I skipped along the road beside Icky with him pattering beside me. “So, yeah. That was my interaction with the dungeon divers. They kidnapped me and were going to sell me for profit."

  “That’s nice.” Icky said, glancing at the waning sun over the mountains in the distance. “It’s getting dark, we should stop soon.”

  “Ooh, yeah! That sounds fun!” I twisted my body around, looking for an appropriate place for us to stay. “Then you can tell me your life story!”

  Icky froze for a second before shaking his head. “You know what, it’s far too dangerous for us to stay here for the night, let’s move on.” He pattered ahead before stopping and turning around. “It’s also too dangerous for us to talk.”

  I sighed, following him and stepping over a few rocks. “But we could talk before. What changed?”

  He didn’t answer me for a moment, and we skirted around a small boulder the size of a turkey. “It gets much more dangerous at night in this forest. Trust me.”

  I frowned but didn’t question him.

  It was harder to walk once the sun went down, the absence of light didn’t much stop me, mana didn’t rely on light, but Icky started running into rocks and plants. After a while I started carrying him to get rid of the hassle. I walked out of the tree line and looked around for a second. “Is it a grassland?”

  I could hear the disgust on Icky’s voice as he spoke. “Yes, you can see better than I can, I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this.”

  I snorted but kept walking, making sure to keep quiet like Icky had told me to. My stamina was getting very low, almost to where it should be. That was worrying, I knew carrying Icky was going to make problems but had hoped that walking would take less stamina than running, and it did. But I still lost stamina alarmingly quickly, just not as alarming as when I ran.

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  We got back into forest land faster than I had thought we would. Much sooner than I would have liked, my stamina dropped low and I collapsed on the road.

  Icky jumped out of my arms and darted around me. “Rolf? Rolf what’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” I croaked out, “but I’ve only got two stamina left. If I go any further, I’ll be knocked out.”

  “What? That’s not how stamina exhaustion works!”

  I waved my arms to keep him quiet, but that only resulted in me falling on my flat side. I didn’t feel like pushing myself up, so I just lay there.

  Icky growled at me, bit my arm and dragged me over to the side of the road. I tried hitting him with my other arm. “Hey, don’t bite me.” I didn’t yell for fear of the dangers that Icky mentioned so I didn’t sound nearly as menacing as I had hoped.

  Icky sat on my upward facing flat side despite my quiet complaints. It felt nice to have his little lizard body curled up on me, reminding me what it was like to have a companion that actually liked me.

  He fell asleep in moments, but me… well I was left with the things I’d been refusing to acknowledge before then.

  I thought of the things I’d remembered in flashes. All of them had been violent, quick, and eerily familiar. I didn’t want to be a murderer, but if I was, would it really change anything? I’d still be the same, nothing would have changed. But it would also explain why I had been so used to horrific things no one should be used to.

  I knew I’d had a life before this one. I had been human, arms, legs, torso, and --most importantly-- a dick. I missed my dick.

  I chewed on my tongue with my wax lips. How on earth had I become cheese though? A better question would be “Why did I become cheese?”.

  Had I chosen this? If I had, I was torturing myself, but I probably deserved it anyway.

  So, I lay like that for the rest of the night, Icky on top of me and my thoughts on the moral dilemma of my own stupidity.

  When Icky woke up he didn’t say much, I didn’t either. My thoughts had sobered me quite a bit, to the extent that Icky kept shooting me worried glances as we walked. But after a while he seemed to accept it and even started smiling and wagging his tail as we walked.

  The trees passed us by in a blur; we had to stop several times now that I didn’t have the System enhanced stamina anymore. Beside me, Icky stopped in his tracks. Turning around, I stared at him. “What’d you stop for?”

  He gave me his patented “You’re stupid” look, then spoke. “It’s a town. We’ve reached the place where this road leads.”