Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

I was stuck in the middle of the air… no, I was falling, but very slowly. For a moment I thought I had slowed down time, but after checking my skills, I found that the one being used at the moment was the [Mathematical Cortex]. I wasn't sure what exactly was happening. I looked around, my body feeling incredibly slow, and saw numbers appearing in my vision.

Looking straight down I saw that I was around five kilometers in the air, with around eighty kilometers per hour of speed. I also saw numbers about the gravity and air resistance appearing in my vision before changing to my remaining time of ninety seconds before I hit the ground.

I was starting to understand what was happening. The skill was slowing my perception of time, increasing the processing speed of my brain, and was calculating everything I was seeing. Even the slowdown effect it calculated when I thought about it, showed me that for each second of real time, I was experiencing thirty seconds of increased perception, then updating the time remaining I had to show how much time until I hit, being forty-five minutes in this state.

I sometimes wish these skills came with an instruction manual, you know? Discovering what each does on the fly is very annoying when I have no starting point. No matter, I needed to stop myself from falling to the ground. Thankfully I had a lot of time to figure it out, which was very simple.

Now that I had more time to process what was happening around me, I could open my wings, very slowly as only my mind was accelerated and not my body. I could adjust their angle and slowly decrease my speed by increasing the drag on my wings.

I used this mind acceleration effect of the skill during the entire fall, changing my free fall to a controlled glide, avoiding trees and branches. The moment my feet touched down I dropped the skill, and then I learned the hard way that I can easily misjudge the actual speed of stuff when they appear slow on the accelerated perception of the skill when I twisted my feet and hit my chest on the forest ground hard.

I coughed as the impact took the air out of my lungs. I tried to get up but my left back foot was hurting a lot. I looked at it but couldn't figure if it was broken or just sprained, probably sprained considering I could move my toes.

I pulled the [Magical Programming Language] skill to create a basic healing spell, as I didn't yet know how to create a better one. At the same time, my mind began to wander as to what had happened and where I was… I paused.

I was still coding the spell, but at the same time I was thinking about other things…No, that's it. I needed information and I didn't care if [Knowledge Library] didn't have it. I would try and try until it gave me anything back. I would essentially start doing a DOS attack on my skill.

[The skill [Mathematical Cortex] integrates advanced computational abilities into the user's mind. It allows the user to use the sub-like skills [Thought Acceleration] and [Parallel Processing] besides doing high complexity calculus within one's mind, meaning the user can accelerate their mind, divide their focus into multiple thought streams and calculate trajectories, vectors and adapt mathematical formulas based on the situation]

…Oh. This was the most information about a skill it ever gave me, neat. So this 'sub-like skills" explained the accelerated perception and how I had just divided my mind into doing two things at the same time, which was actually pretty neat if you thought about it. I could do more stuff quicker. Oh well, I was sure I would abuse it very much.

I then activated the [Parallel Processing] sub-skill of it and made one part to code the healing skill while the other part I used to get up and start to walk around in the direction of the city I had seen in the distance using only one foot and both my hands.

I still didn't know how I would actually enter the city, I was pretty sure I had seen stone walls surrounding the city. If this was anything close as to how Leo told me medieval cities were, I would need to pay a toll to enter… Or would I? Henry pretty much came running trying to gain favors with me thinking I was from this myriad palace place. Would that city be the same? Questions, questions. So many questions and the only thing that could answer me without having me go there and seeing it myself wasn't helpful.

[Information not available]

Of course it's not available. The world would end if it was, right?

I let out a sigh of frustration. Casting the healing spell I had created made my leg stop hurting and I was able to put my weight back on it, making it easier to walk.

Why walk when I could fly? Because I still didn't know those people. I didn't know if they would see me flying over their city and start shooting magic and arrows at me trying to bring me down. This could be a "how to train your dragon" situation, you know? I prefer to avoid being turned into Toothless.

As I walked through the forest, I noticed the small critters ran away from me the moment I approached them, which I was also thankful for. I didn't want to fight my way out of the forest, and if I had, I would prefer to just fly away.

My thoughts were interrupted by a scream, a very human scream.I looked over in the direction of the sound, internally debating if I should interfere with anything, but another scream made the choice for me as I was already running towards it when I realized.

It took me a full minute to arrive at a road in the middle of the forest. There was a small wagon in it and a group of five people surrounding it laughing among themselves as they walked around corpses on the floors. There was even a small child sobbing on the ground clinging to the body of a woman with a deep gash on her chest. I was frozen seeing the carnage in front of me. My mind was blank.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I had already killed animals, but there was a distinction in my mind between an animal and humans. Seeing the bodies scattered on the ground hit me like a speeding truck. I just didn't know what to feel or think.

