'I swear. It's just one fucking thing after another in this world...!' James exclaimed internally, forcing himself to rise and escape to his right while cradling his left shoulder.
Seeing James rise and begin to flee, the lemur-like creature followed his movements with the smoothness of a gimbal stabilizer before adopting a sharp-toothed, overbroad smile and remarking, "Sumsu ihhu~" in a raspy, humor-tinged tone.
"Sumsu, suck my dick...!" hissed James, giving the lemur-like creature the middle finger before turning around the corner of a building. His shoulder was bruised but still functional, so after turning the corner, he gripped his spear like he was readying for a bayonet charge and activated his combat assist. His thoughts were too scrambled to think clearly, so he hoped that it would allow his body to react autonomously while he did what he could to calm down and make sense of the situation.
Hearing the sound of something landing atop the building he was using for cover, James looked up to find the lemur-like humanoid staring down at him.
"Sumsu hepu. Ina sumsu hepu hasu~" remarked the lemur, flashing its sharp, exclusively fang-like teeth. It seemed to be enjoying itself, but not for too long, as James' body moved of its own accord to fling a pouch of the pine ash he used to mask his scent—striking the grinning lemur in the face.
"Sansa! Esharu...!" exclaimed the lemur, retreating from the edge of the roof to wipe its face. At the same time, James was surprised as the assist function compelled him to stab his spear into the wall before using it as a springboard to leap up to the roof. There, he found the lemur using water that encapsulated its right hand to clean its face.
Moving nearly in concert with the assist function, James rushed forward and slammed his right fist into the startled lemur's face, producing a loud crunch as his full-force punch sent several teeth flying from the creature's mouth and sent it reeling. James was honestly surprised by how effective the blow had been, but with his 30 Strength allowing him to lift 1,200kg, it was to be expected.
Seemingly realizing that James wasn't someone it could hunt and toy with at its leisure, the lemur held its dislocated jaw with its left hand and gazed at him with murderous but cautious fury. From a sheath on its lower back, hidden beneath its poncho, the lemur produced a long, thin, and slightly curved knife with an ebon-black blade.
"This fucking cunt..." growled James, unsheathing two of his repurposed kitchen knives, holding the right near his waist with the blade pointed out and the left outward in a reverse grip. During basic and advanced combat training, he had been specifically instructed never to hold a knife in such a manner. But as he had never fought with a knife before, much less two, he decided to trust in the assist function, muttering, "Gods protect me..." in a faint but resolute tone.
Seeing James' eyes suddenly take on a luminous golden hue, the lemur's widened in realization. It immediately turned to escape, but James cut its retreat short by darting forward and flinging the knife in his right hand into its left calf, causing it to stumble mid-leap.
Though he would have preferred to avoid taking the life of a creature that was clearly sapient, James coordinated with his body as it moved forward to once again slam his fist into the lemur's face as it turned to stare at him with a mix of fear, shock, and hatred.
CRUNCH
With a sickly, wet-sounding crunch, James punched the lemur with such force that its head twisted sideways from the blow. Ideally, he would have simply knocked it out, allowing him to detain and possibly question it, but he genuinely didn't know his own strength. As a result, the lemur promptly collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, its mouth frothing, its eyes rolling back, and its body seizing violently as James loomed over it with a grim expression, his complexion paling rapidly.
'Why? Why did it have to come to this...?' James asked himself, his body beginning to tremble from his core and his stomach feeling as though an anchor had been attached to it as he instinctively took a step back. He had been in several firefights, but, at least to his knowledge, he had never taken the life of a human or another sapient creature. His MOS had been a Combat Engineer, but the battalion he had been attached to specialized in supplies, logistics, and building temporary bridges that would consistently be blown up a week later. He was a fighter, but he most definitely wasn't a killer...
shlump
With his legs giving out beneath him, James fell backward onto the dirty, partially collapsed roof. For what felt like hours but was really only a few minutes, he found himself unable to move, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on the lemur until it finally went limp.
'I need to relocate...' James determined, forcing himself to crawl to the edge of the roof. He would doubtlessly benefit from searching the lemur and pilfering anything that could be of use to him before burying its body, but for all he knew, the prosimian beast had friends nearby. The fact that it hadn't utilized summons against him suggested it wasn't responsible for the Mossy Behemoth, so he needed to flee—to leave the area as quickly as possible.
"I did what I had to do..." James muttered to himself, glancing back at the lemur one final time before bounding over the edge of the roof and down to the street below. His legs briefly gave out on him when he landed, but he quickly picked himself back up, retrieved his spear, and took off in the direction of the port. He wasn't prepared to camp outside the city wall, so he planned to stay in one of the abandoned fish processing facilities for the evening. If he returned the next morning and found the lemur was still in the same spot, then he would loot and bury it...
