8. Blessed Curselessness

|"They are all fools."|

|"It was a little one. Harmless, a mere slime. Yet the three feared it."|

|"[Pride] cursed it with savagery and instability. I told him not to, but he feared what it was."|

|"[Envy] cursed it to forever depict a living creature. How foolish, so obsessed with the natural, she even gave it more curses. "For the safety of the world" my ass. The other two didn't go this far."|

|"Then that paranoid dog [Lust] as expected, corrupted the thing to fear his oh so fragile and helpless mankind. A psychopath ruling over sociopaths. The longer I spent with him, the more I wanted to just freeze my brain right then and there."|

|"I pity the creature. Damned since creation. Hated from birth, all because-"|

"What is that?" I moved to peek in the shadowy man's book as he read it.

It was the next day. As sunny and bright as the thick forest allowed. I carried the spider monster's coreless corpse on my back.

He pulled the book away from my face before I saw anything. He looked displeased. "Don't do that."

"Why? What is that?"

"This is where I store my important memories."

"Why not store these memories in your mind?"

He sighed. "I wish I could."

"I don't understand."

"Living beings like me simply don't have memories as undecaying as that of a polymorph." He poked my forehead. "The monster core is quite spacious despite its size."

"I see, but that book is thin. How would you know your way home?"

He lifted the book horizontally, its pages flipped down endlessly, every single one of them filled with walls of text. It was as if the book despite its width had a grand library's worth of pages somehow dimensionally fitted. All that knowledge, so delicious, if only... I could get a little closer.

He suddenly closed his book. "Wait, what am I doing? You forget nothing." He looked at me with worry. "You didn't read any of that, did you?"

"No. I didn't understand the symbols." I said monotonously, my great despair unobvious.

"Oh... of course." He closed the book and sighed. "Now what are you doing? I told you to look for a monster."

"Why? I gained the power to more effectively capture humans? Why am I hunting for monsters?"

"Because you're not strong enough. I'm sure the average adventurer can easily compact you into a little insect ball."

"But that didn't happen to me, twice."

"Then they were below average adventurers." He yawned and started reading his book again. "It's preferable to be safe. Something something 'better safe than sorry.' Some humans are weak, others are strong, then there are those blessed by God. Really dangerous."

"God? Are they a polymorph?"

"Kind of? Well no, not really. But, eeeeeh."

"I don't understand, are they a type of human then?"

"If humans believed *really hard* that they were human, then yes, they would be human, or at least look like one"

"I don't understand."

"Whatever, just do what I told you."

"I see. Where is the nearest monster?"

"No, I'm taking a break. I've used too much mana these few days..."

I stared at him as he read his book silently. It took him a few turned pages to realize my glare. "Uh... what?" He raised a brow.

"You're useless."

"Alright, fine." He lazily looked around and pointed. "One over there, around 100 of your body lengths away. Another one there, 200 or 300, no idea, I've lived for several hundred millenniums, but math has always been my bane." He looked behind me. "Oh." He grinned. "One right there, 10 scypedes away."

I turned around, but saw nothing different, only dense foliage. "I don't see anything."

"It's right there in front of you, fool."

"Where?"

He disappeared into mist and popped up among the bushes, and pointed at something. "Here."

I looked carefully, and finally noticed it.

A reptilian hunched bipedal chameleon-like creature, whose skin had blended with such perfection with its surroundings, even creating fake shadows on its skin. Had I not looked for the slightest peculiarity, I wouldn't've detected it.

It noticed my gaze, and remained as still as it could.

I tidily dropped the spider monster's corpse nearby, and I readied myself.

Then I immediately pounced at the chameleon. It tried to back away in panic, but it was too slow. I crashed on it, throwing the creature to the ground on its back. I immediately grabbed tightly with my scythes, then in a short moment... I unleashed my green flames, engulfing the creature in searing inferno.

Suddenly it punched me, a heavy blow with a shockwave that reverberated my insides, throwing me away from it. I landed a distance away on the shrubbery, and quickly carried myself up standing, my underbelly cracked. The creature rushed towards me, waving its large muscular arms everywhere, smashing everything in the way as it quickly drew nearer and nearer. The fire that covered it slowly melted its flesh, driving it into a suicidal frenzy hungry for devastation. It looked like it was planning on taking me down with it.

I turned around to leap away. But it suddenly crouched down and threw its arms to the ground behind it, and in an instant blew its upper muscles up as it shredded every single fiber from chest to arm just to launch itself at me with dangerous speed. I jumped prematurely to the side, but the creature as it zipped past me was able to grab one of my legs with its burning tail. It pulled me with it and we both crashed on the side of a titan tree.

"Do you need help?" The demon waved a hand from the foliage far away.

"Yes."

"No you don't." He grinned and continued waving.

Before I was able to recover, the burning creature rammed me into the bark rapidly, causing multiple blunt impacts each second. The burning creature with all its reflexes screaming from its melting flesh turned it into a shaking adrenaline monstrosity. I stabbed a scythe onto its chest, but it did not stop. Its constant trembling and erratic movements trapped my scythe deeper into its body. My carapace began to crack as the screaming monster crushed and bruised itself on me, its own head beginning to bend misshapen as it cracked and warped on my armor.

Then... the buff chameleon began to slow down, as its nerves had completely burnt. Its face and scales turned into a black mush as the fires were satisfied, until nothing was left unscorched. The creature collapsed on me, spasming.

