‘Today, is a sad day for the world, no for all of humanity….no for all women…a sad-sad day.’ Sora thought as he pushed the last of his slime into a pit.

‘Yeah, it’s true if you have heard the rumours, I have lost my family jewel. The Kohinoor of the crown is missing…I searched high and low, far and near; but my efforts were futile and in vain. I mean I found my chewed up ear and other tiny of the tiniest organs but the most important one was missing…Why? Why?’ Sora jumped into the hole he dug up. The sun was going to be up soon.

‘Can I even be a considered a hu-man now? I am just some monster…some slime monster…no I can’t even use slime anymore…just a skeleton warrior…This is a punishment far worse than death.’ He thought as he let out a sigh.

These were the strange thoughts of the person who destroyed a quarter of one of the Empire’s most well defended city.

A city that has remained untouched for nearly a hundred years was brought to a standstill by the actions of a single adventurer in day. Even the grand siege a hundred years ago took more than fifty days before the insides of Feladonia burned.

Feladonia was brought into a state of panic, not by a high level adventurer but one who had been fighting rats till a day before. A level one adventurer (now higher), who had no idea how to use magic, who was unable to use his power…or had the slightest idea how to use rules effectively…. An adventurer whose greatest concern was finding his crown jewel….

This day would forever notoriously be known by the Alliance as ‘The day Feladonia stood still’ and by the Empire as ‘The day of Shame’…by Sora as “The day I lost my manhood.”

***

Sora’s POV

I spent a week in daze; completely shocked – not having it seems to have crushed me (ego) but I think I was finally able to recover when it occurred to me this was just a game….

I mean it’s not like I lost the ‘real’ one right…not that I can log out of this game….which means losing it is the same as losing it in real life?

It gets seriously depressing when all my thoughts loop in a cycle.

So for how I have decided that it is better to focus on where I am right now and what happened during the chaos. During all the chaos and soldiers fighting soldiers, I was able to move about peacefully and search for parts of me (except I never found the most important).

The slime stuck to my body so it was convenient that I didn’t have to carry it; however it no longer felt part of my body - it felt more like external clothing or armour. Therefore, I preferred carrying it around in my makeshift bindle.

I even stole some clothes which were hanging out to dry from the street. My curtain was in complete tatters, I would have disposed it but it serves well if I need to pretend to be a beggar….before the chaos subsided I left city.

***

Sora took a deep breath.

“So they really are gone.” He muttered as he realized he no longer has his guardians with him.

Sora was sure that the Abbe had been killed, he wasn’t so sure about the other two – his mental link with the other two was really weak – an indication that the two of them were very far from him. However, Sora interpreted very weak link as nearly dead.

The negative thoughts compounded on each other, killing any hope Sora held on to.

Just to clarify, Sora is not feeling sad for the loss of his Guardians – well he is feeling sad for the loss of his Guardians but not in the sense as one commonly grieves for the dead. Sora was grieving for the pawn pieces he lost.

This world was nothing more than a game (his logic to hold him mentally intact especially now that he lost his crown jewel). Therefore NPCs by that logic were not real which certainly implies guardians are merely chess pieces.

Sora viewed this game as nothing more than chess. Of course it wasn’t as simple as chess…which only has 2 raised to the power 155 outcomes…Ruler of Rules resembled real life and thus was infinitely time more complex. Regardless of the complexity, Guardians were his pieces and Sora was mourning for losing his “important” pieces – not for losing his comrades.

Sora looked up blankly at the night sky.

“Where do I go next?” He wondered. If the Abbe was here, he would have been able to guide him….but now he had no one by his side.

Sora considered his options very carefully, for the time being he spent the week creating as much gap as possible between him and Feladonia. It was likely that Feladonia had begun pursuit of him….at least he expected this much from them. Given all that he saw of Feladonia he was certain whoever was controlling the Empire was an exceptionally capable person. It was likely posters of Sora were being circulated across the Empire….possibly even a large reward on his head….all this meant Sora needed to be as far away from the Empire as possible.

[I must be several leagues from Feladonia….even that monstrous Cardinal should take some time to catch up to me….I’ve also taken plenty of precaution of making sure I leave minimal trail…but still…with those guys you never know….]

Sora picked up his bindle which was pretty massive as it contained all his slime and began walking by quickly. Compared to his pace as a slime, Sora-Skeleton was much faster….as fast as a normal human walking. Furthermore, Sora-Skeleton had huge reserves of stamina. So walking long distances was not a problem. Incidentally, for those wondering, Sora was not eating raw rats (since the Abbe was no longer here to start a fire). In fact wasn’t eating rats at all as Sora-Skeleton didn’t eat anything at all.

Initially, not eating anything worried Sora – he wondered if there would be any adverse consequences…but when he realized that he didn’t feel hunger and nothing happened, he forgot about this worry. Sora also no longer felt thirsty, so there was no need to keep himself hydrated either. In turn it also meant that Sora had no need to worry about the temperature / climate he operated in….since he felt nothing. Sora could no longer feel the heat of the day or the coolness of the night. To some degree Sora also lost his sense of touch, he could feel texture of the sand beneath his feet but not as well as before when he was a slime. Even in his vague memories of being human, he felt he had a better sense of touch. These changes didn’t bother Sora…

Other than that Sora still lacked immunity to sunlight – it was now worse than before. The corrosion and damage he took from sunlight had increased significantly. In addition to that unlike his slime body there was no regeneration of damaged bones. Furthermore, Sora could no longer use all the other organs of different creatures he had used to create his body – they appeared to be compatible only with the slime body. Sora hypothesized if slime were flesh and muscle then skeleton mode was simply (and only) bones.

Despite the several disadvantages, Sora preferred Skeleton mode to slime mode. It felt more human like…something which he seemed to be forgetting more and more as of late.

There were times when Sora felt he was more monster than human. A terrible number of times he had weird dreams of bloodshed and gory…more than seeing bloodshed, he had a craving for inflicting it…he was seeing pleasure in violence…it bothered Sora. He never had such thoughts before, so it was completely alien but somewhere inside him, Sora wanted a bloodbath. Sora was lusting for the blood of the Cardinal who killed the Abbe.

Ordinarily, vengeance is something Sora would keep on a to-do list and tick it off when the time comes. However, a skeleton warrior is born out of darkness and evil. Sora was currently possessing this “evil entity” so it was not plausible that something or “someone” was interfering with his way of thinking. – That was Sora’s conclusion.

Once again, Sora was not bothered by these changes in the slightest…though he ought to be…but the feeling of wanting to kill, wanting to see blood spill felt so good…that Sora was too casual in his attitude to bother about it. Sora rationalized as long has he has “free-will” he doesn’t give a damn about his personality….but were those really this thoughts?