It Was Very Difficult To Get

/??? POV/

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The old man still kept on working. I tried to get him to calm down a little bit he didn't even care when I said I would attack him if he still decided to toil. And you know what he said to me?

"Little one, this is for the future." I know it's for the future, but he's only thinking about the future, not even the present. He tells me lessons to not be like him and yet he still keeps acting the way that he does.

Is this what they call hypocrisy? I don't know. He needs to take a break, and have some time off. I know that there's no more meat but we can't go back to just eating his flesh anymore.

He said it himself that it wasn't safe for anyone to eat their own flesh.

I....I need some time to try and think of a good plan to get him to calm down somehow, otherwise he'll just keep toiling for no reason when we're going to be living for so so long.

After all, he said it himself, he'd take care of me for as long as he lived, and he's been living with me for a long time already, right?

[This passage was discovered in the Dark Forest within the For'eign subsector. Any possible theories that have been made to explain this passage as the markings of the beginnings of intelligent For'eign have been debunked by the fact that it seems to have been there even before the first of the For'eign have made it their home.]

[Post-script: This is madness to think that there had been individuals living within the Dark Forest even before the For'eigner had created his creatures, and the language itself was helpfully translated into our own tongue by passing heroes that knew it, saying that the tongue originated from their own world.

Perhaps it could mean the existence of beings that befriended the For'eigner? It may be initially preposterous, but it is still the predominant theory that comes to mind when we talk about their kind. I may need to go to the forest itself and study the original passage myself.]

[This study has been Redacted and Reduced by order of the Grand Mage Arthis and the Scholastica. All copies of the study have been recalled by their order. Please report any and all possible sightings of the study to the Inquisitorial Sector immediately and receive compensation.]

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/MC POV/

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The future was supposedly a wild one. One that's considered a doomed one when I quite literally earned the ire of most of the gods. Why, why would they ever hate me? Hmm, I wonder. Maybe it's because of the fact that I was taking a deal with other gods to subjugate their home perhaps?

Yeah! ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY. I'm more than certain that they're pissed about that. But from what I gathered in my dreams they never outright came down from their high chairs and normally only sent either calamities or heroes, sometimes the two combined.

Nonetheless I don't think I'd like to be murdered over and over again, despite the fact that I've seen death more times that I could possibly count already. It may count to be a little concerning, but I'll stop focusing on that for now. Right now, I was dealing with trying to make a stable for the deer.

Why? Because the damned thing wouldn't stop pestering me for a good home even though I keep telling it that we literally have no thatch to make it out of. I know, I know, it's not that difficult to make thatch, but by the nine that shit is hard to age.

It's dry leaves, yes, but drying them out in a place like this is going to be nigh impossible. It's better to make the stuff in a more tropical climate. Easier that way, with all that sea breeze and sunshine drying it out and giving it some extra little fortitude to handle the years that it may be in service.

But here? In a climate that has four seasons and weather patterns that I can't predict? Yeah, absolutely not.

And I am NOT going to make the damned thing out of pure stone and lumber again, I still feel the aches of having to haul the logs to their right spots in the cottage that I made.

I didn't know how to make a latrine, but I don't actually need a latrine, my body's thankfully been getting more and more efficient with how things work. And strangely enough, neither did the little one.

Walking over to rhe deer and sitting near it again, I greeted it for a little discussion.

"Have you ever felt the presence of anything stronger before deer?"

'Do try to make it a little easier to answer that question.'

"Something that's a greater predator than even the alligator that I killed years ago. Something that even from afar, counted towards one of the most horrifying things that you've seen and ever had the misfortune to ever be witness to."

'....That is a very peculiar and precise question, you do realize that?'

"Indeed, and that's why I want to know."

'Hmm, in my youth, I had the misfortune to be grazing in a place where my birthers had warned me to not stray into. Naturally, a young little buck as myself was careless, thinking our lives to be nothing but good, and our ends peaceful.

Needless to say, misfortune is an understatement to describe the creature that I had been made witness to. Twas a horror in its own right and might.

Skin like bark with stone splotching into it. Hands like yours, but fatter and scarred even worse. A gaze that made me petrified for my life when I looked into it.'

"A petrifying gaze you say? One of magic? Or one of instinct?"

'One of instinct made even more fierce with the assistance of magic. That single eye watched me from the socket that still filled, while the other was horrifically scarred over.

And yet it never care for whether or not I was a good idea to try and hunt down. All it seemed to care for, was continuing to consume the meat of it's quarry.'

"That...doesn't quite narrow anything down in my head just yet. But I'll withhold my judgment until you finally have something for me to work with."

'Fret not, Foreigner, there is no rush to remember things. But as you have said, it wasn't quite a creature that anybody could ever consider normal.

If anything, it was a peculiar beast that proved just how difficult some of the other inhabitants of this forest have it, including me. We must bear the weight and fear of death whenever we come face to face with creatures such as the one that I have been made witness to.

It wasn't a beast that you should seek out, twas a truly ancient and primal creature indeed.'

It took me a few minutes to try and figure out whatever it is that the deer could have been talking about, and yet there wasn't anything that popped into my mind. It was carnivorous or more likely omnivorous. It had thick skin, and it looked like it was an experienced fighter.

It only wanted to eat flesh, and made itself obvious that there wasn't a good choice when it came to how to try and kill it. However the scarring over one of its eyes is a very interesting little trend that I had been made aware of. Fire perhaps?

