Chapter 4 – Hell on earth

There are many things you don't expect to see when spawning in a game world. As my vision returns I certainly don't expect to see embers of bright yellow flame and a large, gray wolf flying in my direction that, as a side note, looks just as surprised as I am.

Only thanks to my training in VR I reflexively step aside and spin on my toes, throwing my leg in the wolf’s path and slamming it down with immense force I failed to anticipate. A good correction to my strength, I guess, my Strength stat over twice the average.

The wolf’s head I fortunately managed to hit caves in greatly under my heel with a satisfying crunch. I spin around and look at myself quickly, noticing in the corner of my eye as the wolf’s body twists in midair and slams lifelessly into the ground, and almost mistaking my long, wild, white-yellow hair before my eyes with an enemy attack.

Fortunately I managed to hit the wolf, because I gradually become aware of the completely different sensations I feel in this body, including first and foremost boobs and wide hips that completely change my balance. Then there is the addition of completely different height I have now, either a bit or a lot lower than before depending how you measure my legs, and do note I'm standing on my toes right now. And don't forget the horns weighing a bit, though less than I expected, on my head.

To be honest I don’t even how the hell I managed to perform this kick properly.

Anyway, as I look down I notice with relief I am fortunately clothed in what seems to be a tight, largely exposing black dress-like thing with metal plates that cover most of my bountiful chest and hips. The dress seems to be made out of two parts, one on my chest and one on my hips, connected by two wide stripes of fabric starting above my ass and going up to my chest, leaving my arms including shoulders, belly and legs from thighs down exposed. Well, not like I can see my back and ass, but I can feel fabric there.

Then I look around, and the sight around me is, to put bluntly, a huge mess. In the few seconds I have for myself I realize I am in what seems to be a village, or maybe was a village considering that most of the buildings in sight are either on fire or have already collapsed.

There is a large amount of monsters and people fighting around, as well as equal, if not higher, number of corpses laying all over the place. The monsters I recognize are rather weak, they are mostly various types of zombies, wolves and some goblins, but there are some less common like what appears to be a flaming hound, half a meter in height.

The villagers though, since they are villagers no matter how you look at it, don’t fare well in this scenario. I notice a few people who look like adventurers and soldiers, but most of the people around are simple farmers and craftsmen who can’t fight properly and are struggling with single monsters.

I don’t have much time to appreciate the sights as I notice another monster working its way towards me, a zombie this time, the decaying variant.

It’s an ugly abomination of rotting and decaying flesh held together and controlled by mana. When it was still alive it was probably an adventurer judging from the rags it has, but neither abilities nor mentality of the previous owner of the body remain as it runs unsteadily in my direction while roaring.

I concentrate on my arm, willing my Stellar Flame into existence with my skill, and lunge forward as bright yellow flame coats my small, clenched fist.

I faintly notice that my move feels off, and it feels as if I could do it with a lot smaller movement, but I have no time to contemplate as my fist lightly hits the zombie straight in the head, making it stagger backwards, and my eyes widen in horror and astonishment as I realize the zombie starts fucking falling to ashes without any damned sound where the flames catching up to my fist touch its body.

I quickly extinguish the flame and back away slightly, looking with pure shock at the zombie. It now misses its head and half of its chest just like that. Its arms fall down and hit the ground not held by anything, and I finally snap out of my shock at the sound.

But, holy shit, it’s not wrong to say that this zombie just partially disintegrated. Each part that was touched by the flame just fell apart and ino ashes, and the edges aren’t even scorched, their shape and surface more resembling flesh that was eaten out than burned.

I guess… I guess that explains Tier 9 of this thing.

Normal flame would at least burn it, but it seems that if this hot shit touches something, it literally turns it to ashes.

Come to think of it, why do I not feel the heat? It’s quite possible that I have practically complete fire and heat immunity. It’s also possible that this flame doesn’t emit heat. Or am I just that hot that this flame does nothing to me?

Welp, I’m definitely hot enough in one way, I only wonder if temperature of my body is high enough.

