What? Did I Just Reincarnate As A Flame?

[p_magno]

The click-hiss of a soda can punctuated the city's afternoon hum. Jessica raised the can in a small salute, her voice cutting through the pedestrian flow. "Hey! Over here!"

Two figures weaving through the crowd turned. Mark, his face lighting up with recognition, waved back, gently guiding the woman beside him—Elsa.

They reached her spot by the newsstand. "Hey, Marky," Jessica said, her smile easy as she looped an arm around his shoulders in their usual, half-headlock greeting. "Been a while."

Mark laughed, a genuine, hearty sound. "Hey ugh!, not too hard on the neck, I want it straight for the wedding photos." He patted her elbow with a winced expression, playing at struggling.

"Knucklehead," she mumbled, giving an extra, squeeze before releasing him, earning a soft laugh from Elsa.

Jessica turned her attention to the source of the laugh. Elsa was all gentle smiles and kind eyes. "You must be the famous fiancée," Jessica said, her tone warm. "This guy's been feeding me a steady diet of 'Elsa this' and 'Elsa that' for months. It was sweet enough to give me a cavity." She threw a wink at the younger woman.

It was true. Back when Elsa was just 'the girlfriend,' Mark had been a one-man broadcasting station of her virtues. 'She remembered I hate celery, Jess!' 'She laughs at my dumbest jokes.' 'She's just… heartwarming, you know?' Jessica knew the subtext, the cheerful, unintentional jab beneath his blabbering. 'See? This is what it's like. Why don't you have this?'

Elsa's cheeks tinged pink. "Thank you for your words, Mrs. Jessica."

"No, no, no," Jessica interjected, waving a dismissive hand. "Just Jessica. Seriously. We're all colleagues here." She took a final sip of her drink and tossed the can into a bin. "Alright, let's get moving. I'm starving. The usual spot, or are we feeling adventurous?"

As the trio fell into step, debating burger joints versus the new sushi place, Jessica let the familiar rhythm of Mark's chatter wash over her. At work, she was the relatable senior, the one who remembered everyone's coffee order and could talk about video games and weekend plans, carefully sanding down the twelve-year age difference between her and most of the team. It was a role, a comfortable costume.

Behind the costume was the old dream. The one that had taken root when she was a teenager clutching a cheap microphone: to be a streamer, to build a community, to talk about games and life for a living. She'd tried. Late nights after her average job, talking to a screen showing only a handful of viewers. The passion was a small, stubborn flame, but reality was a bucket of cold water. Bills needed paying. Stability was a cage, but it was a secure one.

And here she was. Thirty-four. Walking with her junior colleague and his beautiful, kind fiancée. A walking emblem of everything her life had somehow skirted around.

'Sigh... What a life,' she thought, the smile on her face feeling suddenly thin. 'No love experience. Not even a single, messy boyfriend. Never got dumped, never got adored. Never even got properly looked at. Am I a quenched flame or something?'

She tilted her head back, seeking distraction in the expanse above the skyscrapers. The sky was a startling, perfect blue. Puffy, picturesque clouds drifted lazily. One, directly in her line of sight, had coalesced into a near-perfect, fluffy heart.... 'Wait-! is the sky teasing me too?'

The thought was almost laughable. But the laugh died before it was born.

A scream ripped through the ambient noise.

Jessica's head snapped toward the sound. Halfway across the busy cross-street, a small girl in a bright yellow dress stood frozen, a stuffed rabbit dangling from her hand. A delivery truck was bearing down on her, its horn blaring a continuous, desperate roar.

She saw Mark's body tense, his muscles coiling, ready to spring forward.

Her own body moved faster. Her hand shot out, shoving him hard back onto the curb. "Stay here! I'll do it!"

The words were out, her legs already pumping. The world narrowed to a tunnel: the child, the truck, the gap between them. Time didn't slow; it became terrifyingly efficient. She reached the girl, the rough fabric of the yellow dress scraping against her palms. There was no time for gentleness. She wrapped her arms around the small body and heaved, throwing the child back toward the sidewalk with all her strength.

