POV David
Pffff... Pffff...
'My breath is short, I can barely breathe,' I thought, as I ran as best I could to run away from these imps.
'Shit, I was just born into this damn new life! I wasn't asking for much, just a little rest!'
'What an idiot... I should have run for my life as soon as I woke up. It was obvious that the hunt for Sloth was about to begin!' I continued, gasping for breath.
In the Sin Realm, of the seven deadly sins, Sloth was the only one to start with several debuffs from the start. In addition to waking up last, he was the weakest and slowest of all his siblings.
Thus, the majority of the bearers of Sloth died in the early phases. It is for this reason that the veterans of the game avoided this sin at all costs during speedruns.
'Shit, I'm starting to see blurred from fatigue,' I thought, my legs buckling under my weight as the mocking laughter of the imps echoed around me.
"Shit, I'm falling!" I cried before collapsing heavily to the ground.
'I have to get up...' I didn't have time to finish my thought when a spear pierced my abdomen.
"AAARH!!" I screamed in pain, my screams echoing through the dark walls of this tomb as my grayish blood splattered all around.
'I'm silly... Holy shit, it hurts like a dog,' I thought as I choked, tears blurring my vision. Raising my head, I met the imp's gaze, who was smiling macabrely.
'That bastard is laughing at me... He takes pleasure in seeing me suffer.' Despite the unbearable pain and blurred eyesight, I couldn't help but notice what was going on around me.
The imps I thought were after me, en masse, were actually sitting quietly. They were munching on my siblings' eggshells, completely ignoring me.
The hundreds of meters I had thought I was going to walk were actually only a few dozen, no more.
The imp standing above me, seeing the despair in my eyes, burst out laughing. He drove the spear into the ground, immobilizing me further, and then walked away, leaving me half dead in a miserable state.
'I understand now... They didn't chase me because of my slowness. I was so panicked that I didn't even notice they were making fun of me.' I thought, rage rising in me despite my uncontrollable tears.
"I made a mistake, a big mistake. I, a so-called adult, forgot an essential detail when I arrived here, and this realization hits me hard.'
I clutched the spear stuck in my abdomen, my thoughts becoming clearer despite the excruciating pain.
"All my life, I ran away from my problems and responsibilities, and it led me to a miserable death. Here again, I tried to flee, and it didn't get me anywhere.'
With renewed determination, I will be the teeth and whisper to myself, 'I don't know who is behind this: God, fate or something else. But it doesn't matter... I refuse to die miserably a second time.'
Gathering all my strength, I broke the spear that pierced me with a sharp crack.
The noise caught the attention of the imp, who slowly turned back to me, looking intrigued.
"What do we have here? The small capital sin is rebelling?" he said with a petty smile, openly taunting me.
"…"
"Hey ho, I'm talking to you, motherfucker! Don't tell me you're too scared to answer? How adorable it is! You didn't piss on yourself, did you?" he continued, bringing his face close to mine, his disgusting drooling mouth almost glued to my skin.
"Come on, go sit down nicely and I'll come and devour you later..." Before he finished his sentence, I pierced his skull with the tip of a spear that I now used as a dagger.
"You stink of mouth, you dirty bastard. Learn to shut it, will you?" I said, piercing his skull with all my might.
"Argh, you bastard motherfucker! I'm going to kill you!" he yelled, hysterical, as he used his claws to slash me.
One of the reasons the Sin Realm was so unforgiving was that there was no notion of "critical damage" for monsters. It was therefore impossible to kill one of them in one fell swoop, unless they were annihilated entirely.
"Honestly, thank you," I said, twisting her arms.
"Huh? What are you talking about, motherfucker? You're going off the rails...!" I didn't let him finish his sentence and sank my fangs down his throat, tearing off a piece of bloody flesh.
'Yes, thank you. Thanks to you, I was truly able to be reborn. And above all... thanks to you...' I thought, slowly chewing his flesh before swallowing it.
'Thanks to you, I'll be able to survive a little longer in this world.' I continued, wiping the blood from around my mouth.
"Fuck, you're disgusting, man. Seriously! Even expired meat from convenience stores tasted better," I said, a cloud of smoke starting to slowly escape from my body.
"And to answer your question... whether I was scared or not."
In the Sin Realm, the deadly sins, though considered major demons occupying the top of the food chain, were born in a miserable state, barely better than imps.
However, despite their disadvantageous beginnings, they all possessed a unique ability that allowed them to survive in this hostile purgatory.
"I don't see why one devil would be afraid of another devil," I said as I continued to devour my prey, my wounds slowly closing.
That was their regenerative power: no matter how severe their wounds were, as long as they devoured flesh and drank the blood of their victims, they could recover quickly.
'My wounds are closing... It tingles me slightly. That taste, smell, feel... everything disgusts me. I'm on the verge of vomiting, but I have no choice.' I thought, continuing to eat ferociously without stopping.
'To survive, I can no longer afford to run away from what I don't like. I have to move on, even if it means losing what made me human.'
'Yes... That's it, my wound in my abdomen is almost healed...'
