Kenshiro awoke, pain coursing through his body. His arms ached, his side throbbed from the small burn he'd gotten the day before, and his head pounded as his stomach churned. He wasnât sure how long heâd been lying there, but ever since the overhaul of the worship hallâwhere the murals had shifted into depictions of his wife, the Devil, and even the tunnel of lightâhe had been utterly drained, barely able to move.
A notification hovered in his vision, making his head spin.
Quest Complete
Reward: +5 Attribute Points
He mentally dismissed the screen, annoyed. He had been seeing notifications all the time and it was starting to wear on him. Though he wasnât as panicked by them as before, they still left him unsettled. âWhat do they all mean? Why am I here? These constant notifications about my wife, my attributes changing, and this âsystemâ is starting to piss me off.â
He couldnât ignore what had happened to him, though. The Obsequity skill heâd taken from Vahl during that bizarre ritual, the Devourer Skill from the oozeâall of it left him spinning. Just 48 hours ago, heâd been on a plane, heading to Japan to visit his mother and sister. Now? Now he was here, wherever here was.
âWhat am I even doing here?â Kenshiro muttered, his voice hoarse. âI thought this was supposed to help me find Tara, but all Iâve found is a picture of her.â He looked up at the enormous mosaic of his wife.
The mural loomed 30 high, eight or ten feet wide, bathed in shades of amber, orange, and red. Taraâs skin glowed from the colorful tiles, warm and earthy. But the most striking thing? Her burns were gone. Her skin, once marred by the scars she had carried for years, was flawless. Despite the strangeness of it all, there was no denying it was herâher smile, her eyes, her welcoming posture, as though she was looking directly at him.
Kenshiro stood there, lost in the warmth of the image, until his gaze drifted to the room around himâthe dead bodies scattered across the floor. There were so many corpses.
He counted roughly 35 bodies, all of them gray-skinned Druâven. He wasnât entirely sure what they were, but after killing two of them the day before, he was starting to understand they were as sentient as he was. The thought made him uneasy. The first one heâd killed out of self-defense, desperate to survive. The second... âWell, at least that one went quickly.â A pregnant pause sat in the air as he said the words aloud.
âI didnât want to kill them,â he murmured to himself. Yet, here he was, standing among their bodies, his orange hoodie torn and stained, even burned in places. Shaking the weight of guilt off his shoulders, Kenshiro started walking around, taking in the changes to the temple, hoping to distract himself from the grim scene around him.
Another notification blinked into view. He sighed in frustration but glanced at it anyway.
New Quest: Secure the Temple
Objective: Investigate the temple and ensure there are no remaining threats inside or outside the immediate area.
Success: +1 Attribute Point
Failure: -1 Attribute Point
Kenshiro dismissed the notification with a tired wave of his hand. He had already planned to search the place, but at least now it was something to distract him for a reason, though he had no idea how to use the attribute points yet. He began his sweep of the temple, or dungeonâhe still wasnât sure what it really was.
He started with the storage room where he had fallen earlier. The room was filled with useful odds and endsâpans, spatulas, no knives, but plenty of cooking implements, along with brooms, rakes, and gardening tools. In a side chamber, he found empty barrels, likely used for some kind of distillation process, though the room was barely more than a closet.
He continued exploring and found a makeshift kitchen area with small stands for preparing food, and to his surprise, a faucet with running water. It startled him for a moment, but after everything else he had seen, it seemed minor in comparison.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The next room he checked appeared to be living quarters. A large dining table had toppled over, and there was a toilet room that seemed to drop directly into the slime pit he had encountered earlier. Out of curiosity, Kenshiro dropped a small bone he found into the hole and watched it fall. No new slime appeared, but he wasnât going to test his luck, so he shut the door quickly.
There were a few other roomsâa side office with empty bookshelves, scattered parchment, broken quills, and dusty jars. Whoever had lived here didnât seem to care much about cleanliness, as he found bones of small creatures strewn about the floor.
Finally, he reached the great hall, a massive space about half the size of a football field. Rows of pews lined the floor, leading to a simple altar at the center, and the walls were adorned with muralsâsome depicting events that had just happened, while others were just empty frames. The room had an eerie, almost empty feeling. The murals contrasted against the pile of corpses.
As Kenshiro stepped outside the temple doors, it was mid-morning and he noticed the air was crisp and the temperature mild, suggesting it was early summer or late spring. Kenshiro walked around the grounds of the temple and by afternoon, it had warmed considerably.
