His feet felt light as he ran along the open plain. He’d been going for a while now, unsure of the direction he was going but moving nonetheless. The breeze tickled his face, fresh and clean compared to where he used to live. It had been about 15 minutes since he had talked to the goddess and at some point, he had stopped panicking and started enjoying his new body. It was… not exactly stronger than before, or faster (hell, he actually felt weaker). It just felt sturdier, like his bones felt heavier and denser. He felt like he could run longer with all the stamina he’d gained. The goddess had even made him taller for some reason, which didn’t feel as weird as he’d thought. He’d only tripped twice.

He ran until he met a lonely tree in the middle of the plain, gasping ragged breaths as he recalled just how far he had gone. With his new body, it was almost like he was built for running. He was definitely over six feet tall now, and his body seemed to morph to match. Before his muscles were tight and stringy, years of overwork and fighting mixing badly with his wiry body. Well, he said that but he actually had some pride in it, proof that he had never stood down when faced with a challenge… until he ran away. It was all gone now, anyhow, replaced with a smooth and non-muscled body. His scars and rough skin were replaced with that of a healthy and glowing, pale exterior.

It was odd how out of place it felt to be in his own body. He ran his hands down his arms and stomach, surprised at how nice it felt. He felt like a princess with how well taken care of his skin was. He'd be laughed at by his sister if he was ever seen like this… probably his parents too. He chuckled out loud as he pictured it, coming back to his house only for his family to go into the living room and choke with laughter the moment they saw him. What a riot. It probably looked so lonely, a single person in the middle of an isolated plain, laughing about memories that would probably never happen.

The happy mood was gone, along with his thoughts about the new body. The strange feeling that his body didn’t belong to him, it was unnecessary. Nothing good would come from feeling like a stranger in his own skin. And he had bigger problems right now. He needed to figure out how to survive. There wasn’t anything he could consider food in the area. At least, nothing that moved and was made of meat. The spare trees that speckled the plains would be his only source of food aside from the dense forest in front of him. Going there would definitely only be a last resort, humans weren’t meant to take on the forces of nature alone. Not to mention the fact he wasn’t even sure he was on a planet like earth anymore.

He searched the tree, finding nothing on it except for a few gross-looking bugs. He wasn’t anywhere near desperate enough to eat them yet so he just sat next to the tree in defeat. He checked the arm his goddess… THE goddess had ruined. What the hell was that? That weird link he felt with the woman. Something inside him felt a strong bond with the horrible being that had turned his life upside down. Was he infected with something? Was it the tattoo? He inspected his arm tattoo, only to yelp and jump out of the way when he realized what he was sitting on. It was the goddamn book. The moment his body stopped touching it the link towards the goddess stopped, only making him inch farther away.

Before he could even consider what the hell was happening his arm felt pressure, as if the snake was wrapping tighter around him. When he looked Michael realizes in horror that the snake was actually moving, slithering upwards towards the apple. The book opened on the floor and fluttered through the pages, chaotically. He watched as the snake reached the apple and swallowed it, the gem in the middle of the apple was suddenly tainted with a dark black. The moment the apple was swallowed the book rose into the air, the flipping pages suddenly stopping and showing the contents inside. The title on top glowed white, shining a light on the words below. ‘Gain its knowledge, take the first step.’

It lasted for only a second before it turned inert again, falling to the ground, completely inert. He looked down at his arm to find the snake turned around, its head on the back of his hand, the gem in the middle of the snake’s forehead. The moment the apple disappeared Michael had received a... data dump inside his head, like multiple voices whispering orders for him to follow. It was making him want to open the book and read from it… less forcing him and more gently nudging him to do so. And so he did. He opened to the first page, the pressure in his head going away as he did so.

The book was telling him to do something insane. “Oh, what the hell… you can’t seriously expect me to follow along with this.” He asked nobody, laughing pitifully as he stood alone in the middle of nowhere. He still read from it, despite his obvious resentment towards everything happening. A goddamn snake was living in his arm now, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. The voices whispered in his ears and although he couldn’t focus on any of them he knew what to do. To recite. “Blood, let me grow...” He groaned in annoyance at what he was supposed to do next. With a quick motion he bit the tip of his middle finger and ripped the flesh, allowing blood to come from it. He didn’t care about the damage since the spell told him he’d be fine.

