The prime wolf Nikola wakes up to a mix of pain and sickness. There's the deep echoing feeling from when his mana was drained out, a searing burn across his lower half from the explosion, a few lingering cuts and bruises from being thrown around during the fight, and a constant ringing in his ears as it tries to recover from the explosion.
Looking around, the surroundings are still obscured by a cloud of smoke and powdered snow. He must've been out for only a moment. Carefully, he tries to stand, but his legs fail to gather enough strength.
And then something starts approaching him. A small figure in the smoke. Wholly uninjured despite being at the epicenter of the explosion, Mochi steps out of the smoke and towards Nikola. He lets out a huff of relief, as the fox circles around him and inspects his injuries.
"You didn't need to come back, little fox" He whispers, before coughing a bit. Mochi responds with a faint purr, silencing his comments so that she could determine the extent of his injuries. It was fairly bad, not including any internal injuries either, but for the most part it wasn't life-threatening.
Concluding her inspection, Mochi gives a thoughtful nod, before seemingly remembering something, and running off. Running away from the smoke, Nikola watches as Mochi reaches a normal tree and climbs up. Through the branches, he can just barely make out a... bunny? Oh, so that's where the explosion came from. He'd forgotten they even existed.
The bunny angrily thumps its leg on the tree, shouting out curses at the damn fox that dragged them back into danger. Mochi waits patiently and apologetically, until the bunny finally calms down. They then demand help getting down, since Mochi was the one who brought them up there.
Mochi picks the bunny up and carries them down the tree, dropping them at the base. As the bunny runs away, Mochi grabs something hidden at the base of the tree, before returning to Nikola's side. She tries to pass a small mana gem to him, as a thanks for all he has done.
He hesitates, "I do not need it. Use it yourself, little fox-"
Frustrated, Mochi bites the gem, shattering it. She then forces the pieces into Nikola's mouth. She needed him to recover as much mana as possible. They didn't have much time. The monster probably survived.
The last of the smoke fades away, revealing a gruesome sight. The monster, the false tailed hunter, Lilaphen, on the ground with their entire lower half burnt. They glare at Mochi, a mix of rage and crazed obsession.
And then, Lilaphen shouts in old Reathic. Nikola doesn't understand it, but Mochi does. It was her native language after all.
"You- You're a- Smart little fox. A truly perfect specimen. Someone worth hunting. Let's make a deal, you have something we want. No, not just something... we want you"
Mochi takes a step back in fear. The monster should be immobilized, incapable of hurting her, and shouldn't be a threat. But something was wrong. A tiny itch in the back of her mind telling her that she missed a detail, that her fear is warranted.
...did it always have a wolf's tail?
Nikola reacts first. A shadowy spike flies towards the monster. But before it reaches, the monster drops into their own shadow and emerges behind Mochi. They grab her, and their tails swing into Nikola, stabbing and knocking him away.
And then a beam of light drops down onto the monster and Mochi. The two white crows, Laurel and Poppy, circle around the pillar of light, fueling it. Bit by bit, the monster's flesh begins to break and decay. This is the power of the white crows. It's slow and weak, yet ignores all resistances. And with the monster's lessened mobility, it might actually work.
But Lilaphen laughs it off. Because it has the one thing that can counter this power. Even now, the fox remains unharmed by the indiscriminate decaying light. Lilaphen activates 'Assimilate'.
Mana fuels the soul. Or the soul produces mana. It is an argument started before written history, and continues to this day. Neither can be true at the same time; one must by false.
When you breathe in, mana is drawn from the surroundings. When you breathe out, mana leaks out. But it is less than the amount breathed in. And thus, some of the mana is kept, used as fuel for the soul.
When one completely uses up their mana, they are exhausted, but not harmed. Even when kept in a mana-less environment, they can survive just fine, and can even regenerate mana (though at a slower rate). Thus, mana is not a fuel for the soul, but instead produced by it.
The argument persists.
Lue wakes up in a long, empty hallway. Behind her was a door made of crystal. Ahead was just darkness.
She tries the door first, but turning the handle didn't do anything. Or maybe the door was simply too heavy for her. Either way, she has to give up on the door, and so walks into the darkness.
Contrary to her expectations, the darkness wasn't cold. It was comfortably warm, like a constant hug. Periodically, a faint smell would float past her, often of something vaguely familiar. The smell of wood, rust, smoke, bread, medicine, spices, blood, flowers.
