Unending Confusion

You see this right? You see the dilemma that I've been given. There are two elven children right in front of me, bowing me for whatever contrived odd reason there could possibly be, and yet here I was leaning on the side of their strange tree.

They were wearing odd leather, and if I was right for looking at the skeleton in the tree, yeah, that might be the leather of the thing that's in the tree. It's humanoid, obviously enough, but the thing is that there were some more oddities to it. There were connections, joints, and even actual bones that didn't seem to match up.

I'm no doctor, but that may not be a human skeleton. And seeing that they're still living in the branches of the tree, they're probably thinking that I'm some sort of food source? I mean, you can see the issue here. All woods, and literally nothing else that's inside.

I can hear their stomachs rumbling as I almost had an idea about what they had in plan for me. It's superstition, or at the very least that's what I think it is. They think, that I'm some sort of sign from divine figures that they haven't been abandoned.

Here's the funny thing though, I can't move. I am not joking, they're stronger than me. Oh boy, oh pal, this is, oh if you guys can feel the possible pain that I'm about to experience, then I'm so sorry for you and myself.

"No." I tried to say as they were somewhat different from each other. One had a little cut below their right eye, and the other had a missing pinky toe on their left foot. "NO." Little MissingToe was closing in onto me, and he had a rock in hand. "DAMN IT KID, IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A DAY SINCE I WAS THROWN INTO THIS WORLD. I AIN'T GOING TO TRY AND TEST HOW THE FUCK MY RESURRECTION WO-"

And my words cut as the little bugger hit me on the side of my head as the sharp pain really kicked in. I tried to get out of the ropes that they had, but all it did was burn into my skin as the friction from trying to get out of it was painful enough. My eyes were seeing red, and the kid raised the rock again with a dead look in their eyes.

At that point, you have a damn good idea of what I was feeling. How does the resurrection work? Will I live through it? Is it a different me that comes out whenever I get revived? How does the resurrection wor- oh wait I already asked that o-

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/3rd POV/

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And once the little child finally killed the odd being, they knelt down and sobbed as they watched the being struggle and jitter for the last time as it stopped entirely. It was dead, and it was weak when they killed it.

The other elf walked over and pulled out a sharpened bone, but before that, they untied the body and started to get to work. First, the removal of the more odd parts that wouldn't be edible anyways. The hairs, nails, and anything else that wasn't going to be edible in the first place were removed while the other elf knelt with blood in their hands.

Second, the internals. The elf then started below the sternum, but slightly above the stomach as they plunged their hands and the makeshift knife into it. The blood was hot, and it hurt a little, but the pain of this creature's heat was little in the face of what was starvation.

They didn't really know what exactly was inside of the creature, but they tried their best to figure out a good way to make it edible. Most of the cleaner intestines that seemed edible were removed, while the ones such as the small & large intestines were thrown out, since they smelled horrible.

It was foul, the stench of the bigger intestine was pungent as the elf cast it away the moment it cut into it. MissingToe was there as they also smelled what was happening.

The stomach was still hot as the elf got stung a little by the acid that was there. And when they got to the heart, it was still beating a little as the elf that was butchering the body was shocked to see it still moving, even after the creature had finally died.

They steeled themselves as they cut it off and ate it raw, handing over the strange dark organ to what was their sibling. Their sibling, MissingToe, was looking at the strange meat in their hand as they felt sick. It was still raw and warm, but raw and warm was better than rotten and cold.

They bit into it as tears streamed down their eyes as they continue to butcher and eat the creature in front of them. Soon enough, all that was left was the skin, hair, and bones. They fashioned the bones into even more implements by trying to dry it in the tree. But what they didn't anticipate, was the strange fluctuation that came after they did.

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/MC POV/

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'Oh you little . . . ohohoho, this is some Boogeyman shit right here.' were my exact thoughts as I returned from the darkness. Yes, it was a void, up until I was thrown into the same little "realm" that that one goddess gave to me.

Of course I recall her name, Cressentia or Miaoyi or whatever. Either way, these kids, these little creatures that are actually stronger than me. Am I genuinely getting terrified of thinking about my death and chose to not speak of it? Perhaps.

Am I going to go and scare the ever living shit out of them? Maybe, until they're asleep. And the little bastards didn't even have the decency to go and cook my damned body. They just went and ate the damned thing raw.

Well, most of it at the very least. I gotta say this odd. Very odd. There's not a whole lot for me to say anymore. They were above in the tree as I tried to my body and get some of the bones as well.

Thankfully, they left a femur, and a femur is all I need to go and make something good. Now I didn't have any actually tools to break these up and make some actual weapons or implements.

What I did have instead, was a little realm as I closed my eyes, thought about it, and opened my eyes to see the same starry "void" where I would make a good little base. And there, I could feel a headache incoming.

Cressentia didn't say everything about this, and God fucking dammit do I find that a pain. So I thought hard enough to make a nice saw and some fresh clothes for me to work with. And I slowly tried to mold it to what I wanted. It hurt, but even this headache wasn't as bad as the things that I went through.

Gods I'm old, I can still feel the rock killing me dammit.

I had to get out of my thoughts, there was a pair of children that couldn't a lot after killing me, considering their bodies were taking the time to digest "me".

Amazing isn't it, the power to just, not think about an existential issue that literally went so fast that I was already alive again. I need to be a busy busy bee, none of those thoughts. Saw? Check. A giant fucking bag of food for me to consume? Check. A chisel and hammer? Check.

Do I still have this gut feeling that I don't really wanna break the equilibrium of this world so quickly? Yes, very check, however, if I wanna have a chance, I'm gonna try my damnedest to get some workers, and slavery?

Ohohohoho, that damned box is going to be ticked so quickly. There's a reason why they all tried to keep me locked away. I ain't telling it anytime soon. So I shave off the bone and fashion it into a very very crude shiv. Yes, it can be better, but it already feels like a hammer is being bashed on my head, that alone is a big factor for me wanting to not overdo this.

Pain is pain, and I don't wanna have to feel it intensify. There's a good reason why we have a pain threshold, and I do not fucking intend to change that.

After shaving the bone, I grabbed the little haversack of food, and then felt a giant blast of pure unbridled head pain course in me. "Okay okay, no food, just the bone!" I shouted to nobody as I just realized that I was going crazy.

I was going to threaten and enslave fucking children for trying to kill me. Amazing, just stellar you absolute dunderhead, not even a day in and you're already doing shady shit. "We tried to leave that damnable life behind remember? YOU TRIED TO CHANGE!" a voice went through in the realm, as it came from my own throat.

Too much of my monsters catching up to me. This isn't really good. Not good at all. "We go out, we go and make sure that those children don't be a threat to us anymore, and we instill some loyalty if possible. If not possible, we kill, that's the plan." I talked to myself as I steeled what little will I could muster and recall the look of the skeleton tree again. The children in the branches and leaves of it, and slowly felt myself warping.

I do not, and will not, intend to make myself be a fucking meal without expecting anything in return. If I can figure out why there were two elves in a tree consuming my fucking flesh raw, then that might be a start to this shit world.

I truly, truly just hate the card that I was dealt. Unexpected fucking limitations, what a hoot. She couldn't have just made the process ever so slightly easier. Great, beautiful.