『Processing...』
『B-Rank program has been created based on world data.』
『Program Directory updated.』
『☼Hound Keeper☼』—『: Expend radiation and living material to create a linked hound. 』
Robert's mind took a few moments to catch up with all the thought messages he was recieving.
'Hound keeper... I don't quite understand what this is supposed to do,' he thought to himself. He had assumed that this system was just here to help him regain his senses over time, so then what 'sense' was this related to.
'Perhaps it's a new sort of sense, after all, this isn't a human body.'
He reached out to the section of his mind where the messages had come from, and thought explicitly about the words 'Hound Keeper'.
With that, he felt something warm begin to well up from deep within him. He dug harder, thought with even more intent and the warmth began to spread.
It rushed from his core and shot out beneath him into the pile of flesh he was still standing on.
The entire area began to glow a faint green, with odd symbols floating around the flesh pile's perimeter.
'By the heavens.'
Chunks of flesh began to move, rolling over each other and clumping together to form a perfect sphere.
A familiar feeling crept up Robert's mind. It had been the same feeling he felt before the nuclear bomb had detonated. A foreboding sense that what he was creating would come to change the world.
And so he thought the words that so haunted him during his time in the void of death.
'And now I am become death,' he thought as the sphere began to pulse with an ever brightening green.
'The destroyer of worlds.'
『☼A hound as been created!☼』
『☼Please assign a system name.☼』
'A puppy?' Robert though to himself, watching as the little creature that had spawned from the sphere struggled to walk towards him. It's small mouth opened and closed as if trying to bark, and it's little eyes were barely open.
'Then you meant a literal hound keeper? As I can create dogs?'
'This is beyond science, in fact, it's in the realm of sorcery,' he thought to himself, all reasoning he had a moment ago seemed to go out the bin with this discovery.
Sure he was now a puddle, and the world he found himself in was a strange one, but that was all different from him having any hand in it. For him to be able to create something as complex as life, from the dead material of another creature... to him that was the power of a god.
'This is unnatural,' he thought, as the creature rested beside him, trying and failing to snuggle against his puddle body.
'It's cold.'
The puppy, much like the hound that had died earlier, lacked fur. And so its fragile tiny body was exposed to the weathers.
[Cold... mo-mother.]
'What, what was that?'
Just like with the system messages, Robert could instantly tell that this was not a voice speaking to him, but rather a thought being implanted into his mind. But it held a different tone from that of the system.
Where as the system was robotic, almost emotionless in its way of communicating, this thought message held an almost rythmic, breathing quality to it. In fact, he could almost feel the very cold that its owner spoke off.
It did not take long for Robert to figure out who it was.
'How are you doing that?' he thought. However after waiting a few seconds for a repsonse he got nothing.
The puppy just stared at him with its pitch black eyes, shivering whilst attempting to snuggle against him. Like a child looking for the warmth of its mother.
Robert reached into his mind, searching for the area from which the message originated, before throwing a thought in that direction.
[Hello?]
The puppy's ears perked up, and it tilted its head in excitement.
[Mother?]
The puppy moved closer.
[Me cold... I'm cold.]
The thought messages he was recieving from the puppy were crude. It took a second to convert the rather primitive expressions into words he could understand. For instance, what it had just sent him was an expression that felt like 'self' and another that felt like cold.
'Ignoring the morality of creating a living creature from the corpse of another, this... creature is my responsibility now,' he thought to himself.
And he had to admit, he had been deathly afraid of being the only thing in this hellscape. He was more than willing to entertain a companion, even if it was a puppy small enough to fit in a pocket.
'I need some place warm, but I didn't see anything like a shelter while I was up on that mountain,' he realized, before turning his attention to the cave on the other side of the frozen lake.
'No, whatever attacked the last hound is clearly in there,' he thought, remebering the two glowing green eyes he had seen in his vision earlier.
He looked at the puppy, at how it seemed to shiver ever more violently with every passing second. 'But it'll die if we don't go there,' he realized.
'How am I going to do this?'
[Stay here,] he told the puppy, before hesitantly approaching the cave.
'Perhaps whatever is inside was also injured during its fight with the hound,' he thought. Though he knew that it was wishful thinking.
When he finally reached the mouth of the cave, he slowed down. A faint trail of red was coming from deep inside, however he was uncertain what that meant. Was it an injury from the beast within, or some other sad creature that had fallen into its clutches.
His train of thought was interrupted as the puppy wobbled ahead of him, its snout raised to the sky, sniffing the air.
[Blood... food mother.]
[I'm hungry... going to hunt.]
Robert's mind froze as the puppy braved into the darkness of the cave.
[Hunt!!?? Your eyes are barely open!] he shouted back, chasing into the darkness after it.