Stray Soul

As I continued to grasp onto the soul of... whoever this skeleton belonged to, I suddenly heard the familiar dinging of the system.

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated Dungeon Skeleton (H) Level 20!

As Dungeon Skeleton (H) is a rank higher than you, you will get increased exp.

40 > 50 exp gained.

Congratulations! You have leveled up 2 times and have become level 14!

“Oh, gee golly, how happy am I that I got my body destroyed for some levels... at least I actually gained levels instead of getting a big middle finger in my direction from the system because of some dumb rule that would've cut my exp gains into oblivion." I said, and started getting up, and as I got up plates and small horns started falling off from where I had stored them in my chest, making small noises as they hit the ground.

“Too much for being hidden and quiet...” I said, and slowly moved to the door, and opened it to look around and see if any goblins or anything else was nearby.

Thankfully, nothing was nearby, and hopefully, nothing heard the fight that went inside the cubicle...

Quickly closing the door and retreating back inside, I willed up my mana counter to get a rough idea about how much I’ll need to spend here.

Mana Points: 103/422

“...Wait, what? I swear I had more mana capacity just a few hours ago, how did I...” I started saying in confusion, just to see a pink paste near where I and the skeleton fought, and quickly put two and two together and understood that I had unfortunately lost my Brain Bagtm, which was a bummer.

But the fact that I’d need to spend a good portion of the day to just recover my mana was an even bigger bummer... and I may need to put more points into wisdom the next time I level up... but if I do that, I might not have enough mana to fight against something more dangerous than a skeleton...

Eh, I can just put more points into intelligence and wisdom now that I have free stat points now, can't I?

Saying that, I put 2 points into my intelligence, and put the remaining points into wisdom.

Mana Points: 261/442

Intelligence: 27 (17)

Wisdom: 29 (14)

Finding a comfortable spot in the middle of the room, I quickly sat down, and started to restructure my mana cloud networks as... having most of the flesh from my chest, neck, and back removed put me in quite the spot.

I could basically feel the tension in my neck! Another fight, and my neck will just snap! That I am sure of!

So, after I get out of here, I need to attain a new corpse through any means... not a goblin corpse though as I’d much prefer if I didn’t kill an intellige—a being capable of complex thought, tool crafting, and tool use.

So, thinking of what to do, and how to get a new corpse after I was out of here, I started to restructure my mana cloud.

Starting off with incorporating my lesser souls back into my body, and from there pulling back the tendrils of mana cloud that were left in the places where my vines and bushes used to be, and flesh.

And, after I was satisfied with what I had, I turned to the conundrum at hand which was the soul of the skeleton.

I was still grasping onto it with tendrils of mana, but that wasn’t really a good thing for me to do as the high ambient mana of the dungeon was eating through all the mana I put into those tendrils, so, even though I am dedicated to bringing this soul outside and letting it do soul things like disappearing into oblivion, I also cannot afford to just keep this many mana tendrils out of my body, all the time.

And it’s not like I can just grab onto the soul with only a tendril or two as I am worried that the dungeon will be able to pull it away if I do that...

Hmm... if a certain skeleton hadn’t destroyed half of my chest, I’d have put this soul into my chest cavity, but I can’t do that—I mean, I can, but it wouldn’t do much difference as I’d still need to keep a lot of mana tendrils outside my body, and subject them to the ambient mana of the dungeon.

I wonder though... would there be any issues if I just... rolled this soul into a ball, and then just... put it somewhere in my body?

Well... the biggest possibility is that it will just try to take control of my body, and I will have to deal with a hostile being inhabiting my body, which would be no bueno.

The other possibility is that... nothing will happen.

I mean, at the end of the day, I am the one who is controlling this body, and as long as I don’t let it spread its mana cloud... I should be able to continue controlling this body without any problems whatsoever.

Thinking about my options... or lack thereof, I quickly decided that it was worth a try and started rolling up the skeleton’s soul into a ball, and then proceeded to pull it into my body, and placed it in a place where it couldn’t reach most of the important muscles in my body, and... it did nothing.

I mean, the soul did nothing.

It just stayed there, curled up like a ball. And, though I could still feel something pulling at it, albeit very weakly, it seemed to be... mostly okay to keep souls curled up like this inside my body.

“That’s that then...” I said and just continued to do what I always did, and just started to try improving my skills... and to my surprize, I got a system message even before I could start doing anything!

*ding*

Congratulations! Your skill Soul Manipulation (Z) has improved to Soul Manipulation (H)!

2 exp gained from skill improvement!

10 exp gained from advancing your quest Meddling With The Unknown (S)!

“...Well, that was fast.” I said, and quickly willed up the new description for soul manipulation.

*ding*

Description Soul Manipulation (H): Allows the being in possession of it to manipulate their, and other beings’ souls.

Hmm... so I got my skill improvement for rolling up a soul into a ball?

That seems... easy. Too easy even.

