A nice meal

So what does Kai do?

He turns around and runs even further into the dark forest.

Dashing under the shadows of the tall trees with the abomination hot on his tail, the cunning mind of a hobgoblin comes up with the best and most efficient way to kill. Pushing its body to the limit, he runs away from the fleshy humanoid figure.

Time passes strenuously slow as the game of cat and mouse continues, each moment, the abomination getting closer and closer. Finally, on the cusp of running out of Mana, the hobgoblin Kai makes his move.

It zigzags around various trees, every tree is just a means to make the abomination lose him. Tree after tree after tree after tree, the hobgoblin continues to evade.

After losing its prey somewhere in the shadows, the abomination stops and looks around, trying to sense where Kai is. It turns its fleshy body left and right, a low hum escaping somewhere on its form. It keeps looking for its prey, but it can't tell where Kai went.

Until its too late that is.

Launching down from one of the thick branches above the abomination, Kai straightens his body as he positions his dagger in front of him. Due to the gargantuan size of the trees, he has plenty of time to build up speed as he rushed downwards.

The air distorts around the blade, as if making way for it to past lest it gets cut. The abomination had no time to dodge before the air strike was upon him.

The dagger cuts straight through the fleshy, headless neck of the nightmare creature, but because of the velocity he was traveling at, the flesh of the abomination is not strong enough to resist the impact,meaning that Kai is now inside the body of the abomination. The beasts flesh swells at the sudden intrusion, but gurgles happily at the meal.

The main train of thought in the hobgoblins mind was how to kill its enemy in the easiest way along with getting its desires fulfilled. Those desires being to mate, which even a hobgoblin has standards and doesn't want to mate with a fleshy beast... probably.

The second desire being to kill, which it is currently in the process of completing that goal. But the third and final desire, a staple in any goblin culture. The third desire is to eat, eat anything and everything.

The abominations body shudders as it feels something stir inside it, a pain nipping at its horrid chest. The pain grows stronger and stronger, its chest feeling as if its about to burst.

In an effort to stop the pain, the abomination stabs its chest with its jagged arm, but that only makes it worse.

In an explosion of flesh and some gooey black liquid, the abominations chest bursts open, its eyes being destroyed too. The grotesque image of Kai's face bursting through beside where the blade was embedded in the abominations chest would be enough to scar children for life.

Hobgoblin Kai claws its way out of the corpse, ignoring the notification it got. It chews the leftover fleshy substance that's left in its mouth and swallows it, Having eaten it's fill, the monster let's out a burp and slump over as it runs out of Mana, leaving Kai to deal with he aftermath.

Finally regaining his senses, Kai groans as he sits up, looking down at his body which is covered in a weird black, gooey substance. His stomach rumbles and he doubles over and falls onto the ground, vomiting his guts up from the absolutely vile taste in his mouth. Tears well up on his eyes at the sheer disgust permeating through his body.

Oh my god.... that's fucking disgusting, what did I do?

Looking behind him and spotting the body of the abomination, his stomach churns as he looks at the hole in the centre of its grotesque chest, almost as if it was eaten from the inside out...

After spewing his guts up again, Kai composes himself and wipes the leftover dribble from his pale face. He doesn't hear anymore cries in the distance, meaning either Aldred killed all the abominations or something went wrong.

Looking around to make sure it's safe, Kai sighs in relief and lies down on a patch of grass which isnt covered in abomination goo or vomit. Catching his breath. he looks up at the pitch black tree tops, all he wants to do is sleep and get rid of the mana deprivation.

Man... I really need to get better at using my Mana, its like shaking a coke bottle and opening it right after when I use it, all my energy gone way too quick. What happens if I have to fight two strong enemies back to back, I'd just die...

A few moments later, he opens his status menu to see how much XP he got... but inwardly curses.

Status condition: Poisoned

Effect: Lose 1 HP every minute for an hour

Shit... I really did eat the abomination, that's disgusting, I'm never using my innate ability again.

He's overexaggerating, obviously he's going to use his innate ability again, but not for a while. His eyes then catch some more text under that and looks down, liking what he sees this time much more but still cursing his damn Luck stat.

Level 13 reached

Obtained 3 unnasigned stat points

Kai frowns, he was still over 60 XP away from leveling up. Another line of text appears under the other two, and for the third time in the last few minutes, Kai curses.

The Ever-changing has granted bonus XP for that splendid performance

Are you kidding me... All that time spent trying to figure out what I needed to do... And it's to give a good performance to that damn gender swapping bastard.

The echo of a giggle is heard in the back of his mind, as if his master is teasing him.

Which they probably are...

Just as Kai is about to stand up, a final line of text appears in front of his eyes, this one possibly being the only one he won't curse at depending on how it goes.