Blood streamed from his fingertip as it fell to the floor, making him feel disgusted and lightheaded. He had to hurry. “Ah, uhh... Grow, let me see?” As the words left his mouth the blood disappeared, turning into a faint red mist. He thought it was over, the voices in his head going silent, but as he sighed in relief the mist rushed upwards and into his eyes. “Agh! What the fu- ughuhfl...” His knees buckled but he managed to keep himself upright. Everything went red for a second, and for that second he could see past everything. A perfect and clear world, encased in a layer of red. The second passed and suddenly his vision rushed towards the forest, with speed that made his stomach lurch.

It stopped, surveying a small camp of some weird, green humanoid monsters, dancing and smiling while sitting around a burning fire. Animals hung in the middle of the flames, steadily cooking while they tore pieces off them to eat. They were goblins.

Suddenly everything snapped back to normal, like a rubberband sent flying into his eyes and knocking him into the ground. He sucked in air as hard as he could, feeling like all the adrenaline had been squeezed out of him. It took a minute before his heart stopped thrashing around in his chest but at some point he just laid there, tired and oddly satisfied. “That was… neat.” He muttered to nobody. A huge stupid grin was plastered on his face as he shakily stood up. He almost wanted to do it again, the feeling of being thrown through another perception like that feeling better than anything he had ever done.

It wasn’t until he remembered what he had to do, to begin the ritual again, that the smile on his face disappeared. He didn’t even have a knife, he’d have to go through the painful procedure of gnawing on his finger every single time just to use that shitty spell. He looked at where the blood came from, his fingertip already completely and miraculously healed. At least that helped somewhat but he couldn’t help but wonder if the spell was actually worth using.

This wasn’t the time for contemplating, though. He opened the book and ran through the spells the goddess had given him. From what he knew, whenever his body underwent a “metamorphosis” he was able to… “Take a bit of knowledge.” That was what had happened before, when the snake tightened around him and ate the apple. The significance of the beginning, or something like that… He only knew this because of the snake, and it was the reason he knew what to do next. He had to kill the goblin’s hideout.

It was stupid, a mission given to him by the goddess probably just to see him fight. At least he’d be rewarded for it, he thought as he flipped through the two written pages of the book. From what he could gather, the magic on this world wasn’t purely based on mana like he thought. Instead, they used materials as a conduit for magic. One of the spells required a source of fuel that had been set on fire, while others required something called a ‘’magic stone.” It seemed weird to use another item for magic, since from what he saw the goddess had done it purely with magic.

Though, she was a goddess. Maybe he might have been shown something too advanced. If that was the case then he had no need to worry about it. He only had 2 pages of the giant book with any writing on it, 7 spells in total. From them he only saw two that he could use. The one that required a source of fire and the blood spell he had used just before. Everything required something weird, magic stones and dye and what not. They needed things he had no chance of obtaining at the moment.

He needed to make a flame, like the survivalists did in the shows his sister liked to watch. He remembered bits and pieces… like how they rubbed wood together with a tool that looked like a bow or something, spinning it like a top. It couldn’t be that hard, right? He hung off a branch from one of the trees, jumping and wiggling until the branch fell down along with him. He tore off the lush and vibrant leaves until it was a nice and long stick. “Uh, yeah… all I gotta do is snap this in two and, AGH!” He brought the branch down on his knee, yelping in pain as the thing only bent slightly and did nothing else.

Screaming every obscenity he could, he dropped the stick. Weren’t sticks a lot more brittle? He snapped brooms in half easily enough and the branch was only a little bit thicker… What the hell was that about? He cursed some more as he picked up the stick. He was from the city until just a year ago, he didn’t need to know all this survival garbage. How was he supposed to know this’d happen to him!? He held out his arm, motioning toward the book and then closing his hand. It disappeared in a black wisp, handy for carrying it around.

