“A peaceful town is a peaceful town. It is silent and noisy. It is colorful and bleak, quarrelsome and conciliatory, stagnant and dynamic,” said a man with an apple-shaped headwear. He took a bite at an apple. “Everyone is doing his best to be good at something.” He observed a shopping mall.

Beside the mall, there was a stadium. Next to the stadium was a gym. Then came a sports complex. Encased between the sports complex and an electric station, there was a building. The board beside it read ‘War Memorial Site: Field Hospital’. At the door of the Field Hospital, statues of soldiers trailed out.

The forerunner lacked a leg. The second man had his hand stretched up, bidding something. The third man had a burned face, his ears in cotton shrouds. He held the collar of the second man, lest that person collapsed from his confusion of legs. The person at the back lacked his right arm. He held himself straight, a knifed apple on his left hand. I stood, looking at the knifed apple. I could see the four statues, clearly. I lifted a stone from the ground.

A man with brown hair stood in front of me. He had a spiteful smile on his face. “Congratulations, you’ve won this round. However, if you ask my opinion, Abeism and socialism are more likely to succeed than your chances of winning this game.”

“You are lying. I can control myself better now.” My name was Ashen Spines. “Who are you?”

“I’m just someone looking for clout. You know, that instant gratification thing.”

“It does not make for conversation. If that is so, you want to glorify your moral stances, and your for-positions and against-positions. We have different ways of doing things, but we are feathers of similar birds.”

“No, that’s wrong. You are the demon.”

I threw the stone I held across the street. "It does not matter.”

With power and rebellion always came the deception of personality.

>

***

‘A journey of a lifetime begins with a single breath.’

One breath. Two breaths. Ten thousand breaths.

Katana

A katana is a Japanese sword. It has a curved, single-edged blade. Its guard can be circular or squared. You can hold it with both hands. It was used by the samurai in feudal Japan. The katana has made an appearance in Dark Souls one. It breaks easily, maybe.

source: wikipedia

I squinted at the description.

The mass of the katana was 1.3 kg. It was a single line. I wondered why I was looking at it. There was no katana around.

System notification

Welcome to ‘Life of no legacy’

I squinted at the notification as well. It had a blue background.

I preferred black. ‘Life of no legacy’. That was an oxymoron. Any conceited bastard who had done the slightest good action could guess that.

I looked around. I was in a plain. I sneezed. There were red slimes hanging out under a tree. They had dark red lanterns on top of their bodies. From afar, I almost thought one of them looked at me. This particular slime grew limbs, and wings. It proceeded to take flight.

The slime left behind a trail of smoke in its path.

Was that an alien?

Another slime bounced around to a pond. It was a clear pond. My eyes followed the slime. Once the slime got wet, some of its redness dulled out. It bounced to the other side of the pond and attacked a stone.

That was actually another slime.

I gazed at the slime. The title made sense to me then. These must really be some aliens. The flighty alien appeared above the rock slime and roasted it. The rock slime glowed red. It did not budge. The flighty alien roasted it to cinders.

The flighty alien left. The red slime remained there, and then left. Was that to mean something? The red slime constrained itself and flexed. The earth absorbed the cinders. Some plants grew. After a while, small rocks appeared.

I guessed it was worth its luck. The red slime missed a step as it bounced about the pond and fell deeper. As it remained in the depths, it disintegrated. I would disintegrate too if this world disappeared on me one day.

I realized I was the same as that red slime.

A crow came down to the baby rock slimes. It pecked at a few, and then took them for a flight. A slime popped out of the ground in front of me.

I looked at my wear. I had a linen tunic. It was white. I had some shorts on. I looked around. There were a few pebbles lying about. There were shrubs sparsely spaced about. I looked up. It was cloudy.

What was I supposed to do?

The slime bounced forward, and hit me. A notification appeared in front of me. There was a green bar. It indicated a value 100/200. I retreated a few steps.

That was sudden. I ran in the opposite direction. I saw another slime in front of me. This one was of a green color. The one chasing me was a rock slime. I looked behind. Both slimes were slow. My health point got back up to 106.4/200

I lifted a pebble and threw it at the rock slime. The slime’s health points appeared. It looked full. I threw a few more pebbles. After about five pebbles, I found I had chinked away a small portion of its health. Consecutive values of [-0.5] appeared over its body.

I felt something latch onto my legs from behind. I looked down. I saw vines. I stretched my legs, and the vines broke. It took away 10 points of my remaining health. ‘That should have been minimal damage’, I thought.

I ran to the rock slime’s left. The grass rustled as I moved. The air was hot and moist. I diverted my attention to the green slime. I threw pebbles at it. This one lost more health per hit. Each hit displayed a value of [-2]. By the fifth hit, the green slime was down to two thirds of its health point.

That was encouraging.

I threw more pebbles, circling the slimes. The rock slime decided to shield the green slime. It was stronger. Why would it do that?

The rock slime’s guard was easy to dodge.

The green slime turned yellow. It looked dried up. It took [-2.5] damage for two consecutive hits, before I registered only [-1] per hit. I held back another throw. The slime had less than a third of its health points now. I noticed the now-yellow slime had a vine attached to the rock slime. That was just as well. I had taken out another chunk of the rock slime’s health points.

The green slime spread out a web of vines in my general direction. Orange flowers bloomed and exploded. Some yellow wisps fell onto me. These sizzled and exploded. I got seven of these and lost a total of 35 health points.

The smell was putrid. It burned my nose. I jumped back. This did not register as damage.

So, the green one meant business as well. I was down to 87/200 health points. I had a good health regeneration rate, it seemed.

I took some distance. I staggered about some knots on the grass. These knots seemed alive, when I broke them. I lost ten more health points. They must have originated from the green slime.

I kept running. Did the rock slime have similar abilities. I hoped it did not.

The sky cleared up slightly ahead. While I was running, I felt something hot braze my legs. It took away forty of my health points.

That was not much fun. A glance to my left told me it was a red slime. I kept running running about.

I had 67.8/200 health points. I saw more slimes about.

I looked about. I took some seconds to catch my breath.

I knew the plan. I ran towards the pond and got in. I waited for the slimes. They seemed to be taking their sweet time. I recovered about forty health points.

System notification

You have obtained the following inventory entries:

Rock slime

A hard-to-break creature. The rock slime lives on desolate planes and crags.

Plant slime

A lofty creature. The plant slime is a timid creature which likes to live in the company of stronger slimes.

Fire slime

A fast and aggressive slime. This slime can move as fast as 10 meters per second.

I tapped on the rock slime.

Rock slime

This creature’s body is hard to break. It is made of moderately packed molecules, known as Ander.

The slime lives in craggy shelters and tends to like some solitude. It can be found in mountainous regions and at the bottom of precipices, but rarely deeper in caves.

The people of Arvald call this slime’s creator the gallant paladin. Legend has it that a giant slime once crushed the palace of Arvald.

Health points

30

Smash attack

125

Projectile attack

50

Movement speed

4 ms-1

And it could power up that greenie slime.

I figured I could either kite or single-target the mob behind me. I laughed. An upper hand would be awhile.

I looked behind. I saw a fire slime. I ducked.

Fire brewed overhead.