"Good job." The shadowy man smiled. "And I didn't need to help you."

"Why didn't you help me?"

"Alright, I'm not trying to get you killed. I just can't keep helping you over things you can do by yourself. If I continue like this, I'll lose control over this body. I'm already getting quite..." He looked at his hand. "Numb. Besides, I could tell that it wasn't a threat."

"I see..."

I looked at the burned corpse, and pushed it off me. I pierced a scythe through its already fractured skull. The monster struggled slightly with its last working muscles, but it was barely able to move a limb. I easily pulled out the core and the monster fell. I held the orb on my claws. This one felt a lot more imposing than the other cores I've touched. There was more power within this one.

"Interesting." He said. "That should be enough for you to create your first child."

"Why? Why would I not just eat this core?"

"Because two is better than one, and three is better than two. More is better than less, most of the time. One of the reasons humans are so successful is because of their teamwork. If you want to stand toe to toe with them, this is necessary."

"I see. So... like Mother, I will make a clone with this core?"

"Child, daughter, clone, whatever you call them, yes. As long as their bodies aren't too different from yours, you should be allowed to control them. Though, this one core is not enough to make a sufficient daughter-child-clone, the Goddess really turned soulcrafting inefficient with her curses, but creating an incomplete and crippled child is good practice. This way, when you do have the resources, you won't create malfunctional abominations incapable of anything else but self harm."

I looked at the core. Uncertain of my next action.

I thought it was a waste to recycle this core, but I must trust him.

I put the core into my mouth, and swallowed it. I decided to modify the core inside me.

"That's... unorthodox, but every monster does it differently… I think. You should inherently know how to do it. Hopefully. Don't you dare just absorb it."

I should know how to make it, but I was not sure. The core lay in my stomach, stagnant, seemingly unchanged. I thought... have I done it? I did not know.

A few moments of waiting. The demon was leaning on the tree, reading his book. Suddenly, I vomited the core on the ground. The core appeared... the same, with the energy within unaffected.

"Oh, did you succeed?"

"I don't know."

"What? How do you not know? You should know. You're a scypede, surely you inherited your mother's soulcrafting?"

"I don't know. How would I know?"

"Fine, fine. Just get the biomass ready." He started reading his book again.

I began to eat the spider monster I dropped nearby, and the chameleon after. After a while, I had finished. I moved towards the core, and vomited grey goo onto it.

The core absorbed the nutrition, and began to construct its flesh. First, the skull... then I froze in realization. Scypedes have exoskeletons, they don't have skulls or bones. I understood I did something wrong. It's not a scypede.

The being grew and grew. Muscles over bone, then a thick layer of bright red scales. It's natural color when it's not blending to the environment.

The demon looked up from his book and was shocked, he choked on his saliva and started coughing.

The chameleon monster stared at me, somehow, it seemed different. Like its eyes... so empty... like an ant. It irritated me, I wanted to claw its eyes off.

The monster with its large arms grabbed its two chameleon eyes and pulled with full strength, violently tugging them several times before finally succeeding in ripping them off.

"Wait... *cough* what? What was that?" He coughed again.

I realized something.

*I wanted it to lift its hand.*

The monster lifted its hand.

*I wanted it to lift its foot.*

The monster lifted its foot.

"Y-you. You're controlling it?" The demon caught on. "How? How could- no, this is not... no, no way." He looked with shock for a few moments, then a grin formed. "I can't believe it...I really can't... hahahahaha... you're a deviant! You're a deviant after all! That's precisely it! Absolutely! I- this is perfect. All of this... perfect."

"Are you okay?" I said as I made the monster spin around without end.

"Of course! I am perfect, and you are too! Don't you get it! You... you... you can only be... no... I can't be too sure. But you're so completely incomplete! Being able to control monsters with a vastly different physiology... you will bring this world down to its knees." He laughed hysterically.

"What do-"

"Every nation of every continent! Poof! Gone! Dead! Razed into insignificance! Hahaha! I can't believe it! Everything is beyond my expectations!" He looked at me. "Avarice! We must proceed! Let us look for more monsters!"

Suddenly, the chameleon loomed above me and smashed my head down with its fist, forcing my face into the dirt.

"W-what!?" He exclaimed.

"I'm okay." I reassured him as I pulled my head free from the soil.

The chameleon suddenly stood back, and remained still.

"I understand now, it becomes independent when I lose focus."

The demon's excitement immediately died, and looked at me with a face that aged a decade in a single moment. "I suppose it was too good to be true." He sighed. "I suppose we must take advantage of this uniqueness of yours…"

"Why did you call me Avarice?"

"What?"

"You called me Avarice a while ago."

He looked at me frozen for a moment, his eyes widened as he realized his mistake.

"Oh... I see, I mean... I just... I forgot to tell you, well... forgot to give you a name, but I'll tell you it now. Avarice, is uh... who you are."

"I do not believe I desire wealth or material gain."

"No, no, no... it's not that. It's your mother's name. A lot of humans have the same names as their ascendants, or whatever's the opposite of descendant, ancestor maybe, no, parents, yes, same names as their parents! What I'm trying to say is that it's not unusual, so don't think too much about it. It's a good name, right?" Strangely, he faced away. He exhaled a cold mist.

"I understand."

I looked at the red chameleon monster. I thought it should have a name as well…

I wondered… what should it be?