Item obtained

His first damn item, dozens of weakened abominations and beasts killed and no items. Maybe it had something to do with the way you kill them, like just getting the final hit probably has an abysmal chance of getting one.

Looking at the luck stat description again, he sees that it still says helps with gaining items, but it still doesn't say how.

Of course it doesnt... everyone and everything in this damn place loves being ambiguous. I'll have to make a promise to myself that I will never give any mildly obvious foreshadow warnings, strange advice or eat pineapple on pizza. My three new principles.

Since he has to wait for Aldred to find him anyway, he might as well check what the item he got is. And it came from a gibbous moon abomination, so it should be good... right?

Item obtained

Item: Abominable bracers of the gibbous moon (Rare)

Bracers created from the hardened flesh of an unnamed abomination. This item grants the wielder +3 Strength, +3 Dexterity and a bonus to their archery based on those same stats.

*insert inward cursing*

The item looker good on paper, but would have no good effect on him. Sure six bonus stats are nice, but he was never going to use a bow. Archery wasn't for him and he was pretty certain that he had below average eyesight.

Sighing, he equips the bracers to take a look at the things. They form out of thin air around his forearm. The thing is a dark shade of red and has an almost alive look to them, but the feeling of them on his skin reminds Kai of bubble wrap.

The bracers have two thin Sharpened edges on the top and bottom, meaning they can be uses as a last ditch attack if needed.

Looking at the design of the item, the aesthetic of them is a ten out of ten. They look horrifying and cool at the same time. Thin, shiny blades, a deep red colour and good protection for his arms.

Overall, Kai takes back what he says and thinks that this is a pretty good first item. Sure it could've been better, but it also could've been a lot worse. And who knows, maybe once he grows out of them he can give them to someone else.

Still, the name is a bit stupid. 'Abominable bracers?' Be original, then again, what else can you really call them?

The effects of the the poison lingering in his body, Kai feels extremely fatigued and weakened, so he decides to stay in the same place and regain his strength.

... He definitely doesn't just want to fall asleep.

Aldred still hasn't shown up, which could be considered strange but Kai is sure the wolf is just making sure there's no stragglers.

"Right"

The voice of The Ever-changing changing enters his mind, only to utter a single word, but that single word brought a wave of nausea over him as he nearly stumbles and falls.

Gripping his head, he steadies himself as he feels the blood pound and pulse inside his brain. His head throbbing in discomfort and the sudden intrusion of his mind.

What the hell... Groaning slightly, he looks back up and scowls. Why bother to respond just to say I'm right, I know I'm probably right, it's not like-

He stops complaining and realises something, if The Ever-changing really is some sort of God, why would he bother telling Kai he is right, A god would be much smarter and be almost omnipotent, and probably would waste their time or Mana to say it in the first place... so why bother?

Unless...

Turning his head to the right, he spots nothing out of the ordinary, only the same old trees and darkness. But one of these trees has a hole in it's side, a little hollow.

Frowning, he sceptically walks over to that tree and tries to look in, except its too dark inside the tree and he can't see inside.

Panic clouds his mind as he realises what he's got to do, and anytime back on Earth he saw someone do this he would call them an absolute idiot.

He has to stick his hand into a dark hole that he has no idea what's inside.

The Ever-changing must know somethings in here, right? And yhey wouldn't just want me to lose an arm to some unseen full moon squirrel or something. Ah shit... who am I to think I know better than a God.

Regretfully, Kai sucks it up and slowly sticks his hand into the dark hole. As his arm pushes in agonisingly slow, he let's Nonchalance calm his nerves as he takes deep breaths.

After a few seconds, which felt much longer to Kai, he still feels nothing and starts to think The Ever-changing was just messing with him, but then his fingers graze something. A leathery feeling on his fingertips indicates that there's something in there that isn't natural.

After struggling for a few moments, he finally gets a finger under it and turns the mystery item onto its side, allowing him to grab it with his hand and pull it out.

As his hand emerges from the hole in one piece, he sighs in relief. The thing his hand is holding though, he can't say the same for that.

A mess of papers jammed inside a mostly destroyed leather holding is what he pulled out of the hole. Frowning, he wonders why The Ever-changing wanted him to find some ruined journal of sorts.

With no indication on the cover of what it is, a spark of hope ignites in Kai's mind.

Maybe its a skill book or something, those were always common in games and stuff. The Ever-changing is meant to be my master, so maybe they just wanted to be nice. It could be, like, teleportation or something.

Unable to suppress a smile, he opens the mess of papers and starts to read the words he can still make out due to the paper being nearly destroyed. Nothing special happened when he opened it, Kai expected it to say 'Skill unlocked' or something, but nothing of the sort happened. Dissapointed, Kai looks down at the mess of rotten papers, but his disappointment was quickly washed away when he read the first two lines.

'Dear diary

Today I met a God.'