The First Prey
The moment I stepped outside the dungeon, warm sunlight came threading through the dense undergrowth and struck my eyes.
I looked around, but there was nothing to see except densely packed trees and thickets of grass. The utterly ordinary scenery failed to stir any profound feeling about this new world.
Right now, I needed to move — for the sake of survival.
Where to?
I didn't know. There was no path, no information, nothing in sight but trees and undergrowth. And because I didn't know, I had no choice but to start walking.
A transparent window, shaped like a map, materialized in the air. It was like the mini-map tucked into the corner of an RPG game screen — I could shrink it down small or stretch it wide.
Oh.
When I reacted with a mix of delight and surprise, the woman added her explanation.
Rustle, rustle…
With her help, I no longer had to worry about getting lost, and I pushed my way through the undergrowth. I walked for a while, scanning my surroundings, until I spotted a broken tree branch. Calling it a branch was generous — it was thick enough to pass for a club.
This might actually work.
I swung the wooden club through the air with a whoosh. The strength behind it fell short of an average adult man's, but holding a weapon still gave me a reasonably convincing sense that I could actually attack something.
As I pressed onward, I learned a few things about this body of mine. I didn't get tired. I wasn't hungry or thirsty, and I didn't even feel sleepy. When I realized that my body was moving without so much as breathing, a strange feeling came over me.
That's… true enough.
A body that didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't breathe, and never tired was undeniably useful for survival.
Crunch.
Hm?
My sense of touch was still intact, so as I walked I felt something give beneath the sole of my foot. I quickly looked down and found a mushroom pressed against my body.
Pssshhhh—
The mushroom, swollen like a balloon, bloomed open like a flower and burst a cloud of yellow powder in every direction. I flinched and stepped back, but the woman was already there to reassure me.
When it comes into contact with an external object, it bursts the spores stored inside and paralyzes nearby living things.
No effect on you.
Why?
Ah…
In other words, I didn't breathe, so it couldn't touch me.
Pssshhhh—
Pssht—
With every step I took, more mushrooms burst in succession. The air grew thick with yellow powder.
Her stream of explanations raised a question.
You know a lot about this world, don't you?
Right. Thanks.
Why the silence?
A silence of no clear meaning hung between us as I walked — and then I found a forest path.
I brightened at the sight of a trail that someone else's feet had actually touched. A made path meant living creatures, and those living creatures might well be human.
The guess became reality almost at once. Beyond the horizon of a hill along the forest path, something that looked like a village came into view. It was a small place, the size of a country hamlet, and though they were faint, I could make out human figures walking about.
There was a village near the dungeon. Near me.
This was good news. Because it meant there was a resource here called human beings.
"Hmm-hmm~."
A hummed snatch of song. I dropped into the undergrowth at once, hiding myself, and searched for the source of the sound.
"There's always so much to eat around this forest. Mom and Dad worry for nothing… They're going to be so surprised when they see everything I picked, hehe!"
It was a human woman.
A short bob of tightly curled brown hair, and brown eyes to match. Freckles across her face, and sun-browned marks scattered over her skin. Her modest frame and height still carried a youthful air, but even so, she looked old enough — just barely — to pass as an adult.
Dressed in a long skirt like some medieval village woman, she held a basket woven from wood and was gathering edible things from the brush. Between the distant village and the country-girl air she gave off, it was only natural to conclude that she belonged to that hamlet.
Her exotic coloring drove home, all over again, that I had opened my eyes in a new world. A gladness rose in me at the first human I had seen since being reborn — and I crushed it immediately.
I was in the same position as a monster now, and I needed to use her. Just because I had once been human too didn't mean I could walk up and greet her warmly.
At the same time, I couldn't help thinking it was a stroke of extraordinary luck to find a woman alone at such a perfect moment.
The voice in my head echoed my own surprise and relief.
The problem, now, was getting this human woman back to the dungeon — which was to say, back inside me.
I turned the wooden club over in my hands. I was holding a weapon, yes, but I had my doubts about whether this body could actually take her. If I jumped her clumsily and she managed to run, I would be throwing away a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
I stayed hidden and thought it through. There was a time limit: however long she spent gathering in the brush. Her basket was nearly full — she looked ready to leave any minute.
Think…
Think.
I wrenched my mind around as hard as I could, and that was when I noticed a familiar mushroom growing near her.
A Paralysis Mushroom. The kind that burst paralyzing spores at the slightest touch.
