(sorry for the bad format last chapter. I fixed it up this time)
As the lizard came inches away from piercing straight through Zera with it's horn, the knight ran forward and did a thrust through the monster's mouth and skewered it cleanly. It twitched for several moments as blood started to pour from it's mouth onto Zera's lap which caused him to faint. Although he was in a dangerous world, the place he came from on Earth was very civilized.
After a while he felt a tingling sensation and woke up to see a short girl with a crimson leather robe on. She had long dark hair which went half way down her back, and her green eyes were vibrant. She was very pale skinned. Zero tried to sit up from the surprise and they accidentally collided heads, sending the new girl falling back and Zero hunched over holding his forehead.
The girl whined for a moment before quickly checking to see if Zero was okay. He stared at her for a long time, not understanding anything she was saying. . . It seemed like a lot though.
"Are you ok?! Did I give you a concussion? are you perhaps feeling dizzy? I didn't mean to startle you I just ---" The knight from before put his hand on her shoulder and kept a slight glance away from Zero. He couldn't fathom why that man couldn't look at him for one second.
After following the subtle glances of the guy, he remembered that he was now a girl and he was naked ontop of that. Feeling slightly ashamed of his behavior he covered himself with little hesitation and the girl offered Zero her robe. He put on the robe and then looked at them curiously as they made conversation about him which he couldn't understand. All he could understand was the archery guy seemed to jokingly thumbs up the knight and kicked him toward me to seemingly encourage him... 'Dear God I don't want to like a man, even if I am a female now!' He nodded his head, finally coming to the fact that he is a she now.(aka switching to she/her to avoid confusion)
Zero got up and took a few steps back and the knight face-planted from the Archer's light kick. Zero subtly laughed and the girl seemed to stare at her. At first she couldn't tell the girl's intentions but there seemed to be a minor obsession with her laugh. 'Maybe she didn't like me laughing..?'
The girl calmed down and pointed to herself, annunciating very clearly: "Alice" Then the rest of the teammates followed suit in the introductions.
The knight nodded and said in quite a confident fashion while he indignantly got off the ground.
"Kale."
Kale wore silver light armor along his legs and chest with leather clothes below it. He had Black short hair which had a nice combed look. He was about 5 and a half feet tall and had a nice peach complexture.
This scene almost caused Zero to laugh but she held herself back for the sake of his pride.
Suddenly an arrow could be heard and the archer winked at Zero as another lizard fell dead a meter or two off from the group.
"I'm Leo."
Leo had long green hair which went down his shoulders partially. It was well kept. He seemed slightly older, maybe around 30, and had elvish ears. He was around 6 feet tall, with quite the light toned white skin.
. . . Zero could not hold back her cringing but thankfully a mission screen popped up to save her from this situation.
--- Mission Granted! ---
title: Learning the Kona Emperium Language?
description: You must help the group escort to the Tree of Knowledge, otherwise in your world mythed as a World Tree.
Reward: Capability to speak the Kona Language.
Zero sighed in relief and pondered what to call herself. 'Zero sounded too masculine, wouldn't it.. How about Zera!'
She pointed to herself and forced an overly shy and kind tone to keep face so they would be more willing to listen to a request.
"Z-..Zera."
Alice squeeled quietly from the cuteness Zera boasted. Zera had no clue how to feel about this at all.
Kale cleared his throat lightly to call the group's attention. Zera noted his slightly concerned look and waited.
"The client is getting a bit irritated with our pause. we need to get going. That and I don't trust that.. creature.. fully. It isn't any species I recognize. They have a human body.. but their pupils.. They have points coming out like an x, and they have that large singular spiked wing."
Kale briefly pointed to the huge tree. Alice and Leo nodded in agreement and waved to Zera.
Zera panicked for a moment and ran over to them, pointing to the tree and to her and them. She was trying really hard to make them understand she wanted to come along, and thankfully they understood pretty easily and agreed with slight hesitation and a glance between eachother reassuringly.
A few hours passed and they only got about half way to the massive tree. The roots jutting out look like any tree would but they were like massive runways for anything even going near it.
"I wonder what caused such a big tree to grow like this. It reminds me of an anime I watched if I'm being serious."
Zera made the comment with little hesitation but noticed that the group stared at her with confusion. She then recalled they spoke different languages.
Kale muttered to Alice and Leo
"I wonder what she's talking about. Don't you two?"
Alice nodded to Kale briefly then walked a bit quicker to go up beside Zera who was slightly ahead of the group.
Alice arrived on the right side of Zera, opposite of her one wing which was currently curled up close to her shoulder. Zera had absolutely no control over her wing and she didn't even know she actually had it.
Feeling bored and not noticing Alice, Zera she tried to use her system mentally.
