“I AM ALIVE!”

  I heard Nelson’s voice coming from the tent.

  ‘I envy this bitch’s sleep optimization.’

  “Oh, the sun is still up!” He stretched like a lazy cat, yawned, and sniffed the roasting meat, salivating at the thought of more bunny.

  “Shit smells good! Dibs on the hind—”

  He noticed the piece of meat was too large to be from a bunny. He glanced at the dead couple. The girl was missing a thigh.

  “Jesus Christ, Frank! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Nelson stomped toward me and tried to hit the top of my head, but his swing was in slow motion and easy to dodge.

  “I can’t hunt for shit, dickhead. You—the only one with a chance of catching anything—decided to hit the sack! I did what I needed to stop the maddening craving.”

  I nibbled on the chunk of meat shamelessly.

  “Come the fuck on, Frank. No excuse to chew on human meat; you could have waited at least a week!”

  “Blame the shitty dev god.”

  I stared at the meat and grimaced before taking another bite.

  “I had this overwhelming desire for meat, to the point it fogged my mind.”

  I sighed deeply.

  “Meat seems to be a must, and I can’t control my hunger like I did back home.”

  “Sounds like bullshit. Try a better excuse.”

  “It’s true, damn it!”

  I saw the discomfort and rejection in his eyes. We kept silent for a moment, staring each other down.

  “People who go cannibal do it after starving for a week or so,” said Nelson, half-done.

  “Skill issue. Literally.”

  He winced. Skills seemed more influential than any of us thought. He watched me gulp down the last chunk of roasted meat and lick my fingers.

  “Delicious enough to lick your fingers, huh?”

  “I have no repulsion toward this—”

  I flashed the piece of roasted thigh.

  “—because I have a shitty skill enabling me. It’s utter shit.”

  I sighed, closed my eyes, and let my head drop before giving Nelson a tired stare.

  “It bugs me to no end—but I can’t sit around getting anxious over how this bullshit skill system is fucking me up. Not yet.”

  “I don’t approve of it, but—”

  He dropped his shoulders and exhaled deeply, staring into the void, recalling the wrongness of [Resilient Mind] shutting his guilt off.

  “—we still don’t know shit.”

  He shook his head and steered away from the topic.

  “Gimme my sword, porter boy.”

  I took his two-handed sword out of Helena’s bag, still dripping from the stored water.

  “Here you go, wielder of the shitbag.”

  Nelson gripped it. The water cleansed his filthy hands. He broke into the biggest shit-eating grin; his Merchant soul had been ignited.

  “HOLY SHIT! IT CLEANS EVERYTHING! WE COULD GET RICH QUICK WITH THIS!”

  He ran toward the lake after I pointed in its direction.

  “I envy his carelessness too.”

  I chuckled and relaxed a bit. There were no elves in this forest—or so it seemed. What should I do now? I should try learning to use my healing skills, but I have no idea where to begin. Hell, I don’t even know how to open the system UI.

  I turned once again to the corpses, both mangled from the first contact with Nelson, the girl missing a big chunk of her thigh.

  The unfortunate idiots have been useful—or at least their stuff, souls, and meat were.

  I took the hunting knife and dipped it into Helena’s bag to cleanse it. I stared at the blade, checking my reflection in it.

  “What an ugly fuck you are, Frank.”

  My face still resembled my old self. But I had no scar—the proof of the life I had lived had disappeared.

  I gripped my right forearm, recalling the ugly scar left by the dog attack—one of the few proofs I had been a good brother.

  I forced my heart shut. I would wallow in my pity later.

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  ‘I should butcher the girl and make sure her meat doesn’t spoil.’

  I said it as if I were speaking of butchering a chicken.

  “These are not fellow humans.”

  I repeated it to myself, trying to keep my sanity intact.

  With my hunger gone and my mind clearer, I didn’t begin to cut right away. I lingered long enough to notice the damage Nelson had done.

  ‘Nelson’s explosive kinetic force was to blame for both of their deaths.’

  I studied the girl’s caved-in skull, pressing on the loose bone fragments, unfazed by the gore.

  ‘Was it Nelson’s skull that did this?’

  Then I moved on to the holes in the man’s body. I poked them without a care for potential diseases.

  ‘Nelson’s bone shrapnel.’

  My scholarly curiosity won out over my original goal.

  “Let’s find out how similar you are to Earth humans.”

  I began to cut into the man’s corpse.

  Your first corpse is always the most memorable.

  The mortuary boss used to say that, and to be fair, under normal circumstances I would’ve agreed.

  I couldn’t do the usual Y-cut for lack of tools, so instead I did a shitty “O” cut—from below the ribs down toward the nether regions.

  Don’t be shy with the blade. Cut skin, fat, and muscle in one go, or you’ll just make a mess. The belly’s soft—slice clean and deep, like opening a roast. Stop short of the guts… or don’t. That too counts as a rite of initiation.

  I recalled how he tried to train me in organ removal so he could slack off on days with few clients.

  I tossed the cut skin and muscle aside. Everything I remembered was there, almost identical: stomach, intestines wrapped in a yellow membrane—and a liver whose color was off.

