Hmm.
Hmmm.
Hmmmm.
I cannot begin to describe my weirdness right now.
I am genuine about this. I don't quite have a clue as to what I am right now, but I can understand that there's an actual additive effect to eating my own meat.
I shit you not, this was on the level of a harem protagonist in those Japanese books that I used to read. Gods this is a tad embarrassing isn't it?
Well, it's been a couple more days anyways and I finally have regained access to the little "realm" that I am going to absolutely exploit.
Exploitation can lead towards increased chances of survival for someone like me. But it can simultaneously also lead to the death of someone that isn't me. And sadly that's a bit of a boring little thing, well, boring wouldn't be the right word here, but considering my status right now, boring is pretty good.
Boring means that I don't need to deal with anything that's superbly deadly. And deadly thing are deadly, obviously enough.
But in all other cases, I will be getting more supplies for the next week or so. Tools, mainly. And so I resigned myself and my mind to the darkness once more as I opened my eyes and saw a thousand billion stars before me, the infinite expanse right in front of my eyes, unfettered and unyielding to everything except for the cloying hands of entropy.
And I was just here to make a better looking little "apartment" for myself. It hurt everytime I slowly but surely added more walls to the place, using concrete and pretty paint for it. And by the time I took a look at the work, it wasn't half-bad. Relatively large enough for me to have multiple rooms, and I could obviously make this in the third dimension, so stairs are going to be a thing that I have to make as well.
I couldn't quite feel the same migraine as before, but I can pretty much say that there's a dull pain there, it's just that it's really really tiny compared to the last time.
'Oh my, how articulate of you to make me a hold my good host.'
I turned around and saw an ever-changing symbol that was just floating right in front of me. "And I assume that you are the wendigo? Considering you're the only other thing that's talking to me aside from myself."
The thing laughed at me as the rate at which the symbol transmuted rised sharply before the the thing had finally finished reacting to what it found risible within my statement and question.
'Ah but of course my dear host and father, I am the "wendigo", albeit I would much rather prefer that you treat me less like a parasite and more of a friend. After all, we're both in this together at this point, there really isn't any other chance for both you and me out there in the world if we just outright decided to not work with each other.'
I ignored the symbolized parasite as I tried my best to recreate a bottle for me to make use of, but the closes thing that I had was a jar, a metal one. I'm pretty sure it'll corrode in due time, but if it's a good steel, then it might not.
'Oh, ignoring me? How quaint of you sir. Absolutely outstanding performance and reaction to me simply offering some degree of help to the both of us. Even more so since I have the access to most of the memories we've forgotten.'
"And that's why I consider your words to be odd creature. You say you have our memories that have long since been cast to the grand void, and yet here I am, not seeing you tell me or show me that you do have our memories.
Trust needs proof at times sir, and this instance is a very very relevant case to it."
The symbol slowed it's changing shape as I stood up from my squatting position and looked at it. 'Hmm, I suppose it would be very remiss of me to not show my capabilities, and I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for not giving proof. The things you have here are...quite interesting.'
"Yes yes of course they're interesting" I waved my hand as I focused my head to making more implements to work with, such as, a box of matches. 'Allow me to demonstrate then.'
The moment I heard it's words it felt like a hammer strapped with a jet engine on its back slammed right on my temple as I crumpled to the ground in pain.
I couldn't get to it, it was just drilling itself to the very core of my brain. I screamed in the suffering as I opened my eyes and saw that there was something forming in front of the symbol as well. It was a very odd thing. A bloody axe, and I was not joking.
A serrated, blood-crusted axe. The same axe from my past. 'And here we have a winner! It took me quite the while to properly get it out of your head, but I found this little tool amongst the hundreds that you have had the absolutely joy of using!'
The pain slowly went away as I made a mirror for myself and winced a little from it hurting more now. Ah, my eyes have gone bloodshot, and my face is just pale.
"Is this what you mean by having access to our memories? Rending my mind asunder, running through the temple of my head looking for old wounds to scratch and bleed out? Because if that's the case, then I would seriously doubt that I'd like your "help" with my head. I would much rather prefer the ability to actually turn into a proper wendigo, you do know that right?"
'Oh but is that not just a physical aspect of the power I can grant thee? And why would you waste your time with slowly but surely getting to the finish line when we can always sprint.
We're in a world that's so moldable and yet here you are, waiting for cliches and actual factions to be birthed when we can just take the world already as per the contract with Cressentia! It's foolish of us.'
