It turns out that I am male, something I hadn’t actually bothered to check when I was so numb that I couldn’t tell automatically. This was good, not because I had any particular bias towards being male, but because humans have a tendency to create patriarchal societies. Okay, so it would be more accurate to say that humans tend to make class-based societies, regardless of how irrelevant the differentiating feature they based it on was.

I had always suspected that it was a manufacturing error, something that had slipped through in the original design. Either that or that was intended for some greater reason, which was always possible. Technically, it was also possible it was my fault. But, seeing as that would mean I screwed up somewhere, and I am naturally basically perfect, that option seemed unlikely.

I had also gotten a better look at the rest of me on my trek through the forest. The first thing I noticed was that this body was rather unhealthy. It had clearly been under fed, and I suspected it had had either some sort of disease or a substance abuse problem. A lot of that was fading as my spiritual body worked to perfect my new physical one.

I was also some sort of caucasoid, although I couldn’t really say what sort. I was pretty sure that was another one of this nation’s social biases, which was good for me. I assumed I was in America, although I was only basing that off the money. I suppose it was possible the driver had been a tourist, but he hadn’t had any other money, so I doubted it.

As for my clothes, they were… bad. Admittedly, I had been hit by a car then pulled open a man’s chest with my bare hands, but I was pretty sure these garments had been falling apart long before that. Even under the blood, the grime was obvious, and the worn state of the fabric wasn’t anything I had caused. I wasn’t sure who I was walking around in or how he had died, but I suspected he hadn’t been in a good place before hand.

I might have to deal with whatever his life had been, but I would do my best to avoid it. Hopefully I would be able to change my face before that problem came up. Of course, for that I would need either a lot of normal human souls, which I would prefer to avoid, or something with a bit more power. The second option would require me to find a divine being of some kind. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really sure how to do that.

Before, I could have just found a human settlement and asked around until I tracked down the local daemons. The problem was that my blood knowledge wasn’t giving me anything about current humanity having frequent contact with the divine. Sure, they had myths, but they were detached from any apparent reality. Of course, I wasn’t actually sure how accurate my trick was, but it hadn’t been wrong yet. Admittedly, I have only really seen a road and a car so far, so it wasn’t like I had tested it much. But, I couldn’t see any reason it wouldn’t work, at least for general knowledge.

I wouldn’t have any problem if it turned out that divine beings were just uncommon. There were quite a few daemons that could pass for human or another natural animal, but that seemed unlikely. After all, humans weren’t that stupid. Sure, they were good at believing stupid things, but those things had certain patterns. I could easily believe that the majority of humanity could have almost any misconception no matter how illogical, but simply not knowing an entirely different form of sapience was on the planet with you was… virtually impossible.

There were just too many humans with a culture that was far too well connected to allow that. If there was decent evidence in enough places, they would know about it. That only left a handful of possibilities. One was that the divine had receded to the point that only a few sparse individuals remain. That was possible, even though I wasn’t sure why it would happen. Another was that they were truly extinct. Considering the state of things when I… became indisposed, that was worryingly possible.

If that was the case, I would have to collect human souls until I could get into the Celestial Kingdom again. That would take a mind-numbing number of souls. Humans have very little primordial light, meaning that using them would be a lot like trying to get full from eating ants. Sure, you can live quite well off ants, they are very nutritious, but it takes an enormous amount of them. Even ignoring my reluctance to remove so many of them from the heavens and earth, that situation was to be avoided.

The only reason I doubted that was because anything that could drive daemons extinct from direct force would kill all life on earth. And that was ignoring the question of why they wouldn’t come back. Even if all of them were killed here, they could just come back from the Celestial Kingdom. Which brought me to the worst possibility.

It was possible that the Celestial Kingdom had been destroyed. The Lightbringer might have managed to devour it all, leaving nowhere for divine beings to come from. The problem with that was that… well, why was earth still here? If they had managed that, they would just move onto the physical world, something that clearly hadn’t happened.

I continued to consider the various possibilities, many of which weren’t all that likely, until I finally found a river cutting through the forest. This wasn’t entirely accidental, since I had turned away from the edges of the forest several times, hoping to find a body of water before leaving the cover of the trees. The area was fairly mountainous, so I figured there had to be a river somewhere.

It wasn’t massive, but was certainly big enough to bathe in. I had a feeling blatant blood stains wouldn’t help if I ran into someone, so I figured I should wash what I could. Of course, I was perfectly aware that nothing short of divine powers or strong chemicals was getting the stains out of my clothes, but I could certainly make it less obvious. It would help that my clothes were already dark with old stains that could blend with the sanguine ones.

I stripped naked, discovering that I was even more underfed than I thought. My regeneration was doing its best to make a healthy body out of what mass I had, but my current strength wasn’t enough to do more than subtly move mass around. I looked more like an anorexic fitness nut than crack addict, but only slightly. It was an improvement, but still not ideal. I was either going to need a lot more normal matter, in the form of food, or a significant increase in magical power.

I walked up to the edge of the deepest part, then spun on my heel before back-flopping into the water, I sank beneath the water, feeling the frigid current against my skin. I spent about a half hour just floating about a foot below the surface, considering. Finally, I came up for air I didn’t actually need and started trying to scrub the assorted grime out of the bundle of clothes. I had been at it for quite a while before the naked woman showed up. After all, the stains were really in there.