Past, Present, Fantasy

"You know? I was once a hungry bear like you. Passionate, voracious, carefree, full of energy...

"It's been a while since I had those feelings. In fact, I never thought I could experience any sort of pleasant feelings again.

"You wanna know something, Henry? Looking at you... reminded me of my old days... young, naive, innocent, unsophisticated, ingenuous, unsuspecting, oblivious- ah, there I go again, spewing out words where not a while ago I didn't even know what they meant.

"Ya know... I wasn't always like this. I was much more... simple... like you and I...

"Guess that simplicity got me killed... something we both have in common... But hey, don't feel bad! I think it turned out for the better. I mean, being Isekai'd is every otaku's dream. I didn't get to meet any ROB like a god or a beautiful goddess and receive three wishes or anything like that, but reincarnating as Viola Hellstar isn't that bad. In fact, it's pretty decent so far. If I play my cards right this time, I can pretty much do everything I ever dreamed of... and hope if I can... start anew..." Viola said with a bit of sorrow in her voice at the end.

"Oh? You're wondering what kind of a person I was in my past life? Well... it's a difficult subject to touch on, but if it's you then I don't mind sharing. Because looking at you brings back some memories of the kind of person I was... what I did. And I can tell you that it's not good." She said with a bit of warning.

"You see, besides being an otaku, loser, and a shut-in, I was also a soldier. A soldier fighting for my country... fighting for what... I believed in. To others, I was considered a hero. To me, I considered myself long overdue for recycling.

"When I was over there fighting in the field, the people at home thought I was saving lives. They were mistaken. I was doing the opposite actually. There was one time where... there was this operation we had to carry out in a city... We had word that everyone in the area was supposed to be evacuated. Whoever's still left was considered hostile. And boy were they hostile. Rules of Engagement were... 'loose' at the time so we had to call in an ordnance drop when things got a little too messy. After the bombs hit, secondary explosions occurred. The entire thing was a shitstorm. The scene was... well, if hell was real, I bet you can take better pictures there.

"Anyways, we moved in to check if there were any survivors... heh... 'survivors'...

"That's when I heard it. A crying voice of a woman somewhere within the smoke, dust, fire, and death. A voice we all thought shouldn't be there at this time... yet I heard it... clearly... way too clearly despite my ringing ears at the time. The smoke was still too thick so I had to locate the cry by its sound. The sound of agony, anguish, desperation, and pain was in my ears as it got louder the closer I got. When I got there I... I saw this woman... this bloody woman crawling on the ground. I saw how she was desperately crawling towards her baby. My first thought was to check on the baby so my body moved on its own and despite all the burning rubbles and charred corpses everywhere, I managed to find the baby... or at least... what's left of it… So I went to help the mother instead... but when I got to her... I only stared because I realized that... how can you help someone... who was missing half their body? But then here's the real question. How did I manage to sleep every night knowing that... I was the one that called in the airstrike? The answer is... you don't... you just... don't... because when I do… I would see her… that same bloody woman without her lower body… and her 'baby'… the way she stares at me… stared right into my soul… only to make you realize… that you don't even have one anymore…

"Oh! My apologies. Didn't mean to drag the mood down. If you can excuse me as I was just caught up in the moment there like I usually do." Viola said cheerfully, shaking off the earlier feeling of affliction.

"Don't worry, I'm fine! No matter how painful it was as a degraded human, the past is the past. I have a new identity now and that is Viola Hellstar, the degraded Space Vampire! You can call me Vio. Only my friends can call me that!" Viola joyfully said in a cute and prideful manner before slowly going back to her somber expression.

"But still... I guess I should've listened to my dad..." She muttered barely audibly.

"Ah, I need a drink... Jesus, just how big is this forest? I've been leaping in a straight line for almost an hour now and all I see are trees, trees, and more trees!" She complained suddenly, breaking the awkward silence.

She also tried to focus and extend her other senses, but it resulted in similar results; which were hearing and smelling trees, trees, oh, and more trees.

"How about you, Henry? Do you see anything besides trees? No? I thought so..."

'Man, I wish the system had a minimap or something. Actually, it wouldn't hurt to try it.' Viola thought.