'If this is like anything I've seen before.. Status. Inventory. Map.'
First status popped up. Bright neon blue letters which force Zera's attention appeared. Alice could not see it, although Alice was curious what Zera was looking at.
--- Status ---
Level: 0 0% progress (0/10 Cores absorbed)
KINETIC: 2.0
SPIRIT: 2.0
IMAGE: 2.0
Class: undecided. Reach Rank 3
--- Details ---
Gender: Female
Race: UK / Error
Suddenly the screen began to flicker once race appeared and the words went red.
--- ERROR RECEIVED. Isolating. ---
The details screen disappeared. Zera was no closer to understanding what was going on. she felt an odd pressure in my chest and lost balance. Alice noticed this and immediately caught her. Alice panicked but luckily Kale walked up and offered to carry Zera. For the next hour Zera stayed unconscious, her breasts pressing against the Knight's back. He would never live this down.
A loud noise woke Zera up. She looked and noticed she was now on the ground.
'what is the noise-- He's fighting some weird 4 legged goblin thing?!'
The creature in context had the upper body of a 2 and a half foot goblin which was bony, perhaps starved, but 4 legs came out in a narrow >< shape. Each leg went out about one foot before making a 90 degree angle to the ground the remaining foot in length. It was quite the creepy sight.
The view infront of Zera started to static before a slightly glitchy text appeared before fixing itself Midway.
--- Mis---sion Gra-nted ---
Title: Kill th-e Corpse Stealer
Description: A goblin has been mutated by a level one Corpse Stealer and is attempting to kill Kale.
Difficulty Level: 0
Reward: Basic Weaponry Set: Wooden Staff, Iron Dagger, Light Bow.
Zera muttered to herself, "This'll be fun.. I haven't tried combat I guess."
She got up quickly and ran towards the Corpse Stealer. Alice yelled quickly for Leo to stop Zera but Zera was incredibly fast it seemed.
Alice caught up to Leo who had stopped Midway and spoke in short, tired breaths, "Have you ever seen someone run so fast..? It's like she is bounding through air.."
Leo didn't reply. He was dumbfounded that he got completely outpaced by a girl who was unconscious until just a moment ago.
Meanwhile, Zera passed by the knight and punched the Corpse Stealer in the jaw, snapping it sideways with a loud crack. The amalgamation was staggered long enough for Kale to slice its head clean off from the base of the shoulders. Blue blood spewed out for a moment and it fell backwards.
--- Mission Completed ---
Reward added to your inventory.
Another mission screen popped up right after.
--- Mission Granted ---
Title: Loot the defeated Corpse Stealer.
Description: Place one of your extremities on the corpse and you will be given permission to loot the monster so long as you have participated in the defeat of this monster.
Reward: 100 Elemental Coins
Upon noting the mission's reward she figured it'd be worth doing. 'I wonder if Elemental Coins are some form of currency. I should do it anyways because monster loot is essential I assume.'
Zera placed her hand on the Corpse Stealer's chest and a small neon blue writing formed infront of her.
--- Loot ---
Do you wish to loot "Corpse Stealer Difficulty 0?"
Y/N?
'Yes'
Corpse Stealer Difficulty 0 looted.
Obtained 1 Soul Shard
Obtained 1 Corpse Stealer Core
Obtained 2 Goblin Ears - good for medicine.
The body disappeared as a puff of smoke that swirled around Zera briefly in an upwards motion before absorbing into her black wing which was adorned by red spikes coming from the 3 joints of the wing.
The person being escorted who seemed like a researcher curiously walked over to Zera. He seemed more like some old man who doesn't have any time to spare if he wants his bucket list done before he dies of age. He was hunched over all the time and had little bits of grey hair still intact. His azure eyes were still very lively though. He barely hobbled over 4 feet tall, and was snowy white in complexture.
He faintly forced a question with his weak trembling vocal cord.
"You there... New kid... Y--you.. You absorbed that there Corpse Stealer... With your wing.. How.."
Alice and the others were looking at Zera with the same surprised look as if she just defied physics.
Zera tilted her head. She still couldn't understand them, although she could tell what he meant and shrugged.
Alice went over and whispered to the scientist about Zera. He nodded and simply went back to the middle of the escort, Leo stationed behind him and everyone else grouped ahead.
They arrived at the tree another 30 minutes later and took a break. The mission from before popped up.
--- Mission Complete! ---
Reward: Language of the Kona Emperium. Data beinng transfered to your Cerebral Cortex.
The information of the language flowed through Zera and she understood it without any issue due to the nature of the system
Zera contemplated how to make an excuse for the sudden learning of their language and then shyly spoke up to the 4, "Hello.. I'm sorry I couldn't speak before. My memory is going in and out."