The little girl tumbled onto safe concrete.

Jessica had no momentum left to follow.

The horn swallowed all other sound. The grille of the truck filled her vision, a wall of painted steel.

The last things to register were not sights, but sounds: the hydraulic screech of brakes fighting momentum, the sickening, wet THUD-CRUNCH that was not loud, but deep, and two voices weaving into a single chord of horror, Mark's shout and Elsa's piercing cry.

Then, silence.

A chilling, absolute stillness. There was no pain. No symphony of broken bones. It was as if her entire existence had been muted. She was drifting, untethered, her consciousness dissolving like smoke from a snuffed candle.

'Is this what dying feels like? No fanfare. No pain. No emotions. Just… nothing.'

'Haaaa... this is unbelievable. Departing without ever achieving a single dream.'


And most especially…

'A virgin. No spouse. Not even once being loved… NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!'

Just in that moment, something flickered in front of her. A pale, blue light, forming lines, boxes, text.


<< LOADING… >>

Even without eyes, without a face, Jessica perceived it. A familiar, digital aesthetic. Confusion cut through the resignation. 'Isn't this a game UI?'. She murmured into the nothingness.

The screen glitched, pixels dancing. The message changed, a cheerful, incongruous emoticon winking at the end.

<< TRANSMIGRATION…COMPLETE ^_^ >>


"W-What?? The hell is this?"

It wasn't a voice. She had no mouth, no lungs. It was pure, furious thought, echoing in a void that was suddenly full of input Sounds, overlapping and muddled. The crunch of boots on loose stone. The rasp of heavy breathing. A low, grumbling voice.

'What's going on?'

She tried to open her eyes. There was no eyelid to lift, no muscular effort, but her perspective shifted, sharpened. She was… looking. Seeing from a fixed point, about five feet off the ground.

Two figures moved ahead of her on a narrow, dark path. One was a burly man with a ruffled beard and shoulders like a brick wall, clad in worn leather. The other was younger, taller, with messy black hair and a profile that was… was.... distractingly well-structured in the low light. A handsome face, all sharp angles and a firm jaw.

'Okay,' she thought, her mental voice tinged with bewildered appreciation. 'What a nice viewpoint.'

But the appreciation curdled into confusion. The handsome man and the burly one were ahead, but her viewpoint trailed behind them, bobbing gently. The scenery, mossy stone walls, a dirt path—drifted past.

'It seems I'm walking behind them.'

A chill, unrelated to any temperature, prickled her non-existent spine.

'Or… is someone carrying me?'

She tried to move. To turn her head, to lift a hand, to shift a foot. The command fired from her consciousness into a void where no body answered. There was 'no can't do' reply, or simply nothing to command. She was a passenger, a watching intelligence glued to a single, unmoving vantage point.

She realized she had an encounter with Truck-kun and had Isekied, but she didn't know what she transmigrated as, and worst of all she couldn't see or feel her body, it was as if only her consciousness is here presently,

But in what?


With no other choice, she decided to muster the courage to speak as if trying to talk to the two men ahead


She had to know. She focused on the handsome man's retreating back. If she could just communicate… Gathering every ounce of her will, she pushed her thoughts outward, aiming them like a signal.

"Hello? Handsome?"

Silence. Just the crunch of boots, the rustle of cloth.

"Helloooooo?"

Nothing. Not a twitch, not a glance back. They moved steadily onward, utterly unaware of the frantic consciousness trailing in their wake.

'They aren't hearing me.' The isolation was instantaneous and absolute, a glass wall slamming down between her and the world. 'Then how do I know who and what am I?'

Just then, the burly man ahead stopped and turned. He didn't look at her; he looked past her viewpoint, his eyes focusing on the space just behind where she perceived herself to be.

"Hey, Henry," his voice rumbled, surprisingly close. "It's best you discard the light. We don't need it from here on out."