It was pretty handy having a bunch of information put into his head, he thought. Though, the magic wasn’t going to be much use against them, not the way he was now. He needed to take another approach. He pulled himself together and picked up the stick in his hand, it was a good weight, probably enough to bash those childlike bastards’ heads in. He grinned maliciously, the goddess wanted them gone, right? It didn’t matter how he did it, then.

__________________

It wasn’t dark in the forest, but the way the foliage hid everything might as well have made him blind. He cursed as he retraced the steps to the camp, breathing heavily as his heart thumped out of his chest. He had to do that damn blood spell twice to get here and his body was starting to feel worn out from the adrenaline rush. He felt good, though… really good. The spell made him think faster and feel more alert. Maybe there was more to the spell than just locating monsters. It’d be helpful against

He snuck quietly behind the bushes and trees, moving until he heard the quiet sound of people talking. He’d found them. Looking through the leaves he saw two of the grubby little goblins, farther from their home than he expected. He smiled, glad that he acted so cautious. If he had been any less careful he’d probably already been seen by now. The monsters had on some oversized leather armor and each had blunted and chipped swords.Neither looked like they could put up a good fight. Slowly watching as the two walked by, Michael kept a steady and silent breathing. He’d done things like this before but never alone. That just meant there wasn’t any room for messing up. He picked up the stick, ready to perform for the damn goddess.

He’d probably have felt bad for the little shits if they didn’t look so ugly. They looked rancid, like old men compressed into tiny bodies, with bulbous noses and wrinkled foreheads. They talked with a vibrant and mocking energy that irked him, like how hyenas barked with laughter while circling prey. He lurked behind them until one of them was behind a tree. With a quick lunge he ran towards the one with who was in the open, back turned against him. He cracked the stick over their head, watching as they slumped over into the ground.

He didn’t stop, one thing he learned from fighting was that two on ones never ended well for him, even when the other two were clearly outmatched. The other goblin had fallen to the floor in fear while Michael wailed on the unconscious one. He had to take advantage, making sure it wouldn’t get up any time soon. He looked like a demon with how steady his swings were, a smile spreading on his face as he saw the monster next to him getting up to run away. You never turn your back on someone with a weapon.

With a quick turn he reeled back and slammed the stick into its side, making it scream in pain as it fell back to the floor. That probably broke its ribs, something that small didn’t have bones strong enough to handle that kind of hit. He moved back a bit to get a good angle on the shrieking and sobbing monster, before hitting its back over and over. The thing had stopped crying at some point, curling up to protect its vitals, but that just meant it’d take longer to end it. By the end Michael was gasping furiously, the damn thing taking way more of a beating than he thought it could handle. After it went limp, Michael went over to the first one and finished the job.

With the deed done he leaned against the tree, grossed out about having two dead bodies near him. Too bad he was so tired he could barely stand. This new body of his wasn’t built enough to handle this kind of intensity… He’d have handled it way easier with his old self. No… no problem...

He brought his hand to his head and groaned loudly, feeling sick. For a second he fought back the urge to vomit, swallowing dryly as he looked up at the sky. “Fu-... Fuck. That sucked so bad… ugh...” He’d only seen people be killed four times in his life, and none of them were because of him. He thought he’d be able to handle it easier here because they weren’t really humans, but the fact their bodies looked so similiar and...young, only made it worse for him. He looked at the corpses in disgust, something about how jarring it was to sit there trying to get over killing something when just a while ago he’d been going to watch tv…

He stopped thinking about it, right now he had to strip these corpses out of everything they had. He hastily made his way towards one and carefully flipped it over. Their armor had little straps with vials on them, filled with water and other trinkets. He… didn’t exactly want to drink bottled goblin water but he wanted to keep them around, just in case he became desperate in the future. He took the armor for himself, less for the protection and more because the straps that held the vials came attached. He didn’t bother with the straps and just pulled the leather armor over his head. It was built for someone bigger than him so it wasn’t too hard.

There wasn’t anything else on them other than their dinky weapons... and pants but he wasn’t going near those. It was a clean fight, no casualties. He sat next to a tree facing away from the goblins after he picked apart the corpses, feeling better now that he was no longer in their sight. Maybe it was him going crazy but he actually felt satisfied after what happened. It was like back when he used to work for his uncle, only more intense and with less responsibility. He was never allowed to let loose like this even back then… though that was probably for a good reason. He was being brought up to be a leader, not some filthy thug. His uncle had tried to teach him the proper way to do that before he died and he wasn’t going to let that go to waste.

