'Humans don't have souls.'
Or at least, that was my belief in my past life.
This wasn't because I was an atheist, but rather due to my understanding as a physiology enthusiast.
My first argument was that a soul...held no inherent purpose.
Emotions? Merely brain impulses influenced by hormones.
This was why depression could be treated through medication.
Similarly, love was just a cocktail of chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine.
Fear? An evolutionary response triggered by the amygdala.
Pain? A signal from nerve endings to the brain to indicate injury or harm.
Memories? All information was stored within certain regions of the brain, such as the hippocampus. Patients with damage to this region often suffered from severe memory loss. A famous case was that of one Henry Molaison, who lost his ability to form new memories after his hippocampus was surgically removed.
Character? A combination of the above, still regulated entirely by one's cerebrum.
Our personality traits were shaped by a mix of genetic predispositions and environmental influences, molded through neural pathways and synaptic connections.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say that everything the pre-modern humans believed about the so-called immaterial soul was a mere application of physical laws in ingenious ways, giving rise to a consciousness rooted completely within the physical world.
This didn't diminish the sheer impossible complexity of what a human being was, but it made it eventually comprehensible, quantifiable, and replicable.
And even now, even as I fiddled with my very own soul, I would argue against the existence of souls...in my old world, of course.
A world in which magic didn't exist, a world governed by well-understood laws.
A world of overwhelming order.
The world of Danmachi, though...was its complete opposite by comparison.
Governed by arbitrary gods, molded by spirits, following wacky, unexplainable yet bendable laws powered by belief, faith, symbolism, and an all-encompassing fate.
An unbound world that couldn't, shouldn't exist, yet clearly did.
A world shaped by one's imagination.
Looking at it from this perspective, what use was one's brain in the face of chaos?
Quantifying it? How does one measure the power of friendship?
How does one comprehend principles that are changing from one moment to the next?
How could logic apply to literal immortal concepts?
Sure, one can study the effects of their actions through repeated experimentation, gaining a modicum of stability, but such a chaotic universe would never be understood by a human's mind.
Just as a soul would be next to useless in an orderly world, a mere catalyst, playing no role besides a storage space for one's self, allowing for entering the Void after death, so was the mind overwhelmed when pitted against chaos.
"But that didn't mean that one was powerless, after all...for when the rules are naught but soft proposals, who shall prevent me from forging my own...carving the very world with the soul I had been given?"
Even as I spoke in the empty cavern, a growing awareness of my soul coursed through me, like electricity awakening dormant nerves in a long-paralyzed limb.
The sensation was strange and exhilarating as if I were discovering a new part of myself that had always been there, just out of reach.
I could almost feel it as a tangible part of my being, ready to respond to my will and reshape the very world around me.
Yet, it remained restrained, shackled by my lack of understanding, a powerful tool I was not yet equipped to wield.
The potential was there, humming just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment when I could fully grasp and command it.
I wasn't disheartened; quite the opposite, as this wasn't a matter of chance but merely a matter of time.
So, sitting in a lotus position on the Dungeon's stone floor, my legs crossed and folded tightly, my hands resting lightly on my knees with palms facing upward, and my spine perfectly straight, I continued my meditation. Even though the moment of enlightenment seemed to have passed, I remained focused, breathing deeply and steadily.
'One step at a time...'
∞
It had been ten or so minutes since I ushered an overeager goblin toward the 5th floor, after explaining to him what his task was.
The poor guy was quite confused when I told him that the other monsters would treat him as an enemy from now on, yet he didn't seem overly affected by it, which made me suspect some kind of instinctual understanding.
I also exercised my drawing skills, rusty beyond belief as they were, to scribble something resembling a frog on the floor with my claws.
I failed for the most part, as the rock was unbelievably tough, but I was pretty sure the little guy wouldn't bring me a Wall Shadow...if he even managed to survive...
*Sigh*
'...what are the chances he's already dead?' I pondered, letting my thoughts wander as I took a break from internal introspection.
Honestly, I felt a bit cowardly, relying on any being but myself to pave my path to greater strength, but there was scantly any price I wasn't willing to pay for my survival.