"Minimap?" She uttered.

...

"Ok... can you at least tell me where I am?" She asked the system.

...

"What? Ya not gonna answer such a simple question? Aren't ya supposed to be a system granted by some kind of 'omnipotent being' or whatnot?" She pressed.

Still not getting any response from the system irks her a bit.

"Oh, you're one of THOSE systems. It would have been nice if I had something like "Great Sage" instead, but *no* I'm stuck with you, something that reminded me why I dumped one of my ex-girlfriends! Yeah, that's right! I dumped HER! Not the other way!" Viola pouted her cheeks. The 『Cosmic Mind』 skill also played a part in her remembering that memory very clearly which displeases her even more.

Deciding that it's pointless to continue fussing over it, she sighed and quickly calmed down.

"Sorry about that, Henry. Lost my cool for a bit. Alas, looks like it's just the two of us… lost in this green ocean of a forest." Viola dejectedly said.

"Ah well, at least 『Cosmic Mind』 is its own minimap that I just need to map out since I can already perfectly memorize everywhere I've been."

The sun was still up and the sunlight felt great on her skin along with the breeze when leaping through the air. In fact, the light even felt energizing in a way that was hard to explain.

'I wonder if vampires have sunlight weakness in this world... if there are even any vampires here.' She wondered.

"Well, at least I haven't felt tired at all yet. Does this body even need sleep?" She ponders but realizes that she'll find that out eventually.

While traveling for a while now, she also noticed earlier how beautiful the forest was inside. The floating orbs of mana that she can now see thanks to her new skill further amplified the beauty and atmosphere of the forest scenery, making it look like something from a fairy tale. Along with the natural beauty of the forest itself: the trees tower overhead making it like a whole new world when underneath them, the otherworldly natural sounds of nature that accompanied the forest, the colorful wisps dancing in the rays of the sunlight that shine through the cracks of the towering forest ceiling... truly fantasy...

A while earlier, she decided to spend a little time leisurely strolling and exploring the inside of the forest in a much more relaxing manner instead of doing her usual giant leaps to travel.

She met many strange creatures besides monsters. Blue squirrels, exotic-looking birds, colorful foxes, grey wolves with blue undersides that had lightning-based attacks, over 20 meter long serpents, more horn rabbits, and a hungry-looking 20-foot tall bear staring savagely at her while growling ferociously.

The bear makes a fully grown grizzly bear on Earth look like a Chihuahua. And the first thing the adorable little purple-haired loli did when she saw something like that was...

•••

"Oh hey, Mr. Bear~! You wouldn't happen to speak a little English or even Japanese or whatever you speak here by any chance would you? If so, can you point me to the nearest town with a nice bar?"

And the humongous monster bear responded with a "ROOOAAARRRR!"

"Woah, take it easy, buddy! It was only a question. No need to be like one of my exes. You're springing up some bad memories there." Viola muttered, trying but not really trying to calm the giant monster bear down.

The bear gave another deafening roar in response. It wasn't easy on her new vampire ears to deal with such loud obnoxious noises.

'Haa~… guess not. Even though it's a fantasy world, this bear isn't one of those 'Magical Beasts' that can talk like in some Isekai stories I have seen. I can scratch "Narnia" off the list of "Possible worlds I might have transmigrated in".' She thought half-jokingly.

The bear then suddenly charges fiercely at Viola without warning as saliva drips from its huge mouth with its sharp huge teeth in full view. Anyone would have been in absolute terror from seeing something like that charging at them, let alone a little girl, yet Viola on the other hand:

"Oh, what's that? You'll be my tour guide for this forest? That's wonderful~!" Viola said, happily lunging towards the bear and looking like she was about to give it a big bear hug despite her size and the ridiculous size difference between the two.

•••

"And like that, we're caught up!" Viola said brightly.

"And I have you to thank for being such an awesome tour guide and listener, Henry~!" Viola thanked the body of the dead giant bear that she was holding in one of her arms. The bear's body that she was holding by the neck was missing its entire lower half as its intestines were flailing in the wind as they were leaping through the air.

"You even provided me with a nice meal~!" Viola merrily said as she bit into the fat neck of the bear in her arm and drained what's left of the essence in it while mid-jump.