I wake up from my thoughts as I notice another monster running in my direction in the corner of my eye. I turn around to face it and notice it’s an ordinary goblin, a green, small, thin, ugly and screeching loudly thing running in my direction with a crude spear in its hand.

I opt to limit using my ability until I learn properly how powerful it is and how dangerous it can be and wait a moment for the goblin as it approaches, putting my weight on right leg as I step to the back.

When it’s close to me, I step forward quickly and take a wide swing with my right leg, then slam it into the ground as the goblin screeches in fright and waves its spear at its impending doom that doesn’t come, then bolt forward and give a left hook to its skull, sending it sprawling backwards and most likely killing it.

Wo~w. Just my arm, and not will all my power, was able to send such squirt flying. If I hit well with my leg, a human without too much armor would probably fly like that.

I take a deep breath and grin despite myself at the satisfaction that comes from hitting something properly and the way my body moves.

The very first thing I notice apart from significantly different balance is my flexibility, which is really impressive, enough not to find its limit in a normal fight. As a guy I would have had problems with doing what I just did because I couldn’t move so smoothly, but now it is not only much easier, but also feels much better.

And so… right.

And if we are talking about flexibility, I haven’t checked, but mine is probably on the level between professional gymnast and a bendy teenage girl. Touching my ankles with my forehead or doing a twine should pose absolutely no problem to me, and I think I will be able to go much further, the only question how much further.

I look around once again, this time in search of an enemy rather than in fear of one, and bolt forward to another goblin in the process of severing a screaming farmer’s hand with its crude sword.

I then proceed with a spinning kick that actually snaps the goblin’s spine and sends its head spinning god knows where in a beautiful arc amidst a spray of blood as its body falls violently to the ground.

Damn, this feels sooo~ good!

As if I was discovering the joy of martial arts for the second time, but only better.

I don’t bother with the human though, immediately rushing off to another monster and kicking its body into the air with a grin on my face.

I begin jumping from one enemy to another, mostly smashing their skulls, breaking spines and throwing them around, and at some point I become so immersed in it I think I start laughing aloud.

For a long while it’s just me, the beautiful feeling of my body moving in ways I haven’t experienced before, accompanied by cracking bones and spraying blood. Refreshing. Liberating.

When I regain the ability to properly assess the situation I am in, I notice I am standing between many corpses with an almost maniacal grin on my face.

I take a deep breath, circling my slightly strained arms to relax them, and finally think about what I heard before this whole fight, since I obviously didn’t have a proper chance during it.

Or actually, first of all, I wasn’t even given a chance to get used to my body before I was tossed here. I’m not sure what to make of it, because it practically sent me here without my confirmation.

A small bug probably, I don’t expect this game to be free of them, although there shouldn’t be any mechanical ones with the scale of the game.

Then this girl’s voice. It kinda sounded as if she was giving me advice. She told me not to let anyone close to me until I meet the right person, and she told me I will know when I see that person. She means that in romantic way, I guess?

Do I really have to follow this? I mean, does it really matter? Hm.

Well, I’ll follow it, for now at the very least. No hurt in doing that, right? I’m not sure what exactly she means though, but I guess I’ll find out when the time comes.

Then she said to use my Flame, I think? Be creative? I’ll experiment with that. I have heard that with enough training you can manipulate mana and other types of energy directly with your mind, so I’m guessing she meant to learn that properly.

Anyway, she also told me her name is Shiva, she is the Demon Princess, though the title alone doesn’t mean much to me, and that we will meet in the future. I wonder what that all means.

And also… she called me Helia, her daughter.

I feel something strange in my chest, but I can’t exactly place this fuzzy feeling. Is it relief? Happiness?

Helia I assume is my name, because I now realize I didn’t check it earlier. A nice name. Matches the star I was born from, huh?

I smile faintly at that thought and feel the same feeling again.

I think Helios was a god of sun in ancient mythology? There was something about it at school.