  “Well. Very human-y, so far.”

  I cut what seemed to hold the liver in place and yanked it free, ripping the gallbladder ducts. Bile spilled out with an atrocious odor. I almost puked.

  “Jesus Christ. It’s worse than I remembered.”

  I yeeted the gallbladder aside and started cutting into the liver itself, curiosity commanding me. Why the fuck was it bluish?

  I found tiny, grainy blue specks catching the sunlight.

  ‘Mana dust? Heh.’

  I lifted and squeezed the half-macerated liver. Blood ran over my hands and wrists, all the way down to my elbows. I was enthralled by the shiny dust.

  A beat later, I became aware of how I looked—kneeling there, holding a liver up like an offering.

  ‘Aw shit. I look like a crazy cultist.’

  I coughed and tossed the liver away.

  I thought hard about what to do next. Poking the intestines was beyond stupid. I’d do that when I could make somebody else do it for me.

  ‘Let’s check his kidneys.’

  I rolled the corpse belly-down. The guts spilled out.

  As I focused on cutting through the back muscles, Nelson appeared behind me.

  “What are you up to now, Frank? Another ritual?” He stared at the belly-down corpse, blood and bile soaking the grass.

  “Nein. I’m doing a pseudo-autopsy. Wanna join?” I turned to him with a blissful smile.

  “No thanks. I’ll leave the corpse-handling to you.” Nelson frowned—unclear whether it was the bile stench or the profaning of corpses.

  “Get over here, you imbecile. Learning where to stab will help you get crits easier.”

  “You… make perfect sense.” Nelson joined in reluctantly.

  I rolled the corpse onto its back again. Nelson almost puked as the bowels jiggled.

  “Cut the ribs carefully, and don’t turn the organs below into mush,” I instructed.

  He tried to recall our anatomy class back at college, with the donated bodies. He stared at the bloodied knife for a solid minute before doing anything.

  He grimaced, then sighed deeply and cracked a joke—his voice faltering.

  “My Aztec blood is telling me to cut out the heart and offer it to a god.”

  “Do it. You might get a boon.”

  His debuff cucked him again. He couldn’t cut the ribs.

  “You’re fucking useless, sword boy.”

  “Say that again in seven days, knee-head,” he growled, visibly frustrated.

  I stared hard at the thorax and stuck my fingers into the holes left by bone shrapnel.

  “Mmm… your explosion should’ve cracked some ribs, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  Nelson replied, rubbing his neck and avoiding eye contact.

  “I’ll try breaking them.”

  I felt for the fracture, cut the muscle around it, and pulled as hard as I could. I managed to crack a few ribs, but others held—way too strong.

  “Welp. That’s it. No Aztec heart offering.” I sat on the grass, using my bloody hands for support. No heart or lung checking for now. But now that I had another idiot here…

  “Nelson, cut the guts. Let’s see what’s ins—”

  “No. Ain’t no way I’m cutting the pre-shit tube.”

  “Come on, you cut the rat’s gut back in—”

  “I’m not that naive, Frank. I know exactly what you’re planning.” He scoffed.

  “Fine. Fine.” I gave up.

  “Did you find anything useful, or did you just get your nerd itch scratched?” He slav-squatted in front of the girl, staring at her corpse.

  “Well, I checked some organs. I think they’re pretty much human.”

  “Incredible findings, Doctor Kreuz! How could you have guessed humans have human organs?”

  Nelson nodded in sarcastic satisfaction.

  “Indeed, Doctor Dickus. The only thing off was the bluish liver, which had small blue specks—most likely mana dust.”

  He seemed impressed I’d actually found something.

  “According to my hunch, eating liver will make our MP pool bigger, Doctor Dickus.”

  “We should hunt a dragon to prove it and achieve maximum gains, Doctor Kreuz.”

  “I’m unsure about that, Doctor Dickus. Maybe dragons store mana in their balls. I refuse to commit interspecies deviancy.”

  I adjusted my invisible glasses. Nelson twisted his invisible moustache and continued.

  “I concur. We need to get a mage doggirl and feed her dragon balls.”

  “Why not a catgirl?”

  “They’re agile and petite, most likely flat—clearly inferior.”

  “I would like you to reconsider your daft statement.”

  We went back to being two immature, grown-ass men in the blink of an eye.

  “I have to figure out how to heal before your debuff expires. Otherwise, our second life will be short.”

  “Yep. After it expires, we begin our journey—adventure, glory, and women!”

  “I gotta find some coffee. I miss that bitter brew.”

  “We need info, but we’re too shit to survive out there—at least for now.”

  Nelson frowned in thought, then his eyes lit up.

  “Oh! Why don’t you read the petty god’s book?”

  “Weren’t you the one saying reading was for pussies?”

  “Yes. So you read it.” He grinned.

  “Well, Helena told me to. May as well.”

  I searched for the book inside the bag, my hand getting cleansed in the process. It was drenched, but it didn’t seem damaged.

  “I hope this shit is useful.”

  I flipped it open.

  “Completely blank,” Nelson peeked over my shoulder.

  “We got scamme—”

  The pages began to faintly shimmer.