The blood tasted great. Reminded her of BBQ with a smoky flavor. Very filling as well like a full course steak dinner. 'Best tour guide ever!' were her thoughts.

'Am I losing my mind already? That's impossible. Not with 'Cosmic Mind', right? Well unless I even found a way to fuck the skill up as well as I did with everything I come in contact with back on Earth. Wouldn't be the first time haha… I know. Pathetic isn't it? It's still day 1 in this world and not only am I already talking to myself but also talking to a dead bear that I even went so far as to give it a name. I even named the bear after one of my friends that I knew from the military. Dumb idiot got himself killed rescuing a child from the storms of bullets and explosions. I wanted to rip him apart for getting himself killed like that. Guess I can knock that off my bucket list now.' Viola thought with a bit of aggravation.

"But after everything that happened, I guess we're both the same idiots, Henry..." She said sullenly.

Indeed just like Henry, she also went and got herself killed once trying to also rescue a child from a life worse than what Viola had while on Earth. Even now, she still wonders if that girl, Lucy, is okay.

Henry the bear wasn't the only victim- monster that Viola killed. While Henry was 'acting as Viola's tour guide', she also came across many other monsters as well. It didn't end well for any of them.

They were all easy kills for her. Doesn't matter the size or how much most of them towers over her, she was unflinching against every single one of them. With her strength, there was no danger. One good kick to the head breaking their necks was all it takes. All were quite satisfying kills when she noticed how much more flexible her small female body is compared to her old body. For some of the kills she did, she purposely made it overly flashy with acrobatics she never thought she or any human can do. Why? Because she can and because she was having too much fun.

"Ugh, again I wish I had my inventory! All the monsters' corpses would probably be worth some money. That is if I can find somewhere to sell them anyways. I could have also used some of the materials from the monsters to craft some clothes with it, but considering how rough they all were, it'll just bring some unnecessary discomfort and hindrance when I could probably just wait a little longer for some proper clothing maybe. I'm not that desperate."

One other reason why she started finding so many creatures now when before when she didn't find a single forest life in the first three hours arriving in this forest was because after getting 『Cosmic Mind』, she can now also sensed the tremendous amount of mana her body was radiating off that she failed to notice before. It was probably what scared off everything within a 5-mile radius earlier. Most likely during her rampage that caused her aura to give off her body in great amounts unintentionally.

It also explains why the first horn rabbit and the goblins weren't afraid because she was a lot more relaxed during the time and somehow subconsciously hidden her presence. But now that she is aware of it, she can completely conceal her mana presence at will now. Manipulating and perceiving mana came naturally to her almost like she has done it forever thanks to that new skill. Perhaps she could use this to her advantage by using that to scare off things.

As for the amount of Blood Essence she was able to obtain from all the monsters, she was able to acquire over 100 essence which was more than enough for a new skill. The next special skill however required 300 points to unlock which was so much more than anticipated just for the second unlock. So she had to settle for a normal skill. As for the new skill she got earlier, it was...

•••

"Cooking!? What the hell!? Does it look like I need cooking to you?" Viola exclaimed, taken aback by the new skill she got out of all the possible skills she could've gotten that she remembered existed.

[You have unlocked the skill『Cooking Saint』]

Viola continued to stare at the green translucent notification screen with an incredulous expression until the screen timeout at a certain time and disappears on its own from view, making it look like it's saying "Deal with it".

"I don't even need to eat anymore! Sure it was a skill I've maxed out back in the game, but I'm getting it now? And why are you suddenly showing a notification for it now when I didn't see one from the last two skills?" She was grousing, pouting, and stomping continuously which makes for a really cute scene to look at, but she figured that it probably must have been the pain from unlocking the skills earlier that she was too preoccupied with which caused her to miss the notifications last time.

This time, there was no pain when getting the cooking skill. All she felt was a warm, pleasant sensation as knowledge of cooking flowed smoothly in her mind like a calm river as the skill 『Cosmic Mind』 immediately filters and sort out the new information, allowing full proficiency and perfect integration of the skill, already allowing perfect use of it the moment she acquired (or technically reacquired) the skill.