But a lot of people probably can’t manipulate souls so... its probably a hard, if not impossible thing for many... and I’ll be taking that as a win, thank you very much!

Dumping all my points into intelligence, I bringed it from 21 to 25, a whopping 4-point difference!

But ...God, do I hate whoever designed this system... all that effort and pain, just for 4 points?

... At least I’ll get a good boost to my stats when I reach rank G...

Looking at my system window, I noted my increased mana capacity, and continued on trying to improve my skills.

Mana Points: 127/442

After what felt like hours of trying to improve on my skills, I once again opened up my system window to check how much mana points I had.

Mana Points: 273/442

“Eh, that’s enough mana to get me moving.” Saying that, I got up from the place I was sat for the last few hours and started making my way to the door... just to remember the collapsed desk, and decided to check it out for anything usable, just in case.

Moving to the back of the room, in front of me lay the destroyed desk, made out of rotting wood, with seemingly nothing of note.

But seemingly nothing, wasn’t nothing!

So, I just started rummaging thorough the destroyed desk with my hooves and remaining vines, trying to find something and... to my surprize, I was able to find a few papers of something written in a language and an alphabet not familiar to me.

Grabbing on to the papers, I just continued to stare at them as they were the only sign of a civilization capable, and caring, of documentation of some kind in this world, for me at least.

Was what I was staring at a piece of history, many historians would kill for? Or research about magics unknown to the world?

No clue, but its probably either the diary of the bloke that lays to my side, or just bureaucratic paperwork.

Nothing that bothers me, or I should be bothered about.

Looking at the papers for a few more moments... I decided to take them with me.

Maybe I could decipher or at the very least study the written language of this world... probably one of the many written languages of this world as I am not really keen on believing the fantasy troupe of only one common tongue coming about in a world that is either as massive as my previous one, or even larger.

Putting the loose papers into my chest and keeping them there with a branch I rammed into the undestroyed part of my chest, I made my way to the door, and after listening for sounds for a few moments, opened it, looked around, saw nothing, and left the room.

And as I made by way to a nearby hole in the wall, which was undoubtedly the hole from which I entered this place... nothing happened.

Neither did I encounter the goblin adventurers, or whatever they were, nor did a wayward golem try to stop me on my tracks and punish me for invading its home or whatever.

It was just... calm. A bit too calm for the dungeon in which I lost half my body if you were to ask for my honest, and correct, opinion.

But even after I entered the tunnels... nothing of notice happened.

Yeah, there was the dozens of centipedes that attacked me, but I either stomped them, or just ran past them, and this time I was actually able to kill a few that actually gave me exp!

*ding*

Congratulations! You have defeated 4 Dungeon Centipedes (Z) Level 2-4!

10 exp gained.

And they gave me a good chunk of exp too!

...Though that fact didn’t really give me solace, as I still had to somehow get a new body, which wasn’t going to get easier from getting exp, I needed levels, more levels than I could hope to get for my job of getting a new body to get easier.

Which wasn’t going to happen because I just didn’t have the time to grind.

What a shame, what a shame indeed.

Kissing the left wall, I continued on, and soon, I saw the gate leading outside, the last lights of the sun beaming into the dungeon entrance and lighting up the long corridor that was the only way to advance into and get outside the dungeon.

And after a few dozen more steps, I was outside.

Grasping onto the soul, which no longer felt like it was being pulled whatsoever, I took it out of my body with swift movements and not a moment after it fully left my body did it disappear into oblivion.

Looking at the tendrils of mana that had just taken out the soul out of my body, I started to think... think and wonder if I had done the right thing.

Yes, that soul was stuck inside the dungeon to... maybe be reused until the end of times, but... was that really a bad thing?

Even though it was the soul of someone before, a person it was no longer, just a pile of bones, resting and whenever an enemy disrupted it, attacking.

It was no different than an animal, but even then, even if it was forced into just being a monster for rest of eternity... it was at least living in some way.

But now? Does it even exist anymore?

I know that there are other worlds, but... do all souls reincarnate?

Or do they just go into oblivion, to be no longer?

I’ve seen souls disappear.

And new ones appear.

But never have I seen other souls reincarnate.

If they did, then what’s my speciality?

What’s my reason for having the reincarnator title?

Wouldn’t everything, by its very definition, be a reincarnator?

From the plants to the very animals whose body I possess.

Is eternal life, which that soul was forced onto, better than the unknown?

Isn’t eternal life better than the unknown? Though that eternal life may come at the cost of being a mere beast for the rest of eternity?

*clank*

Turning around and looking at the tunnel, I saw a goblin, frozen in fear, with a stone spear dropped to the ground, and behind the little creature, the rest of its posse, who seemed to be either scared, or in the case of one of them, gripping onto its spear, seemingly preparing to throw it at me, and yelling at its posse.

“Ahh... can’t even let me have an existential crisis now, can you?”