"I can't believe they tried so hard to protect their money. It's a shame we had to finish the woman and the child, they could sell for a pretty penny" One of the people, who were with their backs towards me, said.

I barely registered what he had said, my eyes still looking at the child and the other bodies in the ground. I could see humans, an elf, two cat people and one dog person. Four of them were using random clothes while the others were using matching armor.

"I'm scared, mom" I heard the child saying before they also died, a deep cut on their back that bleed crimson blood.

Something inside of me snapped and all I saw was red.

Time seemed to slow down as my mind accelerated. There were five people, no, they weren't people. People don't kill a mother and her child, or even try to sell them as slaves, or worse. No, they weren't people, they were just like the snake I had first encountered when I woke up in this world. Monsters that would attack anything in their path. I didn't need to feel bad for monsters like these, and I was sure others would thank me if I erased them from the world.

Touching [Time Manipulation] I felt the flow of time around me changing like clay I could mold. I walked calmly towards them, my movements feeling quickly even with my accelerated mind.

I got right behind the one in the middle. It was a cat person with black fur. The others were three humans and another elf. I was already using the split focus of my skill to create a fireball spell and a water blade spell.

I had cast the fireball on the two humans on the right while I had cast the water blade on the human and elf on the left. The cat person in the middle I jumped and bit him on his neck and closed as hard as I could until I felt a crunch.

As I felt the spine breaking, I released the skills. Time returned to normal as the water blade cut the ones in the left right in their waist, separating the lower half of their bodies from the upper half. The ones in the right were engulfed in flames as the fireball expanded and burned their clothes, hair and skin. They screamed in agony as they rolled in the ground. I ended their suffering by casting another water blade, separating their heads from their necks.

As the silence fell, I slowly realized what I had done.

I spit the remains of the cat person that was still on my mouth on the ground, spitting the taste of blood from my mouth before giving up and casting a sphere of water that I shot on my own mouth to wash it.

I looked at the bodies in front of me. It was the first time I had killed someone, and not just a creature. It was a disturbing fact that I could so easily end someone's life with the metaphorical snap of my fingers. Did I regret it? No. I would do it again if I were met with the same scenario. Letting them live would cost the life of even more people they would inevitably kill or sell. But still… I had just killed five people in cold blood, just like that. It was a horrible sensation, one that I wished I wouldn't come back, but I knew it was a pipe dream.

I looked back at the corpses they had left and decided to at least give them a burial. It wasn't much, but it was the minimum I could offer for not arriving before.

I dragged them from the road and, using magic, opened one pit for each of the corpses. I placed them gently on them before covering them with dirt using magic again.

I looked at the corpses of the bandits I had killed and the ones the guards killed before I arrived and decided to leave them there. They didn't deserve a proper burial after what they had done. Let them rot and the creatures of the forest consume what's left of them. I didn't care.

I then directed my attention at the newest entry in my [Genetic Dysphoria] list.

I honestly didn't know what to feel about it. I mean, sure, it's the same as the Lunespectra Wolf and the Earthclaw Weasel that I killed and absorbed their remains, but this one I got from those bandits. It felt… I don't know, contaminated?

I sighed. This feeling was just on my mind because I got it from a criminal, though if I had gotten it from any other means would only make me feel worse because it would mean I killed an innocent person just to get their species added on the list, something I wouldn't do.

Looking around one more time, I decided to test it. It wasn't human, but was humanoid, which was close enough in my eyes. It would be the first time since I reincarnated that I would be something that resembled my old life as Marcos.

I triggered the skill and my body melted into a green goo before turning black and reassembling itself in fur and arms and legs. I immediately felt I was a lot weaker than I should be, and the same sensation of wrongness from when I transformed settled itself.

I took a moment to get up on my feet, tumbling and almost falling backwards as I had lost my balance one many times too much. Holding on the wagon for stability, I didn't know how I had forgotten how to walk on two feet, but I had, I stumbled forwards. Grabbing a small mirror I had seen on the ground beneath one of the wheels I looked at myself.

I looked almost exactly like a catian from Star Trek, a black humanoid feline. My eyes were the same as before, green with wisps of blue, a smaller muzzle, like a cat's, and two small pointed ears on top of my head. Couldn't say I was used to it, and you wouldn't have me admitting I played with them for a bit. I also had a tail that was as long as my legs, it was the same in proportion as my actual tail, so nothing new there.

Another thing I noticed was that, besides of having fur covering my entire body and having cat-like ears, muzzle and tail, I was completely naked.