'What light?' Jessica's confusion spiked. 'What is he referring to? Why is he staring… past me?'

"Yes, sir." Henry answered, his voice was a pleasant baritone.

And just then, Henry's arm swung, throwing away the flame torch he was holding, and as s the torch was landing, Jessica field of vision tilted, spinning in a descending arc. A silent scream tore through her mind.


'HELP!!!!'

The torch clattered against the hard ground, the impact a dull thud she felt as a jolt through her very being. It rolled once, then settled, the flame sputtering and dipping dangerously close to the damp earth.

The truth didn't dawn. It exploded like a hellish enlightenment.

The flame. The bobbing viewpoint. The inability to move. Henry discarding the light.

'I… I'm… I'm A FLAME.'

The realization was a sucker punch to her soul. She had transmigrated. But was not a princess. Neither a mage. Not even a lowly goblin.


She was nothing else but.. A pitiful,


Dying..

...Flame.


And a discarded one at that.


*****



A blue screen, stark and urgent, blazed in her mind's eye, cutting through the tidal wave of her despair.


<< Warning!!! [SNORT TO KEEP YOUR LIFE BURNING] >>

"Hey, you!" Her mental voice was a shriek of outrage and terror. "Where have you been? What the hell are you on about? And why the hell am I a flame, damnit!! And, uhh… Snort? Why?"

Her question was answered immediately. As her panicked shouting faded, a deep, creeping coldness began to seep into her awareness. Her vision, the sight of the gritty dirt started to dim, the edges blurring into grey. A profound weakness, a feeling of unraveling, gripped her.

'Oh, gosh. Not when I just got here!'

The system's message flashed again, insistent. [SNORT].

She didn't have a nose. She didn't have lungs. But the command was primal, a basic survival instinct etched into her new, flickering existence. She focused on the concept of a snort, a sharp, inward pull of vitality.


Snort!

Nothing happened. The dimness deepened.


SNORT! she screamed inwardly, throwing all her will into the action.

A tiny, almost imperceptible flare of warmth. The grey receded a little.


SNORT!!

This time, the flame on the torch did flare. It jumped an inch higher, the blue-orange light brightening, pushing back the darkness that was both around her and within her. The creeping cold retreated. The feeling of solidity, of existing returned.

She inwardly let out a breath she didn't have. 'I look like a pig snorting for truffles, though.'

'Alright. With that problem aside… time to panic!!'

'No, wait,' she reasoned, trying to grasp at threads of her old self. 'Let me act maturely. And elegant. In situations like these, I should be calm and… and… and… give me a moment here.'


'NOOOOOOOO!!! I can't move! I can't do anything but stay here, snorting until I eventually fail! No, no, no, I need to DO something. I need to think of a way to move. No time for foolishness!'

An idea, desperate and frail, sparked. 'Why don't I ask the System? Yes, that'll be great.'

She turned her attention inward, towards the presence that had delivered the warning. "Hey… System?"

Silence.

"System?" she tried again, pushing her thought at it.

Nothing.

"Yoo-hoo…?"

A flicker of annoyance cut through the fear. "Hey, bastard! Are you ignoring me? Now of all times?"

Still, only the quiet hum of her own frantic thoughts answered.

'It seems it doesn't have a consciousness. That's kind of sad. I wanted something to talk to.' The memory surfaced, bittersweet and absurd: a light novel she'd read as a teen about an office worker reincarnated as a slime, aided by a wise, conversational system called 'Great Sage' or something. 'Lucky bastard.'

Pushing the envy aside, she began to experiment. First, the obvious: she tried to will herself to move, to crawl like an inchworm of fire along the torch handle. The command dissolved into nothingness. She was as glued to this spot of charred cloth as a tattoo to skin. "Waaahhhh! Failure!"

