A/N: Next chapter will be released on Wednesday because Volume 1 will be ending and it doesn't make any sense to make you all wait for just 1 chapter when im gonna be taking a break after it.
as for Volume 2, im glad that the powerstone goals didn't reach to Ch. 26 because im still rewriting it.
Anyways, enjoy the chapter
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Being chased by someone can give you a variety of different emotions and feelings.
An example would be getting chased by someone who loves you, that feeling? Fulfilling and validating. Makes you feel sexy.
But what I am feeling right now is anything but that because fuck me and my luck, I guess.
Oh, I'm 10 times luckier than I was in my previous life, let's go and fuck around then.
Now we are in the finding out phase, gee, I wonder how that came to be?
Alright, enough with the jokes unless I want to speedrun getting killed after reincarnation any%, all of this is my fault of course, that much I can agree with you, which is why I'll manage...…hopefully.
I flew low just under the forest's canopies, fast and swiftly weaving through and between the thick tree trunks, honestly, anywhere that was narrow enough for me to fly through, which was a lot ever since I dropped the two bags I was carrying a while ago except for just one pillow as an experiment, but we'll get to that later
It's a shame I couldn't try their food, but it is what it is.
I landed in another dark corner of the forest, a place where I believed I could hide the pillow and marked the area using [Mind Map].
If this one pillow is what they're looking for, then it's all good as long as they finally leave me alone.
I went away from the place and tried to find a spot near the area to hide while also having a perfect view of where I hid the pillow.
I scanned the place and found a thick bush that could hide my body, and slithered my way inside it.
Hopefully, they won't be able to track back to me since I flew my way through the entire trip towards here.
You might be thinking, why don't I just fly away from the forest? well-
*Fwooooshh*
I looked up to see the blonde woman speeding around the area I am in.
She was fast, maybe faster than my current top speed, even though I never really recorded it nor tried to, but I am not going to try my luck here.
Though she was flying pretty fast, she was not sonic-breakingly loud, because she was trying to look for me extremely thoroughly, which I honestly am quite pissed about.
I totally understand it will piss anyone off if someone steals their stuff, totally normal, but after a whole hour?!! For a pillow?!!, and she's trying to find it from an animal, no less.
Honestly, I don't deserve this level of pursuit.
I had thought about just showing up to them, acting like a remorseful animal, befriending them, but-
*Pew* *Pew* *Pew*
In the distance, gunshots rang out, it was a silencer kind of gun of course, it was an eerily quiet one too, like the sound is so quiet, it is comparable to Hollywood-levels of Silencers, which goes to show their level of technology, and I doubt that I would have heard it if I wasn't a Night Fury.
*Pew* *Pew* *Pew*
Those guys are pretty thorough though not gonna lie, every now and then I would hear gunshots, they were probably killing the monsters in the area that had no choice but to stay in the forest despite the Fear and Panic Domain.
I had seen some other creatures in the area, mostly frozen in fear and didn't run like the others earlier.
Spending lots of resources on something as trivial as this made me think that there was some other goal she was trying to accomplish.
And that theory only solidified even more once I dropped the two blanket bags at around 15 minutes after my initial escape from earlier
I had thought that they rigged some of the pillows and blankets with trackers, which is why I dropped all of them except one.
Is she looking to find something about me?
"Aaaaaggggghhhh!!!! moooouuuuhhh, this is getting WAAAAYY too annoying" she said in her tired and exasperated voice before flying away once more, I could hear her and her soldiers loud and clear since I still had my [Hunters Ear] running behind the scenes but it seems that continuous usage is draining into not just Energy, but to the mental will of the brain as well, which I unfortunately found out the hard way.
Coupled with the fact that I also had other skills active like [Silent Glide], [Night Vision] and [Danger Sense] running alongside it, I was in 4 times the trouble, and even though the passive skills weren't too overbearing, I still didn't like that, but what the hell am I supposed to do?
I asked Lucoa about it, and she said she had already put a little note at the end of the skill and many other skills about 2 days ago at around the same time when I asked her about putting little notes about the disadvantages of using skills like with the immense pain of using [Skin Grafting].
*Thump*
I froze, I could hear a methodical series of footsteps, the crunching of the leaves indicating that it was walking slowly towards the general area I am currently hiding in, going in a slow but steady pace, travelling in a straight line, it wasn't making its way towards me in a beeline though so that's good, I'll just sit here and let it pass.
Realising that, the tension in my body went away a little.
I could see the flashlight from his weapon beaming in his surroundings, scanning for any signs of me.
I watched in my corner of the forest to see if they had trackers in the pillow
*Step* *Step* *Step* *Step*
Huh… he just passed through the place where I hid the pillow, good.
I'll fly and grab my well-earned pillow once it passes by me, but now you might be wondering:
Why not just kill them? Wouldn't it solve your problems?
