Second's The Charm

Exactly like the last time, two guards led the way to a teleportation room—didn't expect anything special, yet when the time came for teleportation to take place, the magic flowing through my body—which I also had to permit—was strangely easy to read—is it because it's going directly through me? It's complicated, but I can sort of feel the framework for the magic.

Before I could get a proper grasp on it, we were teleported outside. No tree stumps in sight—a bunch of massive marks of blank ink were present instead; are these remnants of shadow magic by any chance?

Upon stepping on the marks, our shoes were inked which would leave black steps behind us.

Subsequently, I felt a tiny whirl of magic come out from Nemo and thus I glanced at him—he held his hand up and a compass came out of it; he didn't say anything, just put it in his pocket and then voiced, "well then, let's go everyone!"

"Oh," I accidentally let out—new monsters by the walls! "Dantes, what's up?" Asked Soyeon, hearing my surprise.

I looked at her and answered, "nothing much—you've seen these monsters before?" 

Skinny shadowy stick-men were walking up to us—they were slow, but unlike shadow slimes, they seemed actually hostile. "Shadow Drekavac, Level 1," voiced Ku nonchalantly, then added, "they're a piece of cake—let's show him what we got, Soyeon!"

They're trying to impress me—that's adorable.

Both of them dashed towards them—they immediately killed the rough gang of five or so drekavacs; they did it in style—what a clear attempt to show-off.

"Easy! That was nothing," said Ku while cheekily smirking, "right?" He glanced at Soyeon, "yeah!" She answered joyfully.

"Yeah, I have, Dantes—they're really weak but fun to beat," stated Soyeon; I didn't answer.

We got back to peacefully walking; Ku and Nemo were in front, whereas Soyeon and I were somehow at the back.

I was silent, but Soyeon decided that that wasn't good enough for her, "say, you like ravens, Dantes?" I glanced at her without any emotions and, obviously, also emptily answered, "not really, why do you ask?"

She broke eye contact and, with a mild stutter, replied, "uh… no— no real reason, I guess…" Was this her way of trying to start a conversation? Really? Fine.

"There's been a lot of ravens flying around today though… kinda weird, don't you think?" I asked without thinking much; it's a true fact, but I was just trying to be polite.

Yet again, she looked at me—what a shy girl, constantly running her eyes up and down, "right… I was thinking about that too," she then yet again began glaring at the ground; she's so awkward, can't help but want to squish her to death.

Decided to commit slightly harder, "anyway… umm… if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your last teammate?" Quietly asked with intentional anxiety appearing in my voice.

I didn't particularly care what happened to him, but I was bored and just a tad curious about other dangers outside the walls—they do a pretty good job at keeping information outside the walls classified, after all.

She stopped in her tracks while staring down as if she just saw a bag of gold; what a dramatic bitch. "It was…" she paused, "...gruesome," she said with a troubled expression.

My answer showcased more confusion than concern, "I… see."

"We all started glowing, then before we knew it, he was gone—it was teleportation," I guess teleportation magic really is pretty common, isn't it?

"All of us teleported together, except for him," everyone stopped by now and stared at us having the conversation.

"Then when we found him, his head was…" Soyeon began tearing up; I had to give in to the social cues, "it's okay, Soyeon, you don't need to say anything else," I put my hand on her head and softly hugged her.

His head, huh… In that case, Xter and I were pretty lucky to only lose our limbs; I'm assuming the teleportation caused that, which is concerning. I'll have to ask Nemo or Ku about it more later; this raises some red flags for me.

Our walking ensued, and hours had passed—the sky was becoming dark and us setting up a camp was just beyond a mountain.

One strange thing about my new body was that I no longer felt the need for any sleep—I did continue sleeping regularly, but it was more of a conscious decision rather than an urgency.

I abruptly opened my eyes—knew what's about to happen, something tingled my brain in a warning type of way. Got up—what's this sensation I'm picking up; looked around from one corner to the other, trying to orientate and figure out what's going on.

"BAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaahHHh!!!" Instantly, my eyes went up; proceeded to quickly run out of the tent to see what made that sound.

Nemo was already there, standing in position; can't say the same about others.

"BAAAAAHHHH!!! BOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…HHHHHHHHUHUHUHH…"

Three giant green birds with oversized heads!!

"Be careful, Dantes!! They're level 4!!" Subsequently, Nemo put up his hand and took a deep breath—I could sense his MANA surging all of a sudden, rapidly, explosively boiling in a way that was begging for it to escape.

I glared intently—I was observing him and his MANA; I did not give two fucks about those birds, they posed no threat to me or my interest.

Nemo, as if glitching out in a video-game, disappeared for less than one second—in a blink of an eye disappeared and appeared, with a loud metal sound subsequently following everything up.

The birds dropped dead with shadows leaking out of their bodies like liquid—I couldn't understand what had happened, nor have any grasp of how this spell worked.

Ticked me off—are the Systems encrypted or something? I could more-or-less understand barrier magic from just my hand touching one, but trying to understand this makes me feel like I'm trying to eat dirt and somehow derive its full composition on a microscopic level.

"Dantes, stay on guard!! There might be more of them!!" As he was saying that, Soyeon and Ku ran out of their tents while struggling to dress up fully.

There's no more of them—I don't know why I can tell, but my perception was definitely out of this world—and it's only getting better as I devour people.

That said, only now I noticed—I didn't inherit any of the memories from the last two that I devoured, only from Xter and Ella—I wonder what's up with that; I still have a long way to go in order to understand my abilities, I guess.