"If we're going to play it the speedrunning way then I might as well try to conjure up a fucking nuke and destroy the world then! Of course we have to take it slow. The contract states that we are conquerors, not outright worldbusters! That's stupid! Well, until a threat bigger than us occurs, but the future is never truly set in stone is it?"
'Well-'
"Don't you fucking dare."
'But it's not a stupid idea!'
"It is to me! As I said before, no MMD. That's the dumbest possible option we could go for."
'Very well then my dear "brother". We'll play that way for the time being. Oh, and do keep the axe with you. It's a bit of a souvenir for the sake of having souvenirs.'
There's no better way to say it, the wendigo is an actual threat to me. It's a bit too knowledgeable for my tastes.
And that's saying it lightly. There's a lot of threats and I can say that a threat from within does have significantly more value than a threat easily dealt with.
But that'll be for another day. The week's pretty much over with and the time spent within the realm was essentially equal to hours outside. Yes, a few minutes of headaches is equal to hours outside in the real world.
Beautiful really. I really hope I don't grow to be cynical, if I do though, well, I hope that I won't be that bad. And I close my eyes once again and thought to leave the space behind again. And just like that, I was back in the forest, relatively close to the skeleton tree and the clearing. But the odder thing I've seen was that there were a lot more leaves on the ground than what I recalled.
I didn't originally pay it too much mind, as I made the walk back to the tree, which was still as verdant and green as I first saw it.
What intrigues me is the fact that this thing is still healthy and photosynthesizing even though it's bloody autumn. Well, I guess that's magical properties of a world and odd elven death runes for you. I left my haversack down again as I opened it up and grabbed the normal supplies and clothing for the little ones.
I was trying to get into woodcutting recently, since there wasn't all that much for me to teach them since they finally got a good idea of how to use the English lexicon. Grabbing something from the very bottom of the bag, I sighed as I looked at it.
A notebook and a very very simplistic #2 pencil. Yup, time for me to try and learn more about myself. I looked at my hand, knowing that this would count as one of the dumbest things that I could do to myself, and put a finger inside my mouth. More specifically, my middle finger.
Hear me out, yes, I do need a finger to write. But I placed in my right hand's middle finger and not my left, since I was left-handed.
And then I bit down as hard as I could, and oh boy, it did hurt. But when I clutched my bleeding finger, I saw that it was cur clean through, hell, I could see the bone and miniscule little blood vessels there. That was horrifying to me, simply put as I took out a bandage and hoped I wasn't terrible at patching myself up.
Well, I will be killing myself later again to fix any damage, so nothing new there. I went to the notebook and pencil as I began to jot notes down.
I was capable of strengthening my bite force, and even outright morphing my fucking teeth for whatever reason, before I erased strengthening and made it say that I was more along the lines that I was intensifying it, giving more speed and force, akin to a crocodilian or anything of the sort.
They had some of the most terrifying bite forces, and they're designed to last for fucking millions of years. And to think that there were supposedly versions of them that were fucking galloping across the lands. Horrifying, yet majestic, classical thing from mother nature herself.
And so I looked at my finger, or what should have been it as I could still feel it inside of my mouth. It was bony, terrible amounts of flesh to actually be consumed.
I cannot believe that I was writing about how terrible the quality of meat my finger was. And yet I wrote, making sure that I did my best to get a good enough description of what was going to be the first of many many entries into the notebook.
And I was more than sure enough that I wasn't going to just be talking about what parts of my body was delicious or not, I was going to make sure that I didn't forget, not like those days. I don't want forget the looks on their faces. I don't wanna forget how they asked me to spare them and their kin.
Needless to say, that's a story from the past that I doubt many people could care for. And so I dealt with the paper for a while before I got up again and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in what was once my right middle finger and the bloody hat was coming out of it.
Climbing up the tree again, with more difficulty than usual due to my bleeding from me not having the proper knowledge on how to properly dress up a wound. Oh boo hoo to me.
I got up, looked at the two of them as they were just watching the clouds above us, with me wondering what would they even be thinking of? The next meal? The meal after that? Something even further?
What would be the best option right now? Well, there really isn't one, I just sat there on the branch with them, looking at the passing clouds above me as I slowly but surely got closer to the land of dreams with every single one that I watched pass by.
And when I awoke at night? Something really special. Low lights from the tree were coming from somewhere, and the children were also asleep when it was happening. There was a certain beauty to this place that made it worth taking a look. And yet, I know for a damn fact that there's more than a dozen possible ways for me to get killed, and that number is fucking cubed when it comes to the animals that could put me six feet deep, or in a stomach.