"Ugh… well, I can already think of some advantages of this skill I could have. Like winning the hearts of people through their stomachs! Like if I were to meet a cute girl or get a harem, my cooking could definitely be used to draw them in and gain some approval points. You know what they say, the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach! I know from experience! And the buffs you can get from the cooking is a side bonus, I guess." She said with optimism.

'Well, it's not like I'm planning on getting a harem like almost every other protagonist, but just in case, ya know? Besides… when it comes to cooking, well... I used to cook for my little sister all the time so… so I already have good experience in cooking.'

Viola then sighs and gives a small pout. Seeing her pathetic skill list further adds to the dark cloud over her head when she compares it to the skill list she remembered having back in the game.

"Ya know it would really be nice if I had something like the skill "Predator" or "Gluttony" like a certain slime that would allow me to gain every skill of every monster I drain blood essence from. That would sound very convenient and fucking awesome right now. That damn lucky ass slime… if I see a slime monster in this world I swear I'll turn it into my own personal slimy stress-relieving toy and not the one you're thinking of... maybe... I'll think about it..." she declares with an unwavering attitude before slumping from her assertive posture.

'Hehe... I am losing my cosmic mind...'

•••

'Yup, cooking… If you were wondering what happened to Henry's missing lower body, well… it's in my belly and not in Blood Essence form. Thanks to my new cooking skill, it gave me a much easier time preparing the meal over a fire. Where did I get the fire? I made it. It's actually very easy with this body. I only had to rub sticks together for a couple of seconds by rubbing them at an impossible speed and I had more than enough heat friction to start a fire. As for the spark, I just use my nails to create the sparks like flint. I bled the meat by already draining it of its Blood Essence, skinned it, found some strange blue herbs, glowing mushrooms, and some berries that I somehow knew were safe and great for cooking and smoking the meat (probably due to the influence of the new cooking skill), grill it over the fire, and voila! And the results are...'

"Oh, it tasted great! Really great! The balanced flavors of the aromatic ingredients were perfect. The meat was cut up nicely and thinly with my nails and the meat itself was cooked to perfection making it nice and juicy and there was plenty of fat to make it nice and oily. It was also extremely tender thanks to me easily tenderizing it earlier by pounding it with my strength. The fact that I could make something this good over a fire with minimum ingredients and equipment was astonishing. It certainly takes me back to nature even though I'm literally am right now. Guess it was worth it when I decided to test out the skill out of curiosity. Thanks to it, I knew exactly what I needed to do to make it the best meal yet!" Viola couldn't help but caper joyfully in mid-air like a child while recalling the delightful event.

"That's when I also get to confirm that I can eat regular food despite being a vampire. So I devoured the whole thing including the bones as they were about as hard as french fry to me. The crunchy and smoky taste of the bones and the rich and sweet taste of the bone marrow further complements the dish. Hey, don't look at me like that! The shit's good!

"But I gotta wonder where the whole thing went since just the lower half of the bear was already well over twice my size. I didn't feel stuffed nor did I feel like I gained any weight afterward so I found that a little bizarre. Just more strange mysteries of this weird body…

"So what did the meat taste like? Tasted like a bear. Even better when this bear is not much of a fish eater so it tasted like fine beef. Although the taste was much stronger than I remembered. It's either because it's a monster bear or my vampiric tongue. And here I thought vampires only have a taste bud for blood.

"Oh sorry about that, Henry. I know it's a little rude to be talking about how good you tasted right in front of you~ I'll change the subject now."

Viola was still leaping thousands of feet in the air trying to find at least the edge of this forest while also trying to imitate Superman's first flight from time to time but still failed to truly fly. She was getting better and better with her landings at least. So far, she hasn't crashed once, but actually leaping continuously further increases her pace of covering distances.

As she was leaping in the air, she started thinking about how she'll proceed when meeting the inhabitants of this world and if she'll play it 'stealthy' or 'gun blazing'. Indeed all this power that she possessed and her vampire race requires some rumination. Like how will this world react to someone like her? But no matter the reaction, she won't let it bother her this time.

