In its vision was a layout, a layout that was, in fact, its own body.
This layout was inhabited by creatures of its own creations, all except for one. That one was a source of worry for it.
Its loyalty remained in question and its motives unknown. What it did know was that it was helpful. It wanted to keep using this chess piece tactically.
But how was it supposed to curb its fear? It couldn't. The things it had discovered could spell a slow demise!
So it thought, and it didn't take long to think, for it was a professional thinker. It already learned the best strategy.
Thus, It assessed how much energy it could muster. Plenty.
It created a body, a plain old body. They were the bones of a creature, a human. Ordinary and average. A dime in a dozen. One of its many stockpiles of deceased corpses.
Then it shook, only slightly. Just enough to remove a part of itself with a set of instructions and room for memory.
A new small flicker appeared within the vision of its body, of its layout.
So began its plan of action, and so began the wait.
…
It waited as the small flicker slowly made its way through its body following the instructions it set.
It bid its time. It watched the light reach near its pillar and remain in place.
…
It was anxious. It anxiously spectated at the thought that the flicker could simply vanish.
That flicker could disappear and fail to report!
But…! It worked!
The flicker retreated and was thus immediately recalled to its core. To its brain to process the memories that it had created for itself.
With a plop, the small flicker returned to itself, and like a drop of water in an ocean made no quantitative change. But it still shook.
It shook with anger! It was mad! For it had relayed itself a harrowing sight!
The energy that belonged to itself was being stolen! A thief! A parasite! A leech!
It felt ire, but it had learned. It had learned to think so it thus pondered.
…
But as it pondered and wondered, only a single thought surfaced. Punish!
It had learned to use tools and through it learned to think, thought brought emotion and thus it learned to think of emotions.
Thoughts of emotions made it think of actions, the reaction to the method it had thought to employ.
So it called upon the light, the foreign lively flicker. It brought it to its core and there it trembled with renowned anger.
With emotion in motion, it struck the leech. The one it fed that had taken from it.
It shrunk in size and writhed in madness, the pain it faced would long term harm it.
But none of it seemed to matter for at least it had learned to mind it.
…
But that was wrong. It hadn't. As its favorite tool had informed it.
The leech had screeched in fervent madness.
It thought to look to ascertain the truth but the foreign life was hard to decipher. So it trusted the tool and thought about it.
…
It relented. It learned something new and relented.
The leech inside it was greedy. With enough benefits, it could work for eternity.
It thought, and remembered, that it had long since learned to manipulate greed.
***
To Shel who had been up on cloud nine for the past two or so days, Ed's words came as a shock.
"Wha- About what?" Her elated face was now nowhere to be seen and was instead replaced by a crumpled expression of perplexity as she asked her question with unease.
"This is too much" At first, Ed had let it slide since he believed Shel would eventually return to normal but she hadn't. She had instead for some reason held delusions about forming a happy family and given birth to many kids. Ed had no idea where she could have possibly learned of such concepts!
"I- I'm st-" Shel who was trying to explain herself was however interrupted as Ed continued to say his part.
"Forgive me for being too straightforward but… I don't love you…" Ed said with a trace of sympathy. When dealing with orcs it was better to be straightforward, even if the truth did hurt.
He didn't intend for it to hurt, it was just how things worked out. He had no plans of tricking himself into thinking he could make a one-sided relationship work.
For Shel this news came out of nowhere, it was as if someone smacked her head with a boar leg. It was completely unexpected! Not to mention that the pain from being struck by something so delicious relayed both emotional and physical pain.
As one would expect, she collapsed on her knees. Surprisingly, however, she wasn't crying. She seemed sober, maybe for the first time in a while.
It had been a long time since she was brought out of her delusions and became forced to accept reality. So far, Ed's responses to her quips were either awkward or showed little care for her. All of her initial advances were also missed so blatantly that it was more of a miracle she didn't come to this conclusion on her own.
"I- I'm sorry…" She had forced herself upon him and deluded herself into thinking that Ed accepting to indulge in her desire meant he loved her. At that time, it was true that Ed declining her advance meant he didn't love her but the opposite was not necessarily true.
"No, it's ok" Ed had given her too much hope as well. Since he first met her he knew of her intentions and yet… how much time had passed since then? He was essentially leading her on by feigning ignorance.
"But it's my fault…" Shel's personality was forceful. Her first meeting with Ed was literally dragging him into a battlefield while living in a world of her own. She had set herself up for failure. She let out a sigh.
"You can go…" She said meekly. It was clear that she was only acting strong but Ed also knew this meant she would get over it.
"Thank you for bringing me here" He wasn't sure how she found him or how she brought him back but at the very least she showed concern for him. That was something that could be appreciated while still remaining as nothing but friends.
Ed slowly got up from Shel's bed and walked on over to the front door. He opened it and left. Shel was left by herself. Again. She sat on her bed and stayed there for a while. Maybe at some point, she would fall back to sleep.
Ed on the other hand was not grieving. As he walked past the ruined buildings of the thunder cry tribe he thought about the new skill.
'I should start off with a finger' Originally, Ed planned to spend the night practicing his skills rather than sleeping but the new skill just so happened to make recoveries through sleeping.
That made Ed worry however since he couldn't afford to waste too much time sleeping just because of a finger. While he doubted a mere finger could take upwards of a week to regenerate it wasn't wrong to be wary.
'The only other problem with this skill is that I can't wake up as soon as the process is finished' That meant that Ed wouldn't really be able to gather any data on how long it takes.
'My body regains energy from sleeping but it has already slept enough, no?' Whenever he was recalled the orc body would be giving a temporary rest, Ed felt it was therefore possible that he could indeed wake up after a short nap.
Ed eventually decided to go through with the experiment. It was short and he would only lose a finger.
He found himself what he presumed was an empty house and entered. Inside was nothing but primitive furniture.
'Let's start' Ed closed the door and decisively sliced off a pinky finger. If anything was going to regenerate fast, it would have to be the small finger.
[You've been dealt damage. -12 hp]
'It looks like I'm my biggest enemy' That was the most damage he had taken as an orc since returning.
Ed quickly cast aside the silly thoughts and grabbed his finger before it had a chance to fall to the ground.
He had a plan, the experiments didn't have to start once he fell asleep. He took the pinky finger and placed it on the bleeding wound that already showed signs of intending to close on itself.
'There is a risk to having too high a vitality' Ed felt mildly alarmed by this short episode and made a mental note to properly plan out his attributes. Randomly assimilating whatever item was available was not necessarily the best way.
Ed held the pinky in place and essentially glared at it as he narrowed his vision as if attempting to see each individual cell at work. Obviously, that wasn't the case, if anything he was only straining his vision.
After what felt like a long minute, Ed stopped holding the pinky finger in place and…!
It held. But Ed was dissatisfied. For one the reattachment procedure had been too risky and he didn't actually get to use the skill.
'That was just my vitality at work' This meant that Ed would have to either cut off a larger partition of himself to see the effects or that he needed to sleep for it to activate on its own.
After the short analysis, Ed decided to continue making more experiments.. He would surely lose a lot of blood in the process but bloodletting was one of his specialties.