, I started to list the reasons for it not dying.

It is a dungeon monster, so the ambient mana must not affect it at all, or at least not as much as me.

It is also an undead like me, so its soul is probably attached to it, and I’ve either just not destroyed enough of its body for its soul to deteriorate, or it won’t get killed by conventional means...

“If conventional won’t do... then I’ve got unconventional for you!”

Quickly grasping at its limbs with whatever vines I had left and extending parts of my soul and mana cloud from my body to its limbs, forcing my way through the ambient mana which felt like a viscous liquid, I tried to force my soul through its bones, and to its soul.

Quickly sensing the skeletons soul, it felt... weak, dishevelled, broken, shattered, in pain.

It was clear that this soul belonged to a person, a person that unlike me had a body to return to after their untimely death, and became an undead because of their past grudges they are yet to be able to forget or forgive...

Quickly grabbing its soul with as many tendrils of mana and soul as I could, I started giving it yank after yank, trying to get it out of skeleton it continued to possess.

And the skeleton must’ve felt what I was doing, because it started attacking me faster, and more desperately, but every time I gave its soul a yank, it stopped for a moment, and then continued to attack with even more desperation, trying to stop me from taking its soul away.

Deciding to not bother with the skeleton no longer, I continued to give it soul more and more yanks, and felt it shift inside the skeleton, slowly becoming loose.

I am sure I wouldn’t be able to do this to any living being, but thankfully, skeletons are not living, their souls no longer fit for the body they possess.

And after a few more yanks, its soul came fully loose, and I was able to get it out but weirdly, the soul didn’t disappear immediately, and seemed like it was being pulled somewhere, the mana in the air trying to carry it away...

“Ah... the dungeon core, or whatever it is, must be trying to take what is its...” I said, quickly putting 2 and 2 together, and understanding what was happening.

But was I going to let the dungeon core do whatever it wanted to?

Hell no.

I might not know who this guy was, or if he’s even a guy, but I am not letting a piece of rock torture peoples’ souls for an eternity by putting them in the corpses of others, just because they just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time.

So, even though I am not the grim reaper, I am reaping this soul out of here.