And I am apparently Shiva’s daughter, assuming it’s not a figurative way of saying, dunno, that she created me, I mean this body, or something. It’s like the setting, right? She said that my journey has begun, so I guess it should be like she sent me, her daughter, to this world to get stronger and learn.

I look around, noticing the burning, slowly collapsing buildings around me.

“And how… warm of a welcome I got to this world, huh?” I say, my voice hitching as I hear it. It’s most definitely not what I was used to, and, like, I expected that, but it still surprised me when I actually heard my youthful, girly, a bit high and somehow fruity and enchanting voice.

It’s nice though. I like it. Matches my looks well.

I lick my lips in thought and freeze as I feel another thing I missed before. When I extend my tongue, there are two distinct protrusions pressing into it from the sides. I feel them with my tongue, and yep, they are fangs. Hard to say how long they are being able only to feel them, but they are definitely sharp and around... close to one inch longer than normal? Nay, half and inch at most, everything feels larger if you feel it with your tongue. Anyway.

I turn around, intending to check on people who survived the fight, and I am immediately greeted with a sight I should have expected considering how I was enjoying myself and slaughtering the monsters here.

And that sight is a group of villagers huddling nearby with fearful expressions, cowering even when I turn my gaze to them.

I try to smile, but scowl the next second as the people flinch and avert their eyes, most likely having interpreted my smile as an evil smirk or something.

“Damn, what happened here? There are only crushed bodies.” I faintly hear a complaining voice from behind me and whip my head around.

There are five people walking in a group around the ruined village. They haven’t noticed me yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

They look like adventurers, hunters or however you want to call them, all in light armor and equipped with various weapons, including a greatsword, a sword and a shield, a bow and what looks like a staff. Last person seems to have no weapon apart from a dagger by her waist, but I figure she uses magic.

One, of them, the short woman with a bow, giving impression of a scout, suddenly frowns and stops in place.

“Do you hear…” She begins, looking around, and then her eyes fall on me and she immediately springs to full alert, reaching for an arrow. “Careful!”

The whole party turns to me, reaching for their weapons to my raised eyebrows.

Not like I expected them to be welcoming, but shouldn’t they at least ask what am I doing here or something instead of reaching for weapons?

I raise my arms with a giggle as I walk forward, closing the distance a bit. “Cool down a bit, okay? I killed only monsters here. I’d rather not fight with you if I can.”

The burly, bearded man with a greatsword, probably leader of the groups, frowns at me. “You are a demon. What are you doing here in that case?”

“Looking for directions, I guess.” I grin. “I got dumped here by a portal and I’ve no idea where I am apart from it being southeastern edge of Beholder’s Eye.”

That portal is a lie, obviously, but I figure it won’t help to tell the guys I spawned here since it doesn’t seem like they are players. I’d rather play a Demon who travelled to this world.

The party exchanges glances, and the man looks at me, ready to answer, before another voice interrupts from behind me.

“As if! What would a demon be doing here if not slaughtering and having fun, huh? I bet it was you who chased the monsters to attack this place.”

I turn around with a frown to the voice and see another man, or more accurately a group of three men with swords each, looking at me with unpleasant stares.

Not like I didn’t expect for some idiots to arrive here, but please don’t interrupt our conversation, okay?

“Do we really have such bad reputation, hm?” I snort. “For your information, I am here to have fun. But I’d rather not slaughter things like you, innocent villagers much less, since they are of no challenge nor entertainment for me. I fight to get stronger, not to hear cries and misery, which I’d rather avoid.”

All three men immediately appear to have been pissed off, their faces reddening and brows tightening. What I said is the truth though, because with my Stellar Flame I could easily turn them to dust.

“Oh, really? Do you want to see if we can’t kill you?” The one in the middle spits out.

“Sorry, but no, there’s nothing interesting in your ashes.” I reply calmly and turn back to the first party that looks at out exchange with worried looks. “Sorry about that, could we get back on topic? Could you please tell me where we are and what’s in vicinity?”

Even as I am speaking I notice the group in front of me looking worriedly at my side.