Well, I am here to say that yes, that certainly solves all my problems, but I don't want to kill people, not that I am against killing under certain circumstances, like the one I am in right now, since I don't have a moral code against killing.
However, I just generally don't kill people, simple as that.
But let's face it, there is no way that a dialogue would happen between a Neohuman and a thieving animal like me, especially since they are actively looking for me, chasing me down, heck they even already surrounded most of the Forest I am in, and I shouldn't underestimate the casual soldier's weapons and equipment like the one approaching my perimeter, their suits were able to augment their bodies to absurd levels that all of them were Orange according to [Danger Sense].
I like to think I can take on an Orange-level enemy, but multiple of them? no, not a chance, but luckily that guy's just gonna pass by me so no big dea-
*Fwoooooomm* *boooogggsssh*
Fuck, she landed close to where I was.
"Captain Shinomiya." The soldier salutes her
"I'll search for it here, you go help the others." Said the woman, who is apparently named Shinomiya, and so the soldier leaves.
What a weirdly Japanese name for someone who looks like the typical American blonde woman.
Which reminds me of my other sibling, the most African-American-looking fella and yet his name was Zhou Gehenna, apparently his mother was an African-American while his Dad was a Chinese dude, so in short, he was real life Ch¡gga, as to exactly how he ended up in the orphanage, I guess I'll never know cuz I never asked and am no longer living there.
Speaking of African-Americans, since I'm currently a black dragon right now, am I allowed to say the N-word? Hmm, food for thought.
"I know I saw it around here somewhere earlier." she said to herself. My body froze to a degree that I never thought was possible.
My eyes widened. She was now directly right in front of my field of view, moderately far, but she was inching closer and closer.
"Come out, come out wherever you are", she taunts, believing that that would somehow cause me to go outside, and why are you even talking to an animal?
Granted that this animal can understand you, but do you do that to all animals? What a wierdo…oh wait, I do that sometimes with my pets…
"I know you're here" she steps closer, one step closer to my hiding bush.
"Listen, I am not going to hurt you" she says, which froze me
'Not gonna hurt me? Is she being for real?, can i really tru-'
*Pew* *Pew* *Pew*
'Ah- Nevermind, i almost got caught lackin there'
Muffled gunshots rang out which only I could hear, because I'm sure she couldn't.
*Step* *Step* *Step*
With each foot that dropped onto the soil, they got louder each time.
'What the hell do I do?!!!!, WAT THE FUCK DO I DO?!!!, LUCOA SAVE MEEEE!!!!....Oh, right, she can't read my mind, another fuck me then.'
Panic surged within me, my heart pounding till I couldn't hear my surroundings.
I looked at her to find the colour that [Danger Sense] has assigned to her, and what do you know, the color she exudes is as purple as a God of Destruction, wallahi I'm cooked, If only i hadn't gone on this damn "recon mission".
.
.
.
What am I doing? I've already experienced firsthand with the centipedes how dangerous this world is, and just because I saw something that reminded me of what I once was...it had easily destabilised my convictions at that time…...pathetic really.
'Think…think…what do I do? Currently I'm undetected, but I fear that she's getting- yup, she's just a few meters in front of the bush I'm at ….don't move….don't make a sound'
As I am sitting there playing Stick Insect, my mind raced a thousand miles just to think of a solution
Plasma Blast? Too slow to activate, and the Rapid shot would be too weak.
Claw? Only if I could survive a few minutes and actually land my strikes.
Bite? Chomp? Bye-bye teeth, hell, even I couldn't hit a low-tier Centi-Queen, and I have to hit someone with an augmented suit that is a purple color on the danger charts? No thanks.
Tail swipe? Does absolutely nothing
The rest of my skills are either supplementary skills or passives
If I had to rely on one skill, it would either be between two, first would be the unreadable skill, and the other would be the newly gained [Shock] Skill.
Unreadable skill might come in clutch, but putting all my eggs in that basket might put me 6ft underground, so [Shock] skill it is.
The [Shock] skill is the better, more reliable alternative simply because of the fact that it's Special Effects might trigger, even just activating
Every second I wasted was a precious resource in this damned situation 'Fuck it, we ball, come on! Shinomiya!! I'll electrocute you till your ass says it's sorry!'
'SHOCK!!' I activated it in advance just in case she ever comes by touching my hiding place so that i could immediately deliver an attack.
10, 9, 8, 7...3, 2, 1.
I readied my body to pounce on her if she so much as touches a leaf on my bush
I slowly moved my hand forward, my muscles tensed like the powerful strings on a ballista, ready to pull myself forward, but when I was doing that, I saw nothing in front of me.
'Eh? Where did my hand go?' I blinked
The hand that I put forward disappeared right in front of my eyes like it was never there.