There were a lot of creatures that come to mind when mythology and old tales are made use of to draw parallels between, but this is a different world.

As much as I was given the information and assurance that there wouldn't be anything outright different, I was talking to a being that saw me as an ant at best, and a nuisance at worst.

"If this creature ever did try to come to us-"

'It will not, Foreigner. The little one's blood proves true enough to dissuade any and all "usurpers" from acting against her. This feeling also applies to us, in which they would not seek out our deaths for the sake of it, precisely due to her being with us.

She is our safety, Foreigner, and in spite of your idea that everything is out to kill you, they won't. Why? Because you protect their monarch.

Her reign is of the forest, while you are of a world so different to ours. The opposing energies that you say try to attack each other, in actuality, do not. They simply stay away from each other.

You will not find an enemy lest you seek them out, oh Foreigner.'

"...Well if you put it that way. I'll do my best to try not to harm anything that may try to kill us. It's a gamble but, I've done my fair share of them.

Thank you for the clarifications deer. But, I intend for her to be able to utilize her blood to uphold her "monarchy" with both eloquent words and brutal, if necessary, strength.

It's a very bloody way of going about things, but it's undeniably effective. That, and I would much prefer her to be able to take care of herself when the time arrives."

The deer zoned out as I knew our discussion for the day was at an end once more. I was a reading nut back then in my old world, and truth be told, the idea of having a new piece of fiction on fresh parchment is almost nirvana in my eyes, with all respect to the Buddhists after all.

But, I'll have to settle with the annoyance of trying to give the little one another life lesson with a game that has so much history with it.

Chess, after all, is a game is of both sacrifice and strategy, with techniques and openings and formations that have been catalogued for literal centuries. It's a beautiful game, oftentimes getting heated, but not at the rate of people in videogames, well, at least not likely to be at that rate.

And I was going to teach her exactly how to play the game. Most of the pieces are already finished, it's simply the king and queen pieces that I haven't quite made yet.

It was difficult enough to carve their bases, but I wanted them to truly look good. For them to not simply just be something you slam onto the board with abandon. I want them to be memorable. To invoke feelings.

And as I was thinking about those emotions, I felt a sharp pain within my chest branch out of my body, as a dark fluid began to fill my veins. 'What's going o- AAAAAARRRGHHHHH!'

The fluids started to cloud my vision as I could feel my mouth getting colder and colder. I just got inside of the cottage and now something alien was going to ruin it before I even got to christen the place.

Before I even got to show the little one the fresh gift I would've given her. And then, the cold had left my mouth as I felt it flow right down into the ground, the pain slowly but surely going away as my vision soon returned to me.

And as it did, I didn't know what to expect, but the entire floor was covered in a black, tar-like substance that seemed to be moving constantly.

I reached out to it, as it all began to pool right beneath my feet, and it finally manifested something peculiar. One king piece, wreathed in a gold-like exterior, with a neon sky-blue base to it, that seemed to hum with power.

The queen piece was of the same style, only that the neon sky-blue was also running lines that looked like technology and magic had a baby.

But inversely, another pair, the ones for the other side of the board had also appeared on the floor. They looked to be stone, with crags and sharp edges that jutted out for whatever possible reason.

And the king piece had a blood red neon base to it. This time, it did not hum, it pulsed with a different feeling. The queen piece was the same with this one. And it was within that moment that I realized that my power had done something much much worse than I'd imagined.

I felt my teeth as I realized that all of the gems within their indents had disappeared. I stared at the four pieces, gulping with caution as I turned my hands into their much more obvious clawed form.

If it was born of my power, how would it react to me using my power to pick it up? The answer was going to be given to me, as I picked them up.

They didn't really seem to be all that special at first, which confused me, until the golden and the stone kings began to ring even further as my body heated up while I touched them. I let go of them as I inspected my arms. They looked different now, again.

They changed again as my left began to take upon a much more metallic design to it, making it similar to a gauntlet that some form of paladin would wear, and within the middle of my palm was an intricate shape of circles, triangles, and squares constantly shifting from one form to another, slowly.

The other hand seemed to be the same at first, until it cracked and felt even more peculiar than I'd anticipate. The originally clubbed and leathery feel of the wendigo began to change into a more different sight.

And by different, I was referring to how it seemed to look more and more like a flowing volcano, turning my right arm into its very own personal lithosphere, as the lava-looking substance pooled into my palm as well, which made me feel a little scared, since the formation of the "stones" and "lava" were taking upon a different shape entirely.

My hand had some sort of seal to it. It's purpose? I wouldn't know. But whatever it was, I was going to try and find out. That is, until I felt the change slowly but surely returning back to what the original look of my arms were like.

They were back to being leathery and sharp, just like how I would normally see them as. And as for the king pieces? They hummed and pulsated, respectively.

I didn't even want to know what the queen pieces would do, so I left them for a while. I took my shirt off and placed the pieces in a cupboard for the foreseeable future, otherwise known as tomorrow.

That was a fresh can of beans that I do not intend to try and open. I, I was shocked. Whatever's happening within me is making itself even more difficult to put a tack on.

It's almost like my body is outright trying to tell me that I wouldn't be able to know what's going on with me unless I specifically take a good, hard look at myself.

It's, it's terrifying. I'm getting stronger, for what specifically? Am I seriously being adjusted to be able to fight gods of all things? Surely that's not the sole reason why I made these?