Yarotua

The wind feels so hot and suffocating... And the grass feels so uncomfortable, wait the grass?

Zashiren opened his eyes quickly after realizing something was wrong. He was greeted with a dark and terrifying scene.

All around him were dark purple and withered trees with crinkly white leaves along with corpses of unknown creatures with horrific features.

There were also strange dark and murky puddles of suspicious liquids that looked ominous and gave Zashiren a weird feeling.

"W-What? Where am I?! Everything looks so terrifying!" Zashiren looked down at his body, and he instantly jumped back.

His hands were pale white, he could even see his different colored veins along with the blood flowing through them.

"I was laying down in my bed... Did I die in my sleep? But I didn't go to sleep, I was laying down and all of a sudden a p-" As Zashiren was recalling what happened before he was transported to this mysterious area, an intense pain assaulted his head.

"Argh!"

He clutched his head with his pale white hands as he gritted his teeth. When he touched his head, he felt thick objects on each side of his head.

"There's something on my head?" Zashiren tried to tug on the objects but they didn't budge at all. So he ran his hands up the objects until he reached the tips, which was as sharp as a sword.

"Ow!"

He looked at his index fingers on both hands, which had small pricks in them now.

A single thought came to his head when he saw his fingers.

Horns?

The more Zashiren touched the objects on his head, the more convinced he was that they were horns.

"Why are there horns on my forehead..." Zashiren was so confused that he just sat on the ground in thought for a moment. He was trying to organize his thoughts.

"Sigh...So all I know is that something happened and now I'm in this strange place with horns on my head..." Zashiren facepalmed as he sighed and spoke to himself.

In the middle of this, a black screen with a bright red outline appeared in front of him.

[First Quest]

[Infect & Assimilate your first creature.]

[Description: You've been selected by the Kyranic God Maltaema to be transported to the world of Yarotua because of your mysterious and unknown race. Say Status to see your status screen. Your status screen displays your personal information. STR DEF, etc.]

"...Maltaema? Yarotua? Not only am I in a different world, but I'm also not a human? Status..." Zashiren was finding it hard to process all of the shocking news he received.

He decided to follow the instructions displayed on the screen.

Another screen appeared.

[Name: Zashiren]

[Age: 17]

[Race: ?]

[Level: 1]

[Class: None]

[HP: 100/100 MP: 100/100]

[STR: 10 DEF: 10 AGI: 10]

[INT: 10 DEX: 10 STA: 10]

[LUK: 0]

[Skills: Assimilate]

"This reminds me of the status screens from the games I used to play... So I'm really not a human?" A faint smile of nostalgia appeared on Zashiren's face before he took a look at his race.

Just as it said on the other screen, he indeed wasn't a human, or at least that's what it implied on the status screen.

Zashiren didn't know how to feel about it. He also had many questions, like, were his parents' humans or were they a different race too? How come they haven't revealed themselves to humans yet?

Are other people on earth different races but they just don't know it yet?

Zashiren took a deep breath as his head began hurting again, scratched his pitch-black hair that covered his left eyes, and looked around again.

This time, he was looking for a living creature to use his skill on. Because he didn't know how it actually worked, he wanted to play it safe.

As his golden yellow eyes scanned the area, he noticed tons of scattered corpses, but no living creatures.

Suddenly, as he was looking around, he heard noises coming from behind a destroyed tree and a tiny creature struggling to get up.

"What is that?" Zashiren became alert and looked around before quietly approaching the area of the small creature.

He wasn't dumb, so he knew that whatever caused this area to look like this is definitely terrifying and powerful.

Zashiren wasn't one to believe in fantasy-type things like this world but he was forced to change his entire view on everything after being transported to another world.

Wrrr....Wrr....Rrrr..!

The small creature let out quiet whimpers and they became more clear the closer Zashiren got to it. When he finally arrived next to the creature, he could see its body.

It was the size of a small dog and had bright white fur that was dyed almost completely red from its own blood. Not only this, it had fox-like ears that were folded down and bright red eyes that would intimidate anyone.

As the creature noticed Zashiren's arrival, it became aggravated and it showed its sharp white teeth. Its tail was also fox-like but it had the face of a wolf, a strange combination.

The creature also had small spikes on its back.

Grr...grrr...

Zashiren noticed that the creature was aggravated so he slowly approached it.

"How do I use my skill?" Zashiren was confused at first, but when he thought back to how the main characters in novels did it, he just did the same thing.

"Assimilate."

Suddenly, Zashiren's eyes dilated as he watched his hand turn into small dark particles and enter the creature's body through its nose.

Contrary to Zashiren's expectations, the creature didn't make any noises and instead sat there docilely.

"What's happening? And where did my hand go?" Zashiren waited patiently and anxiously for 10 seconds until his hand was finally reformed by the dark particles again.

He looked at his hand weirdly before another screen appeared.

[First Quest Complete!]

[Moonfale Fox has been assimilated into your servant. You can give it commands and have absorbed its power for yourself.]

[Level: 1 -> 2]

"...Is this what my skill does?"