Apotheosis of a Demon - A Monster Evolution Story

Chapter 9

I found a small settlement hidden deep behind the leaves.

At first glance, the dwellings weren't much better than large tents draped with leaves for camouflage. There were three such tents. Three families, about ten people.

Certain spaces, such as the kitchen, the wood chopping block, or the butcher table, were communal. All were outside.

I caught a few glimpses of the villagers. All was wearing simple flax tunics and leather boots. They lived a simple life, at one with nature.

I couldn't try to make contact. I had the common language jammed into my brain, but I couldn't actually speak. And just look at me now – normal animals and humanoid NPCs would just run away from me. I had better chances with players. Well, I was a type of demon, really, that shouldn't be surprising.

Still, I wanted to continue watching them. Just a bit more.

I couldn't approach the hamlet, but my guess was that they didn't have the barrier thing.

I wanted to relax. Somehow, someway. My spirit was being beaten black and blue by the constant unease, like pins and needles in my brain; by the feeling of extreme disconnect to reality; and by so many other things. I was getting used to the feeling itself bit by bit, but I feared that after I'd completely adapted myself to it, going back to reality would drive me insane.

Actually, why did these people decided to live all the way over here?

The world was so real I forgot it was a game sometimes, but they were NPCs. Did they have a particular reason to live here? Did the developers expect the players to go in this deep?

I thought, this could be an event, and approached as close as I dared, then I understood why they were living here. They were elves.

That reminded me of the guide's words. It said there were ninety-nine human countries around the ninety-nine saplings. Did that mean anyone not human were living in places so remote? I heard human civilization here were rather developed, with trains and everything. So there was quite the economic inequality here.

If this world was as big as Earth, then the developers wouldn't bother manually placing every villages and settlements. This hamlet was probably randomly generated.

Oh hey, there was a kid. A boy, about 5 years old. The only other kids in this settlement were babies, so the boy was playing alone, looking rather forlorn.

...oh god I want to meet him. I want to meet him so bad!

I never had the best impression of adults and people my age. The only exceptions were little kids.

Was there a way to make him not wary of me...? I couldn't think of any. Oh, wait. There was those items that player dropped. Maybe I could use them.

One old, un-dyed cloak.

Three small coins, and a few coins of another type. They looked like they were made from silver and copper, respectively.

A wooden stick that looked like a meat skewer.

And the Identification Crystal 5/99 I had since the beginning, plus one dark-red caterpillar fang.

...I could become the most suspicious-looking person ever.

Anyway, first time for everything. Let's try wearing the cloak. Come... on... god, this is hard. Using my dry-ice smoke as hands was really difficult.

It took me a few more minutes to realize that without fingers, I couldn't do any fine manipulation. I used nearly an hour just to put the cloak on my body.