There was technically no threat fighting against a single Frog Shooter, but even if the chances of getting jumped by other monsters during the fight were low, who could claim that they were zero?
I refused to gamble with my life more than strictly necessary.
This whole situation was caused by the weird spot I was in, strength-wise, at the moment.
Too powerful for the first 4 floors yet in danger of dying on the 5th.
This could, of course, be remedied through a few days of training and then I would probably be good to go, but why do that when I could simply try to gain a new monster trait?
Right now, I had received barely any improvements to my direct combat ability from what I believed to be the strongest Skill to ever exist in the history of the Danmachi-verse.
Ten sharp nails and a thicker than usual skin, on top of a Liaris Freeze knockoff growth effect.
But the beauty of Fenrir's Hunger, I believed, lay in the overwhelming increase in strength during the later stages as I accumulated tens, hundreds, thousands of monster traits from increasingly dangerous creatures.
Even now, I reveled in the benefits of my heightened sense of smell. Despite the stagnant air within the Dungeon, devoid of any breeze to carry scents, I was confident that I could detect the approach of any being from a much greater distance than my sight alone could afford.
This also made the prospect of sending Golbin to risk his life acting as bait seem like a loss, as I didn't know if or when I would run into another Xenos, especially one that was so seemingly gullible.
But to be honest, there wasn't much he would be able to help me with in the immediate future.
I wasn't planning on acting on my plans to hunt humans until I had the strength equivalent to a level 2 at the very least.
Despite deaths happening daily within the dungeon, I held no illusions that I wouldn't be hunted down and eradicated if any of my would-be victims managed to escape, so a large strength disparity between me and my prey was absolutely necessary to prevent accidents.
Having the green Xenos around me as I trained to enter the 5th floor was also an idea I entertained for a bit, as I could maybe bluff about having a taming skill to curious onlookers, but that would undoubtedly draw unnecessary attention from the many, many adventures swarming the upper floors daily.
It shouldn't come as anyone's surprise that I didn't quite like that option, despite the potential to gain more insight into what made Golbin tick.
As for feeding magic stones to the little guy...that was a real possibility, but no creature, living or dead, could resist the siren call of greed. It was a bottomless pit, a dark abyss that swallowed all reason and morality like a black hole devours light.
I didn't know how much his strength would improve after eating even a few monster cores, but it was safe to say -by a fair bit, most certainly gaining more benefits than me when talking purely about stats.
I also didn't know what effects they had on Xenos, as I didn't remember all that much about them besides that they existed, and testing it on normal monsters would be an exercise in futility as they were already as rabid as could be.
All things considered, I felt that Goblin could be useful if I managed to properly read his personality, yet he was not a priceless asset just like he wasn't irreplaceable.
There was no reason for me to go out of my way to facilitate its survival beyond some possible dividends in the far future.
At least with the current information I had at my disposal, focusing on increasing my personal strength at the fastest rate by any means necessary seemed to be the most sensible approach.
'Only when I reach a level when I can't be smacked around by the weakest of goons, will I start flexing my mastermind muscles...'
My scattered thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a chaotic mix of scents violating my nostrils.
If I had to describe the miasma, it would have been like acidic blood curdled by a brine of salt water - a fetid reek that seemed to blister the inner linings of my nostrils...yet I couldn't claim that I smelled much better unfortunately...
'If I scrub myself with monster blood, will it disappear when I remove the magic stone from the corpse, leaving me clean, or will I just end up even worse? Eh... it's worth a shot...'
With a small frown on my face, I rose from my meditative pose, taking a moment to cinch my new loincloth more securely around my waist. The last one had unfortunately been destroyed in the fight against the horde.
I was beginning to hear the sound of hurried footsteps and muffled yelps, growing in intensity with each passing second.
"Not bad..." I muttered under my breath as two monsters finally emerged from around the corner at the end of the tunnel. A massive, bulb-eyed frog hopped lazily toward a comparatively small goblin, who sported a fresh, bleeding hole through one of its shoulders.
"Not bad at all..."
The sound of my knuckles creaking echoed softly in the cavern as I observed the determined look in the goblin's eyes. It limped toward me, its gaze unwavering, even if he knew that death was right behind it.
He had done his job, and now it was time for me to do mine.
It was time to hunt...