Second idea: maybe she needed to be lighter. If she let her flame dim, reduced her 'mass,' perhaps a breeze could carry an ember? She focused, letting the snort-maintained energy wane. The flame shrank, guttering low. The cold and the dimness rushed back in with terrifying speed, a yawning void opening beneath her. She panicked, snorting frantically to bring the flame back from the brink of extinction. "Daaaa! Suicide!"

'Jessica, you idiot!' She cursed her past self. 'You always hated biology, physics, science! You studied art! And now? Now I wish I knew how combustion works! Just a little! Stupid! Why am I a total failure in everything?'

A deep, helpless sigh echoed in the cathedral of her mind. She wanted to facepalm, to scream into her hands, but she had neither face nor hands.

So, she did the only thing left. She sang. An old, mournful country tune from her youth, one that had become the soundtrack to her disappointments. Her mental voice, which she privately thought was rather soulful, began the dirge.


"The road is dust… the well is dry~
The sun don't shine in my blue sky~
Love's a train that passed me by~
Leavin' nothin' but a lonesome sigh…

...Yeah, life's a hard, hard row to hoe~
And Fate's a heartless, icy foe…"


She poured her frustration, her fear, her boundless embarrassment into the imaginary lyrics, all while maintaining the rhythmic, life-saving snort-snort-snort that kept her alive. It was a pathetic, surreal orchestra of survival.

Just then, a movement caught her eye, her flickering, fire-based eye. A locust with dull brown wings, landed on the stone path a cautious foot away from her torch. It twitched, antennae waving, utterly unaware of the operatic tragedy unfolding beside it.

Jessica stopped singing.

It wasn't the insect that stopped her.

Far from that.

It was the blue screen that flashed into existence, overlaying the image of the locust with cold, beautiful text.


<< SKILL – POSSESS ACTIVE >>

<< 1 COMPATIBILITY FOUND >>

<< DO YOU WANT TO POSSESS? >>



<< YES / NO >>

The words hung there, glowing with impossible promise.

All despair, all self-pity, vanished. A slow, mischievous, utterly un-elegant giggle bubbled up from the core of her being.

Her third try.

It might just be a success.



"WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! FINALLY!!!!"

 

[Despacitoleo]

never seen a flame hehe

i shall watch this with great intreast

 

[p_magno]

never seen a flame hehe

i shall watch this with great intreast

Click to shrink...

Thank You Very Much ^^

 

[Apollo_Man]

Did...did I discover a sleeper peak?

 

[p_magno]

<< DO YOU WANT TO POSSESS? >>


<< YES / NO >>


Jessica saw the options given to her, and without a moment's hesitation or even a second thought. The mental equivalent of a frantic, all-caps scream—[YES!]—was her only answer.

The world dissolved into a vortex of sensation. Her fixed, flickering perspective ripped free from the dying torch. She was a shooting star of consciousness, a blur of motion hurtling across the short gap toward the locust. There was no physical travel, only a violent shift in allegiance, from one point of awareness to another. Her vision swam, darkened, and for a heart-long moment, she was nowhere at all.


<< DING!! >>


<< POSSESSED CREATURE RESISTANCE: NONE >>


<< POSSESSION SUCCESSFUL!! >>

Darkness receded, not like opening eyes, but like a curtain being lifted from within. Sensation flooded in, not the passive, detached sight of before, but a raw, multi-directional input.


'Did it work?' The thought was tentative, a whisper against the tide of new data. And then she saw it. Or rather, she saw them.

Her vision was… fractured. Wider. She could see the gritty texture of the stone path directly beneath her, the damp wall of earth to her left, and the discarded lightless flame torch with its pathetic wooden handle, her old body, all at once, in a jagged, panoramic sweep. It was less like looking through a window and more like her mind was a bowl receiving signals from two separate, wide-angle cameras placed on either side of her head. A 180-degree nightmare of clarity.

Just as she was about to try and look down, to see the form she now inhabited, another blue screen materialized, superimposing itself over the bizarre landscape.