...He missed that life, he admitted it. Hanging out at school and making friends was fun and all but it didn’t make him feel like he was doing something with his life. He wanted to take life by the horns, wanted to fight and make money... and win. It was a life you just couldn’t turn away from, and yet that was just what he did. He wanted everything but he wanted his sister to succeed more. He couldn’t let her join all that… but he knew she would have jumped right in if he had asked her to. Hell, he had to threaten his friends and uncle to stay away from his family, even when they just wanted to be there for them.

He looked up, his thoughts fading away as he found himself sitting against the tree, the two green corpses silently looking at nothing as the forest made it’s calming sounds. Maybe he needed this. He knew the moment his sister went to college he’d go back to his old ways. This was another way for him to change, to become better. Or maybe he’d get killed right then and there by the three goblins that had just walked up on him. One of them squealed, pointing a staff with a lantern at him. The lantern had a flame that seemingly floated in the middle, connected to nothing. They were just as shittily armed as the first two but he knew how screwed he was at how many there were.

He essentially fought the first two one on one, This’d be completely different. Grabbing his stick he ran forward, letting the three surround him while his back was against the wall was a bad idea. He had to reach them and smash one of their skulls in before he could do anything. He focused on the weakest-looking one first, the one that had the lantern. He wasn’t holding a weapon or anything so he’d be the easiest to take out. With a swing he hit one of the two armed ones, causing them to flinch back. While they were hesitant he ran past them and met with his target, swinging the stick over its skull.

It let out a pained squeal, clutching its head and dropping the lantern. Its cries seemed to be enough to enrage the other two, charging at him with reckless abandon. He cursed, the damn thing moved just out of the way of a good hit so it was still good to fight. There was nothing he could do about it, turning around just in time to see the two other little runts running at him. “Fuck!” He grabbed the mangy arm of the injured goblin and threw it in front of him. He tried to swing the stick but the way he brought it up made his grip loose. It barely fazed one of them as the other went in for the kill. Its crude sword almost hit him but he jumped back, a thin cut appearing on the leather armor.

He thought about what to do. Would he be able to outrun them? Of course he could, they were half his size, not something that could catch up even if he was injured. Something inside him told him to stay, though. He wasn’t sure if it was the goddess brainwashing him again or just his gut instinct. He didn’t want to run away again. Everything was more fun before he ran away, more satisfying. He wanted to get a win against these little bastards, even if it meant he got hurt in the process.

He swung low, slamming the branch towards one of the armed one’s calf. He was either too busy trying to shove off the goblin he threw or too slow to move out of the way because it landed dead center. He heard the crack and grinned, kicking him down. It was just in time to bring the stick back, clashing midair with the second goblin’s sword. The weak arms of the goblin couldn’t hold the sword and it flew off, landing a few feet away from them. He grinned as he brought the stick over his head, bringing it down on the goblin as hard as he could.

He didn’t stop, continuing to bash it as it cried and covered its body with its arms, prolonging the inevitable. He was going to beat them. He was going to wi- “AUGH!” A searing pain came from his backside as he blindly attacked. He turned in panic from the heat he felt behind him. While he was wailing on the goblin the third one had taken back his lantern. The lantern swished back and forth as the goblin spat fire out of his mouth, catching him in flames. Michael screamed, swinging the stick as hard as he could and catching the damn fire goblin in its neck.

He didn’t know what he did, but the moment he heard a snap an explosion of blue light burst forth from where the goblin was standing, sending him and the other two monsters flying. The airblast of the explosion was enough to put out the flames on his ass, but he had new pains to deal with. His flight had been stopped by an errant branch that had hit him in the back, which was fine and all if you excluded the throbbing pain coming from the bruise. He laid there on the floor, breathing in slowly and deeply. The other two were clearly either dead or passed out in front of him, down for the count. A giant smile was on his face as he looked up at the sky, satisfied. He had won.