Michael happily walked along the green and lush forest, carrying a sack full of things he had ransacked from the goblin camp. He had managed to find a few magic crystals and some half-decent knives, along with food and a few large jars he had filled with alcohol. A feeling of satisfaction rose within him as he felt the weight of the sack on his back, He’d earned this… sort of. He may not have fought fair and square but he damn sure fought for it. Besides, no one fought fair in the end, why wait for them to pull the first move? His guilt was washing away the farther he got from the ashes, no longer feeling like a stranger to himself.

As he made his way, walking aimlessly along the forest, he sang a small tune. He was content, taking a bite out of his newly acquired cheese. Tangy, a bit bland compared to the battery acid he used to eat called “Easy Cheese” but the flavor really complemented the rich creaminess. It was pretty delicious, actually. He’d never had cheese this good, less out of poverty and more because he had no time for anything that wasn’t quick and easy to eat. He wished there were some bread or meat to go along with it but unfortunately neither of those did well against the fire.

Well, it wasn’t like he could be choosy right now, especially considering his situation wasn’t bad at all. He was fed, had water… wasn’t dead. All he had to do was wait for the next orders of his goddess, aimlessly wandering around until she reappeared. He’d have to take the time to study. Maybe she wouldn’t even give him a mission until he finished the book, he didn’t know, that girl really didn’t know how to explain things to him. He set the burning lantern to the side and opened the notebook. After about 30 he only got a few pages in, but he’d learned a lot. Gems, the origin of mana, how to manipulate it, the works.

One thing he learned really bummed him out. Apparently what he was using was more of a cheap alternative to magic, rituals. Real magic didn’t need components, only proper mana manipulation. His grimoire was just a crutch, needing more mana than normal. Even though nothing in the notebook said anything about it the thought kinda bummed him out. If all he had to do was activate the mana, was he ever going to reach the power of others? For the hundredth time, he wished he had someone to talk to in the forest, someone that wasn’t the mind-reading bastard goddess.

But the forest was empty, and all he could do at the moment was read. The notebook went on about the history of places he had no idea about, Trivia and whatnot. It was so mundane it bored him to tears. Almost none of what he read had any relevance to his situation, it only lost him time he could spend surviving! Once it got to the point of teaching him proper table manners he almost chucked the thing, instead throwing it into the sack. In an attempt to satiate his boredom he summoned the grimoire, pulling a few magic crystals out of the sack.

He had found around six in the camp, shiny treasures standing out amongst the black ash. All of them were of varying sizes but they all looked dazzling, blue with different colors dancing inside them. They were small, the largest about the size of his thumbnail, but they held a sense of power in them that was almost like what he felt with the goddess. It was a sense of concentrated power that was almost desperately trying to escape. Fortunately, that was what he was going to try to do.

He was going to try some of the more complicated spells, and according to the book, those required a bit more preparation. He had to read what they were first if he had any chance of doing something stupid like coloring his hair. It wasn’t until he opened the book that he remembered the second gift Origin had given him. A new spell! It was there on the third, previously blank page of the book, standing out amongst the rest. Its requirements were a lot longer too, filling almost the entire page.

The materials were a bit menacing, to say the least.. “Magic crystals, crushed up bone, human blood… and a corpse?” The more he read through the spell’s description the less he understood. It wasn’t a revive spell, the corpse more for the flesh than the actual body. No, it was to create something called a ‘familiar’. He had to separate the corpse by parts and… ugh. It only became more complicated and disgusting as he read along, getting to the point where he had to set the book down. The materials were easy to get, all he had to do was walk back to the camp.

That meant having to go back to the camp. He was already starting to feel calmer now that he wasn’t anywhere near that hellish environment. It wasn’t an option to go back for him. At least, not until he got the spell. He groaned in disappointment as he turned around, dragging his now heavy legs towards the burnt, empty shell of a camp. It was funny how much he was being pulled around by the book, by the goddess. There wasn’t a moment where he wasn’t being influenced by it, even now when he had no orders. He didn’t have to create the ritual. It was his curiosity that made him want to.

This was the same reason why he wanted to leave his family, right? To experience the exciting, the uncomfortable. He wanted to live the times that he couldn’t live when he was being held back. Would he really not be able to handle even a day of this? Of course he could go on! He wasn’t a goddamn baby that cried whenever something he didn’t like happened. He was gonna go back there and do this stupid ritual, even if it meant he’d have to… Oh, god. He’d have to ‘Prepare’ The goblins, huh?

