Chapter 11: No Rest for the Wicked

Mobility.

He’d gone back to crawling on four legs... Yet it almost felt more natural than walking on two.

In fact, it was no understatement to say that within his tiny, abominable, quadrupedal body, he estimated himself to be about twice as fast as he would’ve been running as a human. That was twice as fast even while jumping from branch to branch through the corrupted trees.

His body seemed particularly well-suited for scaling and maneuvering through these trees. His hind talons dug into the bark and kept him steady while his front claws scraped across the surface and bit down to propel him forward.

Peace once again flung his body from one thick branch to another.

He wasn’t entirely light, yet he wasn’t particularly heavy either.

Still, it wasn’t like the possibility of a branch breaking under him was something his mind had room to consider.

He was so overcome with voracity that all he could think of was food.

Another leap, then another.

Barreling through the trees, tearing through leaves as he ran, he finally spotted a nearly fresh corpse, almost entirely intact... minus a head and a small hole in its chest.

He didn’t know what it was or what had killed it, but he didn’t care.

Peace scampered down the nearest trunk and dove into his next meal. Using his serrated teeth, he tore through the tough skin of the once-ferocious beast and gorged himself.

Once he’d punctured the outer layer of skin, he tore into the tough muscles with his teeth and slowly spread them apart, exposing the soft, tantalizing organs beneath.

Wasting no time, Peace used the tiny head-sized hole he had carved open, threw his head fully inside, and began chewing on the liver, every bite juicier and more tender than the last.

Black blood seeped into his eye, but he didn’t mind.

[???] — (condition to unlock 2/100)

The moment the soft voice of a man sounded in his ears, Peace’s entire body froze.

It was like a switch had been flipped...

He went from being unable to think, consumed by hunger, to being consumed by thought.

Peace focused on the liquid splattered across his body, mainly his face. It slowly coursed down from his mouth to his chin before dripping to the ground like rain.

Peace was horrified.

Not because of what he’d just done, but because of how little it disturbed him. He felt even less moved than the first time. His stomach didn’t even churn...

That was just the beginning of his problems, though.

The next most obvious problem was that he was once again in the body of a monster.

This was undoubtedly the same monster he’d woken up as originally.

So...

Was he a Night Elf becoming a monster, or was it the other way around? Were both his true forms? Was there a condition that allowed him to switch bodies?

No matter how much he wanted to rack his brain, he knew there was a more pressing matter.

The third thing currently worrying him...

What had killed the monster? If Peace was correct, this beast was the Tier 5 Ravager.

Peace studied the neck of the almost humanoid beast with six arms, each ending in razor-sharp scythes.

’It’s a clean cut.’

It had been beheaded with a grace unbecoming of a beast. Not to mention, there weren’t many monsters that wielded blades, and the fact that whatever killed it hadn’t eaten it...

’This is most definitely the work of people.’

But this wasn’t just any group. It couldn’t have been. There were no other visible injuries other than the divot in the chest, which was most likely postmortem, and the clean beheading.

To be able to kill a Tier 5 beast with one precise strike wasn’t a task most would be able to accomplish...

While Peace wasn’t entirely sure how the game translated to this world — or maybe he really was inside the game — what he did know was that a character in the game would have to be at least Tier 3 and well-geared to accomplish this.

While that sounded like a slight gap, only a two-tier difference, the disparity in power between Tiers was exponential. There was a wider gap between Tier 4s and Tier 3s than there was between Tier 9s and Tier 6s.

Of course, there were other factors, such as Resonances for humans and the special abilities each beast possessed.

’What would I drop if someone killed me?’

While Peace would have loved to have the time and safety required to ruminate on such things, he didn’t.

Not even three seconds after eating his fill, he was dashing back toward the base of the tree. The thought of what the men had said before stayed firmly in his mind...

’They’d return later to look for me.’

Well, it seemed now was later.

Peace had no way to tell how much time had passed — it was always pitch black in the Corrupted Lands — but enough time had passed for any trace of Lacan’s corpse to be cleared away.

Having played the game for five years, Peace knew just how deadly the Corruption was, so it wasn’t odd to think that capturing a beast capable of resisting it would be of the utmost concern.

In other words, if those two had returned and spread rumors of his existence, then it wouldn’t be strange for half of the Dawnbringers’ forces to be mobilized.

And they were bad news for him...

Those were people crazy enough to brave the Corrupted Lands in hopes of returning dawn to them — people crazy enough to have hope in a lightless world.

There might even be Imperial Knights sent after him!

Proving his fear right, Peace, spurred by some strange sixth sense, barely darted to the right and dodged an arrow that sailed past him and buried itself in the base of a tree.

The tree hissed and cracked before tilting and toppling over.

As the tree crashed to the ground, Peace desperately dodged the cascade of leaves and branches that smacked repeatedly into his small body. He avoided the ones thick enough to do severe damage, but a few smacked him left and right.

Covered by the leaves and broken branches of the fallen tree, he could only hear the soft footsteps approaching and the rugged, hoarse voices of men weathered by years of hell.

"We said alive, goddamnit!"

"Sorry..."

"His best friend just died, give him a break. I think it survived anyway..."

"Hopefully..."

"I can’t believe it was true. That thing’s uncorrupted."