Chapter 3: Just Like a Game
That night Ali had a terrible nightmare, the darkest period of his life as if it were being played back from a third-person perspective. He could only watch himself being bullied in his youth and a few other cruel things without being able to fight back.
It was repeated viciously from his youth to adulthood. Ali was bullied, betrayed, shunned, and exploited over and over again in his long dreams.
He couldn"t close his eyes or look the other way. Soon his body felt cold... He was trembling and shivering from the ingrained fear that he kept suppressing the whole time.
Since he was young, he had built an adequate level of self-control with a high level of self-awareness, but that all could not help him suppress his current intense reaction.
He had never had a cruel nightmare like this before. Since the trusted a.s.sistant"s betrayal and after he threw away evil thoughts of suicide, he never had nightmares again.
The length of time that had pa.s.sed, Ali did not know anymore. He tried to convince himself that this was just a nightmare and tried to wake up as soon as possible so that he could be free from this recurring nightmare.
As he started to crumble, a ray of golden light came flashing right in front of him as if it was a light of hope that had come to take him out of this endless nightmare.
He immediately reached for the light and held it tightly. As if the light was absorbed into him, Ali suddenly woke up and opened his eyes with a gasping breath.
His body felt heavy and sore, but the first thing he saw after waking up were towering trees, then the night sky full of stars. The night sky was just as he had seen before going to sleep. However, this was not from his bedroom ceiling.
Ali began to think quickly because this was not his bedroom or the place he knew beforehand. He tried to get up from his "sleeping position" to check his surroundings, even though there was a sudden rush of pain just because of that.
On a starry night lit by the moonlight, many corpses were lying around him, blood splattered everywhere. Swords and other weapons could be found scattered on the ground, and environmental damage was so severe.
"Where am I? Why are there so many corpses? Is there a war going on here?" Ali had a panic attack with so many questions on his mind, but he immediately tried to compose himself. Unlike the previous nightmare where he couldn"t do anything about it, he had complete control over his entire body this time.
"Aww! Uhh... My body hurts... Obviously, this isn"t a dream... Did I get thrown here after I grabbed the golden light? "Ali didn"t need to pinch his cheek to make sure this was real. He felt pain all over his body, and it clearly proved that he really wasn"t in a dream anymore.
Ali was about to check his surroundings, but when he took a small step, he staggered as if he was going to fall. "Uh... My body didn"t feel like this before. What"s with my balance?"
He looked down to examine his body, which was still in pain and numb. He was afraid that something was wrong with his body. It wasn"t the body he recognized, and the first thing he saw was the twin peaks on his chest.
That prevented him from seeing the tips of his feet. No wonder he didn"t feel balanced. It wasn"t his body, but a curvy girl"s body!
"This is not my body! Where am I!? Who am I now!? What happened!?" Ali checked his body with extra care, although his body was still aching.
His athletic body was no longer there, and it became a voluptuous delicate body. The casual sleepwear he was wearing wasn"t there either, and it became an aristocratic dress with heels on his feet. Then, his short black hair was no longer short, and it became long silky black hair that fell to his thighs. Not to mention the twin peaks weighing on his chest.
"No, Ali... Pull yourself together as soon as possible! Pay attention to your environment first. You are no longer using a body that you recognize anymore, so adapt quickly. You are still in a predicament, do you realize that? However, you can continue your panic when you are in a safe place..." Ali tried his best to calm himself, then looked around by looking left and right. When he turned his head, a sharp pain came from his neck all of a sudden.
Ali immediately raised his hand to check the condition of his neck. Stinging and pain, red blood stuck to the palm of his hand. "Aww! Aw, auu... I"m bleeding!"
His neck was no longer bleeding, but the wound shocked him. He knew that... Otherwise, how could he wrestle with his own thoughts if he was hurt so badly in his neck? He was not a living corpse.
His entire body was unharmed, just a severe cut in the neck. The wound started to heal slowly, but he was not aware of it.
"This girl was killed by a sharp cut in her neck. I thought the blood on this dress was someone else"s blood, but it"s my own blood! What should I do?" Ali meticulously thought about what he should do in the current situation.
His past experiences helped him stay calm to think clearly despite difficult circ.u.mstances. He quickly adapted to his current situation.
Broadly speaking, he was sent to an unfamiliar place, transferred to a girl"s body, and he knew nothing about anything.
The instinct to survive flashed through his head. Ali closed his eyes to scan the entire environment to make sure no one was alive.