'The hell!' She flinched, a mental recoil. The system's sudden, silent apparitions were going to take some getting used to.


<< Loading..... >>

The screen resolved into neat, blocky text.




[STATUS]
+

Name: Jessica

Level: 1 [Infant Rank]

Exp(Fragnet): [[0%]-------100%]

Title: None

Specie: Flame

Species Possessed: Cave Locust [Hp/100%]

Rank: [Infant], Cave Locust [Infant]

Magic Cores: [You Are Currently An Idea], Cave Locust [1/1]

Items: None

Echoes: None

Innate Abilities: [Possess]

Abilities: Unique Skill [Blabber Mouth], Flame Specific Skill [Burning] [Life Multiplier(By Snorting)], Cave Locust Skill [Acid Ball] ---> [Flame Acid Ball]

+


'Oh… this seems to be my status.' She mumbled inwardly while scanning the lines like a bizarre resume for a more bizarre existence. 'Name.. check. Level.. check. Exp.. check. Title.. check. Specie.. check. Species Possessed.. check. Ran—' She paused, her focus snagging. 'Hmmmm. Why does it seem like this 'Infant' thing is something the system just made up? Is it trying to get on my nerves?' She could almost picture a smug, invisible developer adding that label just for her. With a mental shake, she moved on, but just as she read the next line, though she currently don't have a brow, she couldn't help but inwardly furrow her brows as the next line stopped her cold.

Magic Cores: [You Are Currently An Idea]

'Is being a flame… an Idea?' The question planted itself in the center of her mind. It felt profound, absurd, and vaguely mysterious all at once. Was she a concept? A fleeting thought given fire? She pondered it, turning the notion over with the intense, futile concentration of a philosopher considering the meaning of a single grain of sand. The nature of her new existence, the metaphysics of transmigration, it was a mystery begging to be solved by her hands.


Tssss!… Sizzle... Tssss!…

In the end, reality struck harder. A sharp, frying sound, accompanied by a sudden, acrid smell of burning chitin, cut her philosophical deep-dive short. A groan of pure mental agony escaped her. A smoky haze began to cloud the edges of her panoramic vision, not from external sources, but from within her own new head. It was burning. She'd been thinking with a brain now literally on fire.

'Reality, you ruthless bastard.' She quickly abandoned the deep thoughts and skimmed the rest. 'Items.. Check. Echoes.. Check. Innate Abilities..' Her eyes stopped on her innate ability, a smirk forming on her mental lips. 'I wonder what I'll possess next.' Visions danced in her smoldering consciousness; a mighty wolf, a soaring bird, a wealthy noble with a soft bed… The possibilities were a delicious escape. She didn't even realize she was giggling aloud until a strange, chittering "Hehehe" resounded inside her mind like a final bell of a burial ceremony.

The sound startled her for a moment as she read the final line.


Unique Skill: [Blabber Mouth]

The smirk vanished.

"What the hell!! What the hell is 'Blabber Mouth'? Damn system! So you DO have a consciousness and you chose to ignore me earlier? Hmph!"

A wave of indignant fury, hot and bright, surged through her. If her current locust-eyes could shoot daggers, the status screen would be shredded to a thousand pieces. If she had the body of her normal flickering flame, it would be roaring. The system had been silent in her moment of ultimate panic, only to communicate now via a backhanded, cheeky skill name. It was mocking her. It had to be.

'Hmph! Hmph!! I'll deal with you later,' she fumed, locking the grievance away in a mental vault labeled 'Future Vengeance.' As she knows the locust eyes couldn't shoot daggers, neither could she touch the system as it is not corporeal. 'For now, let's see what we've got here.'

She turned her attention inward, to the body she now commanded. Through the locust's compound eyes, she saw her own limbs, segmented, spiky, and currently wreathed in faint, dancing tongues of blue-orange fire. The flames clung to the hard carapace without physically consuming it, a spectral corona that flickered with her every thought and emotion. The Cave Locust was now a Flaming Cave Locust. The warmth of the sight bloomed within her, a warmth of ownership, of capability. It was hers.