The plan came together.
I picked up a loose stone from the ground and took aim at the mushroom beside her.
Please… hit it…!
I threw the stone, pouring every ounce of desperate hope into my aim.
Tap.
Pssshhhh—
It burst.
Success.
"Huh?"
At the sound of something deflating, the woman made a puzzled noise and turned her head.
"Wh-wha…t?"
She sucked in the rising yellow spores on reflex. Her eyes went round with shock, and then her body began to tremble.
Thud.
"Ah…"
The basket slipped from her hands. Paralysis taking hold, she staggered on shaking legs and sank to her knees in the brush.
"Ngh…"
The sudden paralysis had clearly thrown her into a panic, but she couldn't even cry out properly. Success. I was cheering inwardly when the voice in my head snapped my looseness taut.
Rustle.
The instant she finished speaking, I burst from the undergrowth and charged the defenseless woman.
"Huh?"
Her eyes went round, surprise and bewilderment mixed together as she watched me rush her. But it didn't take long for those eyes to curdle into terror and dread.
Because she had seen the monster that I was? Or because I was charging her with a club in my hand?
Either way, watching a living creature shrink back, soaked in fear because of me, stirred a strange feeling. Excitement surged — and at the same time, blood rushed to my groin.
"Kyaaaaah—?!"
A sharp scream snapped me out of the brief trance I'd slipped into. I sharpened my senses and swung the club at her. With survival hanging in the balance, every last shred of hesitation vanished from my grip.
Thud!
"Kyah?!"
A dull impact rang out, and she screamed as she toppled sideways. It wasn't like a drama, where a single blow would knock her out cold. I needed to keep my hands moving.
Thwack! Thud…
"Aagh—! Ah, ahh! Fwah…?!"
Even if the paralysis wore off, I needed her unable to run — so I broke her legs first.
A sickening crack.
"AAAAAAAGH——!!!"
A violent scream tore through the air. I ignored that hideous sound and kept swinging the club as if it were labor, as if it were work.
Thud!!
"Ah—!! S-stop, aagh—?!"
Her agony was buried beneath the noise of the descending club. Listening to it, I thought about her, briefly.
The woman in front of me was innocent. She had been gathering in the forest to feed herself and the people around her, nothing more. There was no wrongdoing to be found in that. If there was any fault at all, it was only that she had wandered far from the village in hopes of gathering more — and that, by chance, she had been found by me.
Pity flickered through me for a moment, and then it was gone.
And if I pitied her? Would I let her live?
If I let her live? She would go back to the village and talk about me. The villagers would never come near this forest again — and in the worst case, they might even raise a party to hunt me down.
It was already done. I was doing what I had to do in order to survive, and weighing good and evil inside of that was meaningless.
Her usually deadpan voice came out with a hint of laughter in it.
I started to deny it — then startled at the voice in my head and looked down. She was right. At some point my cock had risen, straining skyward as if it had no idea there was a ceiling to the world.
What the hell.
Don't tell me I got off on beating this woman…?
The woman in my head praised what I was in this moment. She was telling me this vile behavior was right.
In the instant my hands had stilled, the woman, collapsed on the ground, pleaded up at me.
"Ah…"
Sobbing, she looked up at me — and when she saw my erect cock, her eyes went round. She knew what a swollen male organ meant. Slowly, she shook her head.
"N-no…"
With a face wet with tears, with a body covered in bruises, she summoned up her fear of me. Watching that expression, my cock twitched.
In that moment, I understood what the woman in my head had been trying to say.
THWACK—
Thud.
I brought the club down on her head. Her neck twisted, and she crumpled bonelessly to the ground.
"Khuh…"
She let out a single breath thick with pain, her head dropping as she lost consciousness completely.
I looked down at her, sprawled defenseless across the earth. Pale skin showed through the gaps in her disheveled clothes. Her skirt had flipped up, exposing white panties, and the fabric at her chest had come loose, a pink nipple peeking into view.
I stood there staring, and blood rushed south. The impulse to take her right then and there surged up through me.
The voice in my head reined in that lazy impulse and dragged my reason back into place.
I grabbed her by the ankle and started to drag her. She was heavy, but not so heavy I couldn't move her. It would be a long way, but a body that never tired made that irrelevant.
The undergrowth whispered as I hauled the unconscious woman through it.
Into the deep, deep forest.
Toward the dungeon.
Toward me.
So that she might conceive my monsters.