"And besides, living a "carefree" life where every day you are constantly worrying about your identity and ability being exposed in some way isn't exactly carefree. In fact, I think it's stressful in a way because you're just straight up hiding and not solving your problems. There's nothing carefree about living a life in the shadows where you are basically stressing about every little thing while hiding your life from the public when problems continue to arise. Trust me! I know from experience! And it was a painful one...

"The way I'll live my life this time will just be like in the game; where I don't give a single fuck about what people think of me. I can do whatever the fuck I want and I'm not gonna let some dickhead tell me how to live my life. So with that in mind, I'll live my life in a world where if it doesn't agree with me, I'll force it to. Not hiding in it like every other parasite as I did on Earth. I'm done with that shit! But for now, until I know what I'm dealing with, I'll at least keep my vampire identity on the down-low for now just to be safe. If that gets exposed, then oh well. I'll just find a way to adapt. It's one thing I'm truly good at rather than trying to avoid danger since danger always seems to find me anyways. I'd rather adapt to it than keep running away from it and I'll live my carefree life after I have taken out all the trash.

"So yeah, fuck stealth! Since when am I ever known for stealth plays? Is it rational thinking? Since when am I known to be rational? You agree with me, Henry?" She looked at the bear and asked while giving a cute smile.

Nothing but the sound of a piece of organ falling out from the bear's lack of a lower half body responded back to her.

"Great~! I knew you would agree with me... like you always have been..." Viola said the last part a little quieter.

'Of course, I still need to be cautious. Reincarnated into this body, I feel like I'm at the top of any world, but I can't let it get to my head. There will always be a bigger fish somewhere. Moving in the shadows waiting to strike. Anything can happen in a fantasy world. I know that from experience... from reading lots of novels.'

One thing that has also been on her mind for a while now is her 『Cosmic Mind』 skill. For one thing, the skill was amazing! She was wondering what it would be like at 'full potential' or whatever that meant. She has a good hunch that unlocking the Seal on her State will bring the most fruit. And even if it's not, it wouldn't hurt.

'Another goal of mine is to find a way to get my body age appearance back to the way it looked when I designed it, which was a hot, sexy, ravishing, curvaceous, voluptuous, babelicious woman whose beauty seems to defy the very common sense of beauty and Newton's law of gravity even though a PC monitor. You just have to wonder how such an appearance would look like in person...'

Viola couldn't help but start blushing and getting sidetracked in her daydreams of what her original character's appearance used to look like before snapping out of her perverted state and continuing her train of thought while still blushing and surprised at the same time that she could still get turned on by that appearance.

'W-While on the subject of unlocking my seal, I'm willing to bet that it's the way to go as it seems like the most likely scenario. Opening that seal, however, doesn't look easy, especially with how slow I'm taking things since I'm not in any rush. Let's set that as my long-term goal in this world for now.' She continues to contemplate to pass the time.

"Maybe I could-" she was cut off from her train of thought mid-jump when her ears picked up on a noise. And this distinctive noise fully got her attention.

The noise could be described as metal colliding against each other as the sounds of human shouts of both male and female could be faintly heard by her from about a hundred kilometers out. She then heard another faint noise which she could clearly distinguish as a high-pitched scream belonging to that of a woman.

"A cry for help? And more importantly, *sniff* *sniff* it smelled like humans! At last! I can finally meet another perso-"

*Crash*

Viola was interrupted yet again when she failed to stick the landing of her last super-leap due to her being distracted, causing her to crash into the ground and bounce across the floor for meters causing big craters to form every time she bounced.

"Hyaa-"

*Crash*

"Shit-"

*Crash*

"Waah-"

*Crash*

Her cries were cut off every time she bounced across the ground until she stopped bouncing about a hundred meters away from her initial crash.

As the smoke cleared, inside the last Viola-made crater laid Viola on her back coughing and spitting a bit of dust out.

*sigh* "Another happy land…" she quoted as she slumped where she laid.

Groaning, she slowly sat up. She wasn't in any physical pain. Just the pain of the humiliation by the embarrassing stunt she just pulled after being a little too cocky for a while now.

"Uugh, Cosmic Mind, what the hell happened? I was just saying how good you were. What happened to extreme thought processing and acceleration? Parallel processing?" She questions before realizing that she probably hadn't had it active subconsciously.

