Chapter 7 - Doubts are for cowards, right?

As I looked at the broken and burned village surrounding me, a sense of melancholy flooded my mind. I wondered whether I could save all of them if I just tried again, but I soon realized that such a thing would be impossible. Not only does it happen too soon after I come to upon death, but even if I went back with my current levels and skills, I am not strong enough yet to stop an entire horde of monsters. But I really want to try for some reason, and the thought brings a bit of anticipation to my mind. Weird.

My attention drifted to my left, seeing the dead mother of the child I somehow managed to save with my earlier escapade, as well as a trail of tiny steps leading towards the forest, but those aren't the only relatively fresh footsteps going in the same direction. Slightly bigger ones trail behind, but none of the truly big ones. 'Lucky.' They seemed to have investigated for a bit, going back and forth, overlapping a number of times. They surrounded what must have been their leader before heading off. They were no doubt confused on how that big giant just plopped over in the middle of what they had assumed to be just another simple raid; maybe even paying respects to them, although I doubted these savages had such concepts. 'But why did I?' I ignored those thoughts soon, eventually they obviously decided to follow their only available lead, the footsteps of the child.

'They might be smarter than I had hoped…' With nothing else but charred corpses to keep me company here I decided to follow them, if not for any other reason then to throw my ever-growing rage against a big enough obstacle to get me back into a different state of mind I tell myself. Deep down, however, I know I just want to brutalize those bastards who would orphan an innocent child. Or just brutalize something, I was really keen on the option, even making sure none of them stayed around long enough to become my next victim for some reason. 'The child is more important, for fucks sake!'

I make use of my earlier trick, flattening myself and launching myself in the direction I know they were headed. As I do so, I pass a number of corpses, most human, but some goblin and bigger, corpses I didn't register earlier in my haste. 'They put up a fight, just not enough of it.' My rage grew with every beheaded and mutilated human I passed, and even more so with every speared monster, which I wish I could have killed myself. 'Savages.'

Soon, I launch myself through the first leaves, entering the forest proper. I notice then that my mode of transportation has gained quite a bit of height, but my newfound endurance shrugs off the leaves and tiny branches with relative ease, so I continue on my way. A couple dozen meters into the forest I pass two corpses, one human and one goblin. The goblin corpse makes me more irritated than I had already been, but I don't ponder on it much, 'I just need to kill something, anything.' A small voice at the back of my head wonders whether I had always been this bloodthirsty, but I shut it off as soon as it rears its head, I don't care.

I hit the ground, I leap once again.

I hit the ground, I leap once again. Another pair of corpses.

I hit the ground, I leap once again.

I hit the ground, I leap once again. Soon-to-be-corpses block my path.

The child is there, as well as three goblins and one thing that is slightly chubbier than the rest. Still looks like one, just a goblin that works out and is pumped full of more steroids than any living being should ever take. Its upper body is decked with muscles upon muscles, scarcely covered by the skin of some kind of animal that has definitely seen better days. The weapon it uses is also noticeably better quality than the rusty knives the average goblin is equipped with. 'Qurious' It takes me longer than it usually would have to classify it as a hobgoblin in my mind, but I disregard that as I hit the floor and pull the attention of all four away from the trembling child they are surrounding and towards me.

'Not for long.' I decide as their days are as numbered as my patience is, I know they will die today, and I know I will be the end of them. 'I am a Hunter, and they are my prey.' As I launch off the ground towards the first surprised goblin I shape my appendage into a thin and sharp spike, spelling his doom in even their rudimentary language as it punctures his chest and is embedded into his heart. Before his body even completely hits the ground the blood fills my being, filling me once again with the sense of euphoria I felt during my evolution. 'That's the stuff.' However, regardless of how much I enjoyed the sensation, it appeared to fade as soon as life did from the goblin, leaving me majorly annoyed the moment his ugly corpse hit the ground. 'Tch'

[Level up!]

The system notification only aids to annoy me further by distracting me from obvious prey covering in my presence. I was practically salivating as they reared their ugly heads and looked at me, no, the end of their miserable lives. That thought sparked some long lost joy.

Luckily, I had three, no four, more sources of the amazing feeling right before me. And I would savor each of them. The big one seemed to catch on the quickest on my plan to devour their lifeblood, screaming something in that hideous language of theirs to the others, but it didn't help them much besides the fact that it made them aware that I was about to end their miserable lives. The second one felt much the same way the first one, he had no chance to react, physics was on my side and I was simply better, I was a Hunter after all. His corpse began falling as the blood filled me with that feeling again, and god, was it amazing. I would give anything to simply experience this again. Every fiber of my being was filled with euphoria, no pain I ever felt, whether emotional or physical, mattered at all as it was all washed away in a fruitlessly short wave of pure bliss that even the highest of highs could not imitate.

The big one screamed something again as he made his way towards me, I didn't pay it too much heed if he wanted to be next, after all, there was no chance any of these things could beat me when it comes to killing. The feeling of bliss passing made me even more sure of that, I just needed more of it. More. More. MORE! Or well, at least I was sure of that before his dagger began to shine brightly with some kind of force and appeared to rip through even the air in its path as it came for me. 'No you don't you~ Aaargh!' I screamed internally, as my attempt at dodging was less successful than I had hoped it would be, part of my being forever removed from my body and helplessly falling to the floor before disintegrating into nothingness, just like the goblin corpse that was under me. 'What is THAT!?'

Regardless of my confusion, whatever enchantment the blade possessed seemed to not be restricted to the part that was not connected to me anymore, but also the rest of it. A horrible pain, reminding me of my soul being torn apart by the system before my first life filled my mind, pushing back the weird bloodlust I felt until just now and making me realize how stupid what I was doing was. 'What was wrong with me?' My vision faded soon after that, before it got replaced by the now familiar ceiling and a much, much clearer mind that wasn't invaded by whatever that evolution did to me in my last life.

'What WAS that? Why did it~' My thoughts were cut off as the memories of my last iteration set in. 'That.. that wasn't me. That evolution, it did something to me, to my mind. The… The Racial Trait I didn't check? Why didn't I check it? I wouldn't have done that normally. That was the first weird thing. The last thing that kind of felt like me was the melancholy about the~ The village! I need to save him again!' The sense of urgency purged my doubts for a moment as I flattened myself again, just as I did earlier. For a moment, it was as hard as it had been the first time, but then…

[Shaping level up!]

[Shaping level up!]

[Shaping level up!]

'Huh, that's neat!' With that, I was off.