Lue isn't sure how far she's walked, but she isn't tired, so surely it isn't too far. Eventually, in the far distance, a soft glow becomes visible. With a mix of curiosity and hope, she runs towards the light.
The hallway opens up to a large library. Shelves stacked on shelves of books. Ladders are placed haphazardly, some even stacked together to reach even higher. Looking up, even the ceiling has bookshelves hanging down, ropes dangling from them, likely the only way to reach such high books.
In any other context, Lue would've been ecstatic with the density on information. But after going through a dark hallway with no memory of how she got here, she's slightly more wary of this place. Walking deeper into the library, she finds a counter, with a strange draconic man writing something.
Lue approaches cautiously, hoping that they may be able to tell her about this place. The man stops writing, looks up, and gives a confused frown.
"...hm? You... you're not supposed to be here."
The man's voice echos among the books, reminding Lue of the pure silence up until now. She shakes her head, "I don't even know where this is. What is this place?"
The man hesitates for a while, thinking carefully on what to reveal and what to keep hidden.
"This is the system's archives. It's a restricted area, certainly not somewhere a lost soul should be able to wander into..."
Standing up, the dragonoid walks up to Lue. They stare for a while, before frowning even more.
"Hm... I can't seem to read your soul. Tell me, what's your name?"
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
"Lue? Mochi Lue, to be exact."
The dragonoid nods, before walking up to a bookshelf. The shelves suddenly begin to move around, sliding across the floor and each other. Once they stop, the man checks a few books, before pulling out one with Lue's name.
"hm...? That's strange. You died quite a while ago. Your soul should've... 'Reincarnate'? Oh, that partially explains things..."
"Can you please tell me what happened and why I'm here?"
"You're dead. Or well, your body died. Normally, when a body dies, the soul leaves it and gets collected by the system. But for you, because you have 'Reincarnate', your soul retains your memories and remain uncollectible. Then a new body forms, the soul inhabits it, congrats on reincarnating.
However, something has gone wrong. Not quite sure what, but it did, and now you're here."
The man returns to his desk, and opens a drawer. Searching through it, he eventually takes out a stone tablet.
"Hopefully this can help diagnose the problem. Please hold this and tell me if there's anything unusual."
He hands the tablet to Lue, who holds it with trepidation. It lets out a brief flash, before a familiar screen fades onto it.
There was something in the sixth box. As far as she knew, there shouldn't be anything in the sixth box. It's always been an empty box, all of the books said it was always empty... but of course, books aren't perfect.
"There's something called 'System Corridor' in the sixth box? What is it? Is it bad?"
"Oh! That's how you're here then. Well, first of all, congrats on making contact with the inner system. I guess you deserve a more in-depth explanation then... go ahead and grab a chair or something."
The dragonoid gestures around, a few different chairs folding out of the shelves and floor. Lue sits down onto a comfortable sand-filled chair. She gives her full attention to the explanation, caution overridden by curiosity.
"Hm... let's start with the basics. Levels, traits, skills, all of those that appear on your status screen are actually about your soul. Level is the size and strength of your soul, traits affect the shape, and skills are carved into your soul. The system only looks at souls and displays the information; it can't affect any of these normally, as your soul is an independent entity.
But rarely, the system does affect a soul. Specifically, when it grants a skill through a deal. To grant the skill, the system must manually carve the skill into the soul. But since it normally can't affect souls, the system has to create a connection with the soul to interact with it and carve in a skill. This is a 'System Corridor'.
However, this corridor is a two-way connection. Using it, a soul can affect the system. Luckily, the system is robust and has countermeasures against any attempts to alter it. At most, a soul can only prevent others from seeing their stats.
Finally, when someone dies, their soul normally gets collected by the system and recycled. But for you, with 'Reincarnate', your soul is protected from being collected by the system. And using the corridor, you entered the system. The question is, why are you here and not in a new body already? Even others with 'Reincarnate' haven't had this happen..."
"Uhm, maybe it has something to do with what I traded away?"
"Hm? What is it? That information was redacted to me..."
"I traded away the ability to interact with and be affected by mana."
"Oh. Oh no. To make a new body through reincarnation, a soul uses mana. But you-"
The dragonoid opens several drawers, taking out books and notes and an abacus as big as Lue. He flips through the pages, rapidly doing calculations that Lue can't even begin to understand.
"...Well, good news is that a body can be made without mana, just that it'd take a long time. Congrats on finding an oversight in the system! As compensation, we'll nudge a few details around. Got anything you want to reincarnate into?"
"...Well, a fox sounds fun..."