This new mind needed some time to get used to before Viola could fully utilize it perfectly. But thanks to the boost the skill had already given her, that won't take long.

Currently, Viola found it a lot easier to get used to being a girl especially since she had gotten used to shittier situations in the past than getting used to having a mind that can suddenly think a thousand things in a nanosecond. The skill even helps her adjust to her new body quicker thanks to the fast and stable mindset the skill gave her.

'I have a lot more experience adapting to any kind of situation than thinking. Living as a girl now is the 'adapt' part which I got down on the first day, or at least just accepted it like how I accepted the nickname "Tweedledum" by my friendly and kind drill sergeant while James that was right next to me got "Tweedledumbass". Thanks to that, he was deemed as my battle buddy and much to my annoyance, for the entirety of basic training, we can never separate when we go places for the entirety of basic training otherwise our DS will kill us if we're ever caught moving separately.

'As for the 'thinking' part, well, you see the thing is, you don't have to think at all while in boot camp. Your drill sergeant will do that for you. I may have been a guy for 30 years before, but it only took 3 months in basic training with the devil as your drill instructor and 10 years out in the field to have a different mindset altogether. Because of that, I can get used to a lot of things. But having a brain that suddenly gave me something like a four-digit IQ isn't exactly one of those things.' She thought, trying to justify her embarrassing moment while recalling 'fond' memories of her old days.

'Or maybe I'm just overthinking it yet again and it was probably just due to the bad habits I have developed over the years. I guess even this skill can't completely get rid of old habits and classic idiocy. Ah, I'm getting sidetracked again. Old habits...'

As she spent time musing about the past, and by spending time, it really meant spending no time at all doing so thanks to thought acceleration, she turned to Henry that was right next to her.

"Yo Henry, you all right?" She said, looking at the carcass of the bear. Even though before it was missing its lower half, at least it was in one piece while she had it in her arm. Now… not so much.

"Oh, guess not…" She said nonchalantly as she stood up.

Staring at the censored carcass of the bear, she couldn't help but be reminded of the real Henry.

"You were a great tour guide and... a great listener, Henry... just like how I remembered you to be... Rest in pieces again, brother." She patted the head of the bear, or what's left of it while paying her respects.

"Alright! That's enough of that. For now, it's time to haul ass as there are humans to meet!" Dusting off the dirt and dust from her body and acting like she wasn't just pretending to lament for Henry a second ago, she decides to no longer waste any more time on irrelevant matters as she now has her full attention on a matter that was on her mental list of quests to complete; and that is finally meeting the inhabitants of this world.

Immediately, she made a massive leap towards the direction of the noises she heard, closing the distance at a shocking speed. It was only now that she could finally spot the edge of this massive forest from a distance, an edge where she was beginning to believe never existed minutes ago until now.

"The edge of this forest! Fucking finally!" She gasped in excitement and relief.

Even though there was still a lot of distance between her and the source of the noises, she was already able to accurately sniff out the scent. She then put her sense of smell to use and tried to gauge the situation over there by smell.

*Sniff* "There are about 30 to 35 people- no 33 to be exact and all humans. A little over half of them smelled like they desperately needed a shower. I can also smell exposed blood making the scent of blood overly strong. That means blood is being spilled." She discerned all of that by scent.

"My guess is, it's a bandit attack. The sound of metal clashing and women screaming in desperation, the smell of rust, the scent of open wounds, and the scent of weeks without a shower which is a trait that sounds like it belongs to a bandit in a fantasy world. Yup, it's a classic fantasy bandit attack." Viola concluded.

In truth, she was excited about the whole situation. The thought of finally getting out of this forest and meeting people just to play a classic Isekai cliché moment is thrilling for any otakus. But she decided to suppress her excitement for later and focus on the task at hand as lives are at stake. Like one of those superheroes that she used to admire in the past, and even when she never saw herself as one, she won't stand by while innocent people are in danger. Not when she could do something about it. Let's hope it won't get her killed like last time when she tried to play hero.

It turns out that her conclusion earlier was on the money as her telescopic vision was now able to clearly make out the scenery ahead over the hills which looked exactly as she guessed it. And the situation isn't looking too good for the good guys.

"C'mon... make it on time..."