"I did what I had to do..." James repeated to himself, his body sweating profusely even as his hands, arms, and chest felt cold. These were signs he was going into shock, but his training and desire to survive carried him forward until he was as far as he could be from the lemur's corpse without leaving the city...
...
..
.
After reaching the factory district, James found what he presumed to be the remnants of a break room before sitting in the darkness with his back to a wall. There, he sat for hours in complete silence, his ears strained for the sound of movement, and his left shoulder hot from where he had been struck by what he assumed to be wind magic.
With his mind replaying his encounter with the lemur on repeat, James found himself unable to sleep. He needed to understand why the lemur had attacked him, but the only obvious answer to the question was that he was human. And since there were very clearly non-human species in the world he was in, the simplest explanation was that there was enmity between disparate species.
"All the remains I discovered in the church were human..." James recalled, his voice low, barely audible as he stared blankly at the bloodied knuckles of his right hand. He could still remember the feeling of his fist driving into the lemur's left cheek, the sensation of its flesh and bone yielding against the force of his punch, and the sickening crunch that sounded as its neck snapped like a twig. With how easily he had acquired it, he fully expected thirty Strength to be average. But that clearly wasn't the case...
"I don't know nearly enough about this world..." James muttered, gripping his right hand into a fist until his knuckles cracked loudly. He didn't know if the lemur's behavior was representative of its kind or if it was an outlier, but he doubted its kin or family would take kindly to the revelation that he had killed one of their kind. The odds of the lemur being the sole sentient being in the area were slim, so he suspected it was only a matter of time before someone or many someones came to investigate their comrade's disappearance. That meant the city was no longer safe, even if the forests beyond weren't exactly hospitable...
'I'll need to recover as much of my gear and supplies as possible and set out at the earliest opportunity...' James determined, closing his eyes and doing his best to calm his mind enough to find respite. He couldn't undo what had been done, and he wasn't going to turn himself over to a group of people who might vilify and condemn him for no other reason than his species being different. That meant relocating. And in the event someone came searching for justice, he needed to become strong enough to stand his ground against the coordination of a group...
"I won't become prey or a victim..." James muttered to himself, his words trailing off as sleep finally came to him. He awoke fewer than ten minutes later and shifted in and out of unconsciousness in the hours that followed, but his resolution remained unchanged. If there were people aiming to kill him, he would fight, and, if necessary, kill to survive...
...
..
.
Though he felt he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, James forced himself to rise and leave the factory as its interior gradually brightened with the light of the early morning sun. From there, he spent two hours navigating alleys and cutting through the ruins of buildings to return to where he had killed the lemur in what he sincerely believed to be self-defense.
"It's still here..." James muttered, his voice low and his eyes narrowed as he scaled the building and found the slightly bloated corpse of the lemur in the exact place he had left it. Seeing it caused his body to tense, but, as someone in a survival situation, he couldn't turn a blind eye to clothing and resources that would aid him.
With such thoughts in mind, James scanned the area and surrounding rooftops before cautiously approaching the lemur. The warm and humid air had accelerated its decay, causing a sharp aroma of death to hang in the air and dozens of flies to swarm, but as it wasn't the first dead body he had seen, James steeled his resolve to search the lemur for anything that might be useful.
[Shadesteel Jashin-Rank:???, Element: ???, Quality: ???]
Inspecting the lemur's strangely cold dagger, James was unsurprised to find he was unable to identify more than its name. It was markedly better than any of his current knives, however, so he set it aside, dutifully took a look around, and resumed his search of the lemur's corpse. In the end, he left its clothes and most of its personal effects untouched, as it didn't feel right to take them. What he did keep were its dagger, its sheath, and three pouches containing salt, pepper, and an orange spice similar to cumin but called Gracia Powder.
"It either had someplace to return to, or it must have been confident in its ability to hunt and forage for food..." James muttered, failing to locate any proper food on the lemur's corpse. He expected to find at least bread, but powdered, processed spices would undoubtedly prove more useful in the long term.
After one final look around, James picked up the lemur's body and braced himself as he leaped with it from the roof. His stomach sank like a stone in a lake when the lemur slipped from his hands, but there was thankfully no additional blood. As such, he was able to pick it back up and ferry it to the hole in the city wall. It probably wasn't the best use of his time, but when he thought about leaving the corpse to rot and dry under the sun, it didn't sit well with him. Thus, despite the risk of being attacked midway through, he put his superhuman strength and Excavation Skill to work to dig a deep enough hole that scavengers weren't too likely to dig it up. By the time he was finished, it was approaching midday. But James kept working until his labor was through and the lemur was thoroughly buried. Then, though the lemur had been his enemy, he prayed that it would find peace wherever it ended up after death...
...
..
.
(A/N: 20yo James)