We are Lilaphen. A collective of dozens of souls, assimilated into one entity. We love to hunt. Anything that can put up a good fight against our collective strengths is a worthy prey. The longer they can last, the more we obsess over them.
Today, we met a fox. The source of a few recent rumors. Apparently it would howl like a wolf, summoning them to defend it. We did not believe those rumors, but our curiosity and boredom led us to the blighted forest anyways.
When we first found the fox, it was in the middle of hunting a bunny of some kind. We took the opportunity to attack. But at the last moment, an explosion made us miss. The bunny seemed to have a special skill.
We decided to hunt it, but was beaten by the fox, who stole away the bunny. Sending a few wisps to chase after them, we expected the hunt to end there. No matter how fast the fox ran, it couldn't outrun the wisps.
...But the wisps did nothing. They flew through without even cooling down. We checked for possible illusions, but the bunny got injured as expected. This was where our suspicions of the fox began.
We shifted to a more speedy skillset. Sprinting towards the fox, we caught up within seconds. The fox stopped in a vain attempt to dodge us, but we could see, hear, taste which way the fox would go. Left.
...But the fox the jumped backwards. We bent around, trying to catch them, but the last leap left us unable to turn. Forcefully, we flicked our tails around trying to hit the small target. It hit, knocking back the fox and stunning it. The fox struggled to recover.
It was a short hunt, but a satisfying one. We were outsmarted, even for a single moment. We asked if the fox wanted a painless death or not. But before we could reach them, yet another explosion blocks us.
The bunny had recovered, much to our annoyance. A wisp was sent to deal with them, but nothing more. Our target was the fox.
It took a while to find them. When we did, we went for an alternative approach. Turning invisible, we circled around the fox. But it was useless. Somehow the fox could sense us.
Throwing the idea of stealth out, we charged. Of course, we expected more possible tricks from the fox. So a few extra precautions were used to minimize any room for escape.
And then that dumb wolf came around. Honestly, after seeing them run away in fear last time, we were surprised they tried fighting now. But in a way, that just lent more credence to the rumors. The fox really did summon a wolf.
We expected a good fight. But it ended up as only a distraction. The wolf's attacks lacked the strength needed to pierce our defenses. And they failed to adapt to our abilities. They weren't even worth being our prey. But given the opportunity, we tried to assimilate them.
But only tried. We were interrupted by the fox and bunny again. They wasted an entire mana gem to blow me up. And it worked! Our legs were damaged to the point of immobilization.
We had underestimated them. We thought they had no way to hurt me. We thought we couldn't be surprised. But that fox proved us wrong. And that just made us want them even more.
Even though it was interrupted, we still extracted a skill from that wolf. 'Shadow Step', it teleports us to a nearby shadow. A simple yet effective skill, with the only drawback being it takes a while to use multiple times. But we only needed one.
Appearing between the fox and the wolf, we caught our prey, knocking the wolf away after injecting some poison. An aura of decay descended onto us, but we ignored it. After all, we would be obtaining the fox's immunity soon enough.
We activate 'Assimilate'.
We see the fox's soul.
And it far exceeds ours in beauty. A perfect pearl of a soul, yet as dense as gold. We reach out for it, but 'Assimilate' can't even touch it. A fatal mistake.
A skill as powerful as 'Assimilate' always has restrictions. The first is that it requires touching the target. The second is that it must first drain the target's mana before targeting the soul. And last, Lilaphen cannot move until either the assimilation is complete, or they stop touching the target.
But Mochi cannot be assimilated. And so, as long as Lilaphen is touching Mochi, they cannot move.
Everyone watches as Lilaphen slowly breaks apart. First goes their skin, burnt away. Then goes flesh, muscles, tendons. Rotting away to dirt. Organs spill out, only to grow moldy before shriveling up into dust. All that is left are bones, still holding onto Mochi. Refusing, or unable to move.
As the light fades away, the two white crows out of mana, Mochi wiggles out of the skeleton's grasp. The moment she does, it collapses apart. She runs over to check on Nikola, who had the unfortunate luck to be stung by the monster's scorpion tail.
Luckily, Mochi identified it as mostly paralytic, and not lethal. Of course, the irony of Nikola being paralyzed again was amusing to the spectating crows, but eventually they too leave to rest.
"...I wonder what to eat later~" Mochi hums while treating Nikola's injuries again. Though it is slightly harder finding good materials, with the lack of accessible grass or good leaves. She doesn't even notice a little spider weaving some bandages on her back.