Tentatively, she sent a command: Move forward.

The locust's front right leg twitched, then lifted. It placed it on the stone with a soft tik. Then the left. Tik.

'I did it,' She thought, disbelief melting into euphoria. 'I did it!! Yipeee!! I can MOVE!' She forgot the system's insult, forgot the burning-brain smell, forgot the philosophical terror of being an 'Idea.' She was mobile! She took another jerky step, then another, a slow, fiery six-legged shuffle away from the pathetic lightless torch. Joy, pure and undiluted, was a sun in her mind.

It lasted for three glorious steps.

On the fourth, her jubilant focus finally expanded beyond the miracle of locomotion to the environment her new body was locomoting in.

She was in a tunnel. A narrow, damp tunnel, carved from rough earth and stone. The only light came from the faint, sickly glow of luminescent moss patches and, of course, her own fiery aura, which cast leaping, monstrous shadows on the walls. The air was cold, still, and smelled of wet dirt and decay. The sounds of the three men were long gone, absorbed by the chilling passageway. An utter, profound silence had descended, broken only by the faint tsss...! of her own burning shell and the drip of distant water.

And seeing this, the joy evaporated. She couldn't help but want to dig her head on the ground as another realization hit her,


She could move, yes.

But a new, colossal problem now surfaced, crowding out all others.


Where the hell was she?

The question lingered in the air unanswered as she stared at the direction the three humans passed through.

'Where would that place lead me?' The thought was a fragile thing, immediately crushed by a darker premonition. This place felt utterly indifferent. It was dangerous. She could feel it in the silence, in the way her tiny flame-lit form seemed like the only spark of life in area she was in. And staying here, next to her lightless torch-body, was to accept extinction.

But soon after, with a courage that felt more like desperate defiance, she shoved the fear down. 'Time to explore.'

With a frantic, jerky boing! boing! boing! Jessica the Flame-Locust scurried into the shadows of the cave, and what followed next were three days of hopeless, hungry wandering.

To be precise, according to the relentless, silent clock in the corner of her system interface, it had been << 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 49 seconds >> of it.

And now, Jessica, lost, weary, and burning through the last reserves of the creature she possessed, was pressed into a high crevice in the cave wall, a tiny, flickering spectator to a scene of primal violence.

Below her, in a broader cavern lit by strange, phosphorescent fungi, two packs of Mud Wolves faced off. They were ugly, sturdy things, their fur matted with clay and dirt, eyes glowing a dull, savage yellow. Snarls ripped through the stagnant air, a language of bared teeth and raised hackles. They were about to tear into each other, and she was trapped above it all.

If you're curious why she was lost, the story was a short, pathetic saga. After her initial, triumphant Leap-Boing!-Leap, she had followed the path the humans took. It led her to a junction: three identical, yawning mouths of darkness, left, center, right. A crude, three-pronged fork in the road to nowhere.

A hunch, brittle as old bone, had whispered that finding those humans was her only ticket out of this subterranean nightmare. But which path? She had no clue. Her entire life's experience with navigation amounted to following GPS voice commands.

Without knowing what else to do, she decided to guess where she should pass, but realized soon after, that...

'Even at guessing, I'm bad at it.'

But she had to choose nevertheless, and so, with a boldness born of having no better ideas, she picked the right-hand tunnel.

That choice however, had led her here: lost, starving, and hiding from monsters as a clock ticked down on her borrowed body.

'Ooooh, brotherrrr…' The mental sigh was long-suffering. Her vision through the locust's compound eyes was growing blurry at the edges, the world softening into a hazy, dangerous dream. A persistent notification hovered, a grim diagnosis:


<< SPECIES POSSESSED: CAVE LOCUST [HP-25%] >>

'I'm absolutely lost. And this body… it's burning out.' A fresh wave of panic, now a familiar acquaintance, washed over her. 'Why? I only just possessed it… Oh. Wait.' The simple math of biology presented itself. 'It's been four days. This body… I haven't eaten. Is that it?'