I sigh theatrically at the end of my sentence as the man seems to open his mouth to say something, and then dash to my side in the direction of the idiot who probably foolishly assumes that silencing his footsteps is enough to make me miss him.

He slashes sideways with his sword, telegraphing his move so wide and with so bad technique I could probably spot the attack while standing backwards to him, so I bend forward so that his blade passes above me and spring upwards.

I don’t do anything fancy, I just plant my fist in his solar plexus from downside, sending him slightly into the air with a cough of blood, and stand up, grab his head, and push my arm down, placing his head on height equal to his chances of killing me, accompanied by a painful, choked scream that ends with a decently loud thunk of empty container against hardened surface.

I then back away slightly and spit on the ground, noticing offhandedly that the spot my spit landed on starts sizzling and slightly smoking, and glare at the two remaining men, since the one on the ground is out cold. “Fuck off, the grown-ups are talking. If you want to die, your turn will come after that.”

Oh, that was refreshing. Good to know I’ll have a chance to punch some humans, not only monsters.

I turn around once again to the group of five to the gritting teeth of the remaining two men that rush forward to help their comrade and nod my head.

“Sorry about that. I hope there will be no more interruptions.” I smile brightly, taking a few steps forward.

“Uh, so, you would like to know where you are? But how can we trust you?” The leader asks cautiously after wincing at my smile that doesn’t seem to match the scenery at all.

I roll my eyes at that. “You can’t. To put in bad way, you might want to tell me before I try to force you. To put in good way, I have no reason to do anything to you, and after I get my damned directions, I’ll go my way and won’t meet you again.”

The group has mixed reactions about it, the tall, beautiful woman without any weapons visibly gets angry, the short girl with blue hair and staff matching her colors sighs and seems to relax at that, and the rest only wear unreadable frowns.

“Before that, could ya tell us what happened ‘ere?” The bulky man with heavier armor and a shield asks. “There’s a fuckin’ ton of bodies.”

I scowl at that. Come on, man, not like I expect you to be bright with how you look, but I don’t think that’s a good question.

“I killed some, some killed each other. I didn’t pay attention to that, you know? I could tell you that a village got attacked by monsters and burned, but that’s pretty obvious so you should have noticed already, unless you are as dumb as that question you just asked.”

He flinches at that, but doesn’t refute, either wanting to avoid conflict or realizing he should have kept quiet.

The woman with no weapon though doesn’t keep quiet.

“Enough of that!” She snaps. “You’re a demon, and if we give you directions, you will just go to a town and kill innocents-!”

I glare at her with enough scorn, anger and dissatisfaction to shut her up mid-sentence, and she does, so do others looking either at the ground or at the woman with alarm.

“And if you don’t, I’ll find it myself. The difference will be that I’ll be in worse mood and much more likely to kill someone that pisses me off, and when I get pissed, I might just turn someone to ash faster than you can recall where you fucked up this conversation.” Why do I find that woman so annoying?

I glare at her as she opens her mouth to say something, but doesn’t say anything in the end, instead looking behind me with a smirk.

I set my fist ablaze with as much power as I can and whirl around, throwing my fist in the chest of one of the two remaining men that approached with unpleasant stares as he has his sword raised and just begins a swing supposedly for my neck.

And saying I hit him would be a bit of overstatement, because my fist passes through him with barely any resistance, turning his whole chest, stomach, head, and most of his arms into ashes in less than a single second, leaving only barely connected legs and a few scrap pieces of meat. That's... a bit gross.

They fall to the ground, producing unnaturally loud in the silence sounds, followed by the half-melted sword, or actually more like half-evaporated sword, that makes a ringing sound as it hits metal pieces of the man’s lower armor.

I extinguish the flame and shake my fist lightly as the third man screams in horror and runs away. Duh.

“I warned. Your loss.” I say with a smirk and with strange satisfaction welling up inside me. Should I feel bad for killing a human? Hm. Call me heartless, but I don't really feel anything. I turn to the group once again. “Can we please get back to the topic?”