He raised his hands in defeat, turning right back around. “Ah, nah. I quit.” He wasn’t about to debone a goblin. If it was a normal animal, then sure, maybe he’d swallow back his vomit and take it like a man. Anything that stood on two feet and had opposable thumbs, however, crossed the line. That was something only a psychopath would do, and he still had plenty human in him to realize just how much that’d mess him up. He shoved the magic gems into his pocket, not even bothering with the sack. For the first time he was brought here he was finally drawing a line, no butchering monsters that looked like kids. What a hero...

As he walked he thought more about the spell. Whatever it was it probably wouldn’t be accepted by a lot of people in this world. It was too… bloody. Fleshy. Maybe it was just his own bias on things but he was pretty sure there was a universal hatred of death and blood, no matter the world. He hadn’t thought any of this through, had he? If other people could tell who his goddess was by looking at him and figured out she was evil or something he’d be hunted down! He didn’t even know what to do about the whole ‘only follower’ thing.

Shit, being busy with searching through the camp had taken his mind off everything. Now that he was alone his thoughts became occupied again. There was so much to think about that it all formed a hazy mess, lossing fragments of memories that could have been important. It was hard to focus on any little thing, considering everything seemed just as horribly vital. The thoughts kept consuming him as he walked, suddenly being interrupted by an extremely oversized, fluffy rabbit hopping in front of him, reaching up to his hips. It was the first animal he’d seen.

Not even a second passed before he chased after it, almost stumbling over himself in the desperate attempt. He couldn’t use the flame since the fur on the rabbit would spoil the meat, so he was forced to go for the second-best option. He picked up a rock on the floor and chucked it at the soon to be fleeing rabbit. In a graceful leap the thing jumped to the side, perfectly dodging the projectile and looking at him with a head tilt. He cursed, fully expecting it to run and force him to chase after it. He crouched low to grab it only for it to pull a shocking maneuver.

It ducked under his hand and jumped into his stomach, headbutting him with a force he absolutely didn’t expect from a bunny. With a pitiful groan, he fell to the floor, the air completely punched out of him. He never had to fight an animal with this kind of courage before, so he didn’t expect this attack. Watching as the rabbit slowly hopped away, Michael’s eyes turned feral with frustration. If it was going to fucking escape anyway than he might as well release some stress and spoil the meat. He picked up the lantern on the staff and barely managed to mutter out the spell. “Let it burn...” The lantern brightened for just a second before a torrent of fire raced toward the rabbit.

It didn’t take much to kill it, but he kept it for a few seconds longer just to really seal the deal. The rabbit was blackened and much smaller than before, its fluffy fur all burnt away. Now that he could see the insides he realized why it was so strong. It seemed to be a walking pile of muscle, with almost no fat in between. Just under the fur, on its head, were two small and flat horns. It was nothing a normal rabbit would have. Reaching down to feel the place where he was hit, he winced at the throbbing pain. Those horns had done more than just knock the wind out of him.

He removed his dinky leather armor and shirt, checking his stomach for any open wounds. The armor had stopped most of the force but his stomach was red and raw. It didn’t look too horrifying so he carefully put the shirt and leather armor back on, wincing when it grazed his bruise. When he tried to stand up his stomach violently responded, bringing him back to the ground. He shouted and cursed as the fall only aggravated his stomach. For a few moments, he laid there, immobile and cursing the goddess under his breath.

He picked up his lantern and used it to prop himself up into a sitting position, even that was hell on him. Whatever was going on in his stomach probably wasn’t good, making sure he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. He turned towards the rabbit-monster thing, cringing in disgust as the smell of burnt hair finally got to him. There was no way he was going to be able to eat it now. Just his luck. He almost pointed the lantern at it again just to completely get rid of it before he remembered the spell he’d gotten from the goddess.

A familiar… something he could order around, right? He could really use that now, now that he thought about it. The rabbit didn’t look human, so it was going to be easier to gut the thing… probably. With a bit of hesitance, Michael pulled a knife out of the sack, it would have probably been useful against the rabbit, now that he thought about it… He threw those useless thoughts away. No use thinking about the past, especially when they made him feel dumb. Besides, he never expected something edible to just walk on by. The flame ritual was good enough for monsters so he didn’t really need another weapon.

He focused on the rabbit, even though it had lost some of it’s size due to the lack of hair it was still a lot bigger than normal, looking like it was around 40 pounds. He took the knife and tapped the monster with it, fully grossed out. It was charred black but he knew it was still raw inside, still a hassle to take apart. He groaned as he slowly sunk the tip of the knife into its back, “This is a job for a goddamn hick... I don’t want to do this shit.” He muttered as he finally mustered up the courage to start hacking away.