I was suddenly interrupted in my thoughts by a violent blow to the back of the neck, making me let go of my prey.
"Damn, that motherfucker is dead!"
"He really lost against this waste?"
"What the hell is this? We leave him unattended and this is the result!"
'…'
There were nine of them. Nine imps, ignoring me completely, preferring to focus on the corpse of the one I had just killed.
'I'm really in shit... If it weren't for the flesh of that swelling, I'd probably already be unconscious.' I thought as I struggled to my feet, still holding the broken spear as my only weapon.
'I only have one card left to play if I don't want to die here!'
I stuck the tip of my spear into the ground and sat down, feigning a calm that I did not feel at all.
"Hey, come and avenge his death! This guy deserves to die!" said one of the imps.
"yes, good idea."
"I'm following you."
They walked forward in a group, their eyes shining with hunger and impatience, convinced that they were going to devour me. But unfortunately for them, they had forgotten one essential thing: they were facing a fucking cardinal sin.
"Hehe, I'm going to aim for his skull and kill him with one blow!" one of them shouted, lunging at me to stab me with all his might.
Ting!
"Huh? What's that?!" he exclaimed, stunned.
Its blade had just stopped against my skin, unable to hurt me, not even scratch my flesh.
"What is... this bastard did it?!"
"Shit, what the fuck?!"
'Hehe... I knew it would provoke these kinds of reactions. And that's normal. After all, it's one of the most cheated skills of Sloth.' I thought, remaining impassive.
Restful Inertia, a passive ability of the cardinal sin of Sloth, activates as soon as it survives a hunt and devours its first prey. As long as sin remains still, it becomes totally invulnerable to any attack.
"In the game, this skill was a risky bet. If you were inactive for more than five seconds, you were kicked out for inactivity. But here... It's not a game anymore.' I thought, my face frozen in absolute neutrality, terrified that even one of my muscles would move.
"Frankly, I never thought that just sitting down would activate that damn skill. But good for me.'
While relaxing my muscles to the maximum, I continued to think: 'For now, I'm going to focus on my recovery... Then I'll improvise.'
…
Thus, long minutes passed. The imps tried everything they could to kill me, but to no avail.
"Fuck it, I'm giving up! Guys, I'm going back—"
Taking advantage of their inattention due to fatigue, I stabbed the closest to me without hesitation.
"Shit, the garbage has woken up!"
"Guys, come on! We have to finish it!"
'I'm surrounded... Honestly, my chances of survival are low. Am I afraid? Yes, damn. I'm fucking outnumbered.' I thought, clutching the tip of my spear with all my might.
'But am I giving up? No. Out of the question.'
A smile appeared on my face in spite of myself.
'I'm fucking scared. I don't want to die like that. But I have no choice. I have to wear my balls... Shit, I'm going for it!'
I leap forward, ready to lunge at them.
They hesitated. I could see the doubt in their eyes. Their previous attacks had been useless. They didn't know how to approach me anymore.
'You bunch of fools, you're making my job easier... I'm not going to be embarrassed.' I thought, before making a circular attack, aimed at their legs.
I didn't have enough strength to cut them cleanly, but it had the desired effect.
"Aaargh, my legs! Damn, this bastard is much stronger than we were told!"
Panic set in. Fear, despair, confusion: everything was visible on their faces.
My attack hadn't hit the whole group, but my previous actions were enough. Even at the lowest level, I knew that these inferior demons, impressionable by nature, were easy to demoralize.
Imps were one of the weakest species of demons. Individually, they did not pose a threat. But to face them effectively, it was necessary to break their group cohesion.
"I've got it, guys!" one of them shouted, taking advantage of my slowness to grab my arm.
I retaliated immediately, splitting his skull in two. But in the effort, my fragile arm was torn off.
'I'm to death, but I can't stop.' I thought, on the verge of fainting from the hemorrhage.
Gritting my teeth, I picked up my spear again, holding it tightly despite the pain. My determined gaze and the smoke emanating from my body were enough to awaken the primal instinct of my enemies.
"This look... It's the same as that of our predators! Fuck, guys, run away— aargh!"
"Too late. I'm not going to let you run away!" I shouted, stabbing as much as I could with my remaining arm, already in a pitiful state.
Each blow became more difficult. I lost my balance, my movements were slow, clumsy. My body was screaming to give up. But I refused. I had to show my lust for life.
The adrenaline anesthetized my pain, pushing me to continue. But my body wobbled several times. I was just a breath, a shadow of what I was at the beginning of this fight.
"Die... Die... Die... Die."
It was the only thought that kept me standing as I butchered their flesh, over and over again, relentlessly.
…
After more than half an hour, my body was soaked in their foul blood. My right arm torn off, the left broken because of the effort. But I finally regained my senses.
Standing there, wobbling before the misshapen corpses of my opponents, I realized that I had succeeded. I had killed them all.
"Finally... I ended up killing all those bastards," I whispered before collapsing to the ground.
"Damn... If someone had told me that I would have so much to shit during my second life, I would never have believed it."
These were my last words, full of innocence and ignorance, before I sank into unconsciousness.