Kenshiro found a garden with four flower sections and a few fruit trees, where the fruits were just starting to form. The air smelled light, like the deep pines. Bees buzzed, and some birds chirped off in the distance.
Kenshiro wandered far enough from the temple that he was able to take in the building in itâs entirety. The temple itself was set into the mountain, built directly from the hewn stone, with large columns resembling a coliseum's architecture framing the entrance. From his vantage point, he could see down into a vast forest below, with smoke rising from somewhere in the distance. âA town? Or a house maybe?â
Kenshiroâs stomach growled loudly. He stared at the fruit trees, briefly wondering if they were edible, but decided not to risk it. Better to go hungry than poison himself.
As he turned to go back inside, a new notification popped up:
Quest Complete:
Reward: +1 Attribute Point Well done, Ken. I love you. - Tara
Kenshiro stared at the message for a long time, his heart pounding. âTara?â He blinked hard, as if to make sure he wasnât imagining it.
âPrivate message⦠DMâ¦â he whispered, trying to will the system to open up some way to communicate. âTara, where are you?â His voice cracked. âWhat do I do? Whatâs happening?â
Silence. He sat there, in the doorway for a long time. Staring down the steep path that lead into the forest below. The chittering of squirrels and birds created a hum that left him feeling not so alone, but still empty. He felt like he was going to see Tara come up the path any second. Just a couple of minutes and she would come up the road with a camera crew, laughing and smilingâ¦
His head slumped as he sat against the doorway, letting the fresh air of the day wash over him. The frustration boiled up inside him, but he pushed it down. He needed somethingâanythingâto keep his hands busy, to stop his mind from spiraling. He had used this tactic a lot in the past couple of years, and a crutch keeps you up for a reason.
âLetâs see⦠What can I control? I can clean. I can get rid of all these bodies. Maybe Iâll find something useful on them. Then Iâll look for food.â Kenshiro moved, pushing everything else outside of the next task down and out of his mind.
Kenshiro glanced around, his mind organizing the tasks. âShelterâ, he thought. âThatâs a good start. Shelter, then food.â He paused, wishing he had watched more survival shows. Outside of shelter and food, what else did he need?
He began with the storage room, sorting through tools and supplies. Though he didnât find anything new, he hauled the gardening tools outside to the garden. Next, he went through the living quarters, setting tables upright, dusting off beds, and clearing out bones, stacking them into a pile. He noticed his HP and SP bars in the corner of his vision, and decided to use the Devour skill to absorb the bones.
His stamina quickly restored, but the constant gnawing hunger in his stomach persisted. âHow many calories have I burned?â Kenshiro wondered aloud. Heâd spent the past few years getting in shape, learning about nutrition and fitness, but over the past twenty-four hours, he felt like he had run a marathonâfighting, running, jumping. He didnât feel exhausted, but the hunger wouldnât leave.
He continued to absorb bones with Devour, the action strangely satisfying, though the thought that this might be changing his body unnerved him. He moved from the bones in the living quarters to the main hall, where he began working on the bodies.
While at first he thought about getting rid of them with fire, cremating them or something. Yet, the thought of hauling all the bodies from the middle of the room out into the garden, all thirty-five, would be an exercise in futility. He also didnât want the corpses to start rotting on the floor in the middle of the temple. That just didnât seem right either.
The smell of the bodies was already starting to float around the room. Rolling up his sleeves he started in on the first body, taking off any trinkets or identifiable objects before using Devour on the corpse. He did this again, and again, and again, thirty two more times until they were all gone. Devour slowly but steadily consuming the bodies. Bones and all.
âAm I eating these bones? Or just absorbing them?â Kenshiro didnât want an answer to his question.
From the cleaning he had collected a small stash of items from the bodiesâlockets, trinkets, beads, even a few coins. The total amounted to two gold pieces, five silver, and about twenty coins that looked like copper or bronze. He also found nine ritual daggers, all identical. Kenshiro tried not to think too much, putting his mind away and just moved on instinct and force of will.
When he finally returned to the office, he slumped into the hard wooden chair. At least he had some control now. He had shelter, a bit of order in the chaos. Tomorrow, he would figure out what to do next. But for now, the dayâs work had left him with a small sense of accomplishment.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Kenshiro leaned back, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.