Similar to the sixth sense or mind"s eye. He already possessed this ability since he had a very high level of consciousness, one of the abilities he used to counteract his trauma.
"Hmm... My ability to scan my surrounding seems to have increased sharply. Now, I can scan up to two hundred meters." Ali muttered in his mind. He had been doing this ever since he woke up worried that his voice would call out the danger.
Two hundred corpses were laid on the ground. They wore slightly damaged and cracked knight armor. Nearby, there were male and female aristocrats who were both middle-aged. It seemed these two people were the most significant of these corpses.
"They seem to be the parents of this girl... O young girl who possesses this body with her parents, family, and knights... May your soul rest in peace in the afterlife and be accepted by the Divine. Amen." Ali sent his prayers for the corpses around him.
Then, he looked for a decent weapon that he could use in self-defense later, considering that he was in a place that might be dangerous. No one knew what danger would come to him.
He had played survival games in the jungle before. Just before he returned to his hometown and started his career, he went to the forest with the survival gear recommended by the rangers without bringing any provisions.
He deliberately wanted to stay in the forest and only forage in the forest for one week. Away from other humans to calm himself from the many worldly thoughts.
Ali a.s.sumed the survival skills he had learned long ago would come in handy again. Still, he needed to find specific equipment before anything, like a weapon.
He chose to search from the body of a two aristocrat first, and he found a sharp dagger that was exquisite as if it was made for decoration and not used as a weapon. When he focused slightly on the dagger, a small transparent box appeared with information from the dagger"s direction.
[| Lv. 50 | Earth Grade | Heritage Dagger Reinhard | 100/100 |]
"What"s with this? Why does information pop up when I focus my attention on it a little?" Ali wondered in surprise. He tried several times on other objects and got the same response. So, he could dig up information from the items observed with more focus?
"This is weird... It"s like a game..." Ali muttered as he tried to focus on the living being that was once alive to see if he would get any information from the corpses.
[| Lv. 82 | Advanced Warrior | Orlando Reinhard | Male (54) | 0 / 56,000 |]
Ali immediately had a strange and confused expression. So, he could get essential information from whatever he was observing with more focus?
"How about myself..." This time, he focused on himself, and a small transparent box also appeared right in front of his eyes.
[| Lv. 21 | Apprentice Mage | N / A | Female (16) | 510 / 4,500 |]
(AN: He is currently a female, so he/him/his p.r.o.nunciation will turn to she/her from now on)
"Sure enough... I don"t even have a name anymore. Sigh..." Ali mourned the fact that she already knew. She softly sighed as she had to quickly adapt to her new body.
"Is this really a game? Or different natural laws? A different world?" Ali believed in the existence of a G.o.d who could do anything that was considered impossible.
Hence, the thought of natural law that she imagined came from there. She realized that she was in the middle of nowhere and not the Earth she knew either.
"If this is no longer Earth, and also with a different natural law... Could it be..." Ali imagined she was in a world with game-like rules. She tried several things like trying to fly, executing magic, etc., but all failed.
"Maybe it all failed because I"m not strong yet or maybe because of my current state... Hmm..." This time she tried to store the dagger into her [s.p.a.ce Storage] to make sure she became like a character in the game.
Not disappointed by this last resort, her consciousness could instantly see an empty room measuring 25 meters in length, width, and height. She simply put the dagger in the [s.p.a.ce Storage] and released her concentration from the room.
The dagger she was holding had disappeared, but she could feel it was in her [s.p.a.ce Storage].
"Well then, allow me to bury you properly... Um, I have to get rid of all the clues at the scene of this matter." Ali glanced at the corpses around her and put them into her [s.p.a.ce Storage]. She also secured all items that could be evidence or clues, no matter how small they were.
Ali even made prosthetic footprints in various directions up to hundreds of meters with her own method. To confuse anyone who would come to this place, no matter if they were the enemy or ally of this slaughtered group.
Everything had been stored in [s.p.a.ce Storage], and the crime scene cleanup operation was also completed. She rushed in a different direction from the group"s original destination, remembering the crushed luxury carriage was heading north.
The operation did not take up to an hour and left only residual damage to the forest environment.
What Ali did would really confuse the investigation team, but it wasn"t her problem. She already had the tools to survive in the forest, and she just walked away from the crime scene.
She also had to find suitable land to bury the victims" bodies, although she didn"t know anything about these people.
That was all she could do as a final tribute to those who had died. And also to honor the original owner of her body that she somehow took over.