As if waiting for her to finally ask the right question, the system chimed in with a solution, its text scrolling with an air of exasperated simplicity.


<< Solution: Hunt other creatures. Utilize [Acid Ball] to inflict damage and gain Experience. Utilize [Burning] to absorb nutrients from deceased matter to replenish Possessed Creature vitality. >>

'Burning?' She thought, tapping into the skill list in her status. 'Oh, you mean that Burning skill I have?'

The system's response this time wasn't pure text. It carried a tone, a palpable, digital sneer.

<< Yes. Dummy. I've told you this several times. >>

'The hell!!' Jessica's mental voice shrieked with indignation. 'I just asked a simple question! For conversation! Why are you being so mean, you brat?!'

This bickering had become the soundtrack to her journey. It wasn't the first time she'd asked repeatedly how to survive. And honestly, could anyone blame her? One glance at the status of a Mud Wolf, which the system conveniently displayed when she focused on one, was enough to make anyone question their life choices.

[STATUS]
+

Level: 4 [Infant Rank]

Specie: Mud Wolf

Magic Cores: [1/1]

Innate Abilities: [Primal Instinct]

Abilities: Unique Skill [Howl Of The Beast] [Mud Camouflage]

+


'Three levels higher. How in the flaming hell am I supposed to attack that with this bug body?'

She'd run the scenarios. Ambush from above? She'd be swatted like a fiery gnat. Lure one away? They traveled in packs. Try a desperate Acid Ball? It might annoy it, like a pebble thrown at a tank, before it turned and chomped her in half. Every plan ended with her being squashed into chitinous paste or simply ignored, a faintly sizzling afterthought.

She'd even, in a moment of wild hope, tried to use her ultimate solution. Focusing on the largest wolf, she willed her [Possess] skill to activate.

The result was a swift, crushing disappointment.


<< SKILL – POSSESS ACTIVE >>

<< 0 COMPATIBILITY FOUND >>


<< CANNOT POSSESS TARGET OF HIGHER LEVEL THAN HOST [CURRENT LEVEL: 1] >>

The panic was a cold knot in her core. If she didn't hunt something, this locust body would burn out and die, and she'd be… what? A disembodied flame consciousness again, waiting for another random bug? She hadn't seen a single creature smaller or weaker than herself. Just these roaming, snarling level-four death machines.

'Sigh… Why must my luck have to be this catastrophically bad?'

Below, the tension snapped. With a unified, guttural roar, the two packs surged together. It was chaos, a blur of matted fur, flashing fangs, and splatters of dark mud. Claws raked flanks. Fangs found purchase. The damp air filled with the sounds of snarls, yelps of pain, and the wet thuds of bodies colliding.

Jessica watched, a captive audience to the brutality. Her mind, however, was racing, threading a needle of logic through the violence.

'If my guess is correct, this clash will lead to injuries. Maybe even fatalities. I can't possess something of a higher level, even if it's hurt. That's a dead end. And if I could, jumping into a wounded, enraged wolf sounds like a fantastic way to experience a second death in one day. But…'

A thought, sharp and clear, cut through the desperation.

The system's rule was about possession. It said nothing about scavenging.

'That level difference… it wouldn't apply to recovering HP by burning a deceased body, would it?' The idea ignited like one of her own sparks. 'And most especially… it wouldn't apply to delivering the last, finishing blow to a weakened, dying Mud Wolf.'

A slow, mischievous smile spread across her consciousness. This disadvantage, this immutable law that locked her out of the big game…

It might just, at the perfect, blood-soaked moment…


'…Right?'

…be flipped entirely to her advantage.

 

[Apollo_Man]

Ok, this is getting so good. Often times, I don't go for a progression system stories since most of them are too generic for my liking (e.g. OP MC, Harem, etc.) but this? This has already growing on me.