The thing was much heavier than 40 pounds, to his great disappointment. At first, blood went everywhere, and he had to stop to remove his shirt and leather chest piece. The rest of his time was spent absentmindedly hacking away at bits and pieces of flesh. The blade wasn’t dull but it still took a huge amount of effort to fully scrape everything off the bones. The process was low and methodical, and honestly, he’d experienced worse things in the forest. In the end, he had been so hyper-focused on taking the animal apart that he didn’t even realize just how long he’d been sitting there. It wasn’t until his stomach started growling that he realized the time.

The monster laid there in two piles, the soft, squishy parts and the bones. He only just noticed how bad the smell was when he finished, and he hurried to get away from it. His bruised stomach recoiled in pain as he heaved from the stench, struggling to keep his food in. He went to his shirt and wiped the blood from his body, no longer caring about keeping it clean. He was a bit freaked out over what happened. Why had he been so concentrated, taking that thing apart like that? It was like parts of his emotions were suppressed when he started.

They all came back when he was finished, though. He shakily stood up, the bruise in his stomach slightly less grievous as before. Tired and hungry, he finished wiping himself and the knife clean and walked over to the sack. The knife was probably cleaner than his bloody hands so he carefully unwrapped some of the cheese and cut a bit out, scooping it into his mouth. It tasted like iron but he chose to ignore it. Monster blood probably wasn’t poisonous, the goddess would have told him otherwise. Definitely.

He looked at the disgusting mess of flesh and bone he made as he ate from the block of cheese, wondering what to do next. It was almost ready, all he had to do was turn the bones into dust. He had no idea how to do that. Well, he had one idea but if it didn’t work then he’d lose all his hard-earned bones... It wasn’t like he had any other options, though. He sighed as he made his way to the bone pile, picking up as many of the bones as he could and bringing them farther away. A few minutes later and they were in a neat stack, away from the flesh and anything else flammable.

He looked at the pile for a second before taking the lantern and pointing it towards the bones, muttering the spell. “Let it burn.” The fire spewed out with less intensity than normal, pouring itself over the burns. As the flames poured gently over the bones he wondered if he could control the intensity. It had happened before when he shot fire at the goblin camp, different intensity for no reason. It had to mean something, right? Probably not, according to the damn magic. When he focused on it nothing happened, even when he focused as hard on what he thought was the mana in his body. He spent a good 30 minutes trying to change the flamethrower’s intensity before he realized in a panic that the bones were probably done.

He put the fire away and checked the remains, scared they were more ash than bones. Luckily, they were fine, just a bit darkened around the edges. He waited for them to cool down, pouring out one of the alcohol jars in the meanwhile. He found a nice and smooth rock and then set to work. It wasn’t too hard, the bones snapped apart easily and were easy to crush in small amounts. At some point he managed to finish with all the bones, having to pour out the second of the precious jars. It wasn’t exactly powder, more like course sand. He didn’t want to do more work than that, though, so he thought it’d be fine.

He neared the pile of warm flesh with hesitance, even from a distance it smelled like burning hair and melting lard. The organs had their own unique smell that overshadowed everything else, though, and it was ten times worse. He wanted to finish this quick. He ran around the flesh, pouring out bone dust around as fast as he could. The ritual told him it didn’t really matter how it was poured as long as it surrounded the materials, so he didn’t pay much attention to the details. All that was left was the blood, and he did just that, slicing his finger and pouring a good amount over the ritual.

When it was finished his eyes were watering from both the stench and the pain, in a hurry he pulled out all the magic stones from his pocket and tossed them into the center. Everything he could remember was finished. He summoned the book and double-checked, just in case he was missing anything. All he had to do next was recite the ritual and create an image of the monster in his mind. He didn’t expect the small creature this was going to make to be any good in battle so he wanted one for utility. Something that could drag him away if things got too spicy. With an outraised hand he muttered the ritual “Don’t leave me alone.”

The flesh started bubbling, and the smell became so putrid that he went weak. It wasn’t until another minute passed that he realized the weakness was coming from the ritual draining him. He stumbled onto his ass, keeping the book in front of him. All of a sudden the snake tattoo on his arm tightened around him, darkening as it squeezed around him. Magically, his body went back to normal, as if the snake was pouring mana into him. He pictured a human in his mind as quickly as he could, ignoring the almost painful grip the tattoo had on him.

Suddenly the ritual really started moving, the bubbling of flesh turning into full-on molding shape. The course bone powder immediately formed a connection with the flesh, forming together to make what looked like an extremely simplistic bone frame. The flesh crawled up onto the bone frame in a sickening, lively throb. He closed his eyes at that moment, his heart beating so fast he thought it’d jump out of his chest. Even in his blind fear, he kept the image of a human in his mind, continuing to pour the mana the snake provided into the monster until suddenly everything went quiet. The only thing he could hear was a steady and rasping breath.

With a